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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
A faux-wrap dress is a perfect piece for cold fall mornings when you’d rather spend a few extra minutes in bed than stand in front of your closet putting an outfit together. (I can’t be the only one who has been struggling with these dark mornings!)
This dress from Love By Design looks super flattering and has a neckline that doesn’t creep too low. I would add some simple jewelry and a leopard-print flat for an easy fall outfit.
The dress is $34.97 at Nordstrom Rack and comes in sizes XS–XL. It also comes in black, eggplant, and a confetti print.
For plus sizes, check out this Ava & Viv dress (1X–4X) at Target for $29.99 and this 24/7 Comfort Apparel dress (1X–3X) for $46.99.
P.S. Happy Diwali to those who celebrate! (Apologies for this belated message!)
This post contains affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. For more details see here. Thank you so much for your support!
Sales of note for 9.30.24
- Nordstrom – Beauty deals through September
- Ann Taylor – Extra 30% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles
- Eloquii – Extra 50% off sale
- J.Crew – 50% off select styles
- J.Crew Factory – Up to 60% off everything + 50% off sale with code
- Lo & Sons – Warehouse sale, up to 70% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Neiman Marcus – Friends & Family 25% off
- Rag & Bone – Friends & Family 25% off sitewide
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Fall Cyber Monday sale, 40% off sitewide and $5 shipping
- Target – Car-seat trade-in event through 9/28 — bring in an old car seat to get a 20% discount on other baby/toddler stuff.
- White House Black Market – 40% off select styles
Sales of note for 9.30.24
- Nordstrom – Beauty deals through September
- Ann Taylor – Extra 30% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles
- Eloquii – Extra 50% off sale
- J.Crew – 50% off select styles
- J.Crew Factory – Up to 60% off everything + 50% off sale with code
- Lo & Sons – Warehouse sale, up to 70% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Neiman Marcus – Friends & Family 25% off
- Rag & Bone – Friends & Family 25% off sitewide
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Fall Cyber Monday sale, 40% off sitewide and $5 shipping
- Target – Car-seat trade-in event through 9/28 — bring in an old car seat to get a 20% discount on other baby/toddler stuff.
- White House Black Market – 40% off select styles
And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!
Some of our latest threadjacks include:
- What to say to friends and family who threaten to not vote?
- What boots do you expect to wear this fall and winter?
- What beauty treatments do you do on a regular basis to look polished?
- Can I skip the annual family event my workplace holds, even if I'm a manager?
- What small steps can I take today to get myself a little more “together” and not feel so frazzled all of the time?
- The oldest daughter is America's social safety net — change my mind…
- What have you lost your taste for as you've aged?
- Tell me about your favorite adventure travels…
Ellen
Yay Elizabeth! Fruegel Friday’s! I love Fruegel Friday’s and this $35 Nordstrom Rack’s Faux Wrap Dress! Myrna thinks it looks alot like a bathrobe, but I disagee and will buy one once I settel in on the color that best fits me.
It’s also good that it’s a FAUX wrap dress b/c the manageing partner’s brother was over last nite looking for a glass of soy milk. He kept ooogeling me and wanted to see what was underneathe my bathrobe! With this faux wrap dress, he could not ever pull that stunt in the office when he starts visiting there again.
I am watching Myrna in the Marathon this Sunday, where I will be near the Ed Koch bridge when she comes back into Manahattan. Please Wish her luck! I am now and giving her more carbs so she’s fattened up by Sunday! YAY Myrna!!!
Clueless
First time homeowner here. I have gas heat and a gas range in my house which is 5 years old. No issues with either, but do I need to be having them inspected or anything? The internet has not been a big help as the answers are all over the place, and we’ve never lived in a place with gas before. All I know is to have carbon monoxide detectors. It’s almost time to turn the heat on here which got me thinking about it.
Anon
I have the gas furnace/boiler and water heater serviced bya plumber every other year. I think they should be serviced every year but I never remember to do that. Also if you have a gas fireplace get it serviced annually (in an ideal world).
Anon
In contrast, I’ve had a gas range for 15+ years and have never had it serviced (never occurred to me), but I do have out gas fireplace serviced annually.
Anon
I rent so I don’t worry about this but I can guarantee my parents have never had theirs serviced
Anonymous
if you are a renter, it’s unlikely your landlord is doing this unless they are really on the ball. – Landlord for 20 years who is not really on the ball
Curious
When I asked the guy who did our furnace about inspecting the range, he kinda laughed and said he could check if it was leaking if I wanted but it was probably fine. YMMV, but apparently they just confirm the hose is connected right.
Anonia
I usually get the furnace checked over by our plumber in the fall, just as a precaution, as ours is 40 years old (knock wood). I’ve read in older home owner books that that’s what should be done. We have carbon monoxide monitors as well. Make sure you change the batteries and test yearly. You should also have your dryer vent cleaned out regularly, but I am not as good about remembering that as I should be. ETA: The gas company sent the entire neighborhood letters last year about keeping snow and ice from building up around the meter, so watch for that as well.
Anon
My home warranty company provides a free annual inspection on my gas furnace.
Thistle
I grew up with a gas boiler, gas central heating and a gas fire and here (UK) you are recommended to get them serviced annually. Infact you need it done for the warranty to be valid. It also needs to be done by a registered Gas Safe engineer (the regulatory body).
Twice (once as a kid and once last year) the annual service turned up a previously unknown problem that was so serious they were condemned on the spot. Last year although the flue looked OK and was only 6 years old it had disconnected internally since its last service and I was told I was lucky the carbon monoxide hadn’t killed me. The CO monitors missed it and luckily the room was large with good ventilation. Its not worth the risk, gey an annual service.
anon
My gas range puts out a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide when baking. I have an Temtop particulate monitor that also has a carbon dioxide sensor. Really good to have that information to know to open a window if we’re feeling sleepy after using the oven.
Anon
Do you mean carbon monoxide?
pugsnbourbon
If this happened to me I would definitely get my oven serviced.
Cat
yeah or replace it — that is definitely NOT normal. You should not have to open a window to use your oven.
Anon
If you’re talking about CO, you need a new gas range
Agurk
Get it done. A family on my street died from CO poisoning from their gas stove. We had ours done and the glass plate was missing from our boiler so the flame was exposed to open air.
And check your CO monitors too.
Anon
You’re supposed to have your furnace maintained every year (clean, inspect, etc), but really it’s fine to do every few years. Otherwise just have CO detectors and you’re good.
Sunshine71
I would get it checked once if you are in a home that is new to you. We had a home inspection (no issues) but then smelled gas a few days after moving in. The gas company flagged the gas range and one of the gas fireplaces. We had them both fixed and no issues since. We don’t do annual inspections but this has made me a believer in definitely having them checked if you move into a new-to-you place.
Anonymous
By default, I have a lot of admin tasks for my kids soccer team. I’m not doing work travel still, so I can do this. Often, we can register as a group but for trips and playoffs, we need parents to sign up especially if travel is involved. We always need parent drivers. Most parents are good. One is . . . Not. A deadline has passed. Kid thinks she is going but parent never registered the kid. I have urged parent to register the kid late many times. Nothing. I can register the kid and for the kid’s sake this once (kid is a good kid, kid’s friend’s parent is driving and they will stay together, so it is just registration). How do I deal with the mom though? This can’t be a habit for me and the other parents are responsive.
Cat
sounds like Mom needs to learn the hard way, unfortunately for the kid. Since you are in communication with the kid, tell the kid that “remind your mom she needs to sign you up or you won’t be able to go!”
Anonymous
OP here. I hear you. The kids are slightly too young to have phones or be able to register them ages, which is really sad. I won’t see the kid again until the trip departure where I worry that the mom may just drop her and run with her bag before we figure out if the kid got signed up. Because of COVID, only players and one parent can be on site so we can’t have her on a trip without violating a lot of youth safety rules. It is just such a mess — makes me miss work travel! And yet there must be groups where they deal with worse regularly (maybe the grownups do all the work). I know this mom doesn’t work, so I have no idea what the problem is (and it isn’t money). She is just described as “really unorganized.” I have never seen this in a grownup before. Oh, my blood is boiling and no caffeine yet today.
