Shoutout to all the "first day of school" posters last week: How did things go?

I'm always shocked when I hear how some of the atheists talk about anyone who believes in anything. It's as bad as anything I've heard from Catholic relatives (although not quite Reddit-level). It's driving me to the conclusion that if you can't somehow bring yourself to believe in something, anything, even basic good…

I was raised nominally, indeterminately Christian by parents who'd been raised Catholic. My dad has since converted back to Catholicism, and one of my sisters full Anglican. Meanwhile, I'm surrounded by people who are mainly firm aetheists and figuring out how to talk about the concept you've identified as "faith in…

Why did I not think of that right before my Dad's full-on Catholic wedding service last month. What is wrong with me.

Also (and I'm surprised no one has gone here yet), but we're not so much big on the part where we actually *collect* on corporate taxes here in Canada. Shit, if we reversed just the last ten years of corporate tax cuts & blow jobs in Quebec (and presumably the rest of Canada too), we'd be done with this whole…

No, as a Canadian, they're both awful. If I can't afford 49th Parallel or Anchored, and Heart, Intelligentsia, or at worst Santropol are also out of reach, then fuck it, Lavazza Qualita Rossa it is. Second Cup is as far as I'll go in the shitty coffee dept.

Thank you for explaining this without resorting to anything that could be misinterpreted as an anti-Francophone agenda. Personally I'm generally on the side of there being much more important things we could spend public money on, but at the same time, if you opened your business in QC after 1977 when the law came in,…

Apparently they make great house pets if you have their stink glands removed, but if you'd actually do that, then you probably shouldn't have pets, so...

Yes! When they cover their eyes - omg!

Yeah, I found a mama skunk and her litter of newborns nesting in my recycling bin at that same apartment. Cute beyond words and never had a problem with them (once I knew what they were).

The adventures a smoking, drinking skunk and I would have. Just the two of us, riding the rails, taking life as it comes, singing our skunk-human songs...

This is exactly how I first encountered a skunk. Sitting in the doorway having a beer and a smoke after painting the living room. "Oh, what a beautiful kitten... and such unusual markings... and that tail - oh shit."

Word. Roughly 35,000 undergrads, 75 grants, weighted by faculty, only one in my dept. I get why the rules are less problematic for most recipients, but in the humanities it's impossible to respect the working conditions imposed, and there's a huge economic blind spot across the board with them. I feel bad complaining…

I mean, to be fair, it's only the second year that they've had research grants for undergrads, so it's possible they don't see how the rules for this specific grant conflict with wider administrative and funding policies to make life difficult for anyone not in a STEM program and/or with family money, but really...

You *know* it's all going in my final report, and the article is totally my writing sample for grad school applications, because fuck that.

Yep. No side job, not more than one course, no days off or travel, must be on campus 40 hours/week, but also no access to any school services including the library, and no designated workspace unless you're running a lab-based project. Thank god my supervisor's been there and was chill about everything. Oh, and don't…

Yep, but in an ironic twist, that's what's making the situation extra-desperate: I'm on an academic research grant for the summer (the writing part of which I'm behind on, obvs), and one of the conditions of that is that I have to be enrolled full-time this coming term or they ask for it back. It's just about minimum…

It's hard to get past it on the first day, but you're close enough in age that it should get easier quickly. For perspective, we didn't have laptops, cell phones, or the internet the first time I tried university, so I also had massive culture shock my first semester back. And like SLanne and yoobzay said,…

Hi there! Long time listener, first time caller. Like MickiMonster, I'm also having anxiety about school starting, but it's more about being stuck in an epic bureaucratic loop wherein I can't register until I pay off last semester, I can't pay until either my scholarship or my loans and bursaries get released, and…

I am 37 and going into my last year. Only one person has ever even asked my age, and his response was so hilarious that it doesn't even count as bad. I promise you (and as my advisor keeps telling me), the only person who cares about your age is you. Good luck!