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Frugal Friday’s Workwear Report: Tie-Belt Dolman-Sleeve Jumpsuit

Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.

I’m not typically a jumpsuit person, but I ordered this one on a whim a few weeks ago, and it has quickly become a staple of my WFH wardrobe. It’s super soft, incredibly flattering, and washes and dries like a dream. (It also resulted in the strangest compliment I’ve ever received, from a friend who saw me wearing it and said, “I know this is weird, but your ankles look so thin!” Odd, but I’ll take it!) I usually throw on a long necklace to dress it up a bit for my videoconference calls, but it would still look great on its own.

The jumpsuit is $22 at Old Navy, marked down from $39.99, and available in regular sizes XS–XXL and tall sizes S–XXL. It also comes in a black-and-white stripe and a navy geometric print. Right now you can get an additional 25% off, which brings it down to only $16.50! Tie-Belt Dolman-Sleeve Jumpsuit

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Sales of note for 12.5

Sales of note for 12.5

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250 Comments

    1. That is s lovely shirt….a hard no for me at that price point. One salad with oil & vinegar would do it in says the ahem messy eater.

      1. Care to share more details? Because most dress shirts barely cost over $100. What make this brand expensive?

    2. At that price point, I don’t need it to “channel four generations” of style or whatever the blurb says, I need it to last for four generations.

    4. In m-d but I recommend not engaging with this question based on past similar posts about business attire.

        2. There was someone awhile back who seemed to get…special enjoyment out of women’s businesswear of this particular style. I think asking about “women’s” shirts was a tipoff on this one. Like, that’s the audience here – why specify? I could be wrong, but I thought it too.

    5. Ok assuming this is not the weird shirt troll, no way would I spend $300 on a basic button down shirt. You can get this shirt for <$100 at Brook's Brothers, and there's no way this brand is 3x better quality.

      2. At that price point, I’d want an in-person fitting* and at least two shirts. I had some shirts and suits made a few years ago and I think that was the price I paid for *three* custom-made shirts.

        *Yes I know coronvirus but I think you could do this fine with masks.

  2. So after my post I tried working out yesterday at lunchtime and then had chills and then felt hot and yucky for the rest of the day…sigh…how is it possible for me to overdo it with Pilates, of all things?

    1. I can’t remember if you have littles? I did a Disney HIIT video this morning from Emily Thorne and it was great fun. Might be able to persuade the kids to ‘do it too’ (or just dance around the room).

    2. Argh, I’ve done something to my shoulder and basically can’t move my neck. It happened a few weeks ago as well and took a few days to recover. I can’t figure out what I’m doing. I suspect it is (real) gardening related or the fact that my toddler is getting heavier and I’m picking him up awkwardly.

    3. Could it be low blood sugar? That can definitely cause those symptoms. This happens to me sometimes when I haven’t eaten enough and worked out (no matter how lightly). I drink 4 oz of sugary juice or soda and am back to normal in 20-30 mins.

      1. This is exactly what happens to me. I can shake and sometimes vomit. A little sugar and I feel normal again.

      2. Thanks, that could well be it – I did feel better after I had some gatorade later in the day. Way to discourage me, body!

    4. I have always been an avid swimmer (i.e. at least two miles a day, five or six days a week) and this was my longest break from the pool in over 40 years because all pools in our state have been closed since mid-March. Since the pools closed, I have been running three or four mornings a week and using my rower almost daily , so I felt I would do ok when I got back in the pool. Pools here were allowed to reopen a week ago, and 4AM today was my first swim in over two months. I am shocked by how much ground I lost in those two+ months.

      It is great that you were able to find a time to work out. Hang in there. Your fitness will come back quicker than you think and your body will likely adjust to working out at a different time of day. It will get easier and it is worth it!

      1. Just here to say how impressed I am that you self-train at that distance. I swam growing up and did that distance for workouts, but keeping it up for life is truly impressive. Swimming endurance does seem to disappear quickly, but you’ll get it back with that history. Glad you can get back into a pool. I am doing other exercise these days, but I miss the meditative state I find in the water and you’ve inspired me. I think my Y just re-opened!

        1. Definitely go to the Y and swim. It felt amazing to be back in the pool, even though I lost so much ground. And don’t be impressed by the distance — it generally takes me at least 30 minutes of swimming to finally let my mind go — so my swims are always more than an hour long; the distance is just a byproduct of how long I am in the water.

    5. My husband and I have both increased our exercise during quarantine. For me, I used to run on Saturday mornings, and otherwise wasn’t reliable about a routine. Now we are each trying to exercise almost every day and we were just saying to each other that a huge benefit is that our recovery time is almost immediate. When I first started, it was like the rest of the day was recovery, now I can get right back to work for the afternoon. Stick with it!

  3. Just want to say thanks to everyone who replied to me here back in February after I was laid off. I asked for advice about job hunting after 50. I just landed an offer! I’m happy to say it can be done and I really appreciated all the suggestions and support.

    6. That is awesome and such a nice update for Friday. Hope you enjoy the new position — and hope it isn’t too strange to be starting a job in these socially/physically distant times! Congrats!

    8. Congrats! And as someone who worries about this topic, I’m selfishly happy to hear a positive outcome.

    9. I would love to hear any advice you have to pass on.

      I’m also over 50, and I’m laid off. I’m trying to start my own thing and it’s going well so far, but I may need to find a job sometime in 2021 if it doesn’t fly.

  4. If you grew up MC/UMC, do you feel you “owe” your success to any people or institutions (besides parents/whoever raised you) or do you feel you are “self made”? We all know the advantages of coming from a stable home, where a kid isn’t worried about food on the table or getting a job at 15 to support the family; we know there are even more advantages if your parents can live someplace where you go to a good school district, parents themselves went to college,and even more nowadays if they can pay for some or all of your education so you don’t graduate with huge debt. So I’m not discounting those factors.

    But was talking to a friend recently who is quite well to do (but grew up lower middle class in a rural area) and has set up scholarships at both her law school and college for several hundreds of thousands of dollars. I figured it was because she and her husband went a school that they’re still very passionate about — big state school, they hold season football tickets, drive 3+ hours for every football game in the fall, already trying to convince their elementary age kids to go there, so I figured great memories. She OTOH started talking about how many people and institutions have helped in her success and how she must pay it forward.

    I found myself thinking REALLY because I can’t identify any personal or institutional help AT ALL (besides parents). Not one time did anyone ever make a phone call and bam I got an internship or a job — nor did they even offer to make the call. This was very common at my ivy, as lots of the NYC/CT etc. folks had dads (at the time it was all dads in finance) who were quick to help their kids’ friends with jobs and in return their kid was helped leading to all these kids having fabulous resumes starting as freshman. I OTOH and all the other “regular” kids were applying for 200+ jobs and hoping that after 199 rejections, one offer would come thru. Same with the school itself — paid for with some combo of parents, work study, summer earnings, a fair amount of loans, and grant money that would be like 2k or 5k every couple years. I never felt like OMG this school makes it possible for me to be here. Or x professor or administrator is SO invested in my dreams. I’ve always felt like I’m just grinding along. Is this how it is for regular MC/UMC kids? Or do you feel like lots of people/places invested in your success?

    1. I mean it’s a fact that you were helped. It’s incomprehensible to me that you dont see that. In literally no way were you ever “regular”. This is so tone deaf it feels like a tro11.

      1. Huh? She mentions her family and the circumstance she was born into more than once. She’s not claiming to have worked at McDonalds at age 15 to pay the bills.

        1. “I found myself thinking REALLY because I can’t identify any personal or institutional help AT ALL”

          1. I get it — OP got what she paid for and nothing above and beyond. At Ivies / maybe very small tight schools, the entry price includes a giving of a damn beyond the minimum.

            I think that for first-gen students, just seeing what this new normal looks like opens a lot of doors just by telling you that they are there. In that sense, it is life changing. But not in the way an Ivy or boarding school or such would have been for me (vanilla kid from basic background).

          3. I got plenty of help, starting with my Dad, and with a few professor’s helping me, even if not for the most nobelest of reasons. Dad has been in my corner from day 1, when he told me to go to college in DC, b/c there were alot of movers and shakers there. He then got me summer jobs in DC and in NYC, and then made me go to law school when it was evident I was not getting married when I graduated college. Again he pushed me to stay in DC, b/c of his connections there and got me summer work. Some of it was disillusioning, as the men lawyers were jerks and thought they were so much smarter then the women lawyers, even tho both were lawyers! And 3 or 4 of my professors helped me with the work I got assigned in my legal jobs, as it turned out b/c they all wanted to date me when I was not any longer in their classes. I took their help, but did NOT want to date them b/c they were older and would sureley have wanted me to have s-x with them. I could not even fathom that thought with these professorly types, with mustaches and body odor on top of me! Ugh! And then I did get a job on my own with the manageing partner, but my Dad again stepped up to the plate to negotiate my partnership agreement. So I recognize I could not have done this on my own, and salute those who did help me, primarily Dad! YAY Dad!

    2. Extricating what feels “self made” from a childhood of relative privilege is tough (like Kylie being a “self made” billionaire right?), but I do share your feeling that many of my Ivy classmates had “connections” that I didn’t. What I consider “self made” is that it is literally me and my brain that did all the work, applied for the schools and jobs, etc – my parents weren’t ghostwriting, I had zero alumni connections, parents weren’t high up at a firm client, etc and no one “made a call.”

      What I can’t discount are the general benefits of having a relatively well-off childhood that got me into the position to best use my own talents.

      1. Same here. I did the legwork to use said talents, but I had no hand in the environment that allowed me to do so.

        1. +1. To break down the environmental factors that helped: a stable home, highly educated parents who encouraged education, peers and adults around me who assumed I had high potential (as opposed to the opposite message that many kids get).

