u/Lamblawd

To preface, I’ve had an on and off fear of flying for years (ironic really because I’m a huge avgeek), and I hate take-off. I can’t help but stare out the window to make sure that we keep going up, and the occasional fluctuations in speed and ascent rate can be distressing. Sometimes it feels like the plane is descending, so I have a habit of checking out the window to reassure myself that we are definitely still moving onwards and upwards...

Anyway, this becomes a whole lot worse at night because I can’t orient myself just by looking out the window. I took a flight home last night and really embarrassed myself infront of the flight attendant. During food service, my anxiety took over and I became very disoriented, and I convinced myself that the city lights I could see outside were parallel to the aircraft, which meant we were flying very low to the ground. It didn’t help that the crew kept the bright lights on for the entire flight.

When the FA came up to my row with the cart, my panic attack was at its peak so I decided it was the perfect time to ask if she could tell me what I was looking at outside. I thought I phrased myself clearly enough and even told her that I was a nervous flier, but she was just confused and told me she had no idea what I was talking about, and moved on. That made things worse because then I got to feel like a crazy person, too (think the airplane scene in Bridesmaids with the “woman on the wing”, lol). I had a big cry to my sister after that, to whom I should have just asked that same question in the first place because she helped me calm down in about 5 seconds. Then once the First Officer came on over the speakers, I felt much better.

I know it’s a lot tamer than fully freaking out and having to leave the flight, but I’m just mortified by myself. The FA’s judgy countenance didn’t help, either. I would love to feel less alone by reading some of you guys’s embarrassing stories if anyone is happy to share them.

Usually I use my PC with an adblocker when I access Pinterest, but I’m travelling so have been on my laptop without an adblocker, and holy moly my experience has been bleak! My feed has been inundated with disgusting, misogynistic, and pornographic ads including >!for stories that involve minors.!< It’s all AI of course.

I never look at porn, let alone use Pinterest for it. I solely use it to look at pictures of places, character art, and occasionally funny animal pics. So what’s the deal? I’ve reported probably 10 different ads just today, and each one is more obscene than the last.

I totally bombed my assignment tonight and it’s my own fault for procrastinating. Help me feel better with your anecdotes please…

I’m 4 months through a 6 month long Undergraduate Certificate through an open uni program (not sure if that’s a thing everywhere, but it is in my country - basically you can do half of the 1st bachelor year with the option to continue on if you like it) and, like the title says, I realised I have no interest in what I’m studying and want to pivot to a different field.

That being said, how do I stay motivated enough to push through until the end? I promised myself I would complete this certificate no matter what, to prove to myself I could, but I’ve become so lazy and unmotivated. I went from HDs last semester to a low credit for my latest phoned-in assignment, and I still have 4 assignments left to complete by the end of August.

For some context, it’s a teaching certificate, and there is a lot of emphasis on “developing one’s teaching identity” this semester, particularly in regard to assignments. So instead of just writing essays focused on theory and pedagogy, it’s all about the student viewing themselves as a teacher in the making. I’m finding that this is hard to do when I know I will never be one, and have no self-perception of myself in the role. I feel I can’t talk about this to anyone else I’m studying with as pre-service teachers tend to be very idealistic.

Has anyone been in this situation? How did you manage? Any advice would be appreciated.