B!TC# IT OUT!

[Nicky-Katz]

@ Orca Matt: I write everything in TeX: letters, my CV, my homework for the university, and even presentation slides. Best thing ever There is no way your document will look odd somewhere else and it is always compiled the best way and no more manual editing of like a million of things. It's all done with little effort.

[Mermaid Sirena]

This has irritated me for a long time. Why does it seem like the vast majority of talented people do nothing with their lives? I'm a graphic designer & an artist, I have a TON of creative friends some of whom could easily support themselves by creating and selling their work online. I'm not just saying that cause I'm their friend I'm actually really judgmental of peoples artistic abilities as I look at so much of it. If I had the skills they had I would do so much with it and it would be so awesome, but they don't do anything. If they were doing something else with their lives that made them happy then it'd be whatever, but they aren't. They are living their lives as part time babysitters, low level Wal-Mart employees and/or living out of their parents basement and they are miserable. They complain all the time about how they can't do art stuff (they always have an excuse why they can't right now) or aren't going anywhere with their lives. I don't get it I know they have free time LOTS of free time (as I live with one, am best friends with another and well the others are constantly updating their video game live feeds).

They are miserable yet are doing nothing to better their situation! I've offered to help them with their online presence and design and their all excited but they don't do anything. Example I used to say yah I'll design your logo once you make a Facebook page and put some content on it, that's not hard to do not at all especially when they have tons of their own original content they can put up. It would take two days max to flesh out a page, and they don't ever do it. I've given step by step instructions and they don't do it.

Is it that they are just happy in their misery? I can't understand how they can just waste their talent! It frustrates me so much especially when they are handed opportunities and don't take them! I've had to work my fins to get where I am now and they get handed things but don't even take them. Example a friend received a full ride scholarship to any college of her choice from the government (because her family was classified as poor) and she never went through with it.

I don't know what's more irritation the fact they are wasting their skills (and not pursuing something) or that they have the means to better themselves and their lives and they basically squat in the mud and complain.

[Echidna]

The last days, I've been watching H2O for the very first time (I can't stand teenage stuff. derp), coz mermaids.

And while it's a likable little show, I'm annoyed by the constant blatant advocating of:

-Seaworld (it's totally ok to pen them dolphins up, everyone's happy, all's pretty neat and sunshine)
-commercial fishing (Cleo's father is a fisherman, and he's such a good dude, no fisher ever caught any creature that was endangered, woo the world is good)
-fishing with hooks, a catch-and release tournament- seriously, I had to skip those episodes.

They seem to go fishing in every second or so episode.

in case you didn't know, even if you do catch-and-release, you damage the fish so badly by handling/touching it, it will probably die anyway.
That's neither fun nor sport.
If you have to do a "who-has-the-biggest-thing"-competition, just weigh your /&%$s or something

the things that are never mentioned (I'm in the middle of the second season now):
-overfishing
-most fish species are close to extinction now
-ocean pollution
-the effects Seaworld has on the captured animals' health and wellbeing

I know a lot of stuff has been filmed at Seaworld, but does it really have to be such a large fun-and-sunshine commercial?
Mako Mermaids was much better in that regard.

[Starfrit]

My voice has been gone since Sunday night and it's seriously driving me crazy! I mean, I had a minor throat infection about two weeks ago, which made talking a little difficult and led to a bad cough, but that was tolerable. But then shortly after that, I got slammed with the flu, which meant I was sniffling, coughing, and sneezing, the works. I ended up having to take a few days off work last week because of it-- I mean, if you walked into a gas station you don't want some snotty, sniffly person touching all of the stuff you're about to buy, right? Especially if that stuff is food!

I went in on Sunday figuring I was well enough to work again, and... Wellp. It was just me in the store for the last 6 hours of my shift, which meant I was the only one working there to interact with the customers. Which is... A lot of talking. My voice was already in pretty rough shape when I went in at the start of my shift, but by the end of it? Oh god. I could barely talk at all.

I had Monday and Tuesday off, and thank Triton for that because Monday was when my voice decided to completely go. My assistant manager called me that day to ask me about covering someone's shift that night, but then she changed her mind before she even asked me because when I answered the phone it took three attempts for me to even force out a "Hello," and even that was more of a squeak.

