I suggest something where you get to work with a wide range of the populus. Opportunities are basically all service industry jobs: waiting tables in a restaurant, working retail, working in a hotel, etc. Learning how to interact with wide swaths of humans is an invaluable skill that will serve you well in your future professional career. I would focus on building social and emotional intelligence.

It’s interesting that it’s a middle leaf. Our orchids tend to grow new leaves on the top and drop leaves on the bottom as they put out new roots going up their stem. Every few years I have to unpot them and cut the bottom few inches, otherwise they will climb out of their pot.

When our orchids drop leaves they look very similar to the leaf on your plant.

In my experience, this variety of orchid thrives on benign neglect. Ours very rarely get fertilized. They also only get watered every two weeks or so and when they get watered the bark they’re in is pretty well saturated.

Glad to see them recovering! In my experience, phalaenopsis are very hardy and resilient. If anything, the seem to prefer some level of benign neglect - especially when potted in the junk big box stores sell them in. After repotting ours in well draining potting material about 7 years ago it’s been very smooth sailing.

Absolutely. If the leaves don’t perk up I would snip the flower/baby spike.

Hard to tell, I’ve had Phalaenopsi put out more flowers on old spikes, as well as babies. We’ve had one for over 10 years that’s been through quite a bit before I finally pulled it out of the moss we bought it in, cut most of its roots out, and potted it in bark.

In my experience, they’re pretty hardy. I would personally let the spike go until you know what it is and make the call. Watch the leaves, as long as they don’t get more raisney I would probably just leave it alone.

I am not personally familiar with either lens. I suggest looking at reviews and paying attention to the list of image impacting bullets I put into a different reply. Generally speaking, lenses that have less of a max/min zoom ratio are easier to pull off design wise, but from a “one lens, all day” perspective something like an 18-150 is hard to beat.

Because it’s Canon’s RF mount, I think all lenses in this focal range are first part (ie are from Canon). Your choices are:

• The Canon RF 24-105mm f/4-7.1 IS STM. This is a “slow lens” (or won’t be great in low light) and it looks like availability is somewhat limited. It will be your cheapest option at $400 if you can find one
• The Canon RF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM, which retails for $1,300
• The Canon RF 24-105mm f/2.8 L IS USM Z, which retails for $3,000

You could look at adopting a lens, but I suspect a lens + adapter will make this tough at under $600 new.

I was thinking the same :(

See also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation

Strategic lawsuits against public participation (also known as SLAPP suits or intimidation lawsuits), or strategic litigation against public participation, are lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition

There are many, many variants. The idea is the smaller player can’t really afford to fight in court, so even if the larger actor has shaky legal claims they will still win.

Tell that to my very sideways baby Jade :(

Do you live in a warmer climate and/or have radiator heat? From what I’ve read, carneverous plants like higher humidity and Midwest winters + forced air make for a pretty dry house.

Also, be careful with bottled water. They all have some level of minerals in them to get their flavor profile. That said, if you’ve been doing this for any period of time carry on!