Honestly, that’s all you need to do. People don’t realize that just understanding what a book is and that letters have meaning beyond just being cool shapes is a HUGE step in the reading process. Then when they’re learning, just practicing them. But we have kids coming in who have genuinely never seen a book and who don’t know how to hold one. It’s a massive issue.

I have the big stamp book with a designated spot for every site run by the NPS. I’ve been to about half the national parks. My book is one of the things I’d grab if my house were on fire, I love it so much.

By “standard” do you mean in absolutely every place? Because that’s not necessarily the case even in the US. Lots of places that are typically cooler don’t have it, and they’re struggling as it warms up just like in Europe. I used to live in the east Bay Area, and none of the (a bit older) apartments I rented had AC. It was fine most of the year, but incredibly miserable during heat waves. I just bought a home in SoCal, and even down here where it’s super hot, a lot of older places didn’t have AC at all, or just had a window unit in one room. But I will agree that new builds generally have it.

Yup! But I taught in the east Bay Area for several years.

Those articles are basically click bait though. They talk about affording a “median priced home.” Well around me there are tooooons of houses that are over five million dollars (some FAR over because it’s by county), so it really drives up the “median” price. So I don’t need to earn anywhere near what an article like that claims to be able to afford my three bedroom condo in my area.

What district?

I taught in the Bay Area. My district paid up to $140k. Most of the married teachers owned homes. A single person could save up and buy a condo in time.

I’d never teach anywhere else. Good pensions, good benefits. If you have a masters my district hit six figures by year six, and it’s not too uncommon. We’re also really safe from nonsense like being required to teach the Bible in school. On top of it, you get to live in CA, which is awesome.

Just know that there are HUGE chunks of the state that may as well be in Texas.

Job security is absolutely underrated. I used to teach in the Bay Area. Tons of my students had parents with super high paying tech jobs. Downsizing, job hopping and being laid off in massive numbers was really just part of the life. I’d hate that, and it’s common in tons of industries

Yeah, I think this advice is area dependent. I just bought a condo. I’ve had my eye on the area for a while, and without fail these condos sell in a week. So when I put in my offer and was told there was another, I was surprised it was only one. I have no reason to think there’s a “99.9%” chance it’s a lie.

I have brain flakes for my students (I’m a teacher) and they absolutely love them. That being said, the context of this makes me doubt they’re what he was unloading

In my area, hiring season is a feeding frenzy. Everyone is doing it all at once. When we do interviews, we try to offer jobs to our tops picks as quickly as possible because our HR is insanely slow, and half the time the people we want have accepted other jobs by the time they hear from us.

I hate the Kid President. My students are always so focused on laughing at the silly parts that they don’t get the message at all. Such a waste of time

I try, but my school is soooo into phone calls.

They also limit how many sides you can get, so it’s overall smaller than a burrito but more expensive for some reason

So then you think a realtor should make less if a buyer misses out on the houses the really want and has to settle? Because otherwise “outcome” just means they ended up buying something, which is essentially inevitable

People spending $50k a year, every year to maintain their house is absurd. No one’s doing that.

Some people are also selectively nice. From the outside you’d think my father was the kindest, most generous person. He’s SO NICE to our neighbors. But he’s awful to me, my sister and my mother. Controlling, demanding, neglected me as a kid because I’d never meet his expectations. Just keep that in mind. My grandmother was the same way.

It gets easier. I really struggled at first too, especially as a second career teacher. I just make a routine and schedule things, even if it’s just taking myself to the movies. I try new recipes, have a time I exercise, and get books from the library

Summer break is the single best perk to being a teacher. And I could absolutely go in and make an extra $5k if I wanted, because school is not closed, it’s open for summer school. But instead I’m enjoying the time off

Except she’s never, ever claimed that she made any of that up. The fact that nearly everything in Harry Potter is based on already existing folklore is on purpose. It’s meant to ground the books in the “real” world. All that folklore is known to the common people, but in Harry Potter, it turns out it’s all actually real, just the “muggles” think it’s myths and legends. When I read the books, I’d heard a fair amount of it before from other books. It seemed obvious what the purpose was. Harry Potter goes to this world full of things he always thought were fake, only to find out they were real.

Spoiler alert for you; she also didn’t make up wizards and magic.

They don’t on southwest. They board after the A group

Not remotely true. I’m an all cash buyer. My mother inherited money from HER mother (which my grandmother made from buying a house in the 50’s and living in it for 60 years). I then borrowed it from my mother instead of a bank and am paying her back with interest. She’s able to still make money from it, and I’m getting a much better rate than a mortgage company. So basically I borrowed from my mother’s retirement fund. The people at our bank said it’s actually quite common these days.

No, my realtor was great. They helped me a lot and did basically everything you mentioned, though scaled to the needs of my condo, of course. Still not $12k worth of work. For the average person, $12k would be an incredible income for a full months worth of work at a FT job. My realtor put in a few hours worth of work. Easily less than a 40 hour work week. I get the extra pay for expertise, but not that much. There’s also no reason that my realtor makes $12k on my 1,100 square foot condo while someone else in the country makes $4k on a nearly identical condo just because I live in an expensive area. My realtor is making double what the last one who sold the exact condo did because the price has doubled. The work hasn’t. What other field has seen their pay double in the past couple of years? Their pay system is out of date, and there’s no justification for how much money they’re making now for the amount of work

I get this, but if buyers are going to pay realtors directly, somethings going to have to give with payment, especially in an online world where most buyers are the ones finding the places they want to see. I’m closing this week, and my realtor will be making more than $12k off my sale. There is no world in which that’s a justifiable amount of money for what he did. I looked at literally three condos because I knew exactly where I wanted to live. We put in one offer and that’s it. They’re going to have to work out some more reasonable payment system, maybe hourly like how you pay a lawyer.