Anonymous
Can you call her on the phone and say “Kathy, you haven’t register kiddo. As of now, they cannot go on the trip. We will not allow them to travel without being registered.”
And then you need to be prepared to enforce that.
Anonymous
You know I did that after getting no reply to my texts. That call went to voicemail.
I made up a story for my own sanity since my original post. Katie is a closet drinker / undergoing chemo / in jail / somehow unable to adult and that isn’t her kid’s fault. Her kid probably has a very hard life. I am going to bite my tongue and just register her kid later today and Katie’s kid will just be what we deal with as a group because we can’t really fix the problem but can stand up for the kid. There may always be Katies in the world but the other grownups don’t take advantage and I don’t think that it will mushroom (but will be something to plan around).
Anon
This exactly. If she “just drops her and runs,” you put the kid in the car and drive her back to her house, explaining that the entire team can be disqualified if she goes because she’s not registered.
Anon
Do it once, you’ll be doing it forever. Mom needs to learn the hard way. Don’t open that door.
Anonymous
You can’t do it just once. If you do it this time you’ll be doing it forever.
Anon
Make it public! I had something similar and I finally started cc’ing everyone on updates like: kids are registered: xyz; kids who are not registered: abc. And then another email: final reminder – the following kids are not registered, if you don’t register by this date they will not be included. Make it so everyone on the team sees the work you’re doing and knows how many updates the parent missed.
I also wouldn’t be above a reminder on one email like I’m doing this coordination as a favor to coach, I am not affiliated with the team and have my own full time job! Please help make this run as smoothly as possible by being as responsive as possible!
Anonymous
Agreed with all of this.
Anonymous Canadian
I agree that if you do it once you “might” end up doing it more (if you were inclined to keep doing it more). I might be the voice of dissent here but if it’s no big deal for you l I’d just do it. Varying levels of parental commitment is one of the few downsides of team sports. YOUR kid needs the other kids to go or she doesn’t have a team. There are always going to be parents who are kind of checked-out or have other stuff in the background you don’t know about or, frankly, are “users”.
As a long-time team admin/manager I am here to tell you that there will always be that parent, and they will become more numerous as the years pass. At the end of our kids’ highly competitive youth team-sports careers there were about 3-4 families we could count on to drive/show up/sign up. We often took two of our family SUVs full of players to tournaments. I watched it happen with other age groups and in one case there was a single family who eked out two extra seasons for a team just by sheer force of will.
In the moment it drove me crazy. I have tried every single version of the cajoling/threatening/pleading/warning email/conversation and while occasionally you’d get some response, none of them ever worked magic.
Now that it’s over, and it happened WAY faster than I bargained for, I don’t regret a SINGLE minute of it. I had capacity and willingness to keep it together. My kids and the others benefitted. I got to know some amazing young people and do something good for them. When they were headed off to university recently, several of them came to say goodbye to us as “special people” and to thank us for what we did for them and their teams, which was very, very sweet. I’m so sad it’s over but it’s amazing to watch them off living their lives.
This is not to say that you should necessarily do it my way, but just to offer the perspective that if you do, you might not regret it (in the end, after many wine-fuelled hotel room rants with like-minded dialed-in team mom friends).
anon
This has a lot of wisdom in it, I think. You know, in hindsight, my mom was the person who was keeping it together for several families involved in mutual activities. She was really doing it for the kids’ benefit because while their parents were very kind people, they were also really flaky and disorganized. It had nothing to do with SAHM status or money. Is it right? No, of course not. Today, people would scream BOUNDARIES. But I will tell you that her kindness did not go unnoticed.
anon
I would register the kid. It sucks that mom is a flake, but mom is not going to “learn a lesson” when the team leaves and the kid is crushed. The kid will likely have many more opportunities to learn her mom is a flake, if she hasn’t already. Teach her that there are some adults who can actually adult, and she’s not alone.
Anon
I’m here too. If you can, just do it, and think of all the unearned kindness you’ve been given as well.
roxie
this is a really lovely framing, thank you.
Laura
This is also what I think. Not everyone in the world is perfectly conscientious and competent (plus conscientious and competent people have bad days/weeks/years). If you are good at this stuff, you probably will end up doing a lot more of your fair share of it. That is just how it goes in life, and accepting it/being grateful that your superior administration skills give you the opportunity to expand your life in this way is likely a more helpful internal narrative than the alternatives.
Obviously there are limits!! You could use that narrative to justify being a total doormat and doing everyone’s admin tasks forever. You’ve got to preserve reasonable boundaries around yourself that protect your fundamental wellbeing. But in situations where it’s more about the principle of the thing rather than the fact that the task is especially onerous, I think just do it.
Anon
When a parent registers a kid, there are usually waivers of liability, releases, etc. to be signed by the parent. I would not take on the responsibility (and potential liability if things went wrong) of signing these on behalf of someone else’s kid, and you probably have no authority to do so. If you are even considering signing up the kid, consider what risks you may incur in doing so.
Cat
+1
I also agree with the public email (bcc everyone though, no cc’s) of who is or isn’t registered.
Anon
Do not register the kid. There’s a chance the mom doesn’t want the kid to go. You can’t take this on yourself.
Anon
If mom doesn’t want the kid to go, the kid’s not going to go regardless of if she’s registered.
DeepSouth
As the kid of the mom who always forgot, please register the kid. My mom struggled with depression, I was the the last kid in a big family, and I was always the one left behind because she forgot.
Be nice to the kid. Also, life is hard. It’s good to throw the mom a bone. Maybe your drinking/has canceled/caring for an aging parent is real.
Anon
We all like to think we would never be this mom (and that’s probably true), but life is long and often hard. It can really throw you for a loop. In the past year, I’ve lost two family members, had a beloved parent diagnosed with terminal cancer, suffered three miscarriages, and dealt with additional health challenges. No other parent on any of my daughter’s sports teams has any clue.
anonshmanon
I am so sorry. Hugs.
Lillian Jane Steele
I am so sorry. As a retired educator I care and have been in your shoes. Get some rest and some therapy. Pastoral Counselors care and so do I.
Rox
Ask the Dad?
Anonymous
+1 why the mom? If the other parent is around, it’s a big assumption that the mom can/should do all this herself.
H13
Has anyone bought from Pact? Curious about the quality. They have lots of things I like but I am short and can’t tell proportions well on the site.
Anonymous
I bought a casual sweatshirt based on a rec from someone here. Quality is good. I’d check measurements – all was fine for me but it’s also a sweatshirt.
S
I’ve found it hit or miss — love their socks, hate their leggings. Quality is good though so worth a try.
Anon
I got a t shirt as a gift last year and its good quality.
Anon
I regularly buy underwear/socks/tank tops from them and really like them. The one time I ordered leggings, in the size I usually wear in other brands, I took them out of the package, looked at them and went “are you kidding me? I can’t even get these on they’re so small!”
Anonymous
Has anyone seriously upped their cooking game? I’m an enthusiastic but not particularly talented home cook. I’d love to up my game and make seriously high end food my friends and family. Cooking classes? Something online?
Anon
I did over COVID. I just read a lot of recipes online and in cookbooks, watched some tutorials as how, and then just cooked as much as possible. A lot of it is trial by error and learning by doing.
Anon
My tips, get a Dutch oven and cook things longer than any recipe says you need to.
aBr
For technique, nothing beats an in person cooking class where you get real time feedback about what say, medium high heat really means, and also making sure you have all the tools to execute on what you are trying to do (e.g., everyone loves a vitamix for a reason). On flavors, I would try a lot of different cookbooks, rather than just online recipes. Houstonian here so I’ll give a plug for Chris Shepherd’s “Cook Like a Local” cookbook which is a great and approachable cookbook for experimenting with more flavors. I will say, from experience, most celebrity chef cookbooks assume that you are using a convection oven (without saying so), so there is a bit of trial and error as you learn.
anon
I have over the years by cooking a lot of recipes from a lot of different sources and also watching A LOT of cooking shows. The competition ones with weird ingredients and challenges have taught me the most about how to use ingredients together and how to fix issues on the fly.
anon
Also, get thee a copy of Salt Fat Acid Heat and watch the Netflix show!
