#i had already started registering to start a degree in Political science with a minor in history

[doueverwonder]

Looking enviously at all the people on here who are in college hits on a different level when I dropped out of highschool and SHOULD have my GED by now but the lady at the place never called us back

[education-and-sadness]

Fall 2023 Classes

Hey studyblr!

It’s that time of the semester where I register for classes. So, I wanted to share the classes I’ll be taking the first semester of my Junior year!

Intermediate Spanish II - This is the LAST Spanish class I need for my International Relations major. I’m excited to get to it, but upset that it’s the same guy who’s taught me for the last year, especially because he literally only teaches at 9:00 AM. So, it’ll be yet another early semester. 

Women & Gender Studies Capstone - This is the LAST elective I need for my Women & Gender Studies minor. I’m super excited to officially be done with it. Even better, it’s taught by the advisor of one of my clubs. 

International Law & Organizations - I have been waiting so patiently for this class for two years. Odds are, this is the only time they’ll offer it until I graduate. So, I had to say “no” to another class I really wanted to take at the same time. But, oh well. 

Research Methods in Political Science - I am NOT excited for this one. I know how to do research, and don’t need a whole 3 credit class to teach me how. But, it’s a requirement for Political Science and International Relations, so I’ll push through. 

History of Food - I’m REALLY excited for this one. One of my History professor’s concentrations is Food History, so he was super excited they let him teach this. Hopefully, we’ll mostly be cooking stuff for class. I’m so excited. 

Career Mentoring for the Social Sciences - This one is only two credits, but it is a requirement for my Political Science and International Relations majors. It’s going to be boring and terrible. It’s mostly prep for “the real world” or trying to get your first internship. But I’ve already had an Internship and jobs that relate to my major, so...not exactly necessary.

Honors Capstone - This is the LAST thing I need to do to graduate with Honors (except keep up the GPA requirements). It’s only one credit and I’m taking it with some friends, so I’m excited. I think it’ll be super easy, with minimal effort. So, I’m ready for it!

So, seven classes this semester puts me at 18 credits. After next semester, I’ll have 114.5 credits. Crazy, right? But I need it for all the majors. I’m super excited to start giving myself a break when it comes to the 2023-2024 academic year. I’m almost done with my degrees. I have 11 classes left, the only issue is...they never offer them. So basically, I am stuck here for the last half of my degree. But 3 majors and 3 minors in 4 years isn’t bad at all, especially considering I know people who are taking 6 years for 1 major and 0 minors. I might even pick up an extra minor! Who knows? The world is my oyster. 

[testedtransgressor]

Category: Original - Science Fiction Rating: T Warnings: N/A Part: 1 First written: 2 May 2019

After a comet almost brings a premature end to Earth, Eryn Johnson finds an unusual stone in the garden outside her workplace...

“What is it?”

Jayde Eleen turned the rock over in her hands, inspecting it. She had arrived to work about ten minutes before, ready to begin another day of monotony and under-appreciated effort, to find her coworker carrying the thing.

Eryn Johnson, the coworker in question, shrugged as she pulled on her work shirt. “Dunno. Just found it in the garden. It's not like any crystal I'm familiar with, and I know pretty much all the dark, edgy-looking ones. The black makes me think obsidian, but obsidian generally doesn't have that shade of purple running through it. Black opal might, but opal has more of a mottled--”

“Okay, I get it,” Jayde held up a hand. Eryn had a tendency to keep talking about something if she knew enough about it, and while most people would politely allow her to continue, Jayde had learned that the other girl appreciated it more if people told her to stop when she talked too much.

She held the rock up to the light. It was smooth, as though it had been polished, with sharp edges almost as though it had been broken off a larger piece. It reflected the light like glass, and was pitch black in colour, with veins of a deep, metallic purple running through it. It was about the size of two fists together, and judging by the weight, it was completely stone – not hollowed out or simply a decorative ornament.

“I thought maybe someone ditched it, but why would anybody want to ditch a stone like this? It's probably really rare, and would be worth heaps.” Eryn stated, tying her shoes. Jayde shrugged, depositing the stone on the shelf reserved for staff belongings.

“Weird,” she stated, “I'm sure you'll figure it out.”