If I don't put enough force behind it when I talk, it just comes out as a whisper. But at the same time, if I put too much force behind it, like I'm trying to yell or speak louder, it just comes out as a whisper, too! It's frustrating the hell out of me! I had to call in sick today because of my voice again, which I really didn't want to do, but Wednesdays are some of the busiest days at our store and I was likely going to be alone at the shop again... I just can't risk doing more damage to my voice and making the problem worse.

I keep having moments like, "This must be what Ariel felt like," only Ariel couldn't talk at all. So I'm doing fairly well in comparison, and... that's something, I guess?

[Aziara]

Yeah, I lost my voice a while back. It's really tough, people expect you to talk to them, and you just can't. Good idea to take another day off, you need to rest your vocal cords so they can heal. You could get a write-and-wipe board to keep with you if you need to get a point across. Take it from me, most people suck at improvised sign language, lol.

[PearlieMae]

http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/l...home-treatment

And don't whisper - it puts as much strain on your vocal cords as shouting!

Feel better!

[deepblue]

Oh I hate losing my voice. It's been forever but it's the weirdest feeling. Get yourself a notepad and write what you need to say. But not if you're somewhere like a bank, or ordering food at a counter, because their first reaction won't be to think you have laryngitis. XD

[AniaR]

Okay I have a bit of a bitch here to get off my chest, and it's been bugging me for a while now. I want to first disclaim that no, is has nothing to do with mertailor or anyone connected to him haha cuz anytime I bitch about a person everyone assumes it's related. Nothing like that.

So months and months and months ago I started doing facebook culls on my personal fb. I felt like I had too many mermaids on my profile and I was getting swarmed with messages of how do I do this do that daily. To the point people were getting angry with me for not replying when I'm you know, working. When I first started out in the community I used to add everyone because I was trying to make friends. I don't want to sound arrogant but now that I've made a name for myself, I find it hard to tell the difference between who actually wants to be a friend and who just wants everything they can get from me. The past 6 months have been rough for me. I have been seriously ill many times in and out of the hospital, and a very very very close family member almost died.

So I made a thoughtful status on facebook letting mermaids know I'd be deleting pretty much anyone I didn't personally know, or have met in person barring a few exceptions, and asking people not to take it personally. I talked about all the stuff I was going through, how my FB had become a very stressful place, how I was planning on eventually making my mermaid profile, and how people could still follow me on my mermaid page and message me there and when I had time I would respond. I left it up for a few days, and then I started deleting people. I had the odd person who didn't see the message and got upset, but a quick clarification to them and they were fine.

I want to be clear here, while some of these people I may have had for years on my profile in a limited way, most were people I did not ever talk to. In fact a few of them I felt just constantly harassed me for information. Very one sided.

So months later, on my BIRTHDAY after the family member who almost died was in the hospital for, well, almost dying, I got what I felt to be a very delusional message in my mermaid inbox from a person I had deleted. They took being deleted very personally and laid the guilt trip on pretty thick. It sorta blew my mind, because they spoke about how much they cared about me yet didnt see any of my postings about being super sick, having my family member almost die, and how I was deleting people. And these postings took up a LOT of my page. I tried to be understanding of their message to me, but one thing was clear, they imagined a relationship that really wasn't there. I was always kind to the person the way I would be to any of you, and they considered me a best friend? I don't even know their full name or age or really anything about them. So we went back and forth a bit and while I felt like this person was being very irrational I did my best to see it from their point of view, validate them, but still keep my boundary of no, I'm not adding you back or anyone else. I'll be honest, I was dealing with so many actual life or death things at the time (which I explained to them) that the whole thing kinda went in a blur for me, but they seemed okay at the end of it

I did accept a gift from this person, something hand made, and honestly I hate giving out my address to people. But they really made me feel so guilty after their message and kept bringing up the gift that I felt I had no choice but to accept least I face a big dramatic fallout again. I was under the impression they felt really bad for their behaviour at the time, and this was a sort of apology. Now I sorta think in hindsight it was manipulation.

A few months go by, I get the odd message from the person on my mermaid page which I legit didn't have the time to respond to. Whenever I did check them they were mostly questions which I kinda felt like, didn't we just go over how I'm dealing with too much to answer questions? And then I met them for the first time at NCMerfest. I had already made up my mind to let this stuff be water under the bridge. it's hard to get to know people online, and here was a chance to actually meet. So when I met them I hugged them, was kind, I tried to include them when I saw they were out, asked Seanny to take photos of them so I could send them to them etc and I just tried to treat them equally the way I treated everyone else.