Curious
Yes! Changed my cooking game so much! I’m still a home cook – not fancy food – but it tastes so good now!
Anon
Watch (record/watch later) America’s Test Kitchen on PBS. So educational. I’ve watched, then shopped for ingredients, then watched again as I was making it. Started watching Milk-street and Cook’s Country too. All have the same kind of good food through thorough testing vibe.
AIMS
I learned to cook mostly watching Martha, Ina, and (on PBS) Lydia Bastianich. ATK is good as are their books but sometimes in their quest for “best” they have a few too many steps for me. Martha Stewart has a “cooking school” type show that handles specific types of recipes/techniques. I bet you could find all the episodes archived somewhere.
lime
I think the America’s Test Kitchen people also produce the Cooks Illustrated cookbook series. I love those because they explain with each recipe what techniques they tried and failed with and why they recommend each step that they do. Ex. when making mac and cheese, why using these cheeses will give you a smooth sauce and why these cheeses will make it gritty, why you don’t use pre-shredded cheese, why you cook the pasta a certain way and use a certain shape, etc. That level of detail for me helps me become a better cook – understanding the WHY of cooking and not just following any random recipe.
Fallen
I would agree with everyone on practice and cooking classes and salt acid fat heat. I also learn a lot by cooking with others (husband, family, friends) and I learned a lot from
Meal kits.
Fallen
I would agree with everyone on practice and cooking classes and salt acid fat heat. I also learn a lot by cooking with others (husband, family, friends) and I learned a lot from
Meal kits.
Anan
Highly recommend a knife skills class.
Curious
+1. Hugely helpful.
Anon
I grew up in a home where my mom cooked and my dad didn’t know how the stove worked. My mom didn’t enjoy cooking and served the same 5-7 dishes on rotation. Some were good, some were ok, some were pretty bad. I just thought that’s how it was.
When I was in my 20s I leaned into learning how to cook well. It was near the beginning of the “foodie” thing and I realized home cooking could be more than OK. I didn’t have a ton of money but I started buying better ingredients and growing my own herbs. I also bought a spice grinder and whole spices and ground my own on demand.
I watched a lot of TV cooking shows on PBS in the days before there was an entire cooking channel. I learned the most from Jacques Pepin, and also from some Julia Child mostly re-runs.
At some point my ex husband moved out at took every last thing in the house (wish I was kidding) so I took that as an opportunity to re-fit my kitchen. My friend’s husband is a professional cook (some people would say chef but do you notice how actual chefs never want to use that word?) so I asked him what to get, and he said All Clad cookware and Henckels knives, so I went to Sur La Tab and charged up my credit card. That was 23 years ago and I’m still using all of it. I’ve also developed a Le Creuset habit in the interim.
Now and then I get into cooking a new cuisine. I’ve most recently started cooking Indian food – fortunately there’s an Indian spice shop in my city – and when I do something like that, it really refreshes my skills.
I don’t eat much frozen food. I almost never freeze food I’ve made for later. I don’t do batch cooking. I still grow my own herbs and grind many (but not all, that was a bit extreme) spices on demand. But the big thing is, I just enjoy it. Pre-pandemic, my work schedule had me traveling 25-75% depending on the month. I’ve eaten a lot of restaurant food. Most of the time I prefer my own cooking.
Another anon
I know several chefs and every single one of them refers to themselves as “chef.”
Anon
+1. They also refer to their colleagues as “chef.”
Anon
Go to the library! Mine has thousands of cookbooks. Browse the shelves and you’ll probably find a few that look inspiring.
Anonymous
Vegetarian here: I bought the Greens Restaurant cookbooks and just made my way through them.
Anon
My friend from high school had a food network show where she shows basic techniques with slightly elevated recipes. The book is called Keys to the Kitchen. Friend is Aida Mollenkamp. Highly recommend, and not just cuz we played sportsball together 20 years ago–it’s a great book.
Separately, she now runs a droolworthy travel/food company that goes on luxe trips to Mexico City, Italy and more. Her recipes and blog content are great. It’s called salt and wind.
Link in reply to avoid Mod.
Another suggestion – Milk Street (Christopher Kimball who formerly hosted America’s Test Kitchen) has its own series of basic classes (in-person in Boston) and online. The classes are excellent and much of Milk Street’s food has a fun international flair (but not crazy). I really enjoy my Milk Street membership.
PLB
This is gorgeous.
Anon
+1
Anonymous
I agree. It’s a dupe of Kate Middleton’s engagement dress, which I looked for the time and couldn’t find.
Anon
Are you ready for some crazy? I don’t think I feel even a tiny bit bad about this, but tell me if I’m wrong…
My MIL is queen of passive aggressive bs. She and DH have some complicated patterns where she’s a single mom martyr and DH is the hero who swoops in to save the day either by ignoring his own needs or doing backflips to make her feel better. He’s been in therapy because he doesn’t want her to be able to twist our kids into the same emotional pretzels (and we saw it starting with our 7 year old, major guilt trips about not calling enough and wanting to go to a friends birthday party while MIL was visiting).
Welllll we’re wrapping up a week long visit and Saturday truly can’t come fast enough. This morning, MIL surprised our kids (and us) with a pet bearded dragon. We have 3 kids, 2 dogs, 2 finance jobs that require some travel, and do not want another pet. DH acted very excited but was immediately like Wow! It’ll be so fun for you to have a pet to visit and Grandmas! And he’ll keep Grandma company when we’re not here! And MIL is all pissed that we’re not taking it home. Who does this!!
Anon
That’s so great. I bet the poor bearded dragon gets returned to the pet store though.
Anon
That’s probably the best outcome, but I would worry the bearded dragon will get let go in MIL’s backyard.
Anon
That is insane. Love your husband’s response though.
Elegant Giraffe
hah. how awful.
Anon
That is amazing, quick thinking and great response from DH!
My MIL was a similar piece of work. So manipulative and spiteful that we’re still dealing with problems she caused, and it’s been over a decade since her death (literal practical problems, I mean, not emotional baggage).
anon
Your DH gets a gold star. That’s how it’s done. Who foists a pet upon a family without asking?!
Anon
That’s craaaaay. Good on your husband though!
Anonymous Canadian
OH MY GOD. Way to go, Dad, though.
lime
*claps*
Anon
Your husband’s response is gold and his therapist is a genius for being able to not just break him of those patterns, but get him reset so well that he can respond like that.
Telco Lady JD
If this isn’t a perfect example of why therapy is great, I don’t know what is. Good job to your hubs. Also, I really wish I could have been a fly on the wall to watch this go down.
No Face
MY IN LAWS DID THIS WITH A CAT! And my girls have played with that cat at my in laws house for years now.
Anon.
I have made it crystal clear to both my parents and my in-laws that any live animal pets received as gifts will be living at the home of the gifter. It is ridiculous that I have to say this policy out loud, and yet…..
pugsnbourbon
Props to your husband. Hope your MIL isn’t squeamish about live crickets and mealworms!
Senior Attorney
Your husband is my hero!! Hooray!!
Anon
Best response ever! My MOM brought over a couple gold fishes for the kids… after a few years and absolutely no interest from the kids, I euthanized them. She also brought over
Horse Crazy
Yeah, probably better that your comment cut off in the middle before you could tell us what happened to the other poor animal she brought…yikes.
Anon
Lollll. I also don’t know how you euthanize a gold fish. I suspect it just got flushed down the toilet.
Anon
Has anyone tried at at home laser hair removal device? I’m tempted to get myself one, but would love to hear some reviews. I have brown hair and light skin (especially in the winter), so should be a good candidate for it.
Anon
I’ve never done an at home one but I got a Groupon and a membership package to a laser hair removal spa. It’s amazing!! Highly recommend but I’d be very cautious of doing it at home. If you get a good package it’s not that expensive and I feel like a home version may just be a waste of money in the end. But I’m curious to see if anyone else has had a good experience with it.
