u/AltruisticGain2587

I was looking at a map of Australia and noticed that the far southern coastal part of Western Australia from Bunbury to Esperance (NOT the Nullarbor Plain) seems surprisingly empty compared to how much coastline it has. Places around Perth are populated of course, but once you go farther south and east it seems like there are huge stretches with very few people despite having a much milder climate than the interior.

From a distance it looks like some of those coastal areas could support larger cities or at least more regional development. I know Australia overall has a very centralized population pattern, but southern WA still stands out to me because it’s not deep desert like the center of the country.

Is it mainly due to lack of water, poor soil, isolation from other major population centers, limited industry, or something else? Curious what the historical/geographic explanation is.

I’m 26M in Salem trying to figure out what gives my life purpose, and I’m curious if anyone around my age in the area resonates with this. I’ve been working remotely in IT for about 4 years now. The income is decent, and honestly it’s the best job I’ve had because it lets me work from home. But despite that, I still feel lost, drained, and directionless.

I dropped out of college because I never found a career path that genuinely motivated me. Lately, I’ve been fantasizing about dropping everything and starting a new life on the East Coast, specifically in a suburb near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and going to trade school, maybe welding or Electrician. Life on the other side of the country seems interesting as I've visited before as a child and I hate sitting down for hours at a time looking at a screen.

The thing stopping me is money. I’d be giving up a lot of comfort: a decent remote job, an apartment in a neighborhood I like, and the free time I currently have for things I care about, like music.

I hate how conditioned I feel to measure my worth by how much money I make. It’s easy to say "just follow your passion" but it’s a lot harder when stability and survival are tied into the equation. Does anyone else around here feel this way or can share their experience? Maybe I’m just ranting and needed to get this off my chest. 

Hi!

I've gotten into the Waterloo Honors Math Co-op program and the CS program at Boston University. In the end, I want to be working in the tech field in the US. My question is should I go for the Waterloo offer because of its exceptional Co-op system or should I opt for the BU CS offer?

I'm a Japanese international student currently studying in Canada.

I just wanted to get some opinion on which universities to attend next year.

I’m 26M and my now ex GF is 27F. We were together for about 8 months. I’m honestly still a little heated about this, so I want to get some outside perspective. Basically, I work full time, pay my own bills, and I’m pretty responsible with money. I save, I invest a bit, and I don’t have any debt. Because of that, I also like to enjoy my money sometimes whether that’s buying something I’ve wanted, going out with friends, or even just treating myself. My ex started having a problem with this. At first it was small comments like "that’s kind of a waste." I brushed it off because I thought she was just being practical. But it slowly turned into her straight up telling me what I should and shouldn’t spend my money on.

For example, I wanted to book a short trip with friends and she got upset saying I should be saving that money for our future. We were not married, not engaged, and haven’t even been together a year. Another time I bought a new laptop with my own money and she acted like I made some irresponsible decision and said I should have asked her first.

That’s where it started to really bother me. I don’t think I need permission to spend money that I earn, especially when all my responsibilities are handled. I tried talking to her about it calmly and told her I felt like she was overstepping. She doubled down and said in a serious relationship, finances should be controlled, which sounds reasonable on paper, but in reality it just meant her trying to control my choices.

The final straw was when she got genuinely upset and gave me an attitude for going out with friends and spending money that weekend. That’s when it clicked for me that this wasn’t going to change. I broke up with her because I don’t want to be in a relationship where I feel like I’m being managed or controlled, especially over something like my own money. She thinks I’m selfish and "not ready for a real relationship" but I honestly feel like I dodged a bigger issue down the line.