When I got home from NCmerfest a bunch of other health stuff happened. I landed in the hospital again, was diagnosed with endometriosis, and a few other things. I'm not 100% sure was spurned it, but I had yet another very long nasty message from this person. Now I'm going to be blunt here I do my best to spare people's feelings in these situations, and be level headed, but given the person's recent actions toward me I don't think I have any reason to water down what i feel was happening. Readin their messages, I wondered if they had an attachment disorder. Because they had clearly imagined a whole relationship with me where I owed them for our friendship and wasn't being a good friend, and it didn't exist. No more than how shocked I'd be if one of you that I only talk to on mernetwork suddenly messaged me something like that. It came off stalkerish and I was just so floored this person felt so entitled to my time. I want to make it clear, I did not lead them on in anyway. It's not like I was talking to them 24/7 over the past years, tagging them on fb, calling them my BFF the way you see me talk to Iona or Raven. In fact I am very transparent on my personal FB with whatever issues I'm dealing with because I specifically don't want my friends to take any silences from me personally. And with actual friends it's never an issue. Well this person was attacking me for deleting them and not others. (I deleted people over a period of months, and only just deleted the last few people as I set up my new account) I feel like my reasons for keeping and deleting people are MY reasons and my prerogative and I don't owe anyone any explanations. A mutual friend had stepped in sharing a FB status of mine about what I'd been dealing with, no way directed at this person at all, but they decided to take it personally (the mutual friend and I have resolved this breech of privacy) and again go on about all these things I mean honestly it was so insane I didn't retain it. This time I didn't even focus on those things. I felt like I didn't owe any explanations or excuses this was this person's issue. Not mine. but I didn't want to address the issue of someone sharing my status. (Like I said, all resolved) The person again ended on a better note but I heard from several mutual friends they were writing things about how they'd upset the one person who means the world to them?!?!?! did I marry this person and not remember?@?@?@?@

A few days after that I made the decision to block the person and ban them from my page. After re-reading their messages to me and based on that behaviour I felt like their obsession with me was very unhealthy and that this wasn't a situation in which I could reason with the person. I felt a lot better in doing this, and I all but forgot about the person until a mermaid mentioned they were now getting the same sort of behaviour from this person and asked me for advice (mine: ignore! don't engage)

Now mutual friends with this person are all messaging me telling me they're trying to stick friends in the middle between us (I am not doing this to anyone cuz as far as I'm concerned this person is not in my life and I don't see the need to fight with them? Like, we aren't speaking) and sending them manipulative messages. e.g. this person has their own mernetwork account, and instead of saying "Hey I saw Raina posted this" it's "oh someone told me Raina posted this and you replied with that why don't you go look that up" sort of deal as if they hadn't read the posts themselves 100 times. This person is also claiming I'm totally making things Up I say on mernetwork. Protip: that would be the stupidest thing I'd ever do. As someone who does get involved with drama, WHY IN THE HELL WOULD I MAKE SOMETHING UP AND MAKE IT SO EASY FOR SOMEONE TO PROVE I AM LYING AND OH WHOOPS THERE GOES MY REPUTATION! Like seriously? They just picked that chris issue to claim I was lying about. Of course, offered no proof to the mutual friend that I was lying, and I'm sitting here scratching my head like what? I think this person feels rejected and now is trying to make me feel jealous and also trying to make people see my secret "true colours" they invented when their mind couldn't accept the fact I rejected them. I had a similar experience with a man in the community too a few years ago.

I'm being a bit passive aggressive here and I totally admit it, but this person has NOT respected my boundaries from the start - and hopefully by reading this they will see I am not taking this behaviour from them. I feel like unblocking them and replying to them is only going to give them that one on one attention they're craving. I'm also hoping that if they see people respond negatively to this behaviour they'll STOP trying to manipulate mutual friends. FYI I have never said to a mutual friend with someone who I have an issue with "you better choose them or me" or "look at their true colours". I have loads of mutual friends with eric. It would be totally inappropriate for me to message our mutual friends convincing them he's a bad guy or talking smack etc. That's super disrespectful and manipulative of my friends and I'd never do that.

