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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • My advisor got her PhD in England, so I’ve been trying to get her help in navigating this. I specifically want to do a research PhD, so that narrows my choices a little. Something I don’t see mentioned much is networking. I’ve read a few studies that I can see myself doing, so I’m going to reach out to those researchers because my undergraduate research compliments their research.

    There’s an exchange program called Erasmus that will provide a monthly living allowance. I saw another one that offered help with employment after completing the degree but I can’t find it now. That might have been university-specific.


  • A lot of our medications come from plants originally, and there are a lot of plants where I live with medicinal value. Willow is probably the best known because aspirin comes from it, and is very common in my area. The main thing will be teaching them which local plants have medicinal use, how to properly identify the plant (I have a dissecting microscope and a few identification books), and how to properly extract the compound that they want.

    Steam distillation is a really common method for extracting essential oils, and it’s easy to do. Menthol can be extracted from mint this way.

    Some of this is what I’ve learned in uni, but you can get somewhere by looking up the remedy you need in Google scholar with the scientific name of the plant you want to use. USDA plants has really good identification characteristics, so you don’t accidentally pick a toxic copy cat.










  • John Deere and a few others recently paid like 20m to build a diesel tech training center for my university that includes several large vehicle bays and a fuel development lab, with the expectation the students would work for their companies after graduation. It’s starting to look like these kids will be opening their own businesses and ending the cycle of ripping off farmers in the community.

    As a former mechanic with lots of lovely health issues before even hitting 40, I really hope they do work for themselves so they can get out of the grunt work when they are my age and still earn from their experience





  • I feel like ssdi or ssi are only “okay” if you live with family. I’m a single adult with no relatives, and the 1k/month(ish) I get isnt even enough to cover renting an apartment where I live. Even if I lived with family for free, that 1k/month wouldn’t be enough to pay for the things I need that are directly associated with my disabilities (doctor visits, travel, assistive devices, a maid or property manager, my service dog and her needs, etc.).

    There was a study recently that showed support for assisted dying is higher among poor populations. No shit, we can’t afford to live, and we can’t afford to die from our issues either lol



  • I’m not in retail anymore, and I never did clothing retail, but working in theater costuming has really changed my ideas. Like, I know I am fat because at my height and weight my bmi puts me well in obese territory. But measuring people a few inches taller has put an interesting spin in my head. I know someone with the same bust size who is three inches taller and now I understand why some “large” sizes will fit both of us even though by size my cup is several sizes larger than her.

    People have been telling me for years that I’m “not fat”. I know they are delusional because of the numbers, but seeing other people with similar measurements does actually put it into perspective.


  • I took a philosophy class in college with a really interesting concept. We read a book about philosophies around the world, then choose one and created a d&d character from what we learned and researched on a specific philosophy. It was pretty chaotic to play d&d at the end, but it was such a great way to learn the real world applications of various philosophies.