Nonny
What is a good package and price on Groupon for a laser hair removal spa? Thanks!!
anon
I did. dark sparse hair, light skin (east asian). you have to do it a LOT – it seemed to reduce my hair a bit but I could not keep up with the regimen (I think weekly for a while, then every two, then monthly, etc) so I can’t speak to long term success, however it wasn’t terribly painful (probably because it’s not professional grade strength). FWIW, it now sits in its box in the back of my closet gathering dust, while I (very recently) shelled out for professional laser removal. I have not looked back after the first session (total of 4, most people do 6). Honestly I wish I did it years ago instead of trying alternatives.
anonmi
I did the Braun IPL Pro 5. Overall, it’s very good. I only did underarms and bikini line because my legs are a mix of dark and blonde hair and I figured it wouldn’t be worth the effort. Results were very good on underarms and mixed on bikini line. Turns out I have some blonde hairs that I never really noticed, so I need to keep shaving those. I really like my underarms are now smooth and don’t have a ton of red bumps and ingrown hairs.
If you have light skin and dark hair, it’s worth a try. With darker skin, or blonde, red, or gray hair, don’t bother.
anon
It reduces but doesn’t completely remove to where you don’t have to shave again. My underarms are sparse now, but I still need to shave. And the bikini area is still… lush. Otoh I had my legs done at a med spa and I haven’t had to shave my legs in years. If you can fit the appointments into your schedule I would recommend going that route since it’s way more effective in my experience.
Anonymous
Nonsense like this is going to get us a Republican President
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/us/california-math-curriculum-guidelines.html
Elegant Giraffe
Which parts do you disagree with? Or perhaps, which parts do you think will lead to a Republican president? An a K-12 ed administrator, here are my thoughts:
1) Teaching is a political act. There is no way around that. Math should never (or very rarely) be taught in isolation. Teaching anything in isolation – like sentence structure or individual events in history or whatever – perpetuates a cycle of disenfranchising children of color. You don’t level the playing field by teaching discrete skills (2+2 = 4) to children of color and calling it done – you have to teach in context, with a knowledge base.
2) By and large, kids can do whatever is expected of them, including higher math. It would be silly to suddenly dump children in a calculus class if they haven’t been prepared for it. But if a school system teaches rigorous math content beginning in early elementary, there’s no reason the vast majority of their high schoolers can’t be successful in higher level math courses junior and senior year. There is plenty of evidence for this.
Anonymous
The problem is that California isn’t planning to teach rigorous math content to all students beginning in early elementary, which is what should happen because most kids are capable of achieving much more in math than they do given the lousy way it’s currently taught. It’s that California is planning to do the opposite and dumb down the curriculum, which hurts all kids.
Anonymous
It holds kids back who are ready to do hard things. It pretends all children are equally capable of everything which we all know is not true. It deemphasizes the hard good math we should be striving to get more kids too. And it introduces a political element for no reason.
If you can’t see that this will be hated, you’re living in an opaque bubble.
Elegant Giraffe
The vast majority of children are equally capable of doing really hard things with the right supports.
Anonymous
Which is why the CA plan is bad.
Anonymous
And CA is not planning to provide those supports. That’s what’s wrong with the plan.
Anon
That is just not true. There are definitely problems with gifted identification in the US and I’m aware there are implicit biases in play that favor kids who are less capable than other kids but have more parental support at home. But regardless of these issues, there is a large spectrum of intelligence/ability and children at the bottom of the bell curve and children at the top of the bell curve have very different needs. A child with an IQ of 100 simply cannot do math at the same level as a child with an IQ of 130 and to suggest they’re equally capable of advanced math is absurd.
Anon
That’s absurd, no they’re not.
Anon
And it’s a LOT harder to get the right supports in higher ed than in K12, so it’s a terrible idea to delay access to important pre-reqs like calc to the post-K12 curriculum.
Anonymous
Capable, but maybe not equally capable. And the right supports vary by child.
Anon
My impression is that K12 education in the US is generally just not all that rigorous. So I guess the vast majority of children are equally capable of getting As in school with the right supports (though that’s not what we see happening, so are we saying the supports are that inadequate?). But they’re often not actually doing really hard things; the curriculum is designed to be “good enough” so that most kids will keep up without investing in more supports.
If each child were actually working to their ability, the individual differences would be vast. This is easy to witness in schools and educational settings that don’t age segregate and just let each child advance when they’re ready; they’re all over the place and can often go much farther–or take a lot more time to learn something, either way. It’s also easy to witness when parents hire private tutors (since individual instruction is just better for many children than classroom instruction), and as a result, their kids go much farther.
Anonymous
Anon @10:42, bingo. In our school district, the default expectation is that every kid gets an A in every subject. Single-digit multiplication isn’t introduced until third grade, and long division and fractions aren’t taught until fifth grade. 80% of the eight-grade class is inducted into the honor society. Tenth-grade “honors” English consists of sitting in the classroom reading independently for fun, with no essays or class discussions. As a result, the kids are woefully unprepared when they hit AP and IB courses in high school. The district’s response is to cut back on AP and IB course offerings instead of trying to prepare the kids in the lower grades.
Elegant Giraffe
I entirely agree that the public school system in the US is not rigorous, on average. And yes, I would says even the supports in place for a non-rigorous curriculum aren’t good. It’s a shame. But there are school systems across the US (and I am sure, across the world – though I’m not well versed) putting really rigorous content in front of (nearly) all kids and (nearly) all kids showing they can be successful.
The Opportunity Myth and The Knowledge Gap are good starting points, if you’re interested.
Anon
“My impression is that K12 education in the US is generally just not all that rigorous. So I guess the vast majority of children are equally capable of getting As in school with the right supports”
This is false. K-12 education here is not *as* rigorous as many other countries, but it is still rigorous enough that the lower half of the class cannot be getting As in classes that are appropriate for the top students. You are right that the “generic” high school classes are often aimed at the lower-middle part of the bell curve, but that’s why accelerated options like calculus are so important for the more advanced students.
Anon
I used to be an exceedingly well-paid private math tutor (think, almost $100/hour). I could get most of my students to get As, even if they were starting from Cs; however, some of them, no matter how hard they worked and how diligent they were, could only ever scrape by. The curriculum simply moved too fast for them; they would take so long to begin to grasp a concept that juuuust as they could start to do it, it was on to the next concept. If you slow things down to accommodate them, you would bore the talented students and screw them over if they want to study engineering or hard sciences in college.
Anon
As a parent, I can confirm that I have spent stupid money on math tutors over the past two years. The tutors can actually do what the classroom teacher can’t due to having so many kids in a class and kids being a hot mess especially lately all around. It is $ well spent. I’d love to send my kids to a private school nearby with a much better ratio in the classroom and more well-prepared kids, but the budget now only supports math tutoring. Oddly, my kids are fine in all other subjects (which are basically just some variant on reading). You can’t bluff in math.
txblue
My rural TX education was more rigorous than what a lot of you are describing, including lots of in-class essays in honors and AP English for grades (including failing grades) and lots of pop quizzes in all of math classes. maybe all y’all need to move to rural north-east Texas dairy country?
Anonymous
txblue, I got a more rigorous education in Title 1 schools in Los Angeles County than I did after my family moved to a fancy suburb of San Diego. It’s not just about resources, it’s also about curriculum.
Anon
It’s also cultural. Some schools will back teachers to the hilt when the best grade they give out on an essay is an A-. Others will let parents complain about grades or override assignments into advanced classes. While it may temporarily benefit one student, the entire experience gets devalued quite quickly, with advanced classes being mostly made up of students who should be one level down, teachers unable to get students to complete homework let alone understand what outstanding work really is, etc.
Anonymous
CA plans to “de-emphasize” calculus and to try to convince colleges not to look for students to have taken calc before they arrive on campus. For college-bound students who will study STEM or the quantitative social sciences, this is absolutely insane. These kids will all start out college behind. CA’s public universities already struggle to graduate kids in four years. If you add on a year of calculus at the beginning, it’s going to be six years instead of five.
