u/periodt-bitch

Hi all,

I feel really dumb about this situation so please be gentle.

I’m currently enrolled in a MS program (env science) and due to lapses in communications, lack of committee meetings, and all my own shortcomings, my thesis defense was postponed and therefore I am set for the latest summer graduation date (Aug 31). Which means I could still have defended, submitted my thesis, and be finished, but I would not have my official diploma until the 31st of August.

My PhD program starts August 25, but my graduate teaching assistantship contract doesn’t say I start until sep 1. I have yet to hear back from my PhD registrar/person in charge of GTA, but I am really panicking. I know I’ll probably hear back tomorrow but I’m getting scared- anyone have experience with this and can lend some advice or insight?

I’ve been struggling immensely with daytime productivity and am getting really frustrated.

I’ve tried pomodoro methods, caffeine, studying in public places, and just forcing myself to work through things, but I just glaze over and cannot bring myself to pay attention. I’ve always been a bit of procrastinator and have ADHD, but I’m uninsured until the school year starts and have been unmedicated for a couple years. I’m totally open to going back on medication after seeing my productivity flunk, but I am decently find at getting work done at night time.

From 9 PM to whenever, I am able to sit down and actually get shit done. I’ve even found myself up at 3 AM because I let time get away from me while working. I’m not sure what the deal is. I try not to stay up too late, get around 8 hours of sleep a night, I don’t wake up later than 10 am most days, and I don’t take caffeine after 12 pm. Please tell me this is common and the ways in which this is very much correctable.

I’m stumped and want to get out of this bad habit, but have been struggling with it for months now. Most meetings occur very early in the morning for me so I’m trying to figure this out quickly. Thanks in advance.

Bonus points if there’s a Korean-American flair to it too, though I doubt there’s much out there.

Any genre is fine!

I’m a daughter of Korean immigrants and bought a copy of Crying in HMart after a particularly bad fight with my mom. I didn’t really know what to expect, besides daughter-mother conflict and angst, so it completely turned my relationship around with her and matured me when I read it.

I don’t have a toxic relationship with my dad because he is an angel, but I am often impatient and not the kindest. I have a lot of trauma surrounding men so I catch myself in a loop of bitterness, anger, and then regret. My dad sacrificed a lot for me and loves my brother and I a lot. Any reads you can recommend to me that might elicit a similar reaction to me and Crying in HMart? I’m quite desperate. Thanks in advance

I’m moving to the northeastern US in a couple months where there’s lots more local horse farms. I rode horses as a kid but strayed from that path growing up due to lack of accessibility where I ended up growing up.

I’m doing a PhD and will have really limited time but really want to spend my weekends de-stressing with horses. I’ll even trade my time scooping shit, but I really want to get some experience learning how to take care of horses and maybe even relearning to ride. I’m just super limited on time and money, so I’m wondering if theres even a slim chance you guys would think that someone would say yes to me.

If this isn’t a totally stupid idea, how could I go about asking for this? What’s appropriate to ask for? Thanks in advance.

Typically in my experience you would tour a place in-person and then apply, but most complexes I am looking at (that are within my budget and amenities) require you to apply before scheduling a tour. Is this normal or are all these sites red flags? Im finding these locations off of property management websites so I’m a little lost and having a really hard time finding places to schedule tours during my short window of time that I’ll be in Burlington next week

USA; bio

I’m currently finishing my MS degree from a different state and defending in June, with a graduation date set for Aug 31. I’ve already moved and am working on my defense from my home state, and my PhD program is on the other side of the country. Classes begin Aug 31 and my contract for GTA starts Sep 1, so do I technically need to worry about anything? Are there any actions I can execute to avoid any potential issues now? I don’t care for missing any MS ceremonies, but I know that I need to absolutely be finished with my current degree before I begin the PhD program.

I have entered into a relationship about a year ago with a man who was raised Catholic but has since been quite anti-religion in his past years. We were best friends for 2 years, during which he expressed interest in relearning more about Catholicism. He is a feminist (as am I) and has questioned whether or not it’s healthy for me to maintain my faith. This came from when I made the painful mistake of getting an abortion. I cried multiple times daily before and after the procedure, feeling a crushing guilt and desperation. He saw this and felt some bitterness and directed it towards the church. It was a very difficult choice and I honestly regret it everyday, but the most redeeming and healing part of my religious journey was going to confession afterwards. We both wanted the child, but thought we would be completely unable to reveal this to our parents. We talked extensively about how if we were well-off, we would have had the baby without a second thought. It is something I struggle with, so please be gentle on that front.

