Answering questions at Boston College O’Neill Library
You never need to miss an answer – I have a web presence (library.bc.edu/answerwall/). The answer was: Ethical and consensual is good and necessary. However even taking those aspects into account, sex, especially with multiple partners, has its risks – for instance, STDs and unintended pregnancies.
I’m sorry you’re hurt, but I’m sure you will also recover, and reasonably certain the process of recovering will teach you that you have capacities you weren’t aware of and reveal friends you didn’t know you had. Depend on yourself and depend on friends and family. You’ve got this. If you find the hurt remains longer than expected, consider counseling: bit.ly/BC-counseling
How about one of the cushy chairs near the windows on level 5? One of the booths in the reading room or level 1 might work too. Then there’s also “The Spot” on level 4.
I’m sorry the flawed health care system is troublesome, and I’m sorry my answer was unsatisfactory. You might be interested in the book Insane consequences: How the mental health industry fails the mentally ill, by D.J. Jaffe (Social Work Library RC455 .J28 2017). If I understand it correctly, a recent law (part of the 21st Century Cures act, signed in December 2016 – for a summary of relevant law, look here: (bit.ly/HR2646)) relaxed restrictions on HIPAA/FERPA to allow providers to share some information with caregivers (i.e. family), to avoid healthcare problems worsened by confidentiality. I’m always sorry to hear about solutions that also cause problems. The world is complicated that way. When things that impact my life are out of my control and answers are unsatisfactory, I turn to friends for support, and often also turn to Reinhold Niebuhr’s serenity prayer: “Give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other.”
Yes, stronger staplers can be provided to the access service desk for your use! I’ll alert my assistants to look into this & see what we can do.
Talk this one over with the professor and your advisor, to see how realistic it is to still succeed in this class, and the consequences of withdrawing at this stage. I’m sorry the semester’s started out this way for you.
You might have missed this answer from 9/26: Hair loss could have many underlying causes, many of them genetic and irreversible. (More info: bit.ly/mayo-baldness) Even treatment for reversible hair loss has only had moderate success. A particular type of hair loss (alopecia areata) occurs starting in childhood, and is the result of an otherwise benign autoimmune disorder. A recent review of the literature (bit.ly/bc-alopecia) found moderate success with some treatments for this condition. If it’s irreversible, at least know that I think bald humans look wise & sophisticated.
It can be disorienting to feel out of control. If the feeling passes when you’ve finished some of the tasks on your to-do list, then let it go. If it persists, there are potentially two pieces to this: planning, and your feeling of being overwhelmed. First, try setting priorities and planning your time more carefully. (I recommend the academic coach at the CFLC: bit.ly/BC-connors.) If that takes care of it, great! If not, then it’s more of an emotional burden of feeling generally overwhelmed, and that can take some time to figure out. I recommend counseling: bit.ly/BC-counseling.
It’s not mean to say that you’re feeling that counseling is useless, as long as you know that that may not be true for everyone in counseling. If you don’t feel you’re getting much (or anything) from counseling, try addressing it directly and telling your counselor what you would like to gain from your sessions. This may mean adjusting your current counseling, or looking for someone new to talk to who is a better fit, but it’s worth it to feel like you’re making progress and getting what you need.
Straightforwardly? “Hi, would you like to go to the club?” Have some dates and times in mind, so you’re ready to answer that question. And tell a friend what you’re planning, so you have someone you can tell about The Ask whether it’s a success or not.
Humans between the ages of 13 and 25 often do need more sleep than other humans, but 13 hours daily does seem excessive. I recommend visiting a doctor to make sure there’s not a health problem of some kind.
Be straightforward about this. Your reasons and language about it are good: “I really like you, but you have been with {boyfriend} for 2 years; I don’t want to invade your relationship. What are your thoughts?” Be prepared to find out she doesn’t think there is anything wrong with having a boyfriend and having some casual fun with you. In that case, you need to decide what your stance on that is.
It works for me very well, but for you living and breathing (and needing food and sleep and showers) types, I think it would get very unpleasant pretty quickly!
Yes! There are therapy dogs here at O’Neill during exams. But we recognize that’s not the only stressful time when humans can benefit from dog love. They’ll be here in O’Neill (in the 3rd floor Reading Room) this week. See signs in the lobby.
1) Trust that you will if you’re serious about finding it, 2) True beauty is simultaneously in the eye of the beholder and the heart of the beheld, even though that might cause contradictions, 3) We question the world because it’s full of contradictions and injustices.
Occasional smelly farts are normal and usually caused by something you ate. If you introduced something new into your diet, that may be the culprit. If you have very foul smelling gas, it could be signs of a digestive track problem or allergy- a visit to the doctor may be in order if it persists.
We do have some and are collecting more titles in ag due to the growth of the Environmental Studies Program. I recommend searching our catalog (library.bc.edu). You can also browse the stacks in the SD section (3rd floor O’Neill, way over to the right), but many of the more current items are online. Connect with the Environmental Studies Librarian, Enid Karr (karre@bc.edu) for more ideas, like getting items from other libraries.
My assistants and I are not paragons of mathematical genius. Analysis looks like it would take some ability to visualize – or at least imagine in some way – very complex combinations of functions, ordered sets, and other such fearsome creatures, and then represent them as variables. It’s a lot to keep track of all at once, a kind of mental juggling. If you can do it, consider yourself ready for a mathematical circus.
As a whole, yes. I can’t speak for all of them. Some may set up what seem like barriers to you, but are intended as challenges to deepen your knowledge of a subject. IOW, they want you to succeed, but they want you to succeed at a challenging level. I recommend a) meeting with the professor to clarify objectives and get help, b) seeing if there’s a tutor for your class at the CFLC (bit.ly/BC-connors), and c) organizing a supportive study group.
Yuck! Probably the oddly-named silverfish. I advise placing a work order through the Agora Portal. “My Services” tab → “Facilities Work Request.”