So here's my main bitches here:
-people who imagine friendships and act entitled
-when someone lies about me, it's not like it's hard to see if what I'm saying is true or not. Ask me to give you proof and I will.
-if someone claims I said something, ask them for a screenshot, because anything controversial I wanna say is usually said here. And it's not like you can't check my own posts
-people who can't handle respectful and polite rejection and go all kamakazee

like dude, I am just a girl on the internet. deleting someone off facebook shouldn't equal this level of ridiculousness.

I left out this person's name on purpose. I dont think any of you would ever figure out who it was anyway beyond the one mutual friend involved. If you do figure it out, I ask you not to post. I'm not posting this to start a war I just want people to know the kind of stuff I have to deal with. It sorta gives you an idea why I don't answer emails all the time or add people to facebook. I'm not trying to be snotty or anything, I am trying to protect myself.

/end rant

[PearlieMae]

Wow! It's not me, is it?




::: runs away:::

[Aziara]

Wow...just wow. I think you did the right thing, Raina. You don't need to deal with that kind of drama, especially when you're sick!

[AniaR]

Lol of course not pearlie

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

[PearlieMae]

I am way too self-absorbed to hassle you!

[AniaR]

But youre a good example. You and I chat and are friendly wouldn't you be disturbed if I suddenly sent you a huge book of a message demanding more attention and posted on my fb I care about you more than anyone in the world? Lol okay I do but that's an aside
.. Lol

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

[PearlieMae]

Oh...That was you? I have so many fans, I can't keep track.

[shimmygoddess]

WOW, Raina, that sounds a bit scary actually. I think you did all the right things. When things got weird you blocked them. As long as you are always being truthful (which I am sure you are), save those screenshots, and you can always backup anything you have too. (I screen shot every altercation I have online. If all hell breaks lose, I have total proof of a persons lying, manipulative ways. )There are too many self absorbed people in the world that think life revolves around them.Always trusts your instincts as they are usually right.

[Winged Mermaid]

People are friggin crazy. I had something similar happen once over LJ- same kind of falling out when I messaged them about it too. O_o

[Mermaid Wesley]

Okay, I'm usually very level headed but I'm angry. And a little hurt. This girl at my uni is treating me like a nuisance. We were partners for an acting project for like 1/3 of last semester and we were fine, she's a little standoffish but I understood that and was friendly. Then we ended up in the same art history class together! I smile at her on the first day and she looks right through me. It was odd but whatever. Months later she still hasn't spoken to me or made eye contact. There are only like 30 people in that class. She knew I was there. Then WHAT DO YOU KNOW we get paired up for a project. She's cold and rude and inconsiderate. I am being so friendly and nice. I don't understand what her problem is. She's so rude! And it's out of nowhere! Ughhhh


Sent from my shellphone using Tapatalk

[Thalassa]

Yikes. Hang in there, Raina!

[Seraphina Suds]

I need to rant a little about my living situation. My gf and I have a one bedroom appartment in a decent area, but we need more space. We're both nerds and collectors, so we have a lot of stuff. Also, my gf would really love a dog to help with her anxiety and ocd but our current place doesn't allow dogs. Our lease isn't up until January but my gf's mental health needs improving, so we are trying to find a two bedroom that accepts dogs and we'll just deal with breaking the lease on our current place.

We tried one complex that would have been perfect; glowing reviews, nice land scape, huge pool... I called them and was given the green light and set up a viewing. That viewing ended up being postponed, so we went the next week. When we got there they had no idea we were coming, there was no apartment available, and the only apartment they COULD show us was under construction. "At least the walls are up!" I swear, it was smaller than our one bedroom. We left there feeling betrayed and hopeless. Luckily, we had a back up plan.

My best friend had just moved into a condo and the one directly next to them was open. We didn't originally consider it because the area isn't great and the complex wasn't so nice. But we went for a viewing anyway since the inside of their place was so nice. The one we looked at was a lot nicer than my friend made it seem, so we applied on the spot. That was over a week ago. The woman who let us in is a realtor, but we didn't make any sort of contract with her; we got her number from our friend. She forwarded the application to the listing agent who then would forward everything to the landlord. We sent the application, a credit report, and a recent paystub. We heard nothing for a solid week, despite me checking in evey other day. Finally, after leaving the realtor a slightly threatening and very exasperated voicemail, she calls back and says the landlord/listing agent needs a credit score. Is it not their responsibility to get the credit score? Whatever, we find a free site and forward the info. Two more days and no news. I had told the realtor that if we don't get an answer by Monday evening, we'd have to look elsewhere.