My boyfriend has otherwise been supportive of me and talks about getting married with a Catholic wedding (thank goodness) and occasionally attends mass with me. He feels awkward during mass because he does not receive the Eucharist, but has been putting off going to confession. I don’t know if the proper protocol is to have him join RCIA or something similar, but I know he’d not be super into it if it was something I wouldn’t attend with him. I feel like he only wants to attend mass to make me happy and I most certainly don’t want to force it on him, because I know that tends to have the opposite effect on a person considering returning to the church.

However, I’d love nothing more than to have our relationship center God, because I feel like we’d be so much healthier and happier. He’s agreed to have a 1-on-1 bible study with me weekly, but what are some ways to subtlety reignite his passion for how beautiful and gracious Catholicism can be? I don’t want to give up on this relationship, especially after what we have been through together. I feel like I am meant to marry him and have a happy family with him, he is a great man and someone worth supporting as he finds his way back into the community. Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated!

Classes don’t begin until end of August, so I just had my first meeting with my advisor and felt really flustered. I know imposter syndrome is a thing, but I’m actually worried that I’m genuinely not smart enough or prepared. The lab is heavily genetics/evolution oriented, and my current MS thesis is ecology. I dabbled in sequencing and similar lab work in undergrad but this feels like 12 levels above. Did I mess up?

They are sending me references to projects I will take up in my first year, but I lowkey feel out of my element right now. I’m super excited and nervous, but a big part of me is fearful. Please tell me if this is normal and how to remedy this. I was told to avoid reading recent publications from the lab because they are such a broad collection of research that would not be relevant to my research/potential dissertation.

Also there was fellowship talk. Any place I can watch a crash course video to familiarize myself with everything out there? Grad school is a strange and novel concept to me.

Probably doesn’t matter much but I ended the meeting so awkwardly and sorta abruptly (lots of flowing instruction from the advisor and after it came back to me, it was like “okay, thank you so much this was so helpful! Um.. okay, thank you, bye!” and I seriously need to get better with that

Edit: Bio, USA

When there are many stressors & you can’t tell which is worst, how do you figure if your relationship is straining from the stress or adding to it?

Hi all, my family has always been huge into dream interpretation but I try to keep relationship problems away from them. Was wondering if some of you can give me some insight on what my dream means.

For context, my boyfriend and I are going through the wringer battling trust issues and some past problems with transparency/honesty.

I just woke up from a dream. In it, I was at home just chilling and suddenly began receiving tons of texts from my boyfriend. They were screenshots of random people hitting on him on a social media platform, pictures of stuff from previous relationships he forgot to throw away (lube, specifically), and a lot of overwhelming evidence in an effort to be more transparent. I got frustrated with his inaction on the social media thing, because as much as I enjoyed him showing me, I was irritated he didn’t take action in setting boundaries or blocking them.

Then, I had to leave to go housesit for some family friend, but for some reason I knocked over this bottle of tiny Advils. In an attempt to clean it up, I put a handful in my mouth and could even taste the sweetness of the coating. I spat them all out before heading to my car and saw a coyote in the driveway. It looked up at me and stared. My phone was buzzing in my hand, and that’s how I woke up (because I did actually fall asleep with my phone in my hand and my boyfriend was calling me).

I have many dreams per night, but they’re usually not this vivid or memorable. I looked it up online and saw it could mean that I should trust my gut feelings. Right now, there’s a lot of mistrust for my boyfriend. Nothing awful in particular that he’s done, just small lies that have fed into my already-existing trust issues. I know I struggle with retroactive jealousy and abandonment issues, all things stemming from my childhood. Just throwing this all out there because I’m really hoping the coyote isn’t a sign that I should trust my “gut feeling”.

TL;DR: please be gentle. My family is driving me insane. Last week, I back in with them for the next few months and I’m already losing my mind. Cousin came to visit. Everything is making me realize how materialistic they are and it’s coming out in negative ways towards my relationships, it’s always been this way and I’m about to snap. More context below because I need to rant so badly. Thinking of sending the text at the bottom of the post to my dad, is it good or how should I change it so it’s less inflammatory?

Context:

My family is Korean, with my brother and I being the only American-born. My older cousin was in town and decided to stay at our place last minute, giving almost no heads up that she’d be doing so. She even extended her stay a few more days afterwards too.

