u/19ghost89

I am currently a middle school ELAR teacher entering my 10th year. I like a lot of what I do, but there are parts of it that are wearing me down (mostly having to do with grading, curriculum policy, and behavior). I have always loved books, creativity, and organization, so I thought maybe making the transition to librarian could be a good thing for me. That said, I am not quite sure whether I would like to remain in schools or take the public librarian route. It is my understanding that the jobs are actually quite different in numerous ways.

I wanted to ask here what sorts of things librarians (of both school and public varieties) deal with that I might not expect. If anyone has done both jobs, a comparison would be extremely welcome, along with any pros and cons. I went to a meeting for my school district that gave me a decent idea of what being a school librarian where I am is like and how to get started on that path, but I don't know enough about public librarianship to properly compare, and even if I do stay in schools, who knows if I will stay in my district?

Thank you all in advance for your feedback!

I recently finished reading *A Thousand Splendid Suns* by Khaled Houssini, which of course takes place in Afghanistan over the course of around 35 years. I had previously read *The Kite Runner* a few years ago. Although a large portion of those books are about tragic things that have happened to the country, they also contain descriptions of times when the country looked very different, as well as cultural landmarks, practices, food, quirks, etc., and there is a lot of love in many of those descriptions. I have recently discovered that Houssini's books are pretty controversial among Afghans and some do not like them at all and think they contain many negative stereotypes. Perhaps this is so and they are not really the best example of what I am asking for. But I provide this preamble nevertheless because reading them is what gave me this idea.

So now for my question: I would like recommendations of novels that

1. Provide the reader with a decent feel for the country they take place in. They don't necessarily have to provide all of its history, but the country should be a significant background to the story, with the setting deeply woven into the details. If it is almost to the point that it feels like a character, that would be great.

2. Are available in English, since I am unfortunately not multilingual.

Please put the name of the novel and the country in your comment, at minimum. If you wish to also leave a brief description or comment, that is fine too.

Thanks!

This is hard to share, but my son, who just crossed his teens, resides in Texas, is currently battling kidney failure, and needs a kidney transplant to live a healthy new life again. He has always shown up for others, and now he needs someone to show up for him. Unfortunately, we do not qualify for him

I’m currently working with his transplant team at Medical City Dallas, and a healthy donor could truly save his life.

Even if you are not of his blood type O, if you are healthy, your donation can still help him through his hospital’s kidney donation swap program. Donors and recipients are paired to find compatible matches.

Zero cost to you. Our insurance will cover all medical testing and surgery. Lost wages, travel, and lodging are all covered through the Donor Assistance Program.

If you’re open to learning more or want details, please feel free to direct message me. Even sharing this post would mean so much to me.

Thank you for taking a moment to read this.

I'm not from the area at all, but a guy I know tagged me in a video today where two MAGA men are walking around Bridgeview and Hometown talking about the "Muslim takeover." Now, I know that this guy is majorly Islamophobic, but I still wanted to investigate the things they said in the video so that I could respond with facts.

One of the many things I am curious about is a statement one of the two guys made about Hometown Mercy Mosque. While standing outside the mosque, he claimed that it used to be a Catholic church - the one he grew up in, in fact. When I asked Google if that was true, the AI told me that the mosque actually used to be a skating rink, not a church. But I couldn't find the source for that info (links were broken or unhelpful). And in the video, the building looked more like a church than a skating rink to me. So I'm skeptical. At the end of the day it's not a huge point, but if it's a lie that's one more thing to show these guys are full of it. Is anyone here familiar with that building enough to know how long it has been a mosque, what it was before, and if it was ever a Catholic church? Much appreciated!

*Generally* speaking, I know that most women get more messages and matches than most men, which causes y'all to need to be a little more picky. I also know that you receive a lot of harassment and just - dickheadedness, pun intended.

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What I'm wondering is, what makes you really want to actually engage in a conversation from the get go? I'm talking like, *first message* he sends, not later in the convo. Do you prefer a guy to start by asking you about a specific interest from your profile? Would you prefer him to immediately start being flirty and give you a compliment? Do you like cheesy pick-up lines? Is it okay to start with a basic "how are you?" or is that too boring and something you'd just ignore?

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All answers are appreciated, especially thoughtful ones. And if you don't mind dropping your age in the comment too, that would be nice, because I suspect certain preferences might change depending on that. Thanks!

1. UCSD (San Diego)

2. San Diego State

3. UCSB (Santa Barbara)

4. Sacramento State

5. Oregon

6. Washington

7. St. Mary's (Twice)

Other than the two by former Pac-12 now Big 10 opponents at the end of the year, UCLA only lost games to in-state schools from mid-major conferences. So, in a way, I guess the Gaels are exactly the kind of team you'd expect to beat UCLA.

Crazy trend. I honestly wish Oregon and Washington hadn't gotten those late wins because then it would really be crazy.

I'm just wondering if this is a common problem, because it is really getting on my nerves. Sometimes on a kickoff, when I try to press the fair catch button (Y on XBox), it's like it doesn't register. I'm not spamming the button or anything, I'm just pressing it firmly like any other time when it works. But it doesn't work, and then I get stuck deep in my own territory. Is this a common glitch, or am I somehow messing something up?

