u/Miserable_Aardvark_3

I live overseas. My children's father passed away over a year ago in the US. In March 2025, I contacted the appropriate social security office via email. I never heard back, so I contacted the main social security office, was directed somewhere else, and sent a final email on June 2025 including all of our social security numbers and information. I never heard back, other than an email "we received an email and will contact you shortly". Finally 3 weeks ago, I decided to call, and tried to set up an appointment. I had heard nothing so I called again.

On the phone, the person said that the date I called would be the "protected filing date" and I asked about what that meant since I had been trying to file for a year. She couldn't really tell me, but said definitely to save all of the emails and records for the day I have my appointment over the phone. Has anyone had experience with this? Am I likely to get the benefits starting from January this year then? Thanks!

I'm just curious to others' experiences about learning to jump today.

I learned FS 25+ years ago, and I had to pass all basic 6 before I was "allowed" into the advanced group, where I could jump (i think we did like waltz, some choreo jumps like falling leaf, split, mazurka when I was still in basic, but everything else was after).

Now it seems that people start with waltz jump in their first lesson. Usually salchow and toe are taught in the first week or so. Is this just the norm nowadays? Or are there places where basic skating skills are somewhat required first?

I'd also be interested to hear from someone who has had experience over time if they noticed any changes.

ETA: this is not a critique or complaint of either way, just to be clear. I am just interested in the progression and development of the teaching of the sport over time, is all.

My daughter is a pre-teen who trains in a group with another girl she gets along with socially, but who is becoming a distraction during practice.

The other skater is not intentionally disruptive as far as I can tell, but she tends to engage frequently with the coach during sessions, question or debate the exercises being set, and ask for feedback on elements that are not currently being worked on. She also often talks to my daughter during training, which makes it harder for her to stay focused.

It seems that this style of interaction is generally accepted in the group, including in more advanced settings, and I don’t get the impression that the coaches actively discourage it. However, I’ve noticed a clear difference in my daughter’s concentration and progress when this skater is absent or when she trains in a different setting - she is significantly more focused and productive.

Recently, my daughter has started to feel frustrated herself, as she is genuinely trying to improve and stay concentrated. At the same time, she doesn’t want to create conflict, since she does like the other girl outside of training.

The other skater also has more seniority in the group, and from what I can see, if the coaches had intended to address this dynamic, they likely would have done so already.

I’m wondering whether this situation is considered a normal part of group training environments, or whether it could be a valid reason to consider changing groups, clubs, or training arrangements for her.

The sounds are coming from a completely different skater,

but are actually triggered using the sound from the skater you see.

The processing on the sound is directly linked to details of the skaters blade sound (the skater is wearing microphone on one blade)

it is really disorienting yet cool to watch!

Three really fantastic exploratory works for organ.

(Just for fun!)

I've been working on a lot of projects using ice sounds for a large-scale project I'm doing, and in this case I wanted to experiment and see what kind of sounds I could ALSO get if i processed some of the airtime sounds as well.

I found a very decent recording (from a public - not private - video, which I attributed in the description) and basically stretched the sound to 4.5 minutes, and then used some kinds of audio processing to find really cool sounds. There is no sound in the video that doesn't come from the original quad axel recording.

Images are literally just sound spectrum of the quad axel, and sound spectrum of turning an image of Ilia doing quad axel into a waveform, and then back into a spectrogram.

Where I live all of the skaters at every level are trained in groups (smaller groups up to 5). There are no private lessons whatsoever.

But when we had guest coaches once, they told me that actually where they teach they are only really allowed to teach privates (bar for camps or clinics).

Growing up I had some small group lessons, but also often would just have a practice session where i had a short private lesson at some point.

What is it like where you are? Also what are the advantages and disadvantages of either?