Posts by Bryan Kern7

I actually own a Kindle, but I never touch it. I do all my reading on my phone (a Samsung) or just on my laptop 😁

Sarah Hall53 said:Wait, I don't think everyone actually has their classes scheduled at the exact same time as religion class, right?

Look, I honestly don't know for sure. According to the schedule, religion is just one block—the last two periods on Friday. From what I gather, about 18 kids head off to Catholic studies, while 4 of us skip it entirely... so during that time, we’re just hanging out in after-school care with our teacher. Since this survey was handled during enrollment, it's totally possible they organized the class schedules based on which religious elective the kids picked in the first place.
Or maybe it's timed so that while some kids are in Catholic studies, the others are in whatever different program they signed up for.

Daniel Diaz6 said:If a student from a different faith wants to take an Islamic or Orthodox religious studies class, they end up doing it outside of regular hours—all while sitting through Catholic classes during the school day just yawning away the time. Everything should be put back where it belongs, and that isn't inside the classroom.
Making "Critical Thinking" a formal subject only makes sense if it’s actually replacing religious education entirely. Right now, every other option just piles more onto an already packed schedule. It’s like instead of one two-hour block, kids are stuck with two hours of religion plus two hours of computer science. Students who don't pick an elective still end up spending four extra hours a week sitting through classes they didn't even choose...
To me, it's total madness. Not to mention how unfair it is to the kids who skip religion altogether, or even worse, those forced to attend a religious class that isn't even offered at their school, meaning they have to head to a church or mosque on a Saturday just to make up for it.
I've heard people talk about this for years, but seeing it firsthand at my little girl's school this year is just insane. She's only in first grade, and she's already pulling five-hour days three times a week.

At the school my daughter attends, they offer religious education options for all major faiths.

Religious studies classes are conducted based on eight current programs designed to accommodate
various different faiths.
If your answer is YES, please mark (CIRCLE) the number in front of the religious study program
you have selected:
1. Catholic studies
2. Orthodox studies
3. Islamic studies
4. Jewish studies
5. Basics of Christian Adventist religion
6. Fundamentals of the Gospel of the Church of >
7. Evangelical studies
8. Gospel studies

At my school, we actually got to pick between religion class or computer science. I went with tech, which meant having two hours of coding right in the middle of the day, followed immediately by PE...
I'm guessing anyone who didn't choose the computer lab back then was stuck sitting through religious studies instead.

Starting a new thread here...
Does anyone have any advice?
So, yesterday my 4-month-old was in for her second dose of the rotavirus vaccine. My sister was feeding her a little bit during the appointment, and the baby actually ate everything. But then, right as my sister went to go log the vaccination in the records, the kid just completely projectile vomited. In that moment, I was busy trying to calm down my older daughter, so I just turned my head toward her and didn't actually see how much she threw up. My sister took one look at it and said, "Oh, it's just cheese and thick spit," implying that since the vaccine is liquid, it probably stayed down in her stomach and nothing happened, so she sent us on our way. The little thing was fully dressed—she even had a windbreaker on—so I didn't realize until we got home that her back was soaked all the way down to her diaper.
After the first dose, she had a reaction where she was having about 10-15 watery stools starting from the very first day she got the vaccine. But yesterday, after this second dose, her bowel movements were totally normal.
Has anyone dealt with something like this? And more importantly, can they get a replacement dose? According to the Pfizer instructions, if a child spits up or vomits the vaccine, they should receive a replacement dose.
Also, should I be looking into getting a refund from Medicare? Because $167 it’s not exactly cheap.

Maybe one of you guys knows how this works
So, MM's aunt sent us a package via USPS from Buffalo... she didn't mention she was sending anything, obviously because she wanted it to be a surprise... but now
She put the package in MM's name, and I haven't changed my last name, so we're stuck. The mail carrier just dropped off a slip today saying I can sign for it tomorrow. Like, how am I supposed to sign for a package addressed to someone who doesn't exist? I don't know if showing a marriage certificate would even work, but let's be real—it's the US Postal Service, they usually stick strictly to what's on the ID...
Has anyone ever dealt with something like this or actually experienced it firsthand?

wanderingmason86 said:I can handle that. Ljiljana Skrinjar works one shift at one clinic and Sanja Persic Vojinovic covers the other.
I had a quick chat with her about scheduling an appointment, and everything seems fine. 🙂

Can someone tell me if I can go to any community health center with a specialist referral, or am I stuck going to the one tied to my home address? (Someone shoved a bug in my ear and now I'm totally lost—I thought I could just go anywhere?)

