u/SecretaryUnhappy3752

Hello! I’m an international student and have been living in Houston for about 9 months. I love the city but haven’t explored nearly enough!

My dad is visiting for two weeks starting November 1st, and I’d love some recommendations for things to do together. It’s his first time here and we’re pretty laid back, so museums, historical sites, trails, shows, day trips, or anything else worth experiencing would be great!

Looking for things besides food, and budget isn’t really an issue. Would love to hear your Houston must-dos or hidden gems. Thank you!

So I’ve recently started drinking Alani (after drinking mainly monster every once in a while) and these are my ratings for what I’ve tried so far:

1. Cherry slush - 10/10 so yum!!
2. Purple cotton candy - 10/10 suuuuper good!
3. Pink slush - 9.5/10 sweet and tasty
4. Juicy Peach - 9/10 love anything Peach!
5. Hawaiian shaved ice - 8.5/10 was sweet and nice
6. Sherbet swirl - 8/10 was good but has an after taste
7. Watermelon wave - 6.5/10 I usually love watermelon flavors but wasn’t my favorite
8. Orange kiss - 5/10 was alright, not bad but not amazing
9. Breezeberry - 3/10 was lowkey disgusting but was able to finish
10. Pink cotton candy - 0/0!!! Was worse than vodka lol tasted like acetone(?), threw it away after two sips

What are your recommendations for what I should try next based off these ratings?? I’ve read witches brew and lime slush are favorites for tons of people so wanted to see!

I (F24) moved 7 months ago to the U.S. and me and my two best friends have a group chat on WhatsApp that we talk on daily. I love them to death (one of them is my cousin) and I consider them family over my own tbh. But there’s just this one issue - they record audios and text non stop on the group chat.

To give some context, I’ve grew up as basically an only child (my brother and I have never had a relationship), with 2 extremely emotionally distant parents and spent most of my childhood by myself, leading me to be overly independent and reliable, basically just self sufficient. My two best friends on the other hand have grown up in very loving families with 4 siblings each, so I’m assuming this is where the disconnect happens. While I spent most of my childhood by myself locked in my room, they grew up to be talkative and very non independent as opposed to me.

Because of the 8 hours difference of a time zone, I wake up every morning to 200+ texts and a spread out one hour worth of voice messages every.single.time. I dread that time of day where I have to sit through it all and respond to most of it. Again, I really love them! But sometimes I listen to each of them yap for 30+ min on voice messages and not even the x2 speed speeds up their infinite thoughts crowded in multiple audios.

I think what upsets me the most is that I didn’t grow up with the privilege of sharing every single thought or literally ANY situation with my family growing up and had to deal with all of it alone - thus leading to me not sharing with them 90% of what I’M going through (and as someone who lives here by herself completely- there’s a lot I’m going through myself). And they share 100% if not a thousand of what they’re doing/thinking/dealing with/contemplating, etc. It frustrates me SO much but it’s not their fault that I’ve had a shitty childhood, making me not an over sharer like them. Idk what to do or even if I should do something, they’re very sensitive girls and again, I love them to death, but it’s too much every day! On top of working, cooking, going to college, literally living. I feel like I’m a parent and it’s suffocating.

Any advice would happily be receive, even if it’s telling me that I’m a shitty friend for feeling this cause I’ve definitely felt guilty. Thanks in advance :/

I’m on day 3 of my braces and have a high pain tolerance but the pain and discomfort isn’t even the issue. I can’t eat and I don’t think I’ll enjoy food for the next year anymore. At this point, it feels that even when the soreness will go away, my brackets are gonna be fed more than I’ll actually be swallowing the food. It sucks because I’m a gym rat and most of my protein is from food itself, I feel like it’ll mess up the progress that I’ve made with my body as well. Funny thing is I didn’t necessarily need them as my teeth were completely fine, I just wanted to fix my top two teeth and one on the bottom that were not really straight. I regret it so much and would like some affirmations that it might get better pls🥹 I don’t know how kids do this!! (I’m 23)