She turned her attention to her store opening duties, but it didn't slip her notice that Eryn possessively tucked the stone into her bag before joining her. Most of their coworkers thought the other girl was a bit odd, and for that reason most didn't bother attempting to get to know her. Jayde had initially been reluctant to be partnered with her for opening shifts, but she had to admit, even if Eryn went about things her own way, the end result was often the same as, if not better than what was expected of them.

As she wrote up the task list for their Friday morning, she took note of the team they'd have on. Kaylee, who tended to be more talker than worker and often exaggerated everything. She was good with customers, so was usually put on registers. Eli, the store owner, often had difficulty with some of the simplest tasks, but nobody would tell him to his face – at least, not while they were on shift. Kaden and Mike, close friends and probably one of the best teams in their entire setup – she made sure to put them together with the coffees. And Jess, one of the new juniors – being school holidays, she had been rostered on for several morning shifts, and was already starting to choose who she preferred working with and away from.

And, of course, herself and Eryn.

Mornings weren't difficult to pick at the store where Jayde had worked for the past four years. Coffee and the pastry snackfoods they offered were always on the go, with the store's location being right near one of the main train stations in the area. They had a small window that opened onto the laneway beside the store, where people would order and collect their drinks without having to enter. Inside, Eli had been trying to slowly turn what had once been a specialty bookstore into a full cafe, with dine-in seating and a focus on specialty coffee. Jayde wasn't sure if she liked his plans for the place, but it made sense from a business perspective; with the rise of Kindle and other e-readers, physical books just weren't as popular as they'd once been – a fact that was heavily refuted by Kaden, Mike, and Eryn.

The morning rushes came and went, with people dropping by for breakfast coffees and off-to-work coffees, and the few night shift workers that came looking for their “I need to sleep but I need to get some stuff done today” coffees. Kaylee fielded orders and kept waiting customers talking, Eli rang up the orders and took the money, Kaden and Mike kept busy on the espresso machine, and Jayde spent most of her time walking Jess through some of the store procedures while Eryn raced up and down the work space, preparing anything that couldn't be made on a coffee machine.

Routine. Nice and simple.

The first break in the rush came around eight, and Jayde found herself out the back listening to Kaylee happily impart whatever information she'd learned from the radio and human gossip in the last few hours. Kaylee, like Eryn, was a massive talker, but unlike Eryn she wasn't very good at retaining information long-term, so she always spent break periods relaying anything she'd learned to anyone who would listen – usually Kaden, Eryn, and Jayde.

“They have no idea what to call it, apparently,” she explained, “But since they think the comet was a critz or whatever--”

“Kreutz?” Eryn offered, Kaylee nodding as she flicked a finger in the other girl's direction.

“That one. Anyway, they're calling it Kreutzum cos of that, because they're pretty sure it's the same stuff the comet was made of, but they're not sure on any count because the comet is still a total mystery.”

“I mean, it literally came out of nowhere, right?” Kaden asked. Jayde was nodding, recalling the headlines of the day before. The comet in question had been all over the news, having made a narrow pass at Earth a couple of days earlier. It had literally come from nowhere, and according to reports it would have been on a direct collision course with Earth if not for some very minor cosmic or celestial space event, that had altered the comet's trajectory by only a couple of degrees.

Jayde had been working that morning, recalled running outside with the others as a streak of what seemed like lightning passed by overhead, illuminating the region so brightly it seemed almost like midday. The news report she'd read yesterday had declared that debris from the tail had been pulled down to Earth, scattering itself in a line across the planet – a line that included their location.

“Aren't they offering a reward for it?” Kaden asked, referring to the debris that Kaylee had been talking about.

“Yeah, they said on the radio that you can get financial reimbursement if you turn it over to specific research centres.” Kaylee replied, struggling to remember, “I think QUT was the main one in our area, but you'd have to look it up.”

“Turn yours in, Eryn,” Jayde joked, “Become a millionaire.”

Eryn was washing dishes while she listened in, and chuckled at Jayde's comment. “Turn it in now, get a couple hundred, or wait until the true value is revealed and sell it on the black market for millions. Tough decision, really.” She shrugged, “We don't even know if it's worth anything. At this point, it's just a rock.”

“Wait, did you find one?” Kaylee asked, eyes widening. Jayde recalled Eryn tucking the rock into her bag, and silently cursed herself for outing her friend – if the thing had monetary value, someone might attempt to steal it.

