Rose

Hunting for some coochie

Wrote a G up on his belt

It’s a news source for many teenagers. It’s a safe space for kids in dangerous situations AND it can be used to help those kids alert people to their situation. It’s a way to talk to people you live far from. It’s a place to be creative. It’s a place to share ideas and experiences with your peers. For some kids, it’s the only thing that they have real control over or privacy in.

Yes, there are risks, but that’s why you teach internet safety! And I keep seeing this talk about “at least kids will go outside again!!”

This conversation also makes me think of my cousin, who is a mennonite (Christian denomination, similar to Amish but a lot more lax).

Their community also encourages less internet usage, but they actually have alternatives. A lot of these children have jobs, their church is a large community that has frequent meetings during the week for youth. The place where my cousin lives is also a lot less hostile to pedestrians compared to where I live in my American state, with places like coffee shops, stores, and the library being walking distance. Not to mention that she can drive, and the community encourages teens having the independence to go places on their own and with other friends in the church community. I've spent a month at her place and she's told me that while I've been around has been the most she's spent on technology (because we watch things and play games together).

This is not to say that their community is a youth liberationist utopia or anything- FAR from it. There are a lot of problems with this community that I won't get into. But what I am saying is that when we have other options, children do care about things other than social media. Kids want to go outside. Kids want to do stuff outside of the internet. We want to hang out with friends and read and such. We're just so restricted.

And like you started off by saying, social media is ingrained into the life of most teenagers. It's taught me so much about the world and the options out there. It's helped me with my mental illness and self-destructive behaviors. It's helped me recognize that I'm an abuse victim. It's done so much for me, and so much for others.

I took the cargo ops class at school but my teacher explained that it doesn't give a certification and I'd only be okay for ship's crane and the school forklifts. she said I could take an online exam and get my cert. I paid 60 bucks.

I'm googling and I'm seeing a lot of resources saying that the online programs cover the classroom part of the exam but not the in person practical aspect.

29 CFR 1910.178 (l)(2)(ii)

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