          Again I will recommend the book The Meritocracy Trap. It discusses how wealthy adults actually work like crazy now, which wasn’t the case in previous eras, but their hours and exertion hide the degree to which so much of “success” is still basically hereditary.

      2. Oh, and to your specific question about substantial alumni support – no way. I paid full freight which in turn enables my alma maters to provide financial support to those who need it. While I had some great (and some not so great) professors, I didn’t receive any such outstanding mentorship that I feel compelled to go above and beyond when my school already has a 9-figure (10-figure?) endowment.

      3. I’m in the same boat as you. I had a lot of general privilege that put me in a position where I was able to climb that last step by myself. Without the privilege, I wouldn’t have been able to get into the work I am in, but the privilege wasn’t a direct open door.

        I suppose the way to describe it is that privilege built the stairs up to the door but I still unlocked the door myself? In comparison to some I am incredibly lucky but I was also aware of people having doors pulled open from the inside and I chose a field where I thought I was most likely to be able to unlock the door. (But again, was put in a position to do that by the presence of the staircase of privilege).

        Does any of that make sense?

        An extra note is that I went to I guess a Top 5 university which is known to appeal to my employer but studied in an unrelated field.

      4. OTOH, Kylie is self-made in a way that Rob Kardashian is not. I can kind of get why she is saying that. The glass half-full version of her life is: broken home, unwed single mother who was homeschooled (so no HS diploma even). Many single moms in her family. Her mom didn’t go to college and of all of her many sibs and half-sibs and step-sibs (Brody Jenner), IIRC only Kortney (UofA) and Rob (USC) went to college. Kim is at least reading law.

        [Horrified that I know this.]

        In my family, we have single-moms in trailers. My mom finished school early to get married and was always a PT government worker, but I can see how that put me a lot ahead of my cousins. And I didn’t have kids until I was in my 30s (not as a teen).

        1. Yeah, that’s where I was trying to go with the rest of my post. Kylie is “self made” in that she leveraged what she had to launch her brand, vs. Rob who does – what exactly? – but what I’m attempting to distinguish is Kylie’s own hustle vs. her giant leg up from the publicity afforded to her by her family’s shenanigans.

    3. For me, “help” along the way came in many forms. I never had someone make a phone call like you’re talking about that would get me a job or some sort of preferential status. I grew up poor in a rural area, where my parents didn’t even understand student loans. I thought you had to pay cash for college or you didn’t get to go. So when I got a full scholarship, I thought I’d hit the lottery and felt a huge amount of gratitude for being given the opportunity to attend college at all. I put in the work to earn that scholarship at a prestigious magnet school that I worked hard to get into, but it still felt like a big gift. I recognize it as such even more now that I’ve graduated and see how student loans have changed my peers’ lives. I’ve put in all the work after college and law school, as well, but I do feel grateful to certain people along the way who believed in me and took the time to mentor me. Some have spoken highly of me to others in a way that has helped my career. I’m very grateful for that, but I don’t think it takes away from me seeing myself as “self made” because I put in all the work to earn those kind words.

      I don’t feel like I owe anyone for any of this, but I can totally understand your friend’s desire to set up a scholarship fund that could help people like her. Even a chance to go to college can feel like such a gift to certain students.

      1. Similar here. I worked my tail off to be able to “move away” and “go to college” at the tier-2 in state university. I’m grateful to the people who funded the general university scholarships the first year to get me in the door and then to the generous business community that provides substantial scholarship opportunities within the business college. I met the person who paid my scholarship covering full tuition and books and then worked two jobs to cover my living expenses.

        I very much hope and plan to donate through that same pool, because it changed my career trajectory versus attending local community college.

    4. I agree that I never felt supported by my school or like anyone particularly invested in/cared about my success. It was a place where I paid to take classes with largely forgettable professors. The caveat is I’m Canadian and and I think the majority of people don’t identify with our universities the way Americans do. That crazy kind of loyalty is just not a thing here.

      1. Fellow Canadian here. I think it depends a little bit on where you went. My friends that went to big schools (U of T, McGill, Western) are all kind of meh about their university experiences. But those of us who went to small schools are a bit more into it, I think. I went to one of the smallest universities in the country and ended up going there because two senior partners at a huge Toronto law firm took the daughter of a secretary (me) out for lunch and waxed poetically about their college memories. That really impacted me and I will remember it forever.

        1. +1 I went to one of the three big schools you mentioned and none of my professors knew my name. Of course I’m sure that wasn’t the case for everyone (particularly if you were in a niche program), but I don’t remember any of my friends having close relationships with anyone at the school that helped them get an internship, job, etc.

    5. This is an interesting question. I definitely credit my socioeconomic status upon birth with a lot of my success, as you laid out in your first paragraph (good public schools, monetary and racial advantages (I am white), being able to take unpaid internships, etc.). I also worked hard, but I do not think that I would be as successful just on working hard if my socioeconomic status had been different. But who really knows.

      As far as people and institutions – I had an English teacher in HS who truly invested in me and my writing. He helped me build self-confidence and, of course, helped me with my writing skills. I don’t think I would have been any more or less successful going to any other public university than the one I did. My university wasn’t known as a stand out in the field I majored/work in before law school. I worked hard and definitely used any connections I could, but those were generally available to anyone that wanted to take advantage of them. No one singled me out as a superstar or anything like that.

      I went to a very low ranked law school, but always felt very supported by the professors. They certainly have helped me with connections, but they also would have and do help anyone else who asks for that type of help (assuming you are not a complete disaster). I was able to figure out law school early, so ended up with a good GPA, which certainly helped me get my foot in the door for jobs. But no, I can’t say that any one professor or the school itself was so invested in me that I owe so much to them. I think over all, my experience was a balance of my socioeconomic status, working hard, taking advantage of offers presented to me, and generally being halfway decent at networking and seeking out help when I needed/wanted it.

      1. The ability to take unpaid internshhips – the extent to which this matters makes me so sad.

        I went to a public university and received some merit scholarship money, funded with donations to the department of my major. I do feel an obligation to pay that back/forward.

        1. 100% I was a sports marketing major and, at the time (late 90s/early 00s) there were ZERO paid internships in sports. It was hard enough to get a job in the industry, almost impossible to get one if you didn’t have an internship under your belt.

          My parents paid full freight for me, so I do not feel that I owe the school donations, but I certainly understand that you might if you were the beneficiary of a scholarship.

          1. 100% I was a sports marketing major and, at the time (late 90s/early 00s) there were ZERO paid internships in sports. It was hard enough to get a job in the industry, almost impossible to get one if you didn’t have an internship under your belt.

            My parents paid full freight for me, so I do not feel that I owe the school donations, but I certainly understand that you might if you were the beneficiary of a scholarship.

          2. Agree with Anon at 12:23. I had unpaid internships but I also worked a full time job in the summer and part time during the school year. I just worked a lot and tried to find part time internships so I could maximize time spent at my paid jobs (odd combo of retail, waiting tables, tutoring, etc.)

          3. Those are fair points! I didn’t mean to make it sound like you couldn’t do both. My sports internships had very irregular hours – not necessarily office jobs, but those at minor league baseball where you were working during the season. Mine often occured both during the school year and during the summer. Regarldess, you do make very good points and, I think, prove mine even more that I was extremely fortunate to not have to work a job as well as take an unpaid internship to survive which, as we all know, puts me at some advantage.

    6. Yes of course, lots of people get jobs based on who they know. I feel like that’s not exactly news. It’s not just a rich kid thing either. Plenty of union guys got in the union because of their dads and uncles, or get police promotions because their dad is best friends with the chief. Kids gain the advantages of their parents’ networks all the time in all kinds of industries.

      1. I know a lot of rich traders and in a certain generation, you didn’t need to have a degree to have those jobs, you just had to do your job well (high wash-out rate). Now, I think you have to have a degree from a fancy school to even start on the desk, but the old guys are just old basic guys who knew someone who did this and either got in that way or thought: Jimmy is an idiot and if he can do this, I can do this. That is how a lot of things are. My mom is a teacher — so is my sister and a ton of cousins (I am NOT a teacher b/c my mom was a teacher and saw it as a way to be both poorly paid and screamed at by angry parents, no thanks).

    7. No, I feel more like your friend, and if I had the financial means to set up scholarships, I would. Just by doing their jobs, my professors, mentors, and institutions have shaped me into the person that I am, and I want to remove as many barriers as I can between other people and their successes. I grew up rural Midwestern middle class, no one ever made calls and I got internships/jobs, got scholarships for undergraduate and graduate school, but I don’t believe anyone is truly “self made” – we’re all a product of all of our choices and influences. I don’t see grinding/hustling and giving back as mutually exclusive. I would credit a lot of my educational influences for giving me more momentum and grist to grind, actually!

    8. A few thoughts:

      1. “Self-made” is a silly phrase. Literally no one is self-made, we live in an interconnected society.

      2. I hear you on feeling like others have connections that really gave them a leg up I didn’t have. Heck, both of my parents are high school drop outs (they have learned to “pass” extremely well and now both hold advanced degrees, learning how to “pass” was one of the greatest things they taught me).