If you got a referral that doesn't specify a location, then yeah, you can go anywhere. But if you were unlucky like me and got a referral specifically for the Vineyard district, then you're stuck going there. 😢

wanderingmason86 said:I need to get my moles checked out, so I’m on the hunt for a dermatologist who won't make life difficult and will actually see me with just a Medicare referral. 🙂

Does anyone actually know where I can get an order in sooner? Seriously. If I try ordering salad at the local spot, they’re booking out until November, and over in the Vineyard district, you're looking at March of next year. That is absolutely ridiculous.😕) !

Apparently, that free screening campaign from the local imaging center is back in the city again. You just have to give them a call to get on the schedule. I can't believe I'm even looking at this, but apparently, we need to talk about melanoma. It’s Melanoma Awareness Day, and honestly, if you aren't paying attention to your skin, you're asking for trouble. The article is laying out the basics, and while it might seem like common sense to some, people still get careless. They think they're invincible just because they spent a weekend at the beach or hanging out in a sunny suburban neighborhood. Newsflash: the sun doesn't care about your plans. The main takeaway here is about monitoring those spots. You know the ones—those weirdly shaped moles or patches that look slightly "off." If you notice anything changing, don't just sit there hoping it goes away. Go to a community health center or find a dermatologist immediately. Seriously, don't be that person who waits until it's too late because they were too lazy to book an appointment. Early detection is everything. It sounds like a cliché, but in the case of skin cancer, it’s the difference between a quick fix and a nightmare. Check yourself regularly. Use sunscreen. Don't be reckless. It's not rocket science, it's just basic survival.

Does anyone know a decent dermatologist who actually sees patients in a reasonable timeframe? I’ve got a referral for a mole check, but the wait times at the hospital in Washington, D.C. are absolutely insane—I'm already booked out until next year.

Look, I drive for a living, so I get it—I know it’s not always about the non-emergencies and I know they really do try their best to reach patients. I remember on New Year's Eve when we called and they told us there was a massive pile-up on the interstate bypass, so they had to divert a ton of ambulances over there. But listen, when we called 911 and told them a man had stopped breathing and we were performing CPR—meaning this guy is literally dying, this isn't some joke, it's a life-or-death situation—all they did was bombard us with a bunch of stupid questions. Instead of giving actual medical guidance, they didn't even arrive any faster; in fact, it took forever... and we had to call them twice. The second time was 15 minutes later, which was already too late, but you just keep hoping 😢
Honestly, what they told us was just as bad—that they could have been here in five minutes but the chances of doing anything useful would have been incredibly slim. That is just gut-wrenching. It makes me feel like everyone needs to have a first aid kit at home stocked with adrenaline shots and glucose tabs
And it is absolutely horrific that after someone passes away at home, you have to call the police just to wait for a coroner who won't show up until the next day because there is only one (1)??? coroner for the entire city of New York. So, basically, someone dies, you go through a massive trauma, and then you're stuck sitting there with the body for over 12 hours... I don't know, but it looks to me like there are some seriously dangerous gaps in the entire system

About nine years ago, my dad had a massive rupture in his large intestine. He was going through chemo at the time, and even a simple case of bronchitis was one of those brutal side effects from the pills. My mom called 911 in the middle of the night because there was blood all over the bathroom floor, but they basically told her they couldn't come out and that someone just needed to drive him in themselves. After my mom managed to drag a friend out of bed in the middle of the night to help her get him into the car, they took him to the hospital for "observation" since the bleeding had finally stopped. They sent my mom home, and when she rushed back to the ER a few hours later that morning, they actually had the nerve to tell her he wasn't there—that they couldn't find him and had no idea where he went. It wasn't until she threatened to call the police that they finally told her where he was. When she found him, my father was lying there in nothing but a thin hospital gown in a room with no lights, no heat, and a broken window. They didn't even give him a blanket, just a sheet. They didn't give him anything to drink all night—even though the man had lost a ton of blood—and they didn't even start an IV. He just looked at my mom and said, "Please, take me away from here, they’re leaving me to die..." To make matters worse, during that first month, the temperatures in San Diego would drop down toward freezing at night. Two days later, he was gone...