The idea of replacing calculus with statistics and “data science” is interesting, but these subjects would need to be taught well and targeted at the right audience. What will probably happen is that they teach these kids just enough to be dangerous. Oh, and by the way, much of what is called “data science” requires an understanding of calculus.
Anonymous
And it’s not a new concept that kids who can’t handle calculus often get tracked into probability and statistics or simply lower level math. You don’t need to deemphasize calculus to provide options.
Anon
I was tracked into AP statistics instead of calculus and it was great for me because I was able to be successful at stats instead of struggling in higher-level math and feeling like a failure. Plus it was much better preparation for what I studied in college (social sciences).
Anonymous
I am a social scientist, and I absolutely needed calculus. The kids who entered the program without a strong background in calculus really struggled and never caught up.
Anon
And I should add, that maybe not taking calculus affected my college admissions but I have to think it was better to have straight As and a 5 on the AP Stats exam than a B or B minus in calculus and probably no more than a 3 on the AP calc exam. I got into a range of top 25 colleges, FWIW.
Anonymous
I am not familiar with the AP stats curriculum, but IME college stats is no easier than calc. The kids in my program who had a hard time with calc also had trouble with stats.
Anonymous
I’m also a social scientist and I have never once needed calculus. It probably would’ve helped in my stats courses in grad school, but I graduated with a high GPA anyway.
Anon
I’m the stats commenter above, and I would be surprised if you knew which of your students have had calculus and which haven’t. I never discussed that with any of my professors – and I did extremely well in my program (graduated summa cum laude with a quantitatively focused honors thesis, and was a finalist for a Rhodes scholarship).
Anonymous
I have a master’s degree in an applied quantitative social science. It was a small program. Everyone knew who’d taken calculus before and who hadn’t, who was struggling in which courses, and who set the curves on all the exams.
Anon
Yeah I agree math (and all subjects) are inherently political and there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that. But dumbing down the curriculum and removing calculus from the curriculum will really hurt the top 20% or so. I went to MIT, I’m pretty sure there literally wasn’t a person in my freshman class who hadn’t taken AP or college calculus in high school, so this forces bright kids to either not live up to their potential in terms of college admissions or (more likely) to go outside the school system for calculus, which seems counterproductive to the stated goal because access to college classes outside the school system depends heavily on privilege. It’s much easier to take college classes if you have affluent, educated parents who can enroll you in those classes and arrange transportation for you (e.g., giving a 16+ year old a car, arranging for a 15 year old to be chauffeured etc.). It seems like this plan is really going to leave bright kids who don’t have a lot of parental support behind.
Elegant Giraffe
What I would add to the conversation is the way that college admissions is changing. Many schools are going test optional in the next several years. Many schools are more heavily weighing GPA or course selection (so if calculus were removed, that would be harmful to kiddos). This is far from being a widespread reality, but there is more and more conversation about completely blind, lottery-based college admissions. More and more, our own college experience (which was swathed in white supremacy) is irrelevant.
And the system already leaves behind bright kids without parental support.
Anonymous
Wow you really think our outstanding colleges and universities should just take whoever wins a lottery regardless of skill or capability? I’ll vote Republican if I need to in order to prevent that.
Anon
If most colleges go to lottery-based admissions, degrees from the colleges that don’t do this will immediately become more desirable to employers.
At some point, ability to succeed in a merit-based system matters, and it will always matter, even if people become more aware that those systems are not entirely fair.
Anon
Admissions is not really changing much at the elite schools. There’s absolutely still an expectation at MIT that students have taken calculus by senior year barring exceptional circumstances (I interview for admissions). If you think wealthy, white parents won’t pull their bright kids out of high school math and put them into college calculus so they’re better prepared to get into the elite private colleges, you’re kidding yourself. It just seems like this plan will widen the gap and disadvantage the bright kids without parental support even more. I’m not suggesting they aren’t disadvantaged now, but I don’t know how this fixes anything and it seems to me like it will make the problem worse. I also think this will make those who can afford it flee the public schools for private schools in droves, which will reduce the quality of the public school system and hurt all public school kids regardless of where they fall on the ability spectrum.
Anonymous
Lottery based college admissions? That is the definition of insanity. Here you go future doctor, your number was not drawn, so be happy be an HVAC repair person?
Elegant Giraffe
Anon @ 10:31, understood that admissions at top tier schools isn’t changing right now. I would bet that it will change, almost certainly in favor of more equitable systems, in the next 15 years. I take your point that anything that leads to high SES kids leaving the public school system is harmful to other children
Elegant Giraffe
Anon @ 10:27, that’s not my stated belief. But it’s a real conversation now, and it wasn’t 10 years ago.
Anon
Elegant Giraffe, there is no way the Ivies and other top tier private schools are ever going to go to anything resembling lottery-based or merit-blind admissions. These schools depend heavily on alumni donations and alumni would riot at anything like that, because it would completely devalue their degree. I work for a public institution and even we care a lot about not p1ssing off our alumni. Harvard/Yale/Stanford/MIT care far far more than we do about keeping their alumni happy.
Anon
Are we sure that many colleges aren’t already doing lottery-ish admissions? Some schools are so huge and applications are such a volume that they probably throw out many applications below a certain cut-off, do some heavy screening of the others, and then it’s a crap-shoot (i.e., lottery) of who is left after the culling. I can’t imagine that people in huge university systems are giving any application a serious and thoughtful read and review and discussion with peers. Sure, maybe that happens at Bucknell or Colby, but I can’t imagine that it happens at super-huge state U campuses. Maybe they spend 5 minutes per application once they have really narrowed the pool, but I can’t imagine that you get much more than that for what is at best a seasonal job.
Anonymous
Elegant Giraffe, a lottery is equal but definitely not equitable.
Anon
My understanding of lottery-based admissions is a bit different. Let’s start by talking about how some universities (my alma mater is one) do admissions, with example numbers to make it easy:
Let’s say 20,000 kids apply for 1,000 slots and there is 50% yield. School needs to admit 2,000 kids. Admissions goes through all 20,000 students and does an assessment of who they believe is capable of doing the work. Those who are not are culled. Then they determine who is “recommended for admission,” meaning they have the grades, test scores, and extracurriculars usually associated with admission. At that point, it might be, say, 12,000 students.
A lottery system would simply admit one out of every six of those applicants, rather than having the admissions committee sift through the entire pile and figure out who is more worthy, articulate, diverse, or accomplished than the others.
Problematically, a lottery system won’t ever really work because you could wind up with 50 shortstops for the baseball team, zero swimmers, one orchestra member, and 500 people who want to study French. You’ll have to break it down by intended area of study and somehow figure out how to admit athletes, a capella kids, etc. Also, your admissions pool will reflect your applicant pool, which may be overall LESS diverse than the group normally accepted.
Elegant Giraffe
I don’t particularly like the lottery idea – I’m just saying, it’s becoming a very different game.
Anon
Is math seriously inherently political? I remember it being one subject where it felt actually like a level playing field because there was a right answer and a wrong answer. I loved the satisfaction of doing proofs and putting a box around my correct answer.
It seems like such a weird subject to be focused on – literature / history seem like they’re so much more subjective and have the opportunity for bias to really be introduced. I would actually argue that it’s *completely inappropriate* to introduce issues like immigration or diversity in math word problems if you’re not going to actually spend time unpacking those issues, which… seems like it isn’t the point of math class.
Anon
+1 at the top private college I went to there are a greater percentage of Black and Hispanic admits than applicants. You can debate about whether it’s affirmative action or whether minority applicants have self-selected to be more qualified on average. I suspect some of both (we all know that mediocre white guy who thinks he’s a genius), but either way a lottery system would actually reduce the number of under-represented minority admits .
Seventh Sister
As a CA parent, I think that public schools here don’t actually care whether kids are prepared to go to non-CA and/or non-public universities. This isn’t actually that uncommon – in most states, most students who go to college go to the local state u, but it’s frustrating because you DO have kids that want to consider other options (and not just rich white kids).