Continuing my weekly day after ranking, since I can't actually watch the show live and vote. (I know this is two days after - sorry, I've had a roller coaster of life these last few days). This will be as I ranked the singers while watching the stream on Hulu. This is a weekly ranking and is heavily weighted towards their performances each particular week rather than a cumulative list of my favorites. The only time cumulative performance comes into play is when it is close or I feel someone has a major outlier of a performance. Last week's rankings are in parenthesis.

I know they sang two songs again, but unlike last week, I won't be doing rankings for each set. This is because I came up with the same ranking order for each set.

Anyway, this is how I ranked them:

1. Jordan
2. Keyla
3. Braden
4. Hannah
5. Chris

This is also the order I would have probably ranked all of them for their overall performance throughout the entire live show so far, so it feels like I have a pretty clear pecking order now.

- Too bad Braden got voted off, but it's not like I was rooting for him to win anyway, so I guess the penultimate episode isn't bad.

- Hannah continues to outlast her welcome. Kellie Pickler was actually a really fitting partner for her because she did the same when she was on the show. Both are good singers who made it further than they deserved to. But as long as the right one wins, it'll be okay with me.

- And the right one is definitely Jordan, at this point. I've been saying that for weeks, but he's pretty clearly in a class of his own. If you disagree, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Anyway, what does everyone think? Tell me in the comments.

There's a concert happening tonight at the South Side Ballroom in Gilley's. Alter Bridge with Filter and Tim Montana.

I'm going, but I have two tickets, and the person who was going to come with me can't. So I am trying to sell one to somebody else.

Continuing my weekly day after ranking, since I can't actually watch the show live and vote This will be as I ranked the singers while watching the stream on Hulu (probably the next day most of the time). This is a weekly ranking and is heavily weighted towards their performances each particular week rather than a cumulative list of my favorites. The only time cumulative performance comes into play is when it is close or I feel someone has a major outlier of a performance. Last week's rankings are in parenthesis.

This time, since they sang two songs, I did two separate rankings. I'll put those first, followed by a combined ranking at the bottom.

Taylor Swift:

1. Keyla
2. Braden
3. Chris
4. Daniel
5. Jordan
6. Hannah
7. Brooks

California:

1. Jordan
2. Keyla
3. Chris
4. Daniel
5. Braden
6. Brooks
7. Hannah

Cumulative:

1. Keyla
2. Chris
3. Jordan
4. Braden
5. Daniel
6. Hannah
7. Brooks

- Tonight, song choice played a big role for me. I'm not a "Swiftie," but she does have a large catalog with a lot of good songs, and so many of her best were missed out on tonight. Some choices were head-scratchers, too. "Tim McGraw" is what Jordan went with? He can sing so well that of course it wasn't bad, but it really didn't do him any favors in terms of continuing to show why he's probably the best in the competition. And "Love Story" for Brooks? Look, I'm not a super traditional gender roles guy at all, but it's hard to take him seriously when he's up there singing "you'll be the prince and I'll be the princess." I actually like that song, but if I decided to perform it (which I doubt I would), I'd be changing some lyrics around.

- In addition to feeling like a silly fit, Brooks' first performance was, sonically, the only bad one of the night. There were a few other mediocre ones, but Brooks stood out with the only one where the singer was both behind the rhythm and struggling to give proper breath support at times. So in light of that, I think it's a lot less shocking that he went home than some of the posts here have made it out to be.

- Chris. What to say about Chris? I've been going on about how it's time for him to go home, and I don't quite take that back - judging by his surprise at the end of the episode, even he might agree - but damn if this wasn't Chris' best night of the entire live show so far. BOTH of his performances were really good. An it's not hard to identify why. He stopped trying to come up with a unique arrangement (something he's not good at) and just picked good songs that fit his voice.

- Hannah continues to get by. Like I said, she wasn't bad, because nobody was except Brooks on the first song. But I don't see what other people see in her. She doesn't have the voice of the other remaining contestants, her song choices weren't more enjoyable, and she isn't that much of a performer. I like her as a person and even as a singer, generally speaking, but what are we still hanging onto at this point?

- Kinda sad to see Daniel go, but not mad. In terms of vocal ability, Daniel and Jordan are the best. And both are also the best at taking a song and just turning it into a version that truly suits them. But Jordan has some level of mainstream appeal. Daniel's pure gospel approach, while very impressive, was never going to win the whole show. The genre isn't popular enough. Everybody loves a little gospel, but not everybody loves gospel the most. It's just what it is, and I knew that long before now.

- Last week, someone posted here about Braden sounding off key. I responded that I didn't really think he was off key so much as the entire band was slightly off key, and he was in key with them. It sounded like that happened again this week. Am I crazy or is he purposely modulating these songs into keys that sound odd but fit his range and voice?

- Finally, I don't have much to say about Keyla other than that she had a great show. Her overall #1 from me should speak to that.