      3. Those connections/opportunities/whatever you want to call them (the person making a phone call on your behalf) come in a LOT of different forms. I never had a person make a phone call for me or anything like that but I had a million different opportunities that others didn’t have. I also now spend most of my time in a world of much better connected people to see how many people have these opportunities and do nothing with them. The truth is success is a combination of the opportunities you have and what you do with those opportunities. There will always be someone who has more opportunities than you do and there will always be someone that has fewer, but you can’t change that. All you can do is make the most of the opportunities presented to you. It took me a long time to realize a lot of the opportunities I had were even opportunities. I never had a professor make a phone call introduction but my undergrad institution gave me a huge alumni network and that loose connection has proven to be immensely useful when I decide to take advantage of it. Also, having a name brand school on my resume gave me the benefit of being viewed as “legitimate” in circles that I would never have been viewed as “legitimate” otherwise. I don’t think I had any of the benefits you mention in the express way but I do think my undergraduate institution (and law school) gave me a ton of softer benefits and the more I’ve looked to take advantage of those softer benefits the more fruitful those benefits have been.

    9. Honestly the 2 people I know who feel that way — that they OWE it to pay it forward — both came from rural lower middle class families. It wasn’t a given for them that they’d go to college like it was at my high school in NJ where something like 90%+ of kids go to college, huge % of kids are from college educated families so it is almost “guaranteed” they’ll go to college somewhere and their parents will help them find the right school whether that’s an ivy or a non flagship commuter and will help them figure out how to pay for it.

      These 2 OTOH weren’t guaranteed those things and didn’t know how they’d make it work financially even if they could get in. And then both got significant scholarships — one from an alumni group of the Navy in which his grandfather served and other a scholarship from the college that was a “created by a certain family” type of memorial scholarship. It wasn’t easy despite this but without this, they wouldn’t have gone to the ivy nor to the state flagship/subsequent law school that each went to. Plus coming from small towns, both of them are the star of the show in their small towns. In one guy’s case — the rural Nebraska town had never sent a kid to an ivy and maybe didn’t even really get the significance of it but was so super proud of him and would do anything they could to help, including making sure he had a summer job/internship at a local co the summer after his freshman year because that was the least they could do for the smartest boy who chose to come back to their town after his freshman year.

      So now one is in company finance in Chicago and one is a biglaw partner in DC and both feel compelled to pay it forward to a kid coming from their situation. The difference is that the support from institutions didn’t just help them, it made something possible that otherwise wouldn’t be. Plus unlike the random $2000 people get in grants, when one of them got the money from a family scholarship — she went to a yearly event with the family, updated them on her major/grad school plans/internships. It was more “real” that it was someone’s actual money — a family was helping change her life and now she feels she can be that family; it’s a different effect than getting 2k in grant money that is disclosed to you in a random financial letter.

      1. This describes me as well and I definitely give back to my schools. My college reached out to high achieving students in rural areas, and provided scholarships, including one where I met my donor. They gave me research opportunities that linked me up with a professor who advocated for me to go to professional school. In law school a professor linked me up with my judge for a clerkship. I otherwise would have gone to community college, married the owner of a small welding business, and had a very different life.

    10. I can identify the point in my life that flipped my life trajectory from struggling lower class to UMC. I was a freshman starting college, and my roommate had been hired by the dining hall to assist the campus catering director. I was applying for typical college kid jobs around town, but my roommate got me a job with her in the catering department. She quit after the first year, but I spent the next 4 years serving drinks and appetizers to faculty and staff.

      My senior year, the president of the university saw me cleaning up a luncheon, told me he’d looked at my transcript and realized I was a very good student, and asked me to bring him my resume. I was accepted to all the jobs I applied for.

      2. I had a similar story, but perhaps to a less extreme degree. I graduated from law school in the downturn and during a chance conversation one of the deans, he was shocked to learn that I was still struggling to find suitable employment given my grades, etc. He made a call and it lead to an opportunity that absolutely saved my career and I never would have had otherwise.

        I’m sure if I’d graduated into a decent economy I’d have been just fine, but this took me from potentially always failing to live up to my potential in law to career path that leaves me in the solidly UMC camp. .

      3. I think this shows how much of life is really luck. I landed my first job out of law school (I think) in large part due to a complete chance event where I was sitting next to a nice family in the nosebleed bleacher seats at a baseball game. The father was wearing a t-shirt from a bar that my husband is a big fan of. My husband, being a complete extrovert, started chatting with him on the basis of the t-shirt between innings and we struck up a conversation with the family. The father was the managing partner at a firm I was scheduled to interview with the next week, which we realized after he asked what we did (I said I was in law school, follow up questions happened). He re-arranged his schedule to interview on a day he wasn’t scheduled to so he could meet with me and he pushed me through the interview process. Who is to say whether I would have gotten the job anyways, but having the managing partner on my side certainly didn’t hurt and I probably interviewed a lot better after being greeted by a familiar face. Complete loose connection (not someone making a phone call for me) and total chance (what if we’d sprung for the more expensive seats, what if the managing partner didn’t want his kids to experience baseball the same way he did growing up — from the cheap seats?). I think a lot more in this world is determined by random chance than people tend to acknowledge.

      4. I was a broke undergrad working at a gym as a towel girl (the worst job ever and I was constantly sexually harassed). Anyway one day a lady came by and asked what I was working on (we were allowed to study at the desk as our only responsibility was to hand towels to guests) and it was logic games in my LSAT. I told her I’d be applying to three schools because I couldn’t afford to apply to more. She came back with a couple hundred bucks.

        Absolutely changed my life.

        1. A wonderful story. I can relate to how men s-xueally harass us when we have menial jobs, like you as a towel girl and me as a subpeenie server. I hope you still keep up with that lady now that you are a success! Kudo’s to you and to her for recognizing your potential!

    11. I was raised with UMC trappings and expectations (my Greatest Generation grandfather was an early aerospace engineer), but the reality was my single mom didn’t always have enough money to get through the month. My mom put me in private school for various Reasons, and that put a huge strain on her. I was an honor student and many years I had scholarships; some years my comfortable but never wealthy grandparents would chip in. Whenever my school holds fundraising challenges, I always contribute to the financial aid fund (but never to the general endowment – they have gobs of money for buildings, etc).

      Do I think my life is different because I spent 12 years in private school? Yes. I was challenged and didn’t even know it – I got to college and thought it was a joke – I finished in three years because it was easy for me. (In NO way am I Sheldon Cooper smart or anything – I was just a bright student who found most schoolwork easy.) The confidence of being prepared for college, of walking into classes going, “Oh, I know this already” was really powerful stuff that shaped my confidence going out into the broader world.

      If my mom hadn’t sacrificed, if my grandparents hadn’t chipped in (and if my grandfather hadn’t given me that “you can do better look” when I’d bring home a B-), if the donors at school hadn’t paid my tuition certain semesters, I wouldn’t be who I am today.

    12. Don’t forget the soft skills and social literacy that you received- things like knowing table manners and what to wear and how to politely converse with different groups of people. These are signalers to others of your background and potential – and definitely have a hand in your success- but they aren’t overtly “taught” or “given” in your education and career trajectory

      1. Yeah, this is something I am very thankful for. I knew how to make a professional sounding phone call, how to act in a restaurant, and I had somebody I could call when I didn’t know how to do X professional thing.

        I know how to hold a conversation with people who have summer homes and live in a different economic stratosphere than I do. I know how to politely smile and nod and to not ask certain questions.

      2. I agree. The culture of higher education is largely a MC/UMC culture. I have a mixed class background , and I had to sort out that working class cultural norms (and even ethics and values) I learned from my mom were often working against me, whereas my dad’s UMC approach and attitudes nearly always smoothed my path (even the ones I view as problematic in a lot of ways).

        1. Wow, this could be me! I also came from a mixed-class background with dad from a solidly UMC family and mom from working class background — out of curiosity, are your parents still married? The class tension in my family was so strong growing up. My mom was outwardly hostile to the UMC country clubbish environment that my dad preferred. They are still together in their mid-60s but don’t like each other and are ambivalent roommates at best.

          1. They are not still married. I think they also didn’t like each other much when I was growing up; my dad had a high travel job and wasn’t around a whole lot. Unfortunately he also used his cultural capital as an advantage in their conflicts (he ultimately had a lot more credibility in both of their circles because he was rich/successful, but in private was controlling and unreasonable, especially with money). I guess I feel he married someone he thought he could control, though maybe in another way he admired the snarky independence of someone who just didn’t care what the country club thought of her (because he cared a lot!). Part of me thinks it would have been nice if they had been able to enjoy retirement together, but part of me is just glad the tension has ended.

        2. I’m so curious about these norms, ethics, and approaches from different classes and cultures. Would you be willing to give some examples? I grew up MC, my mother holds a doctoral degree but my father did not attend college and owns a small business in the trades. In some ways my background is blended as well.

          1. So I feel like this is something I haven’t fully worked out. And I wonder if religion is part of it too (WASP vs. Catholic). But my WC family has more of a skeptical, cautious outlook. I think they’re more likely to be described as “polite” than “friendly.” Too much friendliness feels untrustworthy: why is this person I just met acting like my new best friend? What do they want from me? My country club family is more “never met a stranger!” friendly, in comparison. I feel like praise, compliments, and displays of gratitude are rare, precious, and expected to be very genuine in my WC family, whereas my MC family is much more effusive and free, like a constant low level background of positivity that may not always have the same significance. I feel like there’s a different set of things that are considered insulting or not. Is dissembling okay or deeply not okay? Is disagreeing okay or seriously frightening? Maybe a lot of it comes down to the club thing, where boundaries do and don’t fall, and different kinds of individualism (much more privacy and autonomy in my WC family, but more multigeneration caretaking and shared finances; much more financial independence in my MC family, but stronger expectations that people will make similar choices as one another).

          2. I think another really big one is something surrounding expectations for adults vs. children. When and where are adults and children expected to display some kind of dignity and decorum, and when and where are they expected to be more playful or goofy? How important is “fun” for adults?

