u/idkthrowaway_alt3

Apologies in advance because these answers are probably out there already and these might seem like stupid questions, but Google is so useless nowadays I can't find anything remotely related to what I'm asking.

I'm going into the 11th grade here in Alberta (Canadian citizen by birth if it matters), so I'm beginning to plan what college/university is going to look like for me. I have many reasons for wanting to leave Alberta, and many why I've decided BC would probably be my best option to move to.

The thing is, I'm looking at campuses right now, and all of the student housing options are 19+ in accordance with the legal age of majority in BC. But basically nobody is 19 when they graduate high school and go into college. I will not be 19 until the summer after my first year.

I'm confused because here in Alberta, once you are finished your K-12 education you are free to go off into the world and begin your adult life. In BC, you're stuck in this weird limbo for a year.

How do you guys do it? Do you have to have your parents sign your lease for the first year of college? Neither of my parents would be moving with me. Is it even feasible to live on my own in BC under the age of 19, or are there even more roadblocks I haven't even thought of yet?

Thanks in advance.

Heard somebody saying in game that the OG Cosmo's Den is returning on the 20th, and that it's going to be NM. I can't find anything about this so I'm just curious to know whether this has been confirmed.

All of the job descriptions are super vague corporate speak, and I can't really figure out how much responsibility each one would entail, or how much they would expect me to work. I looked it up and most people said they get scheduled ~40 hours a week while being considered part-time by the store which obviously isn't feasible when I have school and extracurriculars 3 evenings each week.

Does/did anyone here work part-time as a teenager at Walmart, or should I look somewhere else for a job?

If it is good, which position should I apply for? My options are:

OMNI Customer Fulfillment Associate, Stock Unloader Associate, Dairy frozen associate, Produce stocker, General Merchandise Associate, Fashion Associate, OMNI Customer Fulfillment Associate, People Lead and Stockperson/Cartpusher. Thanks in advance.

I'm 16M, live with my father full time but go eat dinner with my mother every second week and have a generally good relationship with her. My dad isn't a severe hoarder, just to be clear. Our house is sanitary, and no major walkways or exits are blocked off. But he definitely has hoarder tendencies. It's just piles and piles of stuff everywhere else it can be crammed. We have not eaten at our dinner table in over 4 years because it is completely covered. I often worry about what the house will look like when I am gone, because I am really the only person in his life after my parents divorce.

My dad's "love language", as my mother always puts it, is buying stuff. Ever since I was a toddler he has just insisted on buying me way more than I could ever possibly need. Three practically identical Mystery Machine Hot Wheels cars because "the packaging was different" is one of my (least) favorite examples. He also gets upset if gifts for me aren't used enough or in what he deems the right way, because it is "wasted money". All of this has lead me to have an extremely hard time getting rid of anything without feeling anxious or guilty.

Anyways, I took it upon myself to finally clean up our office room, which has been full of boxes he has been saying we will go through since we first moved ~5 years ago. Before I started, you could not walk more than a foot into that room. I've spent the last week of my summer break finally going through all my old stuff and finally packaging a lot of it up to be donated. It was really hard, honestly. And I even went pretty easy on myself and kept a lot of things I knew I didn't need. But I was proud of myself for taking the first step.

The plan was that my mom would come pick me up and drive the stuff to the thrift on a day he was working. I'm not even near done going through everything I need to, but I already have enough to completely fill her small SUV. And I just generally needed to see some of it gone. We had planned to meet up tomorrow.

I hadn't told my dad about this yet (frankly I was a bit afraid to tell my dad), so after she dropped me off from dinner, I made it seem like it was just an invitation that had come up today. I said I had been telling her about cleaning up and she offered to take me since she was free (she's a teacher and doesn't work during summer). Now he is "going through" everything I already went through and deciding what to keep.

He's started making a bunch of excuses to keep stuff like "Oh, this came from (insert place)," "You made this so I'm keeping it,", "Oh, this can be used at Christmas time," (said about junky Dollarama stuff) or even just "Awwwww.... You're getting rid of this."

A lot of the stuff in that room was mine so I didn't touch any of his, or even "our" stuff, yet he still feels the need to go through it all and force me to keep some of it. This was my bare minimum getting rid of stuff, and I can't even do that. I don't know what all he is keeping, but it just makes me feel so stressed out and guilty that he is looking through it all.

Honestly, is it time I just give up? I'm planning to go to college in another province, and leave it all here. Should I just give up, put up with it all for another two years and then ditch it all when I can? I don't want to, because I can't find some of my genuinely needed possessions anymore, and I know I'll have to deal with it all when he dies anyways. But is it just easier to wait until then? I just feel really awful right now.