“Found it in the garden this morning,” Eryn replied casually, drying off her hands as she turned away from the sink. She crossed to the shelves where they stored their personal effects and produced the large stone from her bag.

Jayde could see, by Kaylee's expression, that the younger girl was more impressed than she or Eryn had been. Kaden, however, remained nonchalant as always. Unlike Eryn, he was happy with complacency in almost everything. One of his apparent favourite statements was “If it’s good enough for you” - though Jayde had come to realise that he was only this way because he was, at heart, a perfectionist. Like Eryn, he was an artistic type, and seemed to enjoy writing. It wasn’t uncommon to see the pair after a shift sitting at one of the tables, heads bent over a notebook as one described something in their latest piece to the other. He was friendly to others, entertaining to be around, and had a reputation as a nice person. But there was more to him that seemed to be hidden beneath that warm surface.

Jayde watched as Eryn handed the rock over to Kaden the second his hand extended for it, and he turned it over as she had done, inspecting it as Kaylee made a sound of appreciation.

“I saw something on the telly last night,” Kaden told them, “Some way of testing to see if it is the right stuff--”

Kaylee snapped her fingers as she recalled the information. “Yeah! You’re supposed to run it under water and it makes a humming sound.”

“Let’s test that, then,” Eryn told her, snatching the rock from Kaden’s hands and moving for the sink again. Jayde couldn’t help but watch with a sense of anticipation as Eryn turned on the tap at the hottest setting, and then slowly moved the rock under the running water.

Silence. From the rock, at least; the sound of the tap struggling to reach maximum temperature was still audible to the quartet.

“Well, that settles that,” Kaden shrugged, starting for the doorway that led to the main service area. He stopped however, turning back to look at Eryn, who seemed fixated on the rock. “Wait…”

“I hear it, too,” Eryn told him, looking up. Jayde frowned, moving closer and turning so that her ear was closest to the sink, as though it might help. At the same time, Eryn turned the temperature of the water back a little. Slowly, almost unnoticeable at first, a low hum began to fill the back room.

“I can’t hear anything,” Kaylee told them, moving closer. Eryn turned the tap down further, and the humming seemed to rise in pitch.

“The temperature of the water changes the pitch,” Eryn noted, turning the water down to the coldest setting as she looked at Kaylee. “Hear it, now?”

Kaylee was nodding, her eyes almost vacant as she seemed to lose herself in the soft, melodious sound. Jayde felt herself seeming to drift off as well, as though she were tired but… not quite. It was a strange sensation, almost like being drunk and not wanting to do anything, but somehow feeling more and more energetic.

She had no idea how much time had passed, but it took a few moments after the tap was turned off for the sound to fade away. Jayde shook her head and looked around, to see Mike and Jess had joined them and had similar vacant expressions on their faces. She turned back to Eryn, who was hurriedly drying the rock off. Kaden seemed as unaffected as her, but Mike, Kaylee and Jess all looked like they were coming out of some sort of trance.

“That was weird,” Eryn remarked, returning the rock to her backpack, “You guys were all in some sort of trance.”

“Boys! You’ve got some more orders,” Eli called out from the window. Kaden almost seemed to roll his eyes before he returned to work, while everyone else stayed out the back.

“What just happened?” Mike asked. Jayde glanced over at him, then at Jess. “I heard some sort of music thing and came out. What was that?”

“That’s pretty cool,” Kaylee stated, “So it’s definitely that Kritzeum stuff? Maybe you should turn it in.”

“Kritzeum?”

“Kreutzum,” Jayde corrected, recalling the word Eryn had apparently sneezed out just before, “It’s stuff from that comet. Maybe hang onto it, see if it goes up in value.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Eryn admitted, “Plus, as much as I support science, you guys were fully non-responsive for a few seconds there. I don’t know if I want to give away something that can do that to people, not without doing some home experiments first.”

Jayde chuckled.“Use it to enchant people?” She teased. Eryn chuckled, as Kaylee and Mike returned to their other tasks.

“Use it to make Eli give us better pay,” she suggested. Jayde could tell by her tone that she was only half-joking.