    13. I grew up MC/UMC and I feel so, so lucky. My parents were immigrants and didn’t know how to navigate the American high or college systems, and no one made any calls for me. I specifically got into a field where people usually need connections but I didn’t have any because of my education. But in addition to everything already mentioned, my parents really instilled the importance of that education in me, and gave me the confidence to do all kinds of things, and very importantly I didn’t have any student loans. And even though they’re not in the same field they taught me etiquette and how to act and what to say. Yeah I’ve done a lot to get myself where I am, but I also have had so much help.

    14. My blended family was UMC, but anti-intellectual. I did all the research/prep work for college solo (our guidance counselor at my small poor rural public school was a joke), but I received financial and material support from my parents and from a college fund from my grandparents. My parents probably couldn’t tell you what I majored in, but they paid $10K a year towards my education nevertheless. I don’t believe anyone is truly self-made.

    15. I’m like your friend. I started out at community college because I had no other choice. I was first-gen. My parents were a waitress and a factory worker and refused to fill out my FAFSA because they didn’t understand or believe it could help me get free money like a pell grant. Anyway, the community college took me in, got me a job tutoring other students (while I also waited tables), and took a real interest in making sure I could continue to go. I earned a community college transfer scholarship to a state school. I eventually went to law school. I’d consider myself pretty well-off. Now I sit on the board of that community college’s foundation and I endowed a scholarship for other students like me.

      1. That’s awesome. Another community college graduate before undergrad and law school here.

    16. Interesting. I think this is an example of how everything is relative. For middle class and upper middle class folks, it’s easier to overlook the advantages and help that we received if you attended school with people who were primarily like you or better positioned. I fall into that SES too bracket but went to a school where other students did not typically have connections or family money, so it was easier to see the advantages of my middle class upbringing even where my parents were not contributing to my tuition and I had to work a lot of hours, which impacted both my general college experience and my performance in the classroom.

      Were you able to apply to schools you were interested in without worrying about how you’d pay the application fee? Did you visit campuses before selecting a college? Did you ever have to worry about where you’d live during school breaks, or how you would eat? I think if the answer to those questions is no, then you have been given a lot of advantages even if you don’t have a friend who can get you a job at a finance firm or whatever.

      1. I agree–so much of it depends on comparison. Your friend may be comparing herself to peers who could not afford college without a scholarship and, in fact, did not get a scholarship, while you’re comparing yourself to peers who had parental connections at major financial institutions. Obviously, you are both tremendously privileged compared to someone who never had the chance at higher education and you both do not have as much privilege as someone who can get a job immediately due to a dad’s connection.

        It reminds me of a conversation I had a few months ago with a colleague. We’re both professionals making good money. I had talked to a friend over the weekend who is a SAHM with a husband in a poorly-paid field. She was worried about school getting out because it is a stretch to feed their family without kids getting free breakfast and lunch at school. It made me feel pretty fortunate because I have never, ever worried about being able to afford my family. My friend,on the other hand, had spent the weekend with super rich college connections at a family estate that neither of us would ever be able to afford–and those connections were complaining that their estate was “dingy” compared to the neighbors’ newer, bigger, better one. My friend felt like she had lost a competition she had never signed up for. I think the constant comparison “up” can make even the most fortunate people feel like they don’t have enough or they aren’t “that” privileged.

      2. Was going to say something similar about it being relative. The OP’s example of parents making calls is comparing her experience in to people who had more opportunities. But it’s important to remember there are people who had less support/opportunities. For some, college isn’t a given (as you noted, application fees; the know-how to fill in applications and apply for financial aid; having someone even suggest it as an option). That type of access is probably what your friend is trying to give to someone else by donating – the opportunity for higher education.

      3. Last sentence is poorly worded – hopefully you get what I meant (that the answers to the question is yes, yes, no).

    17. So I think the “parent who can make the call and get kid a prestigious job/internship” thing isn’t actually super common on an overall basis (like, maybe it is at Ivies but not in general), and I also think it’s such an obvious example of parental assistance that it tends to obscure the more common, but subtler, advantages of a MC/UMC background.

      My parents had no connections that were useful to me. They’ve never been able to make a call and get me a job or an internship. They didn’t have influential friends. But they were highly, highly educated people who had the financial wherewithal to invest heavily in my education and in enrichment opportunities outside of my education. (Note: my dad grew up working poor/lower middle class – he’s a real example of being self-made. My mom grew up UMC, without inherited wealth but with the inherent advantages of her social class.)

      I got a full ride to college and remain very invested as an alum. My parents didn’t have connections, but they encouraged me to make them – to go to professors’ office hours, to participate in mentorship programs, to take opportunities to get on the radar with faculty and staff. Doing that meant that I was a person they thought of when it came time to nominate kids for leadership opportunities, prestigious scholarships, etc.

      I did the same thing in law school – networked really hard with professors, starting early – and even though I was only an average student, I ended up picked for a lot of opportunities that were usually reserved for top students. Law school was the first place I did see some of the “daddy made a call and got him a job” thing, but honestly, I felt like my community of support was more helpful. My recommendations came from people who really believed in me and could talk about me (not just people who owed a parent a favor), and my opportunities were often better suited to my talents than those that came to my more privileged friends.

      Like, yes, I know a guy who was an uninspired student but ended up with an offer from a top-5 NYC firm because his dad owned a major client. He flamed out in three years and became a real estate agent, because he wasn’t at all suited for practicing in that kind of environment. I got an offer I really wanted from a large regional firm in a specialist practice area, spent time there, lateraled to a very large national firm, and left there as a partner to become GC of a client. I’m not sure I would still be practicing if I’d started at Davis Polk or some place like that. But my law school professors actually knew me and liked me and helped me make good decisions; it wasn’t dad’s tennis partner who met me once at the family Christmas party calling up his buddy.

    18. I also never had my parents make phone calls (they actually told me I’d have to do it myself), but I did grow up in a fairly privileged environment:
      1) Both parents were college educated and speak three languages. One parent has an advanced STEM degree
      1A) I was brought up to speak, read, and write fluently in English and one of our native languages. (At preschool I learned English, at home I was taught our native language using my cousins’ old textbooks)
      2) Both parents were full-time employed when I was young; my mother quit her job when we moved countries (her license didn’t transfer) but she later worked as a school administrator when I was in middle school
      3) Went to a small magnet-type school from elementary through high school where all of my peers were at least middle class with college educated parents, and some of those parents were wealthy or well connected (professors at top research universities, tech entrepreneurs, diplomats, etc)
      3A) My parents aren’t wealthy , probably pretty low income compared to my peers but they had connections from their own college days (e.g. my mom’s friend married a politician, my mom’s sister’s friend married the founder of a well known clothing brand, my paternal aunt married a local political figure)
      4) magnet-type school demanded high academic standards from us, 99.9% of graduates matriculated into 4-year colleges/universities in the US, Canada, Australia, or the UK
      5) College was harder for me because I landed at a public state university that made me feel like a tiny fish in a huge ocean, BUT
      6) Location of college was near DC so plenty of opportunities to network/intern
      7) Parents paid for most of my college & living expenses so I didn’t have to work 3 part time jobs etc
      7A) Did get several Pell grants and minor scholarships for college tuition, took out less than 35k of loans total
      8) I switched majors, and my second major was in a smaller “college” within the university, so I eventually got more support from counselors and professors instead of being another “pre-med” along with the thousands of other “pre-meds” in the massive College of Life Sciences and Mathematics
      9) I don’t work in tech (far from it), but plenty of alumni from my high school now work in Silicon Valley and a couple of them founded some well known companies too, so I have that network available to me if I choose to lean on it.

    19. UMC – I feel an obligation to ‘pay it forward’ not because of any one particular person or thing but all the small pieces along the way. The prof who wrote a reference or made time out of office hours to see me. Or the mentor at my first job who made time to provide advice on cases I struggled with. Many people were kind to me in small ways and I try to put that kindness back out in the world. Be the change you want to see in the world – don’t look for quid pro quo

    20. BTW when I started reading that I thought it was about being raised in the United Methodist Church, which I was.

      1. Me, too. I have absolutely no idea what this poster is referring to, but I guess I can google it.

    21. I am UMC in the sense that my family has a lot of money but I don’t credit any of my success to them. No one helped me with projects or encouraged me to succeed academically in elementary/HS. Infact if I ever missed the bus I was made to walk several miles alone to school, as a child!!? Who doesn’t drive their child to school? Then no one helped with university applications, rent, or tuition, that was 100% me. The university administration was actually so incompetent they lost documents several times which delayed my graduation a full 6 months despite calling daily and visiting in person weekly. I’m very successful now, as is my husband, we are self made. Our donations go to environmental and animal charities.

    22. Regarding the phone call, specifically, I think people under-estimate how important it can be to know who to seek out, even if you don’t have someone else making the introduction. Through my private school’s science program, I met some real scientists, although at the time I was not considering it as a career. Years later, I called so-and-so’s dad when I had a random science question in my life, and he referred me to the local guy who studied that question. Years after that, I was considering a career in a different science field, and was offered a job by the guy I talked to about that random question, no school affiliation. I adults we would call that networking, but when a teenager does it, it’s mostly only possible because of connections they were given, even if the kid makes the call herself.

    23. UMC here, and feel the obligation to pay it forward but for my high school, not college. I went to a private school that was much more formative for me than my large public Ivy university, which has a 10-figure endowment. I do feel that my HS teachers were invested in my success. The things I learned there, more socially than academically, propelled me to where I am now. I’ve had an incredibly accelerated career path compared to my peers at work. A lot of the advantages I have in terms of polish, ability to speak to F100 C-suiters as equals, etc. come from that high school experience (in combination with my UMC upbringing and the other advantages that gave me, of course). I donate into a specific scholarship fund at my HS because I want less-privileged kids to have the benefit of the same education and the confidence it gave me. In college I didn’t really form any relationships with professors because my classes were all too big and I was a tiny fish in a big ocean, as another poster stated above.

