u/Intrepid-Hornet

I've been at 8mm (0g I think?) for about 9 months now, and the last size I stopped at, I could get double flare plugs in by like 6 months in

I've seen people talk about sizing up to speed up the waiting, so:

1. Is that sensible? Should I just be patient?

2. Am I slowing things down by wearing silicone tunnels? Metal ones still go in with zero resistance, so I know my ears aren't shrinking, but I'm not sure if the flexibility is changing anything

3. Would I be risking to get the plugs stuck? If I size up to 8.5/9 to get the flare through, how quickly could that shrink and trap things? I take them out every day when I'm in the shower and sleep without them sometimes so I don't see them shrinking that fast, but these things are glass so they're not coming out as easily as a 'this will be funny later' visit to the firemen if my ears eat them.

Which is a bonus question: how do you get stuck glass plugs out? Does it happen less because they usually tåler more gently so i should just be careful about that part instead?

(I'm being optimistic about my memory with 'every day'. Call it 5 days a week.)

Edited because mobile formatting hates me. I added the backslashes! Why did it cancel them out by adding more like that's an easy thing to find on a phone keyboard and I might have done it accidentally!

I'm an ancient history student, but this probably applies to all humanities subjects, so:

On my list of essay subjects, it has 'possible resources for your answer include...' and then a list of ancient Greek writers/literature categories. Would I be better off primarily sticking to them, or would that be taken as slight laziness even if the essay is good, and I should branch out a bit? And if I should branch out, what would be a good proportion of their suggestions to stuff I found?

(I got a note back on an essay earlier this year saying I didn't cite enough off the reading list - I read them, I just didn't cite that many of them, but I thought it was pretty obvious I'd read them since that's where I found the sources I ultimately ended up using more of. I don't think I lost marks for it, but it made me a bit more cautious about going too far my own way with the research)

I'm at the end of my first (technically second, because part time) year, so advice from people further into this would be really helpful!