[deniscollins]

How a Ship’s Coronavirus Outbreak Became a Moral Crisis for the Military

The military has a strict chain-of-command decision making process. If you were the Secretary of the Navy, what would you do if the captain of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with a coronavirus outbreak submitted a letter to Navy officials pleading for help that was leaked to the media and criticized by President Trump as demonstrating military weakness: (1) remove him from command immediately to ensure discipline or (2) first investigate the situation? Why? What are the ethics underlying his decision?

President Trump’s acting Navy secretary, in a profanity-laced reprimand delivered Monday, criticized sailors aboard the stricken aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt for cheering their captain, who was removed after he appealed for help as coronavirus spread throughout the warship.

The Navy’s top civilian, Thomas B. Modly, delivered his message over the ship’s loudspeaker system and deepened the raw us-versus-them atmosphere that had already engulfed the carrier. It also exposed the schism between a commander in chief with little regard for the military’s chain of command and the uniformed Navy that is sworn to follow him.

Like much in the Trump administration, what began as a seemingly straightforward challenge — the arrival of coronavirus onboard a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier — has now engulfed the military, leading to far-reaching questions of undue command influence and the demoralization of young men and women who promise to protect the country. At its heart, the crisis aboard the Theodore Roosevelt has become a window into what matters, and what does not, in an administration where remaining on the right side of a mercurial president is valued above all else.

The crew of the Roosevelt had already registered its discontent with the Trump administration’s decision to remove the commander, by cheering for Capt. Brett E. Crozier as he walked down the gangway last week and left the ship.

His letter to Navy officials pleading for help became public, prompting Mr. Modly to say he had lost confidence in Captain Crozier for both leadership failures and for going outside the chain of command with his critique.

Mr. Modly, Navy officials say, then was angered about what he viewed as a public rebuke from the crew, and flew 8,000 miles to Guam to vent his ire to the sailors himself, according to audio recordings of the address that members of the crew shared with The New York Times and other news organizations.

By airing his concerns in a letter through unclassified channels, Captain Crozier showed that he was either “too naïve or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this,” Mr. Modly told the crew, some of whom said later that they were stunned by the remarks. “I understand you love the guy. It’s good that you love him. But you’re not required to love him.”

He complained that Captain Crozier’s letter about coronavirus on the ship caused a political headache in Guam.

“Think about that when you cheer the man off the ship who exposed you to that,” Mr. Modly said, according to the recordings.

In an emailed statement late Monday, Mr. Modly apologized “for any confusion” his choice of words during his remarks to the Roosevelt crew may have caused. “I do not think Capt. Brett Crozier is naïve or stupid,” Mr. Modly said in the statement.

But his earlier remarks had echoed comments by the president, who on Saturday had lashed out at Captain Crozier as well.

On Monday, Mr. Trump again criticized Captain Crozier for writing the letter, saying it unwisely showed military weakness. But he also said he had heard good things about the carrier’s former commander.

“His career prior to that was very good,” Mr. Trump said. “So I’m going to get involved and see exactly what’s going on there because I don’t want to destroy somebody for having a bad day.”

In the close-knit world of the American military, the crisis aboard the Roosevelt — known widely as the “T.R.”— generated widespread criticism from men and women who are usually careful to steer clear of publicly rebuking their peers.

Mr. Modly’s decision to remove Captain Crozier without first conducting an investigation went contrary to the wishes of both the Navy’s top admiral, Michael M. Gilday, the chief of naval operations, and the military’s top officer, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I am appalled at the content of his address to the crew,” retired Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said in a telephone interview, referring to Mr. Modly.

Mr. Modly, Admiral Mullen said, “has become a vehicle for the president. He basically has completely undermined, throughout the T.R. situation, the uniformed leadership of the Navy and the military leadership in general.”

The Trump administration’s handling of the crisis aboard the Roosevelt reflects a growing divide between senior uniformed commanders and their civilian bosses.

“At its core, this is about an aircraft carrier skipper who sees an imminent threat and is forced to make a decision that risks his career in the act of what he believes to be the safety of the near 5,000 members of his crew,” said Sean O’Keefe, a former Navy secretary under President George Bush. “That is more than enough to justify the Navy leadership rendering the benefit of the doubt to the deployed commander.”