I keep getting posts pop up on my feed of these few really annoying accounts posting on this sub. All their posts read like they were written by AI in the really annoying ChatGPT hyperbole tone. They usually end with the same conclusion. Something along the lines of "the industry blames (x) for people not buying their services anymore, but it's really because the workers dared to talk to me!"

Here are excerpts from three completely different posts by different accounts:
"Brick-and-mortar places always complain that Amazon is killing their business, but they don't realize their aggressive, hovering "babysitting" sales model is what's pushing the last remaining people who actually enjoy shopping out the door. I’m paying to relax, not to be escorted around a store like a potential shoplifter."

"The irony is that restaurant owners constantly whine about delivery apps eating their profits, but they've turned in-person dining into a high-pressure social performance. I'm not paying to be managed; I'm paying to eat. And if I have to choose between a silent couch and a scripted interrogation, the couch wins every time."

"Gyms blame Peloton and home workouts for stealing members. But they don't realize their hovering, unsolicited coaching culture is exactly why people like me prefer a mat in our living rooms. I'm paying to sweat, not to be adopted by a fitness cult."

They also constantly reuse lines like describing people as "waiting to pounce" or "hovering" around them, describing basic interactions as "suffocating" and "inescapable". They constantly use the "Not (x), not (y), just (z)" format AI is known for. They describe workers doing their jobs by checking in with customers as "punishing" them for shopping there.

I know these accounts could just be karma farming, but something about this seems really sinister. Karma farms are usually essentially ragebait meant to get engagement. These are all specifically acting like another person talking to you is some kind of terrible offense. To put it simply, we live in a world where the 1% is intentionally trying to isolate us as much as possible. Seeing all of these posts from obviously fake people saying "talking to other people, supporting local businesses and going outside is SO AWFUL!! Buy from major monopolies and never leave your house!", is honestly a little suspicious and disturbing. It feels like a psyop.

I have really bad phlegm/mucus and I literally have to swallow/snort it from my nose every 10-30 seconds right now, and I'm scared this action will screw up my blood sockets because I know I'm supposed to avoid forceful swallowing and sucking but it's intensely uncomfortable to leave the mucus there in my nose. Anyone else have a similar problem?

I know the 2010s aren't even close to the first time to have these garbage mystery "collectibles" marketed at kids, but I'm pretty sure they exploded in popularity around the time I was growing up. I was born in 2010, so I'm 16 now and still feeling the impacts on my life.

It feels like my brain chemistry has changed. I feel so tempted to buy these blindbag toys and stuff at the Dollar Store and I'm more excited by the mystery aspect then what I've actually gotten once I open it. I get a genuine rush from watching those lucky scoop videos and I'm a guy so I don't even have any interest in fuzzy sleep masks or Hello Kitty purses. I was disgustingly materialistic as a child and it's honestly quite disturbing to think about now.

At a certain point blindboxes for kids need to be banned outright because it feels like I have a gambling addiction. Nothing gives me that rush that buying or thinking about buying something does. My father is also a huge overconsumer of "collectibles" so the habit was extensively fed to me and encouraged from a young age. I've only really become aware of my problem in the last year or so, so maybe more progress is possible, but I'm scared I'm stuck like this forever.

Anyways, here's a list of some stuff I do to try and minimize or combat this stuff.

1: I "collect" picture or drawings.
If I like a certain aesthetic (I'm big into Y2K stuff), I will draw it, make a digital image, build it on Roblox etc. instead of buying something to fit into it. I find taking my own cool looking pictures kinda fills the same spot in my brain as scrolling them. I also make boards on Pinterest of stuff, although this can really easily play into me feeling like I need more things. I also go around town and take pictures of graffiti as a little collection.

2: Using thrift/second hand shopping as chance buying
I basically use looking through thrifts as a gamble because technically I could find something really good, but usually I don't. I have found some good stuff for my collections but most of the time I leave with nothing or a book. It helps keep that sort of chance thing alive without usually actually getting anything, and anything I do get is pre-owned and a lot more environmentally conscious.

3: I do not engage with any spaces that make me want stuff
I now avoid all forums and whatnot that are centered around collecting anything. I'm very prone to being sucked into that stuff, so I fill my feed with other stuff instead. I've also drastically reduced my social media usage in general.