I have trouble setting boundaries, so she was smoking weed everywhere. In the house, in the bedroom, in my car, etc. and it’s known I don’t do that + why the hell is that acceptable. There was a lot of other small things too, like blowing her nose in the sink and not cleaning up snot puddles by the sink, me cleaning up after her on everything, feeding her, etc. I could manage all of that, fine, I’m used to being taken advantage of by elders, but it came to a point where we were out at dinner and she began the lecturing.

I’ve heard lecturing about my friendships and romantic relationships from my parents my entire life. I’m 26. I am fucking tired of it. Since I was a little girl, it’s always been my mom passing judgment on my friends, telling me that friends need to serve as a tool for building connections with powerful people, blah blah. We are middle class, what the hell kind of connections do you think we’re building as if we could even afford a membership at the country club. It’s weighed on me so heavily. I didn’t start considering marriage until I turned 25, so my relationships before that were always a little less future-oriented because I was naive, but it was pretty clear that I was just being a hopeless romantic and celebrating love. Nothing serious, my parents knew I wasn’t considering my exes for marriage, yet there would be blow-up fights with my mom about them not having good enough education, job, etc.
I remember one time I met a guy who pursued me hard and had a good job offer from a company. He cursed me out over text before we even went on our first date and my mom told me to just endure it because he had a good job. Thanks mom!!

Anyway, all of that to say that it seems like my cousin has adopted the same disgusting mindset, and lectured me at least 5 times last night about how I need to find a man with “connections, money, and a good job”. I am currently in a very serious relationship with a man I want to marry. Granted, he hasn’t finished his degree and is pursuing a culinary path, but he is a hard worker and materials don’t matter to me. I am finishing my master’s and started a PhD in the fall. We want to move in together soon, Yes, our education statuses aren’t level, but I know that we will be financially comfortable. It breaks my heart everytime my family disrespects my relationship, reminds me to “keep looking”, “find a guy who has … x,y,z”, and looks down on my boyfriend. I am about to really lose it and it won’t be like usual, when I snap back and raise my voice, I’m worried I’m going to fall apart and say regrettable things.

My dad immigrated to US when he was younger, so he’s pretty American in mindset. He has enabled my narcissist mother my entire life and shown some narcissistic tendencies, however, so I want to go through him but treat with caution. I am thinking of sending this text, please let me know if this is good and if there’s anything I can change to make it less inflammatory and accusatory (towards him), otherwise he won’t receive it well. Please, I’m desperate and it’s getting to the point where they’re getting in my head and causing so much pressure and arguments in my relationship. I don’t want to crumble and accept their awful ways. I don’t want to succumb to whatever fucked up mindset they have. Any advice is appreciated, please be gentle.

“Don’t tell mom I said this please.

I know how much she is conniving and telling [cousin] about my personal relationships and asking her to lecture me, and I need it to stop. It’s really coming to a head and I’m done with it. I almost lost my temper when [cousin] brought it up for the 5th time last night.

The more our family does this, the more it pushes me towards the person I am with. It needs to stop and I hope you can understand and somehow communicate that to mom in your own words? If it doesn’t work out, that is for me to navigate but when I get a lot of meddling and disrespect towards my relationship from my family, all it does is cause a rift between us.”

I am 26 now and had an incredibly difficult childhood with a NPD mother and enabler dad (who has been displaying narcissistic tendencies for years now). I’ve lived away for the last 3 years in another state and despite that, I feel myself becoming like her.

I have a good relationship with my parents now and they’ve mellowed out a ton, but their regular behavior is tinged with narcissistic traits and it has become just “normal” for me. I often don’t even recognize it as narcissism anymore, and I don’t speak with them often.

I’m a second gen Korean-American, I’ve been to therapy and had to quit when I had to change insurance. I’m moving around a lot now so I can’t start up again for another few months, but I was undergoing EMDR and I don’t know if it helped but some of it seemed to make a bit of a difference. Not enough though, at the rate of which I am becoming awful. These emotions and reactions don’t come out to friends or colleagues, only family and romantic partners.

It is a mixture of my upbringing and probably the fact that I have been dating horrible people. Many cheaters and men who don’t want to better themselves, so at the slightest hint of a new partner exhibiting signs similar to that, I lash out and become just like my mother was to me when I was a child. I’m so desperate. I’ve read through some posts, but I don’t think a lot of the approaches are right for me. I’m a huge introvert, I’m neurodivergent, and I’m going to become extremely busy with a PhD come this August. I have a partner right now and it feels like I can’t help but be overtaken by anger and frustration from the smallest triggers. It is exhausting for both of us, I don’t know how to get better. I am so desperate and looking for help, any answers would be greatly appreciated.