In the days after Captain Crozier’s letter for help was made public, Admiral Gilday, the Navy chief, argued that, per usual Navy procedures, an investigation into what went wrong on the Roosevelt should be allowed to play out. But Mr. Modly overruled him, saying Captain Crozier had cracked under pressure.

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said on Sunday that he supported Mr. Modly’s decision. General Milley, for his part, told Fox News, “I trust Secretary Modly in his judgment, and I am going to support him.”

Several current and former Navy and national security officials said the Roosevelt episode illustrated how civilian leaders in this administration made questionable decisions based on what they feared Mr. Trump’s response would be.

“Modly got involved in the day-to-day deliberations to a greater degree than Navy tradition and the chain of command would expect precisely because Modly was obsessed with how the story might be playing inside the White House,” said Peter D. Feaver, a political-science professor at Duke University who has studied military-civilian relations.

The Roosevelt issue is the second in just five months in which the views of Mr. Trump and his political appointees have precipitated a crisis in the uniformed Navy. Mr. Modly, a Naval Academy graduate and former helicopter pilot, would not be in his current acting position were it not for the last political imbroglio, which involved the firing of the previous Navy secretary, Richard V. Spencer, by Mr. Esper in November.

Mr. Spencer had publicly disagreed with Mr. Trump’s intervention in an extraordinary war crimes case involving a member of the Navy SEALs, Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, who was accused of murdering a wounded captive with a hunting knife during a deployment to Iraq in 2017.

Chief Gallagher had caught the president’s eye. Mr. Trump saw the commando as a victim of political correctness that he said hamstrings the warriors the nation asks to defend it.

When the Navy prosecuted Chief Gallagher, Mr. Trump intervened several times in his favor. When the chief’s court-martial ended in acquittal on most charges, Mr. Trump congratulated him and criticized the prosecutors. After the Navy demoted Chief Gallagher for the one relatively minor charge on which he was convicted, Mr. Trump reversed the demotion.

Finally, the commander of Naval Special Warfare, Rear Adm. Collin P. Green, started the formal process of taking away Chief Gallagher’s Trident pin, symbol of the Navy commandos, and expelling him from the SEALs. But Mr. Trump overruled the move — and Mr. Esper fired Mr. Spencer, who had supported the process of taking away Chief Gallagher’s Navy SEAL pin.

“The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter in November. “This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business!”

Coronavirus hit the Roosevelt as Mr. Trump was seeking to project a confident message of the United States getting through the pandemic with relative ease.

The acting Navy secretary “knew the president had sacked his predecessor when an internal matter of military discipline became the fodder for Fox News morning shows, and so was keen to manage — some would say, micromanage — the political optics,” Mr. Feaver said.

Mr. Modly arrived aboard the Roosevelt around 1 p.m. Monday with little warning. Eight bells signaled his arrival, and he quickly made his way to an area near one of the hangar bays, where he addressed thousands of the ship’s crew over the public address system.

Though some of the crew from the Roosevelt are quarantined in hotels in Guam, many were still aboard when Mr. Modly arrived.

When the network of small talk boxes wired across the cavernous network of passageways — common on a thousand-foot nuclear-powered aircraft carrier — clicked on, crew members craned their necks to listen. Someone important was talking.

“I’ve been wanting to come out to the ship since we first found out you had Covid cases on here,” Mr. Modly began. He talked about how China was responsible for the virus, and accused the Beijing government of worsening the crisis by failing to disclose how bad it was. And he went into his message, which alternated between criticizing Captain Crozier and admonishing the crew.

When his 15-minute speech was over, signing off with a tepid “Go Navy,” Mr. Modly had effectively drawn an invisible line between him and the more than 4,800 crew members of the Roosevelt, one crew member said. This sailor added that many of the crew thought Mr. Modly had called them stupid for putting so much faith in their commanding officer. After Mr. Modly’s speech, junior sailors approached the crew member, he said, looking to leave the service after their first enlistment.

Mr. Modly did not tour the ship, and practically no one, especially those in the lower ranks, even saw him. He was gone in less than 30 minutes.

Some crew members said they thought Mr. Modly’s tone derived from the questions submitted by the crew before his arrival. Even though the questions were screened for professionalism and appropriateness, crew members said, many of them centered on Captain Crozier’s firing.

In the end, the questions may not have mattered anyway. Mr. Modly did not answer a single one.