Ugh!

So the last few days have not been the best. I got the horrible cold that has been going around. I think it is the same one as the rest of my office at school has had, not the one that ski trip people had. Although, who knows? It could be the same thing. I am medicating and staying home. This seems to be the best course of action. Plenty of tissue, liquids, medications, a bed, clothes, blankets, and the bathroom are nice and handy. The problem is that I have a thesis proposal to get done by Tuesday and my head is full of yuck and it feels like I am trying to think through yuck. In case you aren't aware, thinking through yuck is neither effective nor fun.

Objectively worse than this, Eric got laid off yesterday from his job. I say objectively because in my head it is a really bad thing. I told Ryan and he reacted like maybe he/we would be in mourning. But a) Eric is taking it pretty well and is upbeat about it, and b) it didn't totally come out of the blue. This was at least the third round of layoffs the company has done and Eric is a younger member of the staff. Though he, and many others, thought he was indispensable because he is so talented in many different ways. Earlier this week we were watching the news and a story was being reported about Cardinal Stritch wanting to buy property from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to build a south campus and the hearing that was going to occur. In the background of the footage were posters that Eric had made for the proposal. As Eric noted last night it was ironic that in one week his work was on TV and then he lost his job. Thankfully Eric isn't currently paying rent since he is living in his aunt's house which is up for sale. But they seem to be trying to sell the house as they have several showings and an open house this weekend. Like I said, Eric seems upbeat about the whole thing and has some ideas about where to seek new and possibly different employment... after he plays some video games :). Just kidding, I am sure he will get right on the job search though it is a stressful process that will probably require some stress relief in the form of said video game playing. Selfishly, I must admit I am wondering what this is going to do for my schedule. I thought I had the perfect thing going with my days all scheduled so that I would get my work done while Eric was working. Us, you know, still being in that "You're the greatest ever, I want to spend every waking moment with you" phase may make sticking to my schedule more difficult. So, for my sake alone I hope he finds a new job soon. You all know that is tongue in cheek, right? On the other hand, this could be a blessing in disguise because, based on my research, he is worth a lot more than he has been getting paid. Of course his value is in large part a virtue of that job as it has given him three years of experience, brought him some great contacts here in Milwaukee, helped him really get to know many of the environmental issues in Milwaukee, and learn how to navigate the bureaucratic channels in the state. So hopefully he will be able to find a better job nearby and not have to go to Madison or Chicago.

In other news, I seem to be drawn to the crazy stuff people do on the Internet these days. My dad sent me a note about a book about Dating and Dumping in LA by Zagat, but he didn't send me a link to the article he was talking about so I had to search for it and along the way I found the following trainwreck: http://www.okcupid.com/forum?low=1&tid=7223997838631196585 I cannot believe this girl did not have the evaluative skills to conclude that she had made a series of errors, should be embarrassed, say "Shame on him, but shame on me too," and move on with her life. Instead she writes a very popular note about it. The reader can almost feel bad for her, then a previous blog is exposed where she admits that she posted fake pictures of herself. When a potential beau decides he doesn't want to meet her after she reveals this deception she concludes that it is because he is superficial. Thankfully plenty of people are there to point out that if he is a decent guy he probably doesn't want to be lied to and deception is not a good foundation for a relationship. What is sad about the situation is that in both of her posts it is apparent that she has a personality that is attractive to at least some men, in the more recent case her appearance does get in the way, and in the earlier case her perception of her appearance got in the way. In a trite way we could say "Honesty is the best policy," but according to jerk-boy he would have have dated her if he knew her true weight. Of course, no one wants to date superficial jerk-boy, or know that they are. Mention of this instance would be funny in passing if I didn't have the sense that maybe this is only one in many similar situations. As I read this I stopped and thought about the possibility that I knew the girl who wrote these messages. I went back and read them again to convince myself that the writing style was not the same. These are very real issues in online dating- the FBS, which I had never heard of before reading the comments for this posting, whether to reveal ones real weight, whether to post pictures that are accurate portrayals of ones appearance or the super foxy done up ones, and how to deal with the pond scum that sometimes surface in online dating sites.

Then a new Facebook scandal with local tie-ins. http://www.jsonline.com/news/39091967.html Apparently a student at a high school in New Berlin, WI pretended to be a girl and used Facebook at AIM to illicit nude photos of boys at his high school. He then blackmailed the boys threatening to release the photos if they did not perform sexual favors for him. Wow! First the texting nude photos- porn charges, now this.... yowsers.

Okay, I think that is enough warm up for my proposal writing. My head feels a little bit more clear than it did when I started writing.

