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why is “olde vampires in high school” the big thing and not “olde vampires in college”

everyone in college is eccentric. everyone

you wanna wear full on Victorian suit? the girl in pajamas who clearly hasn’t slept in three days supports you

everyone is too preoccupied to care as long as you’re polite and follow class etiquette

multiple high school diplomas? eh. same stuff. multiple BAs? Enjoy learning chemistry AND art history! All in detail!

wandering around campus at 3am? that’s just the lifestyle tm

no matter how old or young you look it’s not really that weird, there’s sixteen year olds and sixty year olds doing BAs somewhere

big schools are very anonymous so nobody’s gonna bother to hassle you

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Post on my dash about medical debt reminded me of the time tumblr saved me two grand. I don't think I told y'all about it because I am out of the habit of posting everything I do on tumblr lol

So. Last December, I had a bad cavity filled, and about a week later, I woke up with half of my face paralyzed. Which, as I'm sure you can imagine, freaked me the fuck out. Fortunately I had some level-headed Discord friends who a) told me what Bell's palsy was so I could look it up and b) reminded me to call my dentist for an emergency appointment. Dentist was also pretty sure it was Bell's palsy, but urged me to go to the emergency room to get checked out, because one-sided facial paralysis is also a possible indicator of a stroke. And you don't fuck around with strokes.

Bell's palsy, if you, like me of 6 months ago, don't know, is a harmless paralysis/muscle weakness on one side of the face that can be caused by a variety of things. It usually goes away on its own after a few weeks but also you can speed up the process with steroids.

I was pretty sure I was not having a stroke, because I'm Red Cross first aid certified and I know the symptoms of a stroke, and while one-sided facial paralysis is one of them, I didn't have any of the others. Also, I had quit my shitty job in October, which meant I had a shiny new marketplace health insurance plan and hadn't even touched my deductible. But I called my parents from the car and they urged me to get checked out and promised to help me pay off the emergency room bill if I needed it, because they're good people and they love me even if they drive me crazy sometimes. So off I went to the nearest emergency room.

Emergency room staff also didn't think I was having a stroke, because I waited ALL AFTERNOON, periodically having a new person come up to me and ask me to smile, hold both arms out to the side, press down on their hands, and tell them what month and year it was. (They don't ask who the president is anymore. Hmm, I wonder why.) One guy had me drink a cup of water while he watched. I cannot stress enough that I did not have any medical tests other than a physical examination: no CT scans or MRIs, no IV drugs or blood draws, nothing.

I get diagnosed with Bell's palsy and given a prescription for Prednisone. And then they give me a phone number and tell me to talk to this person about administrative stuff. So I call, and the dude on the phone verifies my name and date of birth and insurance information, and then he says, "It looks like your copay today is going to be $2400. How would you like to pay?"

I am, to this day, kind of impressed that he didn't even stutter over that number, but I assume working in a medical call center drains your entire soul. At this point, it's about 7pm, and I've been in the hospital since 2pm, and I'm stressed because half my face doesn't work, and I know that I can't afford $2400 because I quit my shitty job with nothing lined up back in October. But, I still remember every tumblr post I've ever read about health insurance and the medical system and how you can negotiate down a bill. I am not looking forward to this process, it sounds like a pain in the ass, but the alternative is paying $2400, so I say the magic words: "Send me an itemized bill."

I kinda expected the guy to try and get me to pay up front, but he just says "Ok" and finishes up the process. I get discharged, go to the only open pharmacy at that time of night to get my Prednisone, have the pharmacist tell me the prescription isn't written right and he can't fill it, go home, and have a screaming sobbing meltdown because I have used up every single milligram of cope in my entire body. (I got my steroids eventually, and the Bell's palsy cleared up in a couple weeks.)

A few weeks later, I get the bill in the mail. I brace myself and open it...

$300.

Turns out, after going through insurance and processing and everything, they couldn't actually find $2400 worth of stuff to charge me for. Shocking! Who could have predicted!

I might have been able to argue it down even more, but I was fed up with entire thing, so I paid the $300 just to be fucking done with it. Sometimes the cheapest way to pay is with money.

What if I had paid that $2400 up front? Do I think they would have been like, "Oh, oops!" and refunded me $2k? Well, possibly, but I am not optimistic.

So, thank you to everyone who has ever posted about navigating the US healthcare system on tumblr. Because of you, I knew how to handle this situation even when I was tired and stressed.

Don't forget to ask for an itemized bill, folks.

