u/viceadmiralopossum

Like others, I miss the days when people talked to each other naturally rather than silently staring at their phones/headphones before instruction. I officially made it a class policy last week, only half-jokingly, that students who show up early (which is a good problem) must greet one-two people around them and ask them about their day. I told them that I did not care that it was awkward or uncomfortable, and somewhat guilt-tripped them by telling them that literally every generation of human students going back to Greece and Rome talked with each other, and that at least in my classroom, we aren't going to break that sacred tradition. If they remained quiet, I still instructed them to move next to someone and talk to them. I know someone will critique this and say "what about students with communication issues," and I understand that concern. I have high functioning autism myself, and went through extensive therapy as a child to learn how to communicate. Nevertheless, I don't think anyone will feel "targeted" as I am not grading, and i'm not policing the content of what they are saying. I told them that "silence is for cathedrals, not class." I'm hoping this helps long term. I'm not sure it will, but it's a hill I want to die on :p

Hey folks,

One of the organizers with the unofficial 'social group' for those wanting to do friend-making activities with fellow adults in the region. We usually do bi-monthly bar trivia outings, and have a halloween game night being discussed. This week we will try to do the 7:00 Seminar Brewing trivia/will update the post with comments here. Always open to new folks/new ideas for events or gatherings. You can join our fairly active discord here: https://discord.gg/VuNpxFGeQ

ETA: Please check out the Pee Dee Pride Fest this Saturday! It's something some folks in our group will be attending (we are not an official group, so just a fun event I wanted to share coming up soon)

Holy crap. It has taken me almost an hour and a half to do errands that usually take fifteen minutes. I have also been cut off my people more than once on my transit. I haven’t seen this in Florence before, and I’m a native of traffic hell (Charleston)

Hey y'all,

We have had a couple of successful meet ups, and if anyone wishes to join the planning chat, please join us on discord https://discord.gg/f55hvMSj4. This isn't so much an official organization as a group of folks who want to make friends/hang out. All adults welcome! This Tuesday we will do Trivia at Localmotive at 7 (please try to get there 630-645 so you can find us/help us find a table. Outdoor seating isn't really so bad with fans if we can't find indoor). No previous experience needed!. If you have ideas for meet ups or game nights, by all means please mention them!

For disclosure reasons I probably can't say much but I was super excited to see myself behind John B/Sarah for a nanosecond in a bar scene. yes I know it's irrelevant but I was pleasantly surprised not to be cut). Man I hope they do more shows in SC :(. I enjoyed the experience

Thanks to those who came out to our second event, the BYOG board game night at Starbucks. We had five folks and played pandemic/a game calle Munchkins. It was a fun time and I definitely think we could keep this going. I created a Discord for those who wish to plug in to the social group. Feel free to join! https://discord.gg/f55hvMSj4

I'm an imposter as I have no star wars in my DNA, so forgive the formatting. Anyway, my roommate and I did get one person from the sub to join us (Thanks lynivvinyl) at the Localmotive trivia night the other night. It was a lot of fun, even if the Flopossums ranked 11 of the 13 groups. I'm considering putting together a less crowded game night this Saturday if anyone wishes to join. This would be a BYOG night. In other words, bring your old Cards Against Humanity or other party-friendly games. I don't have anything other than Axis and Allies, and well...that's going to take too long. We can meet up at the Starbucks at 1911 W Palmetto St, Florence, SC 29501 around 6:30ish/maybe go to a bar after. This is a nice, friendly, open-minded space with a lot of locals, and I don't think they'd mind a small group playing games as long as we get drinks/tip. They are also relatively quiet post-5:00 PM. Let me know if anyone is interested. Please comment here if you even think you are interested. I'll add updates as comments here/maybe we can make a discord if this gets popular enough

Hey folks: third time is the charm as they say. My roommate and I will be getting a table for team trivia tonight at local motive. We will get there early to ensure that we can get a table. Aim to be there at 645 if possible at latest. I talked with a bar manager on the phone if anybody would like to join us and have a social meet up, y’all are more than welcome to join. I will write in comments on this post where to look for us. I am sorry that previous meet up attempts did not work.

Interesting post from 'LiDar America' on FB where you can still see the Civil War Earthworks. I'll copy their description here "
The prison wasn't even finished when the first several thousand prisoners arrived. It only got worse from there.

For roughly six months during the final year of the Civil War, this site on the outskirts of Florence became a massive Confederate prisoner-of-war camp. Much of it is wooded today and hard to recognize in ordinary aerial imagery, but LiDAR still picks out traces of the landscape dramatically.

Known as the Florence Stockade, or the Confederate States Military Prison at Florence, it operated from September 1864 through February 1865, built directly in response to Sherman's advance through Georgia. Once Atlanta fell in September 1864, Confederate authorities worried Andersonville and other Georgia prison camps were threatened, so thousands of Union prisoners were moved, many routed through Charleston before being transported roughly 90 miles inland to Florence, arriving before the new prison was even complete."

The Florence Stockade enclosed roughly 23.5 acres, and somewhere between 15,000 and 18,000 Union prisoners passed through or were confined here during its short existence. Conditions deteriorated fast, food, clothing, shelter, and other supplies were desperately inadequate, and many arriving prisoners were already in poor physical condition after earlier imprisonment. At one point, about 12,000 prisoners were crowded into the stockade at once, with reported deaths reaching 20 to 30 men a day. By the time the prison closed, 2,802 Union soldiers had died, many buried in nearby trenches now associated with the adjacent Florence National Cemetery, where large numbers of graves are marked only as unknown.

What makes the site especially interesting today is the contrast between how it looks from above versus what LiDAR reveals underneath. Ordinary aerial photography shows a heavily wooded landscape with trails and clearings, but LiDAR exposes numerous subtle depressions, raised areas, and linear features hidden beneath the vegetation. Not every bump or depression can automatically be tied to the Civil War prison, more than 160 years of later activity and natural processes have shaped the land since, but the technology still offers a remarkable look at terrain that conventional imagery largely hides.

The Florence Stockade was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, and the site is open to the public today, with a walking trail, interpretive signage, and a gazebo. The Friends of the Florence Stockade held an official public opening of the interpreted site on May 31, 2008.

It's hard to reconcile the quiet, wooded landscape here today with what happened during the winter of 1864–65. For thousands of Union prisoners, this was the last place they ever saw.
"

Edit: they don’t have any tables available and I was not aware that it would be so crowded. My apologies folks. I will try to find another night at another bar. They said the weight would be more than half an hour well past the time, the game started a lot of people there are not even playing the game.

Hey folks. I made a new account. I was taking a social media break and stupidly just deleted my old Reddit. It was not until after the fact that I realized I couldn’t continue to try to get meet ups together if I wasn’t on Reddit. Lol. anyway if anybody would like to join my roommate and I for trivia tonight at seminar brewing at seven, we’d love to have anybody from the sub join us? No pressure if you are more introverted. We will have the team name “Flopossums” so feel free to join our table. (I do wildlife rehab volunteering so sorry for the animal theme.)