The only paid subscription for entertainment that I have is for Spotify and NBA League Pass and both serve me well (though I'm sort of not using Spotify as much recently)

Idk how y'all have a bunch of streaming services cause that's a lot of money

And the YouTube ads are frustrating since it takes longer to skip them now and some just never pop up the skip button but are whole podcast episodes, but I'm so used to being interrupted that it doesn't bother me. Can't be good for the attention span though

I have my reservations about giving him a paper because:

1) I'm a bit suspicious that he's using AI to draft messages to send to us cause they're too formulaic in a way that doesn't make sense to me (for instance he, he started a message once saying it was good to see me earlier that day and he hopes we're doing well - I briefly saw him but we didn't interact). I don't support using AI for basic reasons (using it to assist in computationally analyzing datasets makes sense to me - drafting a message, no), so it rubs me the wrong way

2) I'm not sure if he knows how to actually find research articles himself using scientific databases. For instance, we are fortunate to have access to Web of Science which is my favorite tool to search for articles because they make it easy to find newer articles that cited the article you're looking at. It's also rather easy to search for a paper with a few kew words and then read through the list of journal titles until you find one that seems to fit. And this is a valuable skill that anyone should be able to do (though it seems to be getting lost cause of AI...)

3a) Idk if he bothered to try to find an article himself or if he just wants us to get one for him. He didn't indicate that he tried searching himself and in research there are times where you need to find something yourself and not necessarily have a clear point to start from

3b) he said he already had 3 papers, which we likely shared when we first joined us. They are more technical versus an overview of the topic we're interested in, but the fact that they are papers we shared also suggests to me that he hasn't (yet) started searching for other references

I feel bad for him cause I think his research experience this semester was not good cause the postdoc I work for (who ultimately has final say over decisions since he has the grant money to allocate resources to his project) wanted him to work on one thing that you could learn in a machine shop class vs a scientific research project where he'd gain wet lab skills (but this is why I need to be a grad student and not work for someone else who's research style is different from my own). When he first joined I tried to be available and make it clear that I'm here if he needs any help, but he also seemed pretty not-so-focused on our work (since it was easy) vs his other courses (completely understandable)

The reviews for this place were not lying when they said that the dentists hawk invisalign to patients. I came in for a filling and the dentist came in, brought up the 3D model of my mouth to point out my bite, and tried to sell me the shit. I was hoping she was gonna show me again where the filling would be placed but NOPE - just reasserting that I'm a "tongue thruster" and my teeth would continue to shift if I don't correct this sooner than later

Thank goodness for my evanth 101 class and the professor specializing in biting mechanics in primates cause I know that all this shit ultimately doesn't matter so long as your mouth is healthy and functions properly. My dad (mid-60s) also has the same mouth shape as me and he's completely fine (plus he still has his wisdom teeth!!!)

If you want to get Invisalign for cosmetic reasons, cool. If you believe there are issues you have with your mouth that it could fix, cool. I just wish these people would stfu about it when I said I don't want it, not try to sell it as a "functional solution" to "correct" my bite and "prevent issues later on", and instead DO MY FILLLING FIRST WHILE THE NUMBING IS STILL STRONG