    24. I was born and raised in a third-world country. My HHI growing up was less than $5k a year. I took LSAT on my own – my parents don’t speak English (English is my third language). I figured out law school apps on my own. I knew no one when I moved here. I get what you mean and I understand feeling “jealous”. That being said, for anyone who grew up middle class in the U.S. and who have a stable family, you are already like way ahead of me when I was born and growing up…

    25. Of course lots of people/places invested in your success! Not to mention that you just benefited from more institutional-level privilege. Privilege like this is a spectrum, not a binary YES, Privilege; NO, No Privilege. But why does it matter? There’s no competition about this unless we make one up for ourselves.

    26. It makes me sad that you had such an obviously *relatively* (yes, of course, there will always be people who had it easier/better than you) privileged upbringing and are so focused on the ways in which you didn’t that you can’t even recognize the benefits you received. In fact, you completely dismissed them in your very first paragraph. Why do those not count? Like I said, there will always, always be people who had it better off than you. But that’s a weird thing to obsess over.

    27. This is rather silly, but I think I owe a fair bit of my success to:

      1. My maternal grandpa, who bought me 100 shares of a certain stock when I was born. I think the gift cost him $250 in 1979. When I graduated from college in 2002, I sold those shares ($10,000) for a down payment on a cheap condo ($92k) and got a roommate. This made my <$25k/year salary very livable. It also encouraged my interest in real estate. I sold that condo in May 2007 for an 80% profit that helped me fund a huge chunk of graduate school to pursue a real estate career. Unfortunately my grandpa passed before he got to witness any of this.

      2. My maternal grandma, who was super into classic fashion (Jackie O, Hepburn, etc.) even though she and my grandpa didn't have a lot of money. She gave me an eye and appreciation for classics/quality. Three days after I sold that condo, I went shopping for a whole day and bought a complete professional wardrobe for about $2,000. I started my first graduate internship the following week, and I *really* looked the UMC part. I got compliments on my wardrobe all summer, from men and women at the firm. I was invited to client meetings and lunches. Looking like I belonged was absolutely huge in how I was perceived, coming from modest means.

      I now manage real estate projects for a living, to the tune of several billion dollars a year. Arguably it started with that condo.

    28. I mean, I’m self-made in that:
      – I was born in another country and sent in here late elementary school to stay with relatives I hadn’t met before so I could learn English and come back home with that advantage. Family back home had many issues (abusive parent) so I ended up staying here.
      – Said relatives were neglectful at best and abusive at worst — I lived on school breakfast and lunch and candy bought with change I found on the street. I never told my parents back home this.
      – Relatives here did not understand any of the school system so I was on my own in figuring out getting into a magnet school, college, and how to pay for college. I ended up with some scholarships but didn’t know how to maximize my situation so had to take out a ton of loans.
      – I didn’t have those MC/UMC social skills
      – I didn’t have a supportive family to give me a hug when things were rough.
      – I went to a giant factory school for college. None of my professors knew my name and no one did anything to help me even figure out my life, let alone actually open doors.

      On the other hand:
      – My 5th grade teacher really pushed me when I was struggling to motivate and put me on the right path, then advocated for me to be in the “advanced” 6th grade class which put me with all the academically minded kids and changed my trajectory
      – My genetics gave me intelligence and a facility with languages and math/science, and also conventionally good looks. All of these things have provided a huge advantage at each stage.
      – I’m white, so now that I speak perfect English and have the cultural fluency, I “pass” as someone from a MC/UMC background
      – My family of origin was highly educated in my country of origin and education and intellectual values were emphasized. Everyone read all the time.

      So I think there isn’t very much institutionally or individually (except that 5th grade teacher) that helped me, but I still have had so much luck and so many advantages.

    29. I feel a real connection to my undergrad because I feel like it is invested in the success of all of its students and graduates, and isn’t fussy about what “success” means (people are in all kinds of fields doing all kinds of things). The whole place seems really committed to helping its students do all kinds of fantastic stuff, but it’s also a place that prizes self-direction and discernment, so the message I always got was, “you’re smart enough, you’re good enough, work hard and try and maybe it will fail, but we are rooting for you.”

      While I didn’t have MC/UMC parents that could pick up a phone and get me a job, perhaps ignorance is bliss because I didn’t realize how prevalent that is until I was much, much older.

      1. My feelings about law school are more complicated – it was harder for me socially, and the whole culture of the place is a lot more male, success-oriented, etc. When I’ve gone to my law school reunions, I feel like people ask me, “What are you doing?” as opposed to college, which is usually more of a “How are you doing? I’m so glad to see you!!!”

    30. I grew up in a rural community in Michigan where maybe 20% of my high school class went to 4 year colleges/universities. I was the first person in my dad’s family to go to college, my mother had a college degree but was on social security disability. We always had food on the table, a roof over are heads and cars that mostly ran. I earned all my own spending/lunch/clothing money during high school working part time at the local library.
      I was lucky to live in a state that had a top university and being able to attend the University of Michigan through a combo of grants/scholarships/loans was the best thing to ever happen to me. I don’t give money back to the university yet, but once I am in a position I could see myself giving money to students from my high school who are going to UofM. I was on the job market last year and even though I graduated in 2002 having Michigan on my resume was still a talking point. Would I still have been successful without attending the University of Michigan? Probably. But it definitely gave me a leg-up that wouldn’t have been available to me otherwise as a kid from a family trying desperately but failing to remain middle-class.

  5. Weekend fun? I’ve got some ideas, would love if people could share theirs and hopefully we can get some new ideas:

    -Ordered a hot dog for dinner last night
    -FreshDirect is supposedly delivering oysters to me if they don’t cancel again
    -Doing my nails in summer colors (I never wear Essie Watermelons before Memorial Day the horror lol)
    -to go cocktails are legal here now so I’m going to stroll and pick some up and enjoy them on a bench somewhere
    -non-essential stores are allowed to do curbside pickup so I’m ordering a couple books from my local shop
    -baking lemon bars

    1. My husband and son have also gone to the park to fly a kite whilst singing ‘let’s go fly a kite’. It’s 40mph winds so odds of me seeing them again are 50/50.
      We’re going to go for a long cycle ride tomorrow now that my husband’s bicycle has been repaired. I also want to dig up another patch of lawn so we can put plants in and look up some new recipes to stave off the 21 meals a week boredom.

      2. I’ll let you know if they fly past my window! (The wind is so loud I had to close it!)

    2. Our usual strawberry picking farm is prohibiting picking but doing curbside, so we are taking a scenic drive to the country to pick up a flat and then we will be making strawberry ice cream, shortcakes, lemon strawberry bars and frozen strawberry margaritas, plus strawberry mason jar salads for lunch next week.

    3. I’m traveling to another state this weekend to clean out my daughter’s dorm room before the deadline at the end of the month. My nervousness about traveling is outweighed by my excitement about getting out of my house. The state where we are headed is much more open than mine. It’s going to be very weird to see people not wearing masks, beause we are under order to wear them here and there is very little disobedience in my area.

      In addition to the change of scenery, I am looking forward to reading Curtis Sittenfield’s Rodham.

      I’m not sure if I am more afraid of COVID-19 or of what I will find in a dorm room fridge.

      1. I just read that book and really enjoyed it. And I would DEFINITELY be more worried about the dorm room fridge :)

    4. My husband and I have a date night on Saturday! Dinner reservations at a local restaurant in NOLA – I doubt it will be a late night but we have a babysitter booked and looking forward to a few hours of adults only time!

      1. Where are you going? A friend of mine went to Toups the other night. We’ve been trying to figure out where to go next.

        2. I’ve decided to take a wait-and-see approach to restaurants reopening, but I’m so tempted to eat at Saba. They’ve set up an outdoor space that looks really nice.

    5. some strawberry cake is probably in the cards, but looking for other ideas, so thanks for starting the thread!

    6. I’m quarantining alone, but will be having a solo Memorial Day BBQ at my house. I bought hamburgers, corn on the cob, baked beans, and watermelon. And some ice cream. I put a big flag on my front door and a little one on my mailbox.

    7. Eid is Sunday (marking the end of Ramadan). I’m solo and can’t go see family this year but will be picking up some sweets just so it feels like I did something. Nothing special just some bakery cupcakes or something but I haven’t been going out and I stock up groceries once in 3 weeks and it’s so rushed that I always forgot to pick up any sweets, so I’ve been craving them. Just a drive and cupcakes will feel good.

    8. There’s a sunflower farm about an hour away from our house. I think my 5-year-old would be really excited to see a field of real sunflowers and pick his own. Then we could put them in our house, maybe even distribute some to the grandparents.

    9. I plan to try my hand at Boston cream pie and read allllll the books. (It’s going to be rainy and crummy here all weekend and I am in desperate need of an indoors weekend.)

    10. This is the first weekend my state is open with social distancing, so I’m going out to do All The Things (with a mask, six feet apart). Pedicure (everyone’s wearing masks and they have rolling “sneeze guards” separating you from your technician – I’m leaving a huge tip); shopping (antique malls!! <3) ; cooking out; kayaking.

      Really, my husband’s job has been an utter ish show the past two weeks and I’m just excited to have three days without that tension in the house :|

        1. They’re usually big buildings divided into booths with individual vendors. There’s one here on Magazine St. but I’ve seen some pretty elaborate ones in NJ and PA.