On the old year, we went through a nightmare. My father just suddenly collapsed right before our New Year's Eve dinner. He started struggling to breathe, and we couldn't wake him up. We were doing CPR, everything we could, just praying, only for the paramedics to finally show up after 37 minutes of pure terror. All they could do was pronounce him dead. And look, I’m not even saying we live in the middle of Washington, D.C., right near two major hospitals; I'm saying when we finally managed to get an ambulance on the line, their first move was to bombard us with a mountain of stupid questions about his medical history. They actually had the nerve to ask for his Social Security number while we were grieving.
And what's even more infuriating is how the system handles these things. When someone passes away at home in the evening, you're stuck waiting for a coroner until the next morning. It wasn't until the coroner showed up—who didn't roll in until 11:00 AM even though the man passed at 8:00 PM—that we could even call a funeral home to pick up the body. And then, of course, you're stuck waiting until the afternoon for them to arrive depending on how busy they are. It's ridiculous. Someone needs to say something smart about this once and for all.

So, I went to the church to talk, but instead of listening, he just mocked me. He didn't believe a word I said and actually had the nerve to tell me that if I kept spreading these "lies," I’d end up in hell and get kicked out of the church entirely... Unbelievable. Of course, I made sure to tell all my girlfriends about this whole mess and warned them to never, ever be alone with him.

bluemarlin19 said:I am truly sorry you had to go through that, but I’m glad you aren't staying silent about it.

I didn't want to pry too much since I know this hits close to home, but did you ever talk to that friend of yours—the one he assaulted—after seeing him at the Holy Father's reception?
How many people actually know the truth about what went down?
Do they know he was just shuffled from one parish to another?
Who did you reach out to? Was it local people, or did you try contacting someone higher up in the Church?
For God's sake, why didn't anyone just go to the police?

Thank you.

I didn't know about that, and my friend didn't even know he had done that to her sister. To be honest, the victim was an 11-year-old girl, so she was younger than both of us, and her family didn't find out until two or three months later because they didn't notice any symptoms right away. The little girl started acting very withdrawn, wetting the bed, waking up screaming... so they took her to a psychologist, but she still wouldn't say anything. It wasn't until one day when her sister told my story, confessing that the same thing had happened to her—except he managed to rape her😢. At first, they reached out to the head of the church and wrote letters, even to the Archbishop, from what she told me. As for the police, I think they said they weren't believed because so many months had passed that it couldn't be proven
.
That girl still sees a psychiatrist to this day. And after everything the Church threatened them with, it wasn't even surprising to her that they just move him from parish to parish, though he gets a different name in every single one—in one he’s Father Joseph, in another Father Anthony, and so on.

Even though he didn't physically succeed with me, because I was a bit older and knew a few things, the psychological part is still the absolute worst. You end up blaming yourself, and that feeling of total helplessness in the moment... that panic that grips you when you have no idea what to do, just trying to figure out how to get out of the situation.

Because that priest was young and charming; he wasn't physically repulsive like some men, and that’s the worst part of all. That day, I went to the parish office—which is only ten meters from the church and has soundproofing so you can't hear anything inside the church—to get a baptismal certificate. When I walked into the office, that priest was there along with an older man. He handed me the baptismal book to look through, and while I was sitting there leafing through that massive book, the older priest left, and this guy locked the door and pulled out the key... I saw it out of the corner of my eye. In that split second, all I could think about was how to get out. I knew screaming wouldn't help. It's just that feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff.
I tried to concentrate and acted like everything was normal while he issued the certificate, stamped it, and then acted like he was going to walk me out. As he approached the door and I stood behind him waiting—hoping maybe he would actually open the door—he turned around, grabbed me with both arms, and said he had locked us in so no one else would disturb us and that no one outside could hear a thing... as if we were completely alone.
I told him I was in a hurry to get to school and asked him to let me go, but he just said he was only a friend and wanted what was best for me. Then he asked me if we were good friends. In that moment, I just played along because, honestly, I didn't have another choice. I wasn't six feet tall with a razor, and he was a huge guy, like 6'0", who always bragged about working out every day and playing soccer; he was way stronger than me. So, I told him we were friends. After that, he gave this little smirk and said if we were friends, then I should kiss him on the cheek, because that's what friends do, and that even Jesus did it. All the while, he kept me held tight in his arms, and with one hand, he was touching my back and my neck... I asked him what would happen if I didn't want to kiss him on the cheek, and he said we'd just have to play in a slightly different way. I saw this flash of a psychopath in his eyes, but he kept speaking in that calm, sweet, gentle voice with a smile on his face... I had no choice, so I kissed him on the cheek.
Then he goes and says it's just "the second kiss," and I actually did it—then he claims that true friends kiss each other on the mouth. While his hand was sliding down my backside and trying to shove itself between my legs, something inside me just snapped. I somehow managed to wiggle out of it, even though he had me pinned against the door with his arms wrapped around me, and I was stuck right between his legs. He was holding me tight, trapping me with his legs too. So, while I kept telling him I had to hurry to school or I’d be late, I slowly raised my knee and pressed it right against his groin—his penis was basically crushed against me because he was rubbing it against me so hard. I told him, with a smile on my face and trying not to panic, that if he didn't let me go, I'd be forced to use my knee. He scowled at me and said, "Oh, I didn't know you did martial arts," then mentioned his keys were in his right pocket. I kept my knee clamped firmly against his junk the whole time, grabbed the keys, unlocked the door, and bolted as fast as my legs could carry me...
So that’s my story. It wasn't a full-blown rape, but he absolutely groped me with his hands, rubbed himself all over me (he was wearing a robe, obviously), and left me feeling incredibly dirty, ashamed, and sick to my stomach.