Overall, I'm proud of how much easier it has become for me to say "I don't need it" and walk away. I don't truly feel like I'm missing anything at all. The brainworms just come back a lot and make me really want a fix of dopamine. I just wanna say great work to anybody else out there struggling because it's hard, but it gets easier every day.

https://preview.redd.it/fpi3jpxofp9h1.png?width=617&format=png&auto=webp&s=06f1f50fcb6be1a18a7251a899273402dac51254

The Evil Dead (1981) is pretty much tied with the second one but I decided to put the second one on there because the poster is cooler.

I just kinda slapped this together today, but I started my account in January to log everything I've seen this year.

I've been going to the same place for a couple years now because it's cheap and simple, but that might need to change after today.

I walk in, and I'm immediately "greeted" by one of those gross wrinkly bulldog type things (I don't really know breeds but I'm pretty sure it was somewhere under that umbrella). No leash, and it isn't immediately obvious who it even belongs to because the owners didn't even acknowledge it or look up for most of the time I was there.

It was quite frankly kind of gross and disturbing. The dog was well behaved, but only because it's one of those breeds that looks too inbred and sickly all the time to really do anything. I don't understand how anybody could find it cute. Big wrinkly face and unnatural proportions with this occasional wheeze because it probably can't breath properly. It walked like a fucking lizard swinging it's body side to side because it's body has been so contorted it no longer has an upright gait. It just hobbled up to anybody who walked in and licked you on the leg before just standing there awkwardly.

I have never encountered this level of entitlement before to see an owner just let their dog have free reign of a store like that. I can't imagine how stressful it would be to have severe dog allergies and be basically barred from public life because apparently people have to bring their mutants everywhere.

And of course, I'm the only one who sees an issue. I honestly hadn't even noticed that the workers there were nutters because I've only recently stopped trying to force myself to love dogs. Today, it was like my eyes were opened to a completely different place. One hairdresser had the same amount of pictures of her two ugly pitbulls/bull breeds as her actual daughters around her mirror. Even worse, she's got a shirt on that says "Be the person your dog thinks you are". As if your dog has any actual idea of who you are outside of giving it food. I also noticed a bag of treats behind the counter which makes me fear it may have become a "dog friendly" (human with allergies or fears unfriendly) establishment.

I genuinely don't get it. The dog looked so revolting. It's not even like I was feeling hatred towards this animal or anything, it was just pity and a sort of instinctive disgust because of how uncanny it looked. But to everyone else it was a "cute little pupperino". How does one get sucked into this mindset?

I remember using this website in school where we had to read books in the mid 2010s. I'm not sure if it offered English books as well, because I was in FSL classes all of primary school, but it did 100% have French books. They were categorized by alphabet reading level, and I remember that they would have little questionnaires at the end.

Most vividly I remember the avatar customization part. The whole incentive for reading was that if you read the books and got the questions right you would get some sort of points that could be used to buy clothing. The avatars were 2D. I remember things like robot and alien body parts, but there were also human clothes as well.

I'm currently from Alberta, but I'm planning to move to BC once I graduate in two years and pursue filmmaking.

I want to hear from people working in the industry there. What school would you (or would you not) recommend? Did you go to school only for film or did you study something else? How do you find work, especially when starting out? I'm honestly a big overthinker so I'd like to hear anything I can to work out the logistics in my head.

I also want to be clear that I'm not moving to BC primarily for my career. I'm moving to BC because my province is full of crazy people but I still want to stay close to my family and Saskatchewan kinda seems like it sucks. I feel like people might advise against me moving away to start a career in film, so I just want to clarify the two are pretty much unrelated.

I'm a teenager with a part-time job delivering flyers, and every week I have so many of these beasts just lose their shit when I approach their house. One house in particular I had to stop delivering to because they liked to leave their three large dogs out in the yard unattended. Had another large dog once that was just running around the neighbourhood while it's owner was inside come after me while it's owner lazily yelled for it to "stop barking" from inside the house. These aren't the only incidents either.

I was walking up to the door of one house yesterday and saw they had a sign that read something along the lines of "Please don't ring the doorbell, the baby is sleeping". As I get on their porch, I hear their dog start to lose it's mind barking inside. I didn't even ring or knock. Just approaching the house for a few seconds to drop a newspaper in the box was enough to make the dog go crazy, and undoubtedly wake their baby up.

I just don't get it. What is the appeal of having this hyper-territorial animal that freaks out and becomes aggressive if somebody so much as approaches your house? How does it not drive them crazy? Other human beings can't ring the doorbell because of your baby, but it's tolerated that your dog will become extremely loud and territorial whenever somebody shows up? Dogs are not fit to be pets in modern society.