          2. I hate clutter too, doesn’t mean I want my house filled with particle board furniture when instead I can go to an antique mall and get much better quality items with a lesser environmental footprint.

          4. I think her point was that antique malls are inherently cluttered, not that the items they sell are clutter.

    11. I’m planning on sleeping in, grilling some food and drinking cocktails on the deck. It’s been raining the past couple of days, so I’m excited to see the sun. One of my cats is harness trained so I’ll take him for a “walk” outside, which usually involves me standing around while he eats grass.

    12. Our anniversary is this weekend, so my husband and I are going on a tropical vacation in our backyard. I bought an inflatable pool and string lights. We are going to sit in the pool and sip frozen daiquiris, then grill burgers for dinner. For dessert we’re having Ben & Jerry’s because we snuck out of our own wedding reception to get ice cream.

    13. Last weekend I made Blondies and cookies and delivered them by bike to a couple of friends who live very close to each other, on the opposite site of the city centre from me. One in particular is a long time best friend and part of my support network and it was amazing to stand a few metres away and catch up and virtual hug.

      1. That sounds lovely! I met one of our 2020 graduates on Wednesday while he was on campus picking up his stuff from his dorm room and it was so sweet to visit with him and hear how his family is doing. We really wanted to hug!

    14. DH just got an outdoor pizza oven, so we are going to try cooking things other than pizza in it, because why not. S’mores is on the list!

    15. We’ve been trying to do something fun for lunch on Saturdays. Two weeks ago, we found a sports bar in the burbs that had a tent. I got a drink and we had a bunch of fried stuff (pickles and artichoke hearts) and it was great to be out. Last week, we happened into Cochon Butcher on the first day open and got amazing sandwiches. Then we just drove around in the convertible (something else we’ve been doing) and picked up some things from a friend who made a Trader Joe’s run (I couldn’t be bothered for two things).

      We needed to run by my boss’s house (all masked) on Wednesday night so we stopped at my absolute favorite Middle Eastern restaurant. They still aren’t doing indoor dining, but we sat outside and they brought out takeout containers. Their hummus with cauliflower and pomegranate sauce is so heavenly, I almost swooned.

      This weekend, hard to know. So many people are going to beaches. We will definitely avoid that. I’m guessing we’ll grill tonight and find someplace fun to eat tomorrow. We’re waiting for his custom masks to be ready, so hoping we can pick those up tomorrow (one of my friends joked that mask makers are the new weed dealers). The WWII museum reopens on Monday so we’re thinking about doing that. If it’s not raining, maybe the sculpture garden at NOMA. I have to sing on Sunday, so we can’t go away.

      1. I continue to be amazed that your church is still allowing any type of singing, even by paid staff. Singing produces a huge volume of respiratory droplets. We are not even in a hot spot, but our denomination’s state conference has banned all in-person services. When churches do reopen, there will be no singing of any kind by anyone until the third phase of the reopening plan, which probably won’t be implemented until there is a vaccine. Our choir director just informed us that for the foreseeable future we will be moving to a “virtual choir” model. We are pilot testing it with a quartet recording this week.

        1. +1 singing in a large group is wild to me. And I say that as someone who lives in a reopening state and is starting to resume activities outdoors or where I don’t have to get super close to people.

        2. My church is doing Fb live services and there are two of us singing on opposite sides of a large sanctuary, singing into microphones for nothing but a sound system. We have no plans to move back to in person or have a choir.

      2. I’m confused by this. Aren’t you in Louisiana under a stay at home order? Why are you going to restaurants, singing at church, going to museums, and eating at your bosses’ house? I thought none of those were allowed.

        1. Some of that stuff has reopened as of like a week ago, but the revised order does say to stay at home as much as possible.

        2. Yep! I’m eye rolling a bit at this. Just because we’re phasing in re-opening doesn’t mean you have to do every. single. thing. Like, honestly, one of these things would be enough, but it sounds like you’re all over town.

          2. Going out to eat and either going to a museum (wearing a mask) OR walking in an outdoor sculpture garden, on different days, is too much? I don’t think it sounds that ridiculous at all.

        3. NOLA is now in phase 1! Yay!! My family all got haircuts at a salon in the Garden District and it was fine – social distancing, masks, etc. We are looking forward to a family zoo trip when they open soon too and of course, summer camp!

        4. I think most of these are low-risk activities. NOLA posted about the first restauarant she went to – they were the only patrons. Carry-out food eaten outside or walking around a sculpture garden (assuming physical distancing) would seem to be fine. She didn’t say she at at her boss’s house, they the stopped by and then had the carry-out food. And NOLA has posted before that her church service and singing are virtual, not in-person.

          NOLA is smart and responsible, and this shouldn’t be a pile-on.

          1. That’s correct. We ate outdoors on our way to pick something up at my boss’s house. Singing is for a Fb live service. The sculpture garden is outdoors.

        5. We didn’t eat at my boss’s house. I don’t know where that came from. We stopped by there to pick something up. We were all wearing masks. It was fine.

      3. That all sounds fun! My kids are too young to enjoy the WWII museum (when we took them last year, my younger one kept asking where the dinosaurs were lol) but I can’t wait for other family friendly places like the aquarium to open up! We did have a nice picnic at Audubon Park last week with fat boys pizza take out!

      4. I’m scared for you. Have you not heard of the Seattle choir where almost everyone got sick and several choir members died after one practice? What if you’re sick and you’re spreading your germs around to all these poor restaurant workers who have no insurance? In Louisiana which is and has been one of the worst hot spots in the U.S.! I’m sorry I normally very much like your posts and comments but you’ve missed it with this one and you’re being completely irresponsible. I understand grabbing takeout and sitting on the patio once every couple weeks to cure your stir crazy but girl, you’re lighting up the town and for what?

        1. I have to agree. This isn’t a personal attack on you, I don’t want you to suffer, and I’m not here to tr011 you or pile on, but please consider the negative impact of singing in the choir and doing all the things right now. Whatever your state says, common sense has to come into play too. The poor epidemiologists are going to have a real job contact tracing for you if you get sick.

        2. +1 You feel like a friend to me after reading so many posts. And this all seems very careless and selfish.

        3. We aren’t singing as a choir! I’m a soloist. We are singing by ourselves in an empty sanctuary.

      5. Sure, feel free to pile on our nice, reasonable long-time poster NOLA. Her line up of activities is over almost a whole week. Outdoor museum is low risk. Outdoor dining is low risk. Seeing a student on campus is low risk. Takeout food is low risk.

        If I was in NO, I’d be doing that too. What she’s doing is legal. Church services are allowed there. Communion is allowed. Singing is allowed. I feel that California and all the other states that have forbidden church services while restaurants, HomeDepot and casinos are open are anti-church and anti-constitution. And I don’t even GO to church.

        1. My church has instructed the denomination to remain closed throughout the country because they don’t want people to die.

        2. Um, if you read my post you will note that I sing in a church choir, and it’s the church itself that is restricting services and singing. Because they don’t want to, you know, kill anyone.

        3. Legal doesn’t mean safe, and a most people are expressing concern, not attacking her. Singing in an indoor space is quite honestly one of the highest risk things you can do as far as Covid goes. There are lots of studies that singing expels virus particles faster and father than speech or even exercise, and if you’re indoors you don’t have fresh air to blow them away. There have been numerous documented cases of one sick person making an entire choir sick, so you’re really exposed to everyone in the room, not just the people standing close to you. I accept that life is not zero risk, and I don’t think I’m pearl clutchy about people’s activities as quarantine lifts (my preschooler is starting an outdoor rec soccer league next week), but singing indoors would literally be the last thing I would do now, even below airplane travel (because planes have air filtration systems so you’re not exposed to the breath of everybody on the plane).

          1. Yeah, agreed. Choir practice is simply the epitome of highly risky and highly optional – e.g., AVOID. Hopefully NOLA meant that she is singing alone in her backyard or something.

          2. I don’t think she’s just singing alone in her backyard because she said her singing obligations prevented them from going away for the weekend.

          3. No, I’m singing alone in a large sanctuary, into a microphone that is sanitized.

        4. I’m not trying to pile on, and I do apologize that it came off that way. (Sorry, NOLA!) But from that post, she has said she has had: 3 table-service meals (and possibly planning a 4th tomorrow), singing in the choir every week, been to two peoples homes this week, and going to a museum and/or sculpture garden over the weekend. That adds up to a lot of contact with a lot of people – that’s all I’m saying. For me, I’m going to keep it more limited, for those reasons. And I understand not everyone has to do that, that’s all I was trying to express.

          On a related note – If anyone is interested in doing something different while staying home, one of our local theaters is doing a free “radio play” tonight at 7:30 CST. Look up “Le Petit Theatre – Sorry, Wrong Number.” They usually have good productions, so I’m going to check it out just to mix it up a bit.

          1. Nope, none of that is correct. I have not had any table service meals, I have not been singing in choir (singing solo for virtual services every few weeks), I went to one person’s home (my boss) and we were all wearing masks. The museum indoors is requiring social distancing and masks and we haven’t decided if we will do it. The sculpture garden is outdoors. We are truly doing nothing wrong.

          2. Nola – I’m not trying to argue with you, but eating at a table outside at a restaurant is table service. You didn’t take it to go – you ate there, even if it was outside. You do you, but that is what you said.

          3. We didn’t order at the table and they didn’t bring us the food at the table. How is that table service?

    16. I’m going to be working because I took the last couple days off to read and spend time with visiting family. One of the only things I like about this situation is that I can basically just choose two days per week to take off and they don’t have to be Saturday/Sunday.

    17. We’re still pretty well locked down, so…

      – Getting curbside pickup pizza, salad, and sangria from a favorite restaurant tonight, and planning to watch Lovebirds (Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae) on Netflix.