CES and Job Search

Stuff from the Consumer Electronics Show:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28547936/displaymode/1107/s/2/framenumber/7/
I am not sure if there are one or two monitors attached to this thing, but in either case, isn’t he REALLY close to the screen? My mommy always told me to sit further away from the screen so you don’t have to move your head to see the corners of the screen.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28547936/displaymode/1107/s/2/framenumber/10/
Since Brad’s digital watch broke, maybe this would be a good replacement!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28547936/displaymode/1107/s/2/framenumber/12/
This doesn’t seem like a big deal at first. Big whoop: we can connect a bunch of monitors to the same USB port, what’s so special about that? It doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult but for some reason it is. When I taught high school, I did a ton of PowerPoint presentations to present notes to my students, this required a projector, and when I showed the presentations I had to unplug the output from the monitor and plug in the projector. I had one of those y cord attachments that was supposed to make this work, actually I got a few of them, but they never worked – I could not have the monitor and the projector showing the image at the same time. I think strength of signal is a problem, so just as when you plug in a bunch of headphones to the same CD/tape/MP3 player you need an amplifier, so maybe an amplifier is needed in this case. I think this a good innovation that I hope goes mainstream so others don’t have to crawl on the floor multiple times per day like I did.

Job Search

On Friday I decided to freak out about my financial situation and get going on trying to find a job. This brings to mind the paper one of my students wrote about informal and formal methods of finding jobs. Informal is getting a job through people you know; formal is using job placement services or responding to job ads. I had filled out an application for a job that one of my professors had suggested, but didn’t want to put all my eggs in one basket so I headed to milwaukeejobs.com. I have never had any luck with these general job search sites. I have applied to many jobs but received little to no response. But, hey, these people are looking for people to work for them, right? I am not so sure sometimes. One should get a response if they are qualified for the job, right? Maybe, as it turns out. Think of the number of responses people might get for an ad in economic times like now when there are many people in need of jobs. The number is pretty big. And the range of people is probably large also. From totally under qualified to way overqualified. If you have one job and you get even 150 responses you are giving a quick glance and move on to these applications. Well at least for the relatively low skill, part-time jobs I am looking for. I guess this scenario highlights the importance of a good resume. I used to work for an employment agency and fix other people’s resumes so, at least at some point, I had a killer resume. I have not, as I have mentioned, had any luck with online job sites. I don’t know what it is. But my lack of success has conditioned me to not put much effort into my application procedure. I use to fill out the cover letter sections for each job highlighting my specific related experience, but no more. “Why do it if I am not going to get any response anyway?” was my thinking. Experts would probably disagree with meJ. Anyway, typically I get jobs the informal way. Let’s catalog my jobs, don’t you think that will be fun? My first job was at Conroy’s Flowers and I got it through my Dad. Then I got a babysitting job through my neighbor who was also my Mom’s hairdresser. Then I went to college and I got a job at a children’s dental office which I found on the campus jobs list. I got another babysitting job the same way there. Then I got a job assisting a professor at CSULB who was a family friend. A Day Camp job at my church with my friend. A bunch of jobs through a temp agency. A job at a mental health provider’s group that was in the CSULB campus newspaper. My first teaching job I got because of Brad. My second teaching job was from an Internet site in CA for teaching jobs, so I guess I haven’t totally failed with the Internet. Here in Milwaukee I got a job through one of the regulars at Ryan’s coffee shop. Last summer’s job was through one of the students ahead of me in the Soc program. And then I got a job today on a project of the professor I TA’d for last year and was recommended for it by one of my other professors. By my count that is 8 jobs informally and 5 jobs formally. Not so bad, I guess. But none received from Monster or any of those other big sites. So I don’t know about those, I don’t know of anyone who has gotten a job that way. Have you?

This job search thing is becoming more acute of an issue as many people, as mentioned, are in need of jobs. A relatively close acquaintance lost his job in the last week and it freaked me out. I immediately sent Eric a frantic email looking for assurance that he is not going lose his job. It is scary! Not many of the people around my age are secure enough to be able to manage losing a job. As one of the teachers at Lancaster High School said to me, we are in the acquisition phase of our lives. Thus we also tend to be in a lot of debt- student loan, credit card, car payment, and some people have a mortgage. I could go on about consumerism and overextending ourselves but I will save that topic for another time. In any case losing income makes it almost impossible to make all those payments. For myself, I have always had a cushion of mutual funds, but those babies have sunk like a rock in fresh water over the past year. These economic times are not comfortable for anyone, I don’t think. I read in Newsweek about the super rich cutting back on their conspicuous consumption because it is not cool to have a super expensive something-or-other when other super rich people have lost half of their wealth. Anyway, I will again be in search of a job in May, or maybe August as I will probably be in Milwaukee another year. If I can find a job in May that will last a year, that would be great.

So I didn’t follow up on the teasers from last time, maybe next time!! And I should probably write a little about my cooking too, that could be fun!