Cat. Hates Mondays. Loves lasagna. Simple as.
Appreciate it! That’s great advice. At least other offices have CBAs so it’s not as hostile of a starting point as it could be, and a couple of coworkers were previously at those offices and are checking with their old colleagues about lessons learned, etc.
Bober 🦫 I just wanna chill in a lodge. (Plus the other beav-post put them on my brain)
Field-fit engineering stays winning
They didn’t have to go back to beaver congress to ask for funding, or make sure the correct beaver-reps’ fail children get the construction contract. Or they didn’t have to spend 80 beaver-hrs building a more profitable beaver-project before they could do something that actually benefits their beaver-community. Or sit around arguing if climate change is too scawey for some beavers to engage with. Maybe it’s because there’s no beaver-bourgeoisie 🤔
https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/features/firefighting-beavers
https://emilyfairfaxscience.com/research/firebeavers/ https://www.nasw.org/article/let-beavers-do-work-fighting-wildfire-one-dam-time
https://www.fws.gov/media/beaver-restoration-guidebook
https://www.beaverinstitute.org/get-beaver-help/damaged-streams/
Yes haha yes! One of my personal interests is “engineering WITHIN nature” (ie mostly what can we “unfuck” to an improved state of balance) and that can involve lots of beavers! 🦫 anyway enjoy some of my favorite beav-sites! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_drop https://yewtu.be/watch?v=rrOE-m7sX9E
https://qcnr.usu.edu/beaver-restoration/partnering-with-beaver https://yewtu.be/watch?v=2_cml_cXPmE
https://www.wlfw.org/natures-engineers-how-beavers-boost-streamflows-and-restore-habitat/
I already was China-pilled before xhs, but you’re 100% correct. My interactions on it have been sharing pictures of our cats with people around the world who have cats with similar colors, and realizing a shared love of “harlequin ducks” with people from countries all throughout its migratory footprint. It’s like the internet I’m used to but without the toxicity clouding everything lol.
Oh helllllll yeah. Gonna download that for sure
Also I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the work finally getting the attention it deserves, which is practitioners with backgrounds in traditional ecological knowledge re-examining the ways we look at systems.
https://ecologyandsociety.org/vol27/iss1/art14/
And I phrased it so weirdly because I’m still learning it, and haven’t dove into the topic enough to know more than the fact that I still need to listen to others. Anyway- this is the most fascinating part of systems engineering in the western field imo
Environment, Power, and Society by H.T. Odum is my number one favorite book for environmental systems engineering and looks at society through the same lens of power structures built around control of power flow. It’s literally the book that made my brain understand the basis of power and how it’s utilized. It has plenty of citations, and Odum and his colleague William Mitsch have a wealth of papers l, largely related to energy flow in wetland systems, but they worked on some of the foundational writing on the topic. It’s somewhat hard to track down a copy, so if you’re interested, but unable to find info, I’ll try and scan my copy to a pdf. I’ll try and dig up some papers today too if I can.
Awesome work getting an assessment. I was affirmatively assessed last year, have been going through focused counseling on what that actually means, and after a year I’ve almost fully controlled my biggest stress tics of nail chewing, and pulling out hair (eyebrows specifically lol). My nail chewing was very bad to the point of basically having open wounds constantly. What’s been working for me is a number of things.
In counseling, acknowledging that it’s a harmful behavior and understanding why- for me that was hearing that it’s an easy way to get infections and to spread germs into your mouth. I’ve chewed my nails my whole life and recall as an undiagnosed child only ever hearing it framed as if it were some sort of moral failing of willpower. If it were explained logically that it’s a behavior that, although temporarily soothing, can actively hurt you and therefore is something to avoid, I would have been able to internalize that over time, rather than the shame surrounding it.
Looking at it from the lens of the root causes. Hand to mouth is a big stress relief for me- that includes smoking, vaping, drinking, nail chewing etc. Stepping back and recognizing that was an important common thread. This was where, when under duress, I start acknowledging those impulses (because I’m a huge dork literally saying “I recognize that you’re an impulse and you have no control over me” either in my head or out loud if I’m alone lol) and in turn taking away the “mindless” portion of the behavior.