      – My sourdough starter arrived yesterday so we’ll get that going (it’s dehydrated so it’s 36 hour process, which means baking can commence Sunday morning).

      – Beyond that, not quite sure. The weather is supposed to be nice so there will be lots of long walks, I think.

    18. We will definitely put out a flag (yes, we are patriotic liberals in Berkeley), probably grill something, probably garden. Probably not go anywhere!

    19. I’m in NYC and have a child and no outdoor space and some of these responses make me feel just so sad (out of jealousy about things we can’t do, not saying anyone is doing anything wrong). So sending hugs to anyone else in the same boat or who otherwise can’t think of anything that sounds fun to do this weekend.

      1. Hi from your across the river neighbor: liberty state park is open and there’s lots of room to roam if you have a car.

      2. I live in suburbia but I feel ya. Playgrounds were supposed to open in our state this weekend and I told my kid about it, but then our governor decided to yank them out of the current reopening stage and push them way back to a much later stage, apparently because “it’s hard to sanitize them.” Never mind that the evidence suggests surface transmission is minimal and outdoor transmission is practically non-existent. So now I’ve got a heartbroken kid, I feel like a crap mom and I’m not sure what to do with my kid this weekend.

      3. The highlight of my weekend looks like it’s going to be going through the clothes under my bed and deciding which ones to get rid of, and then storing them somewhere else in my flat because there’s no way yet to get rid of them. So I feel you. Are you able to get outside at all?

      5. Yeah, it’s really interesting to see all these different slices of life even though I’m staying home indefinitely due to location.

      6. Thanks for the support ladies! We are really lucky compared to many – leave a ways out in Brooklyn near Prospect Park, have bikes and a protected bike lane by our apartment, have car, have air conditioners, have jobs … so we’ll be fine. This is just HARD and it is especially hard seeing my son struggle and feeling like there is nothing I can do for him. We’re taking a bike ride just about every day, and thank God the ice cream stand is “essential” for takeout. I wish the Mayor hadn’t caused this regional scuffle over beaches, but we’ll probably drive to a park and go hiking or something. Liberty state park is a great idea. One positive of the situation is that there is minimal traffic right now – it is so bizarre how fast you can get places!

    20. My husband is out of town for the first time, and I am planning long baths and a lot of Hallmark movies.

    21. I am going to camp this weekend and the weather is supposed to be beautimous!!! I can’t wait to sit outside on the deck with my puppers and do absolutely nothing but enjoy the sunshine and warm weather (finally, Mother Nature, finally!) I see a campfire in my future and some adult beverages as well.

      I’m excited!

    22. We are going to go camping. This will be the first time taking our new puppy. Hopefully he does ok! I’ve been really stressed with working from home and trying to take care of children and have them to school at the same time so I am looking forward to disconnecting from our computers and just being outside.

  6. Something I’m curious about and I was wondering any of you have any info since many of you seem like you have a better handle on the science than I do. My state publishes its coronavirus stats every day. Our positive cases and deaths had been relatively flat or slowly trending downward (other than a big spike in cases recently). However, the number of people hospitalized was going way down, far more sharply than either the rate of positive tests or number of deaths.

    Any thoughts on this? Are treatment outcomes improving for cases that are hospital worthy but not like, fatal/near fatal?

    1. Yes. That is part of the benefit of flattening the curve. Clinicians are able to benefit from more research and knowledge about how best to improve treatment outcomes. For example, some hospitals have found that the low-tech solution of turning a patient into the prone position can help open the lungs without use of a ventilator. They’ve found that stroke risk is a concern and that blood thinners should be used in certain circumstances. They’ve learned more about which comorbidities are highest risk. I find it motivating to continue with social distancing when I think about how much more we could learn and implement if prevent masses of people from getting sick right this second.

    2. I’m guessing that tests are more available and as such are catching more people who are not sick enough to be hospitalized.

      1. This. Testing is way more widely available now so they are catching a lot more cases than they were a month or two ago, when the only positive tests were those in the hospital and very sick.

      2. +1– In my state, the number of cases has been steadily, but not steeply trending downwards. Testing capacity has gone way up. So they are testing way more people (many mild or asymptomatic) to get to the same number of cases. Also, when there is an outbreak at somewhere like a factory or prison, they test everyone in the facility now– a lot of these people end up being positive even if they will never show symptoms.

    3. In my state the ability to get tested has dramatically improved and is getter better every day. So before our positive rate was around 40% and now it is 10%, but also most of that 40% were only able to get a test because they were hospitalized or very sick. Now anyone can get tested so the results are capturing many many more asymptotic and mild cases.

      1. Yeah – our testing has increased a lot, which does explain some of it. I think I’m more surprised by the difference between hospitalization rates and death – deaths seem relatively flat across the state, but hospitalization rates are often in the negative (more people released from the hospital than admitted).

    5. I’m a non-clinical employee of a large hospital in NYC, but have learned a lot about both the stats and the treatment in recent weeks:

      – You’re seeing more positive cases now because there is more testing now. When tests and/or swabs weren’t available, the only testing was for sick people where a positive test would impact medical decision-making. Now, tests are available for the mild cases and even the asymptomatic, so the overall COVID+ population is less sick.
      – Death is a lagging indicator. While there were many cases of people coming to the hospital to die in the ED, most of the COVID deaths were after weeks in ICU on a vent. That curve will come down, but a few weeks behind the hospitalization rate.
      – Clinicians learned a lot about treating this virus during the worst of the crisis, including proning patients to avoid ventilator use. There is no cure, or even a preferred treatment, but there has been a ton of discovery and innovation around best practices.

      1. This is really helpful, thanks! I think I expected COVID deaths to happen more quickly after hospitalization so your second point helps a lot.

    6. Yes, treatments have improved somewhat (anecdotally, convalescent plasma helps a lot) but also there’s a huge difference between actual infections and confirmed infections. Way back in early April when you thought there were, say, 100 new infections per day in your state, there were probably actually 2,000 new infections per day. Now you might see 500 confirmed infections per day but there are only 1,000 real infections because we are testing so much more and capturing a much larger percent of the actual infections. Confirmed infections can stay relatively flat (or even increase due to increased testing) while actual infections go down dramatically. That’s why confirmed case counts going up is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if the number of tests is increasing as fast or faster than the number of cases and the percent of positive tests is going down. IHME has charts that illustrate this. Most states are well past the peak of actual infections, but the confirmed case curve is flat or slightly increasing. The two curves will get closer to converging as we test more and more.
      Source: I work in public health.

      1. And on the death point, as others said, it’s a hugely lagging indicator. It typically takes 3-4 weeks after infection to die (1 week incubation period, 1 week of mild illness before hospitalization, 1-2 weeks in the hospital) and can be much longer. I’ve heard of people dying more than 3 months after diagnosis.

    7. Pay less attention to the number of positive cases and more to the positivity rate. IMO it’s a red herring when click baity articles have headlines about states with biggest increases in positive cases to date, because testing capacity is growing and growing. When we test more we find more positive cases. But the percentage of positive cases gives us a better idea of what the trends are without being affected by daily variations in # of tests. My state has some of the biggest increases currently but our overall positivity rate is pretty stable and slowly decreasing.

  7. Long time reader, first time commenter, seeking help or maybe just some pity re social anxiety. [I am seeing a therapist , and this is on her radar, and I will bring it up with her at our next appointment, and also re read the Anxiety and Phobia workbook on my night table etc.]

    I’ve always had this anxiety. It varies in intensity (in parallel with my imposter syndrome of course–I’m in higher ed, where hubris seems to be a prerequisite to success). It’s on my mind now because I recently attended a work related Zoom event where I made one half thought out remark (that I walked back quickly) and accidentally interrupted people a few times (as happens on Zoom). I just could not stop thinking about these ‘failures’ afterward, about how everyone on the call must despise me and cringe when I open my mouth. I actually wrote and sent several apology emails to people who might have taken offence at my one dumb remark — even as I explained to myself intellectually all the reasons why apologizing and seeking forgiveness is not appropriate and how I need to just live with myself and not put it on others to bless my actions.

    Bottom line, I am not handling these interactions healthily. If you have advice on how to change that, please let me know.

    1. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this – I’ve been there and this is so tough. Zoom is inherently an awkward social situation, fwiw, and my guess everyone was pretty much focused on their own awkwardness rather than yours.

      I think the thing that helped me most is talking the situation over with someone who has a more balanced perspective. Ideally, if a friend is on the event too, give them a call and mention you’re feeling bad about what you said to try to gauge whether it was actually a big deal or not.

    2. My anxiety used to manifest this way also. First, continue to repeat to yourself that, generally, most people are not even remotely close to being as critical of you as you are of yourself. It’s highly likely that most people never thought about your comment again. Also, I interrupt people sometimes on calls – sometimes on purpose and sometimes not. It happens. No one is going to hate despise you because you interrupted them on one call. That’s just not how normal people behave.

      Because this appears to be truly affecting your work, I suggest looking into getting a short term anti-anxiety medicatino to help you manage this while you work through coping skills with your therapist. I no longer need anxiety medicine and also, after a combination of therapy and medicine, don’t have these thoughts anymore. It can be done! I promise. Keep your head up, keep seeing your therapist – definitely bring this up – and speak to your doctor about the possibility of a medication to allow you to cope in the short-term while you work on strategies with your therapist. I do not believe for one second that anyone on that call despises you, and I also don’t believe that they thought anything you did was that big of a deal.

      1. Just wanted to say that my mind used to work like this too. CBT was a powerful tool that helped me SO much, but ultimately it was meds that finally allowed me to breathe easy.