Anon
I have a STEM job (compsci/it) and did well in calculus in high school, but in reality it’s just not very relevant to my career. I think I organically used calculus once in one grad school homework problem and that was it. Their proposed curriculum change sounds terrible from the article, but I actually don’t think it’s that important to talk calc in high school. A lot of kids had to take calc 1 and 2 anyway in college because they didn’t get a 4 or 5 on the AP test.
I can kind of see their point, in that if you didn’t grow up a certain way or take the right classes you’re not very likely to pursue STEM degrees. You could succeed in them if you don’t take calc in high school. I think the answer is to focus on change in lower grades though, not whatever this is they’re pushing.
Anonymous
Dumbing down the math curriculum doesn’t help average students maximize their potential, and it turns gifted kids off to math. I hated math until I got to calculus because it was all rote repetition and incredibly slow-paced. In calculus the teachers started deriving the properties, formulas, and algorithms, and suddenly math got interesting. If we taught all kids math that way from the very beginning, with different options as to pace based on individual needs, it would serve all students better.
Anonymous
Our red county in VA takes this approach–dumb down math into a single slow-paced track, hold back anyone who needs a faster pace, and then suddenly throw some of the kids into calculus in 11th grade with inadequate preparation. It does not work well for any of the kids, gifted or not. I’m not sure whether to blame the county or the state curriculum standards, which are fittingly called the SOLs.
Anonymous
Anything that limits options for high achievers is a nonstarter to me, but I’m all for getting rid of calculus in favor of data science or other more practical options if students want. We do need to stop pretending that every student is going to use calculus one day. Some students would benefit far more from a financial literacy course, a data science course, a programming course, or practical math for construction management, etc.
Anonymous
As someone whose work falls under the definition of data science, I find the idea of data science as a lower-level “math” option frightening. Right now “data science” courses are churning out a bunch of plug-and-chuggers who have no clue what they are actually doing, which can have terrible consequences for the people whose data they are using.
Anon
This.
Agurk
Could not agree more.
Anonymous
So? You need the pluggers-and-chuggers in jobs too. At my job, we have a lot of entry-level programmers who can write great code and they work closely with the stats PhDs who help them interpret the results. Not everyone needs to do all things – as long as you get someone who works to improve, you can always make things work.
Anonymous
Writing great code is not the same as plug and chug. Plug and chug is doing analysis without understanding what you’re doing, the assumptions of the model, etc.
Anon
I am literally an actuary and I never used calculus. I haven’t used it in my 15 year career, although I took 4 semesters and actuarial exams featuring calculus. The vast majority of actuaries don’t use calculus for work, even though it’s one of the “mathiest” jobs out there. Physicists, some engineers, quant people? I guess they might use it more in an applied setting.
Anonymous
I am an applied social science researcher. I don’t do calculus by hand, but my computer does it for me and I need to understand what it’s doing when it estimates models.
Anon
I didn’t use calculus as an engineer, but I needed it to understand the concepts that were taught in other courses.
Anon
Another actuary here (high five) and I also don’t use calculus.
Regarding the data science discussion above, I have worked with a ton of data scientists who are “plug and chug” with no real understating of their models, sometimes with disastrous results, despite their PhDs, so the presence or absence of high school calculus isn’t going to solve that problem.
Anon
Definitely there are PhD programs that pass students who have no idea how the models they rely on work (if I take their word for it anyway). This isn’t a good thing either though.
Anon
I commented above that I wasn’t a great math student and was tracked into AP stats. Stats “worked” with my brain in a way that other math hadn’t – I was super successful at it and it was very, very useful for my college major (social sciences with a quantitative focus) and also my literacy as a citizen given how relevant stats are to our public conversations about so many issues.
Anon
What is data science, anyway? Is it data? Is it science? Is it just using excel? I have no idea. So really not sure I favor putting my kids in that vs actual math (for me, more geometry or symbolic logic would be good, just as working a different math muscle than crunching numbers by hand).
Anonymous
There is no clear and commonly agreed-upon definition of data science, which is a problem. From my perspective, data science consists of two things: data prep/management/wrangling and data analysis. The management and preparation of data sets requires understanding of data structures and computer programming. The analysis is far more sophisticated and requires calculus, statistics, econometrics, machine learning, and a whole lot of related stuff that isn’t even taught in many Ph.D. programs. Ideally those two parts of data science are entirely separate job functions requiring separate training, but in practice it gets murky and there are a lot of people out there trying to train machine learning algorithms who have no clue what a machine learning algorithm even is or how it works.
Anon
A word from a parent of kids pretty far along in math (and a parent who has a job as a quant). Kids math is in crisis. It was not good before pandemic and is a house on fire. Zoom school and math via you tube videos did not work and most kids have been set back maybe 2 years. I probably sit with one kid for an hour a night working on reteaching math basics that she should be solid on but is wobbly like using a muscle that was neglected for about 2 years. It’s not a happy place. And this is in a household where there is a parent who joyfully loves middle years math, who uses math daily at work, who loves all things Danica McKellar, who has kids who will be given no excuses later in life for why they can’t do math. It is also really frustrating, to the point of tears, for kids. IDK how things are in CA (but our schools were closed just as long), but pretending that a new set of books will fix a huge problem is just a joke. Math is cumulative and there is no easy way to fix this deficit. So for kids coming from a background including not what we have . . . they will need a ton of support and reinforcement and that isn’t cheap or even easy to find at any price at the scale it is needed. If I were Miss America or a politician (I’m neither), I’d run on a platform of “we need more better math” and would probably be laughed away. But I’m not wrong. I feel bad for kids — the pandemic will likely be a sharp break in any trajectory they were on that will hurt the worst in math.
Anonymous
For once I agree with our middle school/college/SAT anxiety poster. Virtual precalculus last year was … bad. Both my kid and I are paying for it now in Calculus AB in blood, sweat, and tears.
Anon
I think that all of the talk of de-tracking would be fine if you had something like a 10:1 ratio in math class. One kid’s math class is 30:1 and there are just two tracks of math in that kid’s school, college-prep and honors. So even the tracking has the teacher having to teach-up for material that should have been covered last year, material from the shut-down in 2020, and some basic multiplication facts, while also introducing integers and higher-level concepts and s l o w l y working through complex word problems. Someone seems to be crying by the end and they get comforted. It is a miracle that anything is learned at all (and the teacher is amazing, but 30:1, yikes).
Elegant Giraffe
Agree – schools and teachers need an incredible amount of resources.
Anonymous
Right there with you, although kid had the benefit of having in-person precalculus most of last year. Nonetheless, the schools were so overwhelmed with the politics of Covid and kids and teachers in and out that not as much learning was happening as should have. We’re going to pay the price for generations to come.
Seventh Sister
My (small, urban, fairly well-off) CA district is attempting to implement some “How does the number make you feel? Do equations make you dance?” stuff and it’s had a very unifying effect on the parent body, which is quite racially and economically diverse. Pretty much every single parent wants to keep the traditional math instruction/progression.
Anonymous
Whatever that is, it’s not math. A word problem about racial disparities in some outcome measure is socially conscious math. Dancing equations are nonsense.
Seventh Sister
They started it with “oh, we’re going to change the way math problems are worded” and after about 20 minutes of hopey-change-y buzzwords, actually got around to their real point – ending accelerated math instruction, trying to keep kids from taking calculus in high school, and basically discouraging kids from attempting to get the courses they should have in high school if they want to do a STEM major in college.
Anonymous
That is terrible. I got a great math education in LAUSD magnet schools in the 1980s. Every single kid in my junior high was on track to take at least Calculus AB and possibly Calculus BC. The school’s race quota was >=70% nonwhite.
Seventh Sister
My kids go to schools that aren’t magnets, but there’s still an element of choice in that about 1/4 of the seats are filled by kids who are out-of-district. Especially in middle and high school, there are plenty of in-district kids who go to private school/lottery/audition schools AND there are plenty of out-of-district kids (especially from adjacent, poorer LAUSD areas) who permit into the district. People don’t make the choice to drive their kid to an out-of-district school every day for a *less* academic experience, they do it because they want their kid to go to college and don’t think the local school is up to the task.
Seventh Sister
^that said, a lot of the permits are given to white kids from families that are homeowners in less-affluent ZIP codes.