Today, Tuesday, she texted me saying she hadn't heard anything and she can't believe they're taking so long and that if we don't hear from them today, she'll look somewhere else. I do not want to pay any sort of realtor fee, so I shot that down. I told her Thursday is the end; if we don't get an answer one way or the other by then, we're not moving at all. I hope she doesn't try to charge us for anything, even if we do get the appartment. It's the landlord's responsibility to pay for listing/realtor fees. We didn't hire her to find us a place to live and I made it clear we were not going to pursue anything like that. My gf has been asking reddit for advice and it seems like we are on our way to being scammed? I'm not going to let any of them take advantage of us just because we're young and a little desperate.

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk

[Anahita]

I need to rant a little about my living situation. My gf and I have a one bedroom appartment in a decent area, but we need more space. We're both nerds and collectors, so we have a lot of stuff. Also, my gf would really love a dog to help with her anxiety and ocd but our current place doesn't allow dogs. Our lease isn't up until January but my gf's mental health needs improving, so we are trying to find a two bedroom that accepts dogs and we'll just deal with breaking the lease on our current place.

Just an FYI, if her anxiety and OCD are that bad, and she's diagnosed, a psychiatrist or psycho-therapist can set her up to have a service dog. By the ADA, you cannot be removed from your residence for a service animal. But you do have to have some relatively severe disorders to qualify for a service dog (you can't just decide that you're sad, so you need a dog).

I know this because my own dog is a service dog.

I think, translated from what my doctor diagnosed me with, I have anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, what I think is bipolar disorder (when I translate it, it comes out as "bouts of depression, mania and hypomania", which sound more like symptoms to me, but idk). So some of the things it seems she has.

I will say that I do also have panic attacks that resemble seizures, and actual seizures; however, the latter were NOT the deciding factors for me getting the dog, they were actually just things that would benefit even more from the dog. Medication for the former problems had not been working well for me (my English can't really express what had been happening, otherwise I'd let you know, because I'm sure it would help your gf to see if she qualified for a service dog), so my psychiatrist decided that because of what was happening she would take me off of my medications (the exception was the seizure meds, I do still have to have those, but she reduced those even and told me to go get a recommendation to supplement) and then have me get a service dog.

Now, I adopted a dog from a shelter then released her to my cousin for training because my cousin also suffers from PTSD, anxiety, and manic/hypomanic/depressive episodes and has a service dog herself as well as experience with training them. So over the course of me being safely removed from my medications and supplementing them with more natural substances, my dog was being trained to be certified. I'm not "cured", not by a long shot, and sometimes I do get into anxiety-inducing incidents BECAUSE of the dog and the fact that people refuse to obey the law (it's not to do with living situations, actually, but because I bring her with me everywhere, and sometimes, people can be ignorant about what a service dog can be); but for the most part, between her (the dog) and my partner, I'm much better off than when I was on meds. The dog then trained herself to give me a seizure alert. I have no idea how she trained herself to give seizure alerts, but she has, which is fortunate for me, because seizure alert dogs cost an arm and a leg and are often times a larger breed so they can not only alert, but also help save you from a fall; whereas a emotional support, therapy, etc. dog can actually be trained from pretty much any dog (mine came from a shelter, is 3.5 pounds, and was 3 years old when she began her training, just to give you an idea of what you can work with).

Also, smaller dogs are good for emotional support animals because they can travel with you easier, and and can fit in an apartment with not a lot of space.

I'm sorry I can't offer any help with dealing with the actual apartment - my partner is like my caretaker, and so he's the one who went through all hell and hassle of finding us a place to live (truthfully, he's also the one who got the paperwork from the apartment we lived in that we had to file when we let them know we were bringing in a service dog, I pretty much just reminded my psychiatrist to sign said papers) but at least maybe letting you know that your gf, if her health is getting that bad, might be able to get a service dog could help. I know how much better mine has made me feel and how it's helped me, and I'd hate to see someone denied it simply because they might not have been aware that it was an option to them.