I've noticed that since that day, I can't stand it when people get too close or invade my personal space; it triggers an immediate panic attack. I'm also completely allergic to being touched or poked, which is a huge issue with my partner, but luckily he's understanding about it... Honestly, even today, whenever I remember that feeling, I break out in a cold sweat, especially if someone gives me a firm hug...

Yeah, unfortunately, I've noticed that a lot of people just don't grasp how heavy their crimes actually are.
This happened to me sixteen years ago, and honestly, I still replay every single moment of it in my head. It completely flipped my life upside down. Back then, you just didn't talk about this stuff. To be blunt, I hadn't even heard the word pedophilia before; I had no clue what it even meant. Times have changed, obviously. Everything is out there on the internet now, and more kids are aware of the issue. I can find information or look for help whenever I need it, but even with all that access, some people still stubbornly refuse to admit the problem exists or how widespread it really is. And when someone goes through this, their first instinct is to stay quiet and feel ashamed. They end up thinking they’re the ones at fault, and of course, nobody wants to believe them because they're just a child.

I noticed that not a single victim has spoken up on this thread yet, so I guess I'll go first.

When I was thirteen, a priest in my parish tried to rape me. I feel incredibly lucky that he didn't succeed in what he was planning... but I later found out he was doing this constantly. My then-friend's sister was one of his victims, too. When her family actually tried to report him, they were met with a warning from the Church stating that if they went through with it, they would be excommunicated and branded for life. I don't know if they eventually reached some kind of settlement to keep their mouths shut, but that was the threat.
The priest was young, maybe around thirty, and he had been hired to teach religion at the local elementary school. It wasn't until several girls and their families complained to the principal about him touching them inappropriately that he finally lost his job and was transferred to a different parish.
I heard that in that second parish, he tried the same thing with another girl, but her father handled it in a much more "direct" way since the Church refused to do anything. He beat the man like a dog, after which the priest was shuffled off to yet another parish.
The last time I saw him was during a papal visit in Los Angeles; he was still in his priestly robes. He actually recognized me and had the nerve to praise me, mentioning how well things were going in his new parish.
After that, it hit me: the Church is never going to change. They will always protect their own, no matter the cost.

An experience like that absolutely destroys a child and leaves a mark that lasts a lifetime. When you're a kid and you believe in a priest—someone you confess to, someone you truly see as a representative of God's will on earth—once that trust is broken, nothing is ever the same again.
Of course, they are humans and sinners just like everyone else, but when you're a child, you don't see it that way. You can't even fathom that they are capable of such things. And you can bet your life that a parent's last thought would ever be to let their child be alone with a priest, because they know he could absolutely wreck them.

Bottom line: we need much stricter punishments for pedophilia. Honestly, the Pope should consider allowing priests to marry; that might solve at least part of the problems that stem from celibacy.

Amy Lee18 said:reading the label where it clearly states the product contains modified starch

Look, modified starch is absolutely not the same thing as GMO.

it's more like a symbiosis between bacteria and yeast😁
I used to breed my own back in the day, but I eventually got bored with the whole process and just tossed everything out
I’ve been thinking about getting back into it lately, but honestly, I don't even know anyone anymore who actually keeps a culture going...
for those who don't know, it's what you use to make fermented kombucha...

Check your Walmart inbox, I already sent it over there 🙂

Back in my university days, during one of our water science courses, they went on and on about how bottled water is basically a scam. Their whole argument was that manufacturers aren't allowed to run any kind of heavy-duty sterilization on the stuff... and we all know just how much bacteria can be lurking in water. Plus, there's the issue of how long that water actually sits in those plastic bottles; bacteria can multiply incredibly fast in those conditions. Honestly, you're better off just sticking to tap water—it’s usually higher quality than the bottled junk anyway.