Anonymous
What on earth?
Anon
Everyone says they hate math or are no good at math or struggle with math. But then when someone proposes changing how we approach math, all hell breaks loose.
Anon
I love math and think I am quite good at it. FWIW, I was brought up that way; my father loves math and wanted us to be good at it and enjoy doing it, ovaries no obstacle. Maybe that’s some of the reason I had a vibrant side hustle as a wildly overpaid, but very effective, math tutor.
There are so many ways we can improve math instruction, and most of them are unpalatable to non-parents. Kids who struggle should take 3 years, not 2, for geometry and algebra II. Other kids can get accelerated rather quickly, perhaps hitting calculus by sophomore year. We need to teach kids to identify exactly where they went wrong and how to fix it; an unusual amount of the precalculus tutoring I did was to help students better understand algebra.
Anonymous
+1. Calculus is not actually that difficult–it’s a poor foundation in the underlying algebra and trigonometry that trips kids up. We need to improve the rigor and pacing of math starting in elementary school but especially in Algebra I through precalc. My daughter’s math courses were a year behind what I was taught in high school math–her precalculus course covered the same topics as my Algebra II, her Algebra II was my Algebra I, and her Algebra I was my pre-algebra. My precalculus course was actually the beginning of calculus–limits and derivatives. No wonder she is finding Calc AB more challenging than I did.
Anon
Your math sounds unusually accelerated. Limits and derivatives are calculus, not pre-calc. We did not learn them until Calc BC at my public high school in the late 1990s (there was no Calc AB option). My parents (who both have PhDs in math) had the same experience in the 1960s. Pre-Calc is traditionally trigonometry and algebra taught at a deeper level than it’s been taught before. Your daughter’s experience sounds far more standard to me than yours.
Seventh Sister
I don’t think I’m bad at math, but math without actual integers is not one of my interests. I managed to understand the major concepts well enough to do OK in trig and calculus, but I love accounting-type stuff.
Anon
This dress looks like a robe.
Anonymous
+1000 Do not need a cheap looking robe-dress.
Anon
It looks so comfortable, this may be why…
Emma
Planning a weekend in NYC for DH’s birthday in January. Does anyone have any nice romantic hotel recommendations? Prefer classic over modern. Any restaurant/nice winter outing advice is also welcome (we’ve been before so we’ve done the classics). Budget is somewhat flexible (milestone birthday). Of course this assumes it will be safe to travel by then for two fully vaxxed adults.
NYCer
Hotels: The Carlyle (UES) or The Greenwich Hotel (Tribeca)
Dinner: One White Street
anon
can’t help too much with hotels, but for a milestone bday dinner:
– chef’s table at brooklyn fare (amazing if you can get reservations. sit at the bar)
– sushi nakazawa (omakase, sit at the bar)
– atomix (made the list of America’s favorite restaurants in NYT this year)
– les trois chevaux (new restaurant from angie ma, beautiful interior, great food)
– l’appart (in battery park city which is also beautiful at night/during the winter)
– le pavillion (new, I believe it is in the same building as the new glass observation deck called the summit)
– crown shy (less expensive than the above but great food, trendy scene in fidi)
– saint theos (very sceney these days if you are looking for a NYC vibe, and their food is good. also in WV, so very close to a lot of other bars if you want to wander after dinner)
All of these are hard to get reservations for, so if you have access to amex concierge, I suggest you utilize them to get a res for you.
Cat
Not sure where you’re traveling from, but FWIW the NE is taking Covid seriously — I would not hesitate to visit now or later in winter.
anonymous
Interesting how “the NE is taking Covid seriously”, yet it has a far higher case rate than the South.
Anonymous
That’s because everyone in the South has already been infected at least once and there are fewer susceptible people.
Anon
It’s safe to travel now for two fully vaxxed adults.
Anon
Sounds so fun! I have stayed at both the Park Hyatt and the Edition, and both are perfect for a birthday trip. I wouldn’t call either especially modern but they’re definitely updated, so check out the styling if that’s something you’re really concerned about. For food, I’m always surprised at how many people haven’t been to Balthazar considering it’s so good and is a crowd pleaser, so I’d say take a look at the menu – to me it’s a classic NYC place.
Anon
Take a look at the Library Hotel in midtown.
Anonymous
For those of you who are commuting into Manhattan now, is commuter traffic back to normal? I’m relocating to the area next year and trying to figure out how bad my commute will be. In all likelihood, it will involve a bit of driving + PATH, but I don’t know if the Google maps estimates are accurate right now.
Anonymous
Yes it’s basically normal on the roads. If you want to share which town you’re thinking of living in and which Path you’d be driving to (Hoboken? Newark? Jersey City?) I’m local and happy to give your numbers a gut check.
OP
Thanks! Looking at Livingston, Roseland, Caldwells, Cedar Grove, and Chatham. I’d likely drive to the Harrison path since it seems like there is sufficient parking there. Google maps seems to suggest it would be anywhere from 15-30 minutes to the Harrison path, then another 35-45 minutes to my office downtown.
Anonymous
Oh I grew up in Chatham! From there, I would take the midtown direct and subway downtown, or take NJ transit to Hoboken path. At rush hour driving to Harrison is definitely going to be minimum 30, often 45.
The other towns don’t have that transit option so driving and path makes sense but again much closer to 45 than 15 for driving time.
I’d add Maplewood to your list of towns and Summit.
OP
Thank you!
editrix
Also South Orange and Millburn, both with train stations. (Agree on the drive to Harrison from far out in Essex County.)
anon
We are all back in the office, and based on my coworkers’ stories it seems like it ranges from “normal” amount of traffic on roads and train delays, to taking longer because public transportation schedules have not come back to pre-pandemic frequencies yet. Not as sure about Jersey, but that is the case with GCN. Separate anecdata, when I drive in and out of the city (not for commuting), Google maps estimates are accurate, and traffic is back in full force.
anon for this
My spouse travels into Manhattan (from Essex County town near Newark – populated NJ suburb) using NJ Transit. Sometimes he drives to Harrison and takes the PATH train to 14th Street. Today, I dropped him off at train station in South Orange and it was 1 hour door-to-door with Morris-Essex line express train (usual time).
He has said for the past several months when driving to Harrison that the roads are back to normal on I-78 with pre-pandemic traffic levels M-F in morning and afternoon rush hours. I commute away from Manhattan (further west into NW NJ) and see how heavy traffic is headed in the other direction.
When looking at Google maps, use the upper time estimate.
Lived in Jersey City for years prior and always add about 15 minutes because there will be something (track issues, delays, crowded train, tough getting parking spot…)
Last weeks at job
I know a lot of folks here have recently changed jobs. I’m about to move out of my toxic one in two weeks, haven’t given notice yet. what are the things I should be thinking about/doing as I transition? Believe it or not, this is the first job I’m leaving for another one!
Anon
Gather any work samples you want to keep before giving notice (this varies by field in what’s legal, acceptable, and standard. Only take what is within your right to do so.)
Copy any URLs, usernames, and passwords you will need later (like access to your retirement accounts, paystubs, and healthcare).
Discreetly take home enough items from your desk drawers so that if you get walked out on the spot when giving notice, you don’t have a ton of boxes to juggle.
lime
I always do an office cleanout prior to giving notice. I organize and file the documents I intend to leave behind, I throw out the junk that accumulates that I don’t plan to take with me, and I sort what I do plan to take so it’s ready to box up.
Download copies of your paystubs or benefit info if you won’t have access to that once you leave.
Save any contact info for colleagues or people you work with that you’d want access to later.
Curious
Keep copies of your annual reviews. Useful for future resume writing and interviews because they ought to remind you of what you did and why it was good.
Anon
Congrats! I would have any personal items that you want to take home with you ready to go, or take them home in advance of giving notice if you can do it discreetly. Agree with getting copies of any records (retirement accounts etc., if you’re a lawyer I would print your CLE records too if that’s something your firm handled). I personally would make a list of everything I’m working on, where the info is, and next steps so someone else can pick up those projects.