Now to your actual question of stims! Sometimes it’s not enough, when the background brain-screaming is particularly draining, I need something to do with my hands. a. Travel nail kit. Unfortunately growing up as a poor, undiagnosed, cishet male in the us i was not ever taught about the importance of keeping your nails healthy. Fortunately it’s relatively inexpensive to get a pack of emery boards, fingernail trimmers, etc. I keep them at all of my work areas in addition to the bathroom. Having hang nails or irregular portions of my nail was something that would nag me, until I chewed it off, but all this was doing was continuing the cycle. By trimming and filing my nails such that I don’t notice them, I literally simply forget about something that was a major tic for decades. b. Pick pads and putty. I bought a silicone pick pad on Etsy where you pick out beads from silicone, then you can melt the silicone pour it on the beads and do it again. Loved the picking, loved the beads, not a chance in hell I’m gonna have the mental availability to remelt the silicone lol so it gathers dust. But I dumped the beads into my favorite stim- silly putty! There are brands that come with things in them, but I found that getting cheap putty and putting fun beads (or dry rice) in it is my favorite. You can pick the beads out, squish it like a stress ball, throw it, etc. For me this was the winner. c. My partner busted me for smoking, and on top of being a bit pissed, she got me one of these: ( https://pranavida.co/en-ch/products/the-breath-vessel ). It’s nice! I can do the soothing hand to mouth movement of smoking, but redirected into a breath control practice instead. It works like a charm for snapping me out of stress fixation. d. I’ve also tried: various grip trainers (my favorite is a silicone rubber ring). Stress balls (I tend to get too stressed and destroy these). Kneaded erasers. Silent-clicking pens. Bitter nail polish ( don’t). Beaded bracelets (I REALLY like these, but I have massive hands and the stretch cord always breaks :/ ). I’ve also had good luck with 3d printed fidget rings (but again fidget too hard and break them). A “Simpl Dimpl” key chain. “Worry” stones
TLDR- My key experiences are:
And FINALLY since you’re in the process of being assessed for things, I assume that means you’ve spent at least some part of life trying to painfully cram into the NT box. And while I’ve always felt a disconnect from the NT community, I’ve experienced nothing but compassion from ND folks on this site and irl. So bear in mind this is the start of a journey to better understand and love yourself, and know we’ve all got your and each others backs.
Awesome thanks!! My background is mostly in ecological systems so I’ve backed into some of material by chance. I tend to forget about the importance of secondary or tertiary for interacting with new topics- I usually assume I should dive into the primary source at its origin and then wonder why I’m confused lol. Like I fell out of a dang ol’ coconut tree.
Hell yeah. Love the insight! Definitely the risk of exploring things on one’s own is missing out on the context from others who have studied and interpreted works. Very happy to have this community
“If you don’t show up, you may as well start looking for a new job!”
Me who started planning my departure as soon as I arrived 
As someone who watched the movie as a kid fortunately all I can remember is that a Barred Owl was a Bard in it. As a certified bird nerd I loved that and no one cared lol.
Once you pop the fun don’t stop
It seems like a weird fixation, but consider this is the map in your typical US classroom
@prole@hexbear.net , @QueerCommie@hexbear.net , @Philosoraptor@hexbear.net , @TreadOnMe@hexbear.net , @starkillerfish@hexbear.net , @woodenghost@hexbear.net
Thank you all for some awesome replies! Looking forward to reading through them and checking out your recommendations! A lot of this stems from recently learning about Ecological Ethics and starting to read some Bookchin essays before realizing ecological knowledge does not cover the same bases as “ecological ethics“ lol. NGL it’s exciting to find a thing so familiar but foreign to learn about! Will be undoubtedly talking more with you all :)
Stay warm out there! (Or stay cool if you’re somewhere warm!) 
No offense, but you may not be familiar with the dismal state of employment in Amerikkka.
Hell YEAH. Care to sign our petition to DEPORT third party COMMIES?
http://lnkiy.in/KamalaIsGreat