3/18/23 - He said that I could join them.
A student has been expelled from Suzhou University and put in jail for 10 days for photoshopping lewd pictures of another fellow student. A blogger puts out a poll asking whether people think this is a reasonable punishment. The poll options are, “Yes, it’s reasonable.” “No, it’s too harsh.”, and “I don’t care, none of my business.”
Comments ask, “Why is there no option for if you think the punishment is too light?”
A humour blogger writes, “There’s really no stopping fangirls. My maternal grandma insisting on marrying my maternal grandpa solely because of his face. He’s not a great person, but he’s good-looking, and my maternal grandma raised her whole entire line’s attractiveness with this one move. My aunt and my mom are both really pretty. See picture attached.
My dad’s honestly not that handsome. If it weren’t for my mom’s genes, I’d be a lot uglier than I am. For example, my dad’s kids with my step-mom are kinda fugly. So, it was my mom’s genes that held me back from that cliff. Though, the greatest work was all done by my maternal grandma. She’s pretty average-looking herself, and still produced my mom with sheer prioritisation of appearance.
My paternal grandma’s hugely into appearance too. My paternal grandpa was pretty good-looking when he was young, and was a super quiet guy. My paternal grandma chased him down. She was a pretty rebellious kind of girl too. She was just 15 when she started smoking, and even told my grandpa then, “What kind of man are you? Fucking take a smoke.” Now my grandpa’s 85 and still smokes every day. She’d quit herself, and now she’s hounding him everyday, “Keep smoking and it’ll kill you one day.”
My mom divorced my dad and got together with my step-dad. My paternal grandma keeps saying to her, “Your new husband’s so handsome. He’s flawless. You must be so happy waking up to that every day.” Sometimes, my grandma will ask me or my mom to tell my step-dad how handsome she thinks he is. And I’m just like, “??? Are you the ex-MIL? Why are you so into your ex-daughter-in-law’s new husband?” It’s seriously like she’s fangirling some kind of celebrity.
A video of people who have been victims of human trafficking being interviewed about their experience. A blogger writes above, “Remember, if your child finds a job which sounds way too good to be true, in a company that’s only been established for a short time. If one day, that company suddenly organises some sort of overseas work trip, please stop your job from going. Maybe not every case is human trafficking, but there’s a good chance that if he leave, he’ll never be able to come back.”
A submission to a relationship blogger, “My husband says he wants to be buried with his dead ex-wife. I’m feeling super upset. I honestly never thought about buying a plot. I’m okay with either being buried at sea, or under a tree. But on the last day of 2020, walking home from the grocery store with my husband of 20 years, he said, “Now that covid’s over, we need to look into a burial plot for my mom.”
And I said, “At least we don’t have to buy a plot. Burial at sea sounds pretty romantic.”
And he said that he had a plot, right next to his ex-wife in his hometown.
At the time, I was furious. Then what about me? And he said that I could join them…
The past couple of days, I’ve been lost in sadness. I feel so wronged.
We each brought a daughter to this relationship and have lived together for 20 years. I thought we made a great family together. If we both live to our 70s, we’d have another 20 years in front of us, but it’s nothing compared to the 5 years with his ex-wife. What am I to him?
I have no one to talk to about this. I don’t even know how to talk about this. I can only vent here. Just looking for comfort.”
Comments say, “Take care of yourself, make yourself happy, and when he dies, throw his ashes in the sea.”
Someone asks, “Do you have to be pretty to get into art school? I’m worried my sister will see this, so I got a new account to ask and everything. She’s in the latter half of her sophomore year in high school. She’s taking Stem, but her grades are really bad. She’s getting just over 200 out of 750. She’s in the bottom of her whole grade. She told my mom and dad that she wants to go to art school to learn dance. She thinks she can get into a pretty good one.”
“My mom and dad aren’t educated, so they believed her. But all the art school students I see on instagram are super pretty. I’m worried that even if we throw a crapton of money at it, she won’t make it. We’re pretty poor. My mom has bad health, my dad’s working hard labour jobs. He’s never shorted us anything, though. I’m doing alright, since I went to an ok uni. I’m working as an after school tutor, make about 5-6K a month. I’ve got about 40K in savings.”
“My sister said she has to sign up for some kind of training and it costs 50K. I’m watching my mom and dad stress out about this, so I’m thinking about giving her my money, but I’m afraid that it’ll all go to waste. I asked my friends from high school who went to art school, and they said that there’s no way my sister would make it. No proper school would take her. She said it’s way too late for my sister to learn dance now. She’s 155cm, slightly below average in looks, and kinda chubby. I told my sister this, and my sister said she can lose weight. And that there are people much shorter than her who made it into Beijing Dance School. If she can’t get trained in time, she can take an extra year of high school. She swore to me that she would practice hard. I just want to know, if she tries really really hard, can she get into a good school?”
Comments say, “Ah yeah, no. Dance takes a lot of training. Anyone who sincerely wants to make a career out of it has been dancing since they were five.”
A doctor says, “I’ve heard a lot of people say that the best obgyns are men. This is a pretty common sentiment, actually, but it doesn’t really fit reality. In fact, it reflects a lot of problems in reality that I’d like to talk about today.”
“Firstly, there are both men and women who are great obgyns. Similarly, there are both men and women who are terrible obgyns. So if you’re in the obgyn department of a hospital and run into a man, don’t immediately assume that he is the best doctor there. You could very well have bumped into me—professional, but not all that skilled.”
“So a lot of people question—if there are both men and women, why don’t you ever see any female obgyns at the top of the field?”
“Well, that brings us to the first element we need to look at: there are a lot of great female doctors who are well-known inside their own field, but completely unknown outside of it. When she appears, most people would have no idea who she is. The main reason for this is that most female doctors I know are very resistant to marketing, or titles, or power, and would rather focus on their work. They don’t want to get famous.”
“I think to some extent, this is because a lot of women have been conditioned since childhood to not be very ambitious and not be obsessed with winning. To not be super extroverted and outgoing—even warned that if they’re constantly the centre of attention, it could be very risky and dangerous. So even if they’re the top of their field as a doctor, or a leader of the industry, they still avoid the limelight, or give up on leadership positions entirely, causing a “invisible women” problem.”
“To some extent, this is because the female doctors who do stand in the limelight are often described in very negative terms. Like that she’s obsessive, or like a work-machine. Either way, it seems like people have a hard time accepting the concept of a “top of the field female doctor” and will attach all sorts of malicious ideas to the concept, even subconsciously.”
“The reality is, those doctors are perfectly normal and friendly people in personal life—they just have to be obsessive and driven and cutthroat at the workplace, because she has to fight to get resources for her research, or to establish herself in the industry. She might be super strict on her students and interns because with limited resources, it’s hard to get any interns. And as soon as you get some, you’re facing a lot of pressure to produce results. And this causes a negative feedback loop.”
“So because of all these societal factors, this causes people outside of the industry to think that the best obgyns are always men. And following that, they assume it means that female obgyns are shit at their jobs.”
Comments say, “I work at the top hospital in Dongbei, one of the best hospitals in the country. Everyone in our obgyn department, from the doctors to the head of department, are all female. And they all have a great reputation. They’ve saved countless lives.”
When I try to view those linked photos I get "Access Denied"