Anon
If you think you will need anything on your work computer, print it out/email it to your personal before giving notice. When you give notice, be prepared for them to block your access to things. Also, find out when your health insurance at old company stops and your new health insurance kicks in. Make a note of any contacts you may need in the future and connect on LinkedIn if appropriate. Don’t burn bridges and be prepared for an exit interview.
Anon
Anyone want to do some vicarious shopping? I’m going to a holiday afternoon tea at a fancy hotel at the end of the month, and was looking to treat myself to something new to wear for the occasion. I’d like something that feels festive but not too over the top since it’s a daytime thing. My usual favorites like Boden, Anthro, and Ralph Lauren are failing me. I did see one I loved at BR (link to follow to avoid mod), but it is backordered until January. (Or do we think if I wait a week or so, more holiday-type stuff will come out?) I’m a size 16, and like midi/maxi and jumpsuits. I’m in the South, so weather is likely to be mildly cool but not cold and I tend to run hot. Thank you!
Anon
https://bananarepublic.gap.com/browse/product.do?pid=7963600220004&cid=1180685&pcid=69883&vid=1&nav=meganav%3AWomen%3AWomen%27s+Clothing%3ADresses+%26+Jumpsuits#pdp-page-content
Anon
I like that BR dress. I think more holiday things will come out soon though. Someone posted a really pretty flown BR Factory dress a couple of days ago.
JCrew has this dress that could be pretty but it’s hard to tell what the arms would be like IRL.
https://www.jcrew.com/p/womens/categories/clothing/dresses-and-jumpsuits/drapey-puff-sleeve-dress-in-pin-dot/BB311?display=standard&fit=Classic&color_name=deep-ruby&colorProductCode=BB311
AIMS
Ooh. I just had to shop for a similar festive-daytime occasion. I ordered the Felicity Embellished sweater in Black with the sparkly Peter Pan collar from Boden. Haven’t figured out what I will wear on the bottom yet.
Following along for additional inspiration.
https://www.bodenusa.com/en-us/felicity-embellished-sweater-black/sty-k0529-bla?cat=C1_S2_G750
pugsnbourbon
I don’t know how Madewell sizing runs, but would this one work? might be a touch too casual.
https://www.madewell.com/satin-stripe-wrap-midi-dress-MB250.html?dwvar_MB250_color=GR7770&cgid=apparel-dress-midi
pugsnbourbon
Oh! And here are two punchy red jumpsuits from Macys:
https://www.macys.com/shop/product/inc-international-concepts-belted-wide-leg-jumpsuit-created-for-macys?ID=12928380&CategoryID=50684&sizes=WOMEN_REGULAR_SIZE_T!!16%2C%20XL
https://www.macys.com/shop/product/lauren-ralph-lauren-crepe-halter-jumpsuit?ID=12363613&CategoryID=50684&sizes=WOMEN_REGULAR_SIZE_T!!16%2C%20XL
Anon
Just this week I’ve seen the fancy, sparkly holiday stuff show up. I wouldn’t wait too long thinking more is going to appear, you’ll be more likely to run into the backorder situation. Anthro has a ton of sparkly stuff, I just was looking at it yesterday. Look at Express too, maybe.
Sawdust Clean Up
We’re doing a master bath and closet reno. They just finished demo and framing and left for the weekend, and despite them appearing to be a pretty diligent and clean crew, we have a light film of saw dust throughout a lot of the house.
What’s my best bet for getting this off the floors in particular? I plan to wipe down surfaces with a damp cloth. I don’t want to go bananas since they’ll just be back Monday. My (normally awesome) vacuum doesn’t seem to be packing the punch I need. Mopping seems like a good step but only made what seems like a bigger mess with all the dust clumping.
I swear I’m a smart woman but I just cannot figure out the right way to do this.
Cat
1. turn off your HVAC so it doesn’t just keep circulating (do this during the work too!!)
2. shopvac then vacuum then mop
Anonymous
Have you tried a horsehair brush attachment on your vacuum? I follow the Go Clean Co instagram account and that is what they swear by for hard surfaces/floors for dust pickup.
Anon
I mean this kindly, but if the demo bothers you, the dust from tile and everything else will really get to you. Are you expecting them to clean each day? Not sure that is realistic.
OP
I mean this kindly, I didn’t give you all the details because I didn’t think I needed to explain why I wanted to clean in order to get a helpful response. But here it is: they are done relatively early on a Friday that I also happened to take off and have a lot of free time today. I have a baby that crawls, so I’m happy to spend the time to clean so we can get through the weekend without baby being a human swiffer. Cleaning on a Friday when they’re not back for a few days is not “expecting to clean each day”.
Anon
OP, it did not come across as you expecting them to clean everyday, to me anyway.
That remodeling dust is difficult because it is so fine. I found a stiffer cloth works well because it clings to it. When I’ve been out of swifter cloths I’ve tried dryer sheets because the cling works well.
Anon
Wait? They’re not? Have I been doing this baby thing all wrong?
Anon
I think Joan Rivers said, “If they can crawl, they can dust.”
anne-on
Do not use your regular vacuum, it will clog and this type of dust can be very harmful for the interior (signed, someone who practically ruined a Dyson on drywall dust).
For just saw dust I’d do the Jolie Kerr ‘hands-y knees-y method’ with a swiffer wet cloth first, then a dry microfiber cloth, then wash again with your cleaner of choise. I hate to be wasteful, and generally use microfiber but those wet jet pad things get up a shocking amount of dirt if you use them like a rag and really scrub.
https://www.thehairpin.com/2011/09/ask-a-clean-person-its-time-to-talk-about-your-floors/
Anonymous
As someone who ruined her Meile on construction dust, I’ll second this. Use a shop vac!
No Problem
I would sweep first before mopping. Do it slowly so you don’t stir up too much of the dust. It would be worth wearing a mask while doing this.
Did they curtain off the area they’re working in with plastic sheeting? Including covering any HVAC vents? That should prevent the dust from getting too far beyond the work zone.
Anonymous
Is it possible the dust is still settling? For post-construction cleaning I think it is often recommended to wait a while (like weeks maybe) for everything to settle. I get that you can’t do this but that may be part of why the vacuum didn’t seem effective.
Anon
I’ve been trying to stalk a dress on eBay that came from a special holiday collection from H&M. With no luck. Does any one know when they usually drop fancy holiday items (or how to filter? our local store doesn’t stock those sorts of items and the website is a bit maddening if you are looking for a concept vs a specific item).
AIMS
I would try expanding your search to poshmark. I bought a dress i really loved a year ago that i want in every color (why is it that you never know what that perfect piece will be until you wear it for a few months?) and that’s where I’m stalking it. So far I haven’t succeeded but I have seen it in the wrong (for me) size at least! Have had zero luck with ebay.
Anon
Agreed. Poshmark is where it’s at for clothing now, eBay is basically a drop shipper at this point.
Anonymous
The Holiday Edit is available from 18th November, if that’s the collection you are looking for.
Check the section at the bottom of their homepage called Press, where you get all news announcements.
Anonymous
Do you do thank you notes in a professional gift context? My husband always gets $500+ in gift cards from vendors he works with.
Anon
It’s always nice to say thank you, but a formal note isn’t required. I do a quick email/text/thank by phone as the relationship calls for.
Cat
yes this, more of a quick “thanks for thinking of me” email acknowledging receipt.
Anonymous
No for that. The gift card is the thank you to him.
Anon
Wow, what kind of industry is he in that he gets $500 gifts from vendors?
(We are not allowed to accept gifts from vendors other than nominal stuff like lunch or note pads, and expressly are forbidden from accepting cash equivalents – I work at a bank.)
Cat
guessing the OP meant “in the aggregate” not “500 per vendor.”
Anon
Ha, that would make more sense.
Senior Attorney
When I was with my law firm we’d get gifts from court reporters, printers, messenger services, and so on.
Anon
I agree it’s a thank you to him, but an acknowledgement of receipt is nice, along the lines of, thank you for the x you sent. I look forward to working with you in the coming year.
Anon
From vendors? So a bribe, to hire them again basically?
Anon
Yes, exactly, that is how business works.