    3. my best “advice” is actually a question: are you actually doing the things that your therapist is telling you to do and doing the practices or exercises described in the workbook by your bed?

      I know that it can be tempting to keep on gathering more and more and more and more info and ideas and input. Particularly if you’re in higher ed, where learning and gaining information is so highly valued. But the key is …doing what you already know. Putting it to work. So my more concrete advice is to go back to that workbook, look at one of the exercises in it, and do it today. Or take one thing your therapist has told you to do and pick a time each day when you will do it, then put it on your calendar and do it.

    4. Fully agree with CountC. Emailing about this was definitely not necessary! When your anxiety is negatively impacting your ability to behave appropriately at work, it’s time to get more help! And there is help available!

      Of course you can try positive self talk, reminding yourself that no one else cares particularly much about this etc. but you’re clearly really distressed and I think medication is what’s going to enable you to do the work to change your thought patterns.

      And so many hugs!

    5. While I don’t think I have anxiety, I used to spend too much time dwelling on past mistakes and embarrassing moments. Even years later, I might run through a list of what I considered embarrassing errors. Then one day I forced myself to try to make a list of similar moments I could recall about those who would have witnessed my own moments. And I really struggled to come up with any that I could remember. It occurred to me just how self-focused people are and that it is unlikely anyone else remembers the moments I was dwelling on. This exercise really helped and I haven’t had any similar episodes in a couple of years.

    6. I echo all this good advice. For me it was the morning after social events. One thing that helped was to tell myself “Yikes, this is that icky way I always feel and it’s irrational. I just am going to have to feel like this until it goes away. It doesn’t mean I’ve done anything wrong and it doesn’t mean I have to do anything about it.”

      Hugs. I know it’s a horrible feeling.

      1. Oh yeah, the day after the party regrets. I know them too well. Mine are of the “why don’t I ever shut up?” variety.

      2. The “it doesn’t mean I did anything wrong and I don’t have to do anything about it” part of this is so hard for me. I feel this way after big social events, but also any difficult, personal conversation, even one that goes well. It’s taken a lot of practice to not apologize for even having those conversations.

        It’s been 2+ years and I still can’t even think about one dinner party I held it was so anxiety inducing.

    7. I spiral down this path all the time, even about incidences that happened literally years ago. Some that even at the time I did not think I did anything bad or wrong, but now I replay in my head about how bad and wrong they were. Which is probablllly ridiculous.
      I don’t have solid advice but it’s funny the things that stick with you. I listen to the podcast WTF with Marc Maron, he has a ton of anxiety he is super open about & talks about with his celebrity guests that in a way I really relate to sometimes, and just to consistently listen to the show helps me as a constant reminder to me that this is not just me. Recently I listened to one with someone super famous, I can’t remember which one, but they were talking about this similar thought process and came to the conclusion that everyone is thinking about themselves, all the time. No one is thinking about you NEARLY as much as you think they are. That random discussion has stuck with me and helped me in some of my bad spirals.

      I’m not saying you have to run out and listen to Marc Maron, but hopefully you find some similar mantra that just works with you.

    8. One thing that helps me is to remember that sometimes, even if something is annoying, it is important and worth doing. It’s okay if people are annoyed with us. We don’t have to be everyone’s best friend. I suggest you avoid watching the joking memes online like “ten types of people we hate on Zoom.” It can make us laugh because we all know *those people* but in reality, there is still value to what they add.

      If you think of a really important thing to mention at the end of a meeting, people might be annoyed the meeting went two minutes later but they may also be glad that you made such an important point. I remember in law school, a professor had run over the class time and someone asked a question anyway and we all rolled are eyes. Low and behold, that issue was on the final and we were all secretly thanking him for asking the question.

      I hate awkward silences. If someone asks for a volunteer or asks a question I know the answer to, I’m not just going to sit there forever waiting for someone to raise their hand. I don’t immediately toss my hand up and waive it around Lisa Simpson style but after a brief pause to let someone else jump in, I’ll just raise my hand. It’s become a joke in our Zoom firm meetings that I’m always the first to give my update. Well I’m not going to sit in silence for 3 minutes while we all stare at each other waiting for one of the attorneys to volunteer to give their update. So now we all laugh when I say “fine, I”ll go” but they are laughing at the absurd situation, not AT me, if that makes sense.

  8. This post finally convinced me to take the jumpsuit plunge. I can definitely see myself wearing them around the house, and since it seems like I’ll be WFH at least through the end of the summer…

    1. I have this exact jumpsuit and wore it yesterday. It’s the only jumpsuit I own and it’s great for feeling a like I am lounging in PJs while looking bit more put together. Because my dog is getting pretty judgy about my fashion choices lately.

      2. Old Navy’s sizing questionnaire is some convoluted nonsense. Can you weigh in on sizing? I’m an hourglassy 125 pounds, 38D bra, 5 ft 3 inches.

        1. Anon I’m about your size (an inch shorter) and I ordered an M, which I expect will be pretty much full length on me instead of above the ankles.

        2. I’m a 165 lb. pear, 5’6”, 38AA and the large is comfortably loose. Hem hits me mid calf, waist is at my natural waist. Medium would be too small for me, XL would be a lot blousier than on the model above (and probably too droopy up top for me). Hope that helps!

          1. I hate to be a bravanvelist but have you tried putting your measurements into r/abrathatfits calculator on redd1t? That’s a really unusual br@ size. I thought I was a 42b and I’m a 36g.

          2. I have. I’m indeed a 38AA. It is definitely a hard size to find. Best fit for me is a 36A with one of those little strap extenders.

    2. As a person with a small bladder, jumpsuits confuse me. Do you have to get undressed every time you need to go pee? That sounds like a nightmare!

      1. I can only speak to this particular one. Yes, you do have to roll it down from the top. It has a keyhole back with a little button that goes through an elastic loop. I manage to open it with one hand. The neckline is wide and the fabric is stretchy, so undoing the button gives plenty of ease to take it off quickly. The tie belt is the same stretchy material as the jumpsuit so I don’t have to undo that as it just rolls down with the rest.

      3. I have one jumpsuit. It’s a faux wrap style. Yes I have to get undressed to go pee. I wore it once and only once to work and then I realized that I was sitting there in just my bra peeing.

        Work restrooms are the kind where everyone glances through the crack in the door to see if the stall is occupied – this should be outlawed!

      4. Yep. You get used to it.

        Wore a jumpsuit to my SIL’s wedding rehearsal. The single seat bathroom had a pic of Jesus on the mirror. He got an rueful I guess.

  9. I sent a little strawberry plant kit to a friend going through a tough time, and I thought was a lovely little pick me up! I realize that I don’t know if the seeds are actually any good and don’t really see any reviews of the products, so wanted to see if anyone knows of anything similar that they’ve used with good results? Also does anyone recommend any other little gifts that can be sent to brighten people’s day during quarantine? I know people here have recommended a service where you can send a single cookie for relatively cheap, but I couldn’t find what company that is from. Thank you in advance! Hope everyone has a lovely Memorial Day weekend and is able to spend some time outside safely!

    1. Sometimes they grow and sometimes they don’t, but the anticipation is part of the fun :)

    2. One of my friends sent me an e-gift card to a favourite local store, and I sent another friend pizza from her favourite place. It was a fun surprise for her.

      1. +1
        Learned about them here a couple years ago, send them regularly. Always well-received.

    4. Not sure how inexpensive you are looking for, but my best friend just surprised me by mailing me a small gift box of some bath products from Lush. It was very unexpected and I so appreciated it after along, stressful day. In fact, I immediately ran a bath at 6 PM so I could use one of the fizzing bath bombs included-it felt very luxurious and relaxing. All this to say, I loved being the recipient of that gift, it brightened my day, and it is now on my radar to send when I want to do the same for others.

    5. I’ve been sending the Milk Bar truffle boxes and they’ve been a hit! They are relatively cheap (39 shipped) and look fun and festive.

  10. Has anyone tried at-home IPL/Laser hair removal? All of the reviews I seem to find seem like they are sponsored. I have light skin and dark hair, but also have freckles.

    1. I have the Philips one that came out years ago. It worked very well for my happy trail, half as well for underarms, and not that well for bikini area. I feel like if the hair you’re targeting is whimpy then it’ll work. But the stronger hair doesn’t budge as easily. Also, I don’t love the small window/single flash. It takes forever and I can’t tell whether I’ve missed small areas. I prefer a continuous flash especially on the highest setting but alas that’s not offered even on newer models. I don’t know about freckles, I certainly avoid my moles and wouldn’t want to risk burning myself.

    1. Yikes how awful. Also this article reads like it was written by a 4th grader.

    2. This is such a terribly written article that I can’t get through it, but yes, this sounds bad.

  12. For those of you with phds, any advice to share with someone about to embark? I’m early 30s, starting a PhD program this September, cross-disciplinary social science field.

    1. If you’re doing this in the United States, there will be a big disconnect between the coursework phase and the research phase. Bridge that gap as early as you can: treat every final paper assignment for a class as an opportunity to write a manuscript, and submit those manuscripts to journals. Also, don’t get hung up on writing a perfect dissertation, and definitely don’t stay an extra year or two with that goal in mind. A done PhD is a great PhD.

      1. Good advice from anon; above all, think pragmatically. Pick a dissertation topic that could be applicable in and outside of academia. You do not want to get stuck adjuncting so think about how you can apply your training to other fields outside of higher education. This is a good time to be in graduate school, but the options for when you finished may be hard to envision now. Online learning will be the future and tenure-track positions even fewer and far between than they are now. Talk to students in cohorts ahead of you for the best advice for navigating the dynamics in your particular program. good luck!

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