I am supportive of people’s right to live with dignity and respect, and I agree that asking in front of a waiting room is undesirable (I have had that same thought in other waiting rooms, too), but I feel like a medical analysis setting is one in which biology (sex) actually does take precedence over identity (gender), because that has implications what and how things are analyzed.

That said, transgender persons taking hormones will have much greater variance in ranges of everything. I think it’s sensible to have additional gender markers in addition to sex.

Yes, I am in Ontario. Hmm, I should just go somewhere else to get the Covid shot. Thanks.

I went to my local pharmacy and asked for both, but the pharmacist would only give me the flu shot. He said I was too young to need the Covid shot… Which he gave me last year.

I genuinely snort-laughed at this 😂

Well, I mean, can you do better than Justin Trudeau?

Yepper, my dad is now long retired, but he was an old school programmer that kept legacy banking systems in the US alive, running in parallel with newer ones (in case the shit hit the fan on the new ones). Though not American, he’s a big Trump fan and definitely would have voted for him if he could have, even though he himself admits its a good things he retired and returned home before Trump became president, because he would not have gotten his US work visas under Trump.

This is basically Mark Carney, the current Prime Minister of Canada. He ran and won as a Liberal, but he would have been a Conservative two decades ago. He’s been working against the interests of every day Canadians, but the thing is that if the alternative is Pierre Poilievre and his Conservatives, I’d still vote for Carney 10/10 times, because at least Carney isn’t a homophobic, transphobic racist. He’ll defend your human rights while robbing you.

Carney looks great on the world stage because he’s juxtaposed against Trump. And yes, we’re definitely better off with Carney at the helm than with Poillievre who was trying so hard to emulate Trump, but the entire world had been taking a pretty hard shift to the right.

I think it’s safe to say the people in charge appreciated the idea of diversity but had no actual clue. Harry Kim was supposedly Chinese, till Garret Wang told them Kim is Korean surname.

… Is Canada getting the Brexit that was promised but never materialized?

She was a US PR who had been willingly living in the US for 14 years. Her Canadian citizenship is only an incidental fact that has no relation to the story; she could have been from anywhere. This was not a political move against Canada the way Spavor and Kovrig were. It was very unfortunate, and we should be sad about her death, and sad about the state of the US, but this is not the doing of any party, government, policy, or law in Canada. This was done solely by the US. They created this situation, they pushed her to her death. If you can’t see that, you’re either incredibly disingenuous or stupid.

I don’t see why LPC feds should care? I mean, beyond basic human decency. This is US policies and actions applied to US PRs. It had nothing to do with Canada or Canadian laws. Why don’t you leave the blame where it rightly lies, with the US and its unconstitutional gulag?

You’re right that interactions are not hugs, but they create friendships with people with whom it is both socially acceptable and emotionally healthy to hug. If you don’t hug your friends, you’re missing out in life.

Well, some of them do. Shingles was the most painful shot I’ve ever had in my life. It hurt the rest of the day and then some. Measles was the second most painful, but only for the duration of the shot itself and a short time after.

But I imagine the shingles shot to still be far less painful than actual shingles, from what people have told me of it, so I’d still choose the shot every time.

Well, as I said, I’m not actually interested in getting the worker in trouble. The employer, however, is taking advantage of multiple refugee and immigrant “employees” in various ways, this the most provable. I put employee in quotes because the others are being (under) paid by irregular means; meanwhile, the employer siphons money for their own self.

Essentially what you said, but I’d like to phrase it the way a counselor said it to me when I was under a lot of stress at work. Stress is the gap between our expectation and reality. Say you expect to be/produce/achieve/whatever 100%, but you are only capable of achieving 80%. The stress you experience is that 20% gap. Change your expectations to meet your reality and that stress will be resolved.

Now, it may still be that others might still want or expect that 20% from you, but that’s their problem and their stress. If you cannot produce it anyway (which created your stress in the first place), existing in the stress-gap clearly won’t make you able to do it anyway.

I have an American friend who is terminally ill, and it’s possible I may never see them again 😞

My father exactly. He’s Asian, so I think he feels more removed from the situation, but he worked in the US for over a decade before retiring back here. He’s still 100% pro-Trump, even though we are feeling the negative effects of his tariffs (“He has to put tariffs, he had no choice, look at their economy”), and he even admits things like Good thing I retired before Trump became president otherwise I probably couldn’t get a work visa now. My dad would vote Trump if he could vote.

I’m sorry to tell you the sets have already been dismantled and set pieces already sold off. It’s one thing to renew a show that still had its physical pieces, another thing to have to rebuild everything again.

I’m sorry to tell you this, but he did not love you. You don’t threaten to break up with someone you love, that is an abuse tactic, and you just do not abuse people you love. That is not your fault. That is a reflection of who he is, not who you are. You are only responsible for your own actions, not his.

Really, I mean it, read up on love bombing, DARVO, and if you can get a copy, a book called _Why does he do that? _ I think these will help you understand and process what you’ve experienced.

Good for you. You did the right thing for yourself. But you’re asking the wrong question; this wasn’t a you thing, this was a him thing. By what you’ve said, he’s a selfish and emotionally immature person. What good was he actually for you?

An important lesson to learn in life in general is that you cannot change another person. Only a person can choose to change for themselves, not for anyone else. The whole thing about leading a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. His selfishness has nothing to do with you, except that you suffered for it. He was selfish before you, and he’ll continue to be selfish after you. Maybe one day he’ll choose to change, but that will have to come from inside him, not for anyone else. This is true for all the kinds of ways people need “fixing” (in quotes), big and small ways, from drug addictions to simple things like pet-peeve type habits.

Look up the terms “love bombing” and DARVO. I think you will find descriptions of your ex, and I hope your eyes will be opened to the fact that he was emotionally abusive, and that you were the victim of his abuse. I hope this can set you in the right direction to put him behind you.