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It’s crazy that countries on the edge of the Sahara desert are reversing desertification by just digging half circles

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Gift by Zezhou Chen

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this is, as the kids say, frying me (a glasses wearer)

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Two stunning winners ✨️

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to be hero x so far:

1) lin ling: what if a gay guy killed himself in front of you and then you had to pretend to be him and fell in love with his beard

2) yang cheng: what if you were so much of a pussy about asking a girl out you became the villain

3) cyan: what if your childhood situationship ended so badly it created a new power (happened to my good friend satoru gojo)

4) queen: gifted kid burnout syndrome

5) loli: assigned transmasc at ironheart

6) ghostblade: autistic dads will do anything except go to therapy

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Blakiston's Fish Owl (Bubo blakistoni)

Blakiston's fish owl is a species of owl found in north-east Asia, including northern China, the Korean Penninsula, and the northern islands of Japan. They require large tracts of old-growth deciduous and mixed fores, and reside near fast moving waters, including rivers and coastlines, though during the winter they may settle for slower-moving creeks and lakes.

As their name implies, Blakiston's fish owl feeds mainly on fish, especially pike, trout, salmon, and catfish. In the winter B. blakistoni will also hunt for mammals such as martens, rodents, and bats; in the spring spring they will also readily prey on crayfish and frogs. Blakiston's fish owl hunts very similarly to other wading birds like herons; individuals will choose a perch close to the bank, or even stand directly in the shallows, and wait for prey to pass by before striking. They are active at both dusk and dawn, although they may be seen in daylight in their breeding season. Neither adults nor juveniles have any notable predators.

B. blakistoni breeds once every 2-3 years, typically when food is at its peak abundance. Courtship begins in January or February, and once a male and female are paired they remain together for most or all of their lives. After pairing, the couple chooses a hollow, and the female lays a clutch of 1-3 eggs around March. She remains responsible for brooding them, while the male brings her food, for the 35 days that the eggs take to hatch. Both parents continue to provide food until the fledgelings hatch, which takes about 7 weeks; the young typically remain in the area under the supervision of their parents for an additional year and a half. Individuals usually become fully mature at 3 years old, and may live anywhere from 8-15 years in the wild.

Blakiston's fish owls are noted as the largest owl species in the world. Adults can reach up to 4 kg (8.81 lb) in weight and nearly 2 m (6 ft 3 in) in wingspan. Adults are brown or tan in color, with brown streaking, and a white mask around the eyes and beak. They also have two long tufts of feathers much like horned owls.

Conservation status: B. blakistoni is considered Engangered by the IUCN. The main cause of decline is the disappearence of its habitat due to deforestation, damming, and river pollution. The Japanese population is estimated at 100-150 individuals, while the global population is estimated to be 1,000–1,500 individuals.

Photos

Jonathan C. Slaght

Bradley Hacker

Charlie Hesse

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...what

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Painting a mirror at Pingjiang Road in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, China

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Conservatives are so terrified of crime and so convinced we live in a Mad Max dystopia that they want to go back. To when crime was much higher. New York City is unsafe now but they want to go back to the golden age. The 80s.

They're absolutely quaking in their boots about how dangerous it is to live on the far right of the graph that they want to retuvurn to the big, beautiful upward curve on the left side of the graph

(For the record they believe that crime is much worse than it was during the Reagan years, but that over 90% of violent crime goes unreported for...some reason? And leaves no other trace of its existence?)

I think potentially people who will go on a multi-day whine fest about how scary it was to see one homeless person during a time of extremely low crime would thrive in the days of FEAR CITY but it'd be funny to watch them try

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afternoon nap 🍰☕

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HEY, YOU!

DO YOU LIKE OLD COMPUTER GRAPHICS?!

did you like ANY of these photos? would you like to see HUNDREDS MORE OF THEM?! with THOUSANDS OF UNIQUE TEXTURES?! ALL FROM FUCKING DECEMBER 15TH, YEAR 2000?!

NOW YOU CAN!!!

THERE'S ALSO A BUNCH OF CLIPART FROM 1997 IN .WMF FORMAT. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE THAT, BUT YOU MIGHT!

STILL not convinced???? LOOK AT THE DISC THEY CAME FROM!

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!??!?!?!?!?! DON'T WAIT! GO LOOK AT THOSE JPEGS... TODAY!

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It’s not an ex-SecUnit.

You can’t be an ex-SecUnit until you’re dead.