I have nothing much interesting to report on the food eating front, I guess. I am trying to use up things slowly but surely. No crazy recipes yet! I used more sorbet and frozen fruit for smoothies, and last night I used some of her rice and edamame to go with my stir fry. As I was making the stir fry I noticed that she left a lot more stuff in the spice cabinets than I would have expected given that when I moved in she was clear that we were not sharing olive oil. That just leaves more balsamic vinegar for caprese salad!! There are a lot of pitas in the freezer so I am trying to use those up quickly. I am trying to clean stuff out of the freezer because I want to get the ice bin in there ASAP since it is very hot and it would be nice to have plenty of ice available. There is a lot of stuff in the freezer though, so I have a task ahead of me.
Mostly, recently I have been puzzling about life and particularly the future of my life from the point where I am right now. This has also brought a great deal of attempted analysis of what has happened so far this year in several arenas.
At work, my boss left and told me that I was likely going to get his position. This was a position that I wasn't technically qualified for and one that would come with a great deal more responsibility and stress. I didn't really want the job, per se, but, as most people who know me know, I believe in the mission of the organization and am concerned about us putting out a good product. Given the timing involved, my boss leaving in the middle of gearing up for our next operation, the effort I personally put into the preparation for the operation, and my experience thus far in the operation (previous new employees who have entered our division have taken a whole operation to really understand what is going on) including the fact that my portion of the operation is a check on the work that has been done by the other teams in our department so we have no margin for error, it seemed like I would be a good choice for the position. Of course I didn't get the position. At first it was going to be given to someone who was at the same level as me, but apparently his supervisor threw a fit and she got the position. The problem here is that she had previously made it known that she does not like me and she is kind of the anti-me. In addition she has a very checkered past of decision making since we have all been working there the past year. It is very concerning. Further, her management style is different and my work functions have gone from tasks that required genuine planning and decision making on my part to being kind of a puppet of her (bad) decisions. The rest of the department had the pleasure this last week of sitting in a meeting where we were lectured about doing things that my boss does that we are not supposed to do, of course my boss was not present for this meeting. I have been looking for another job for a while, since this job is temporary and could end at any time really. I am fairly certain that if I stay I will be on until June 2011, but do I want to stay? Not really, I would rather have a job where I am challenged and can use some of the unique skills I have gained from previous education and employment. Before this change in management things were going pretty well at work. I loved my boss, we had a team that worked like a team, I had responsibilities, I worked with other teams, I had good rapport with my field employees, and I got to go observe and assist with training. I felt good about things, now it is a mess.
Couple that with the fact that my best friend tried to break up with me last weekend. Really he was saying that we cause each other a lot of pain and that has to stop, so either we have to part ways or renegotiate the nature of our relationship. We went for the later. Amazingly we were on the same page, for the most part, in understanding the current stage of our relationship. We haven't been on the same page about anything for a while, hence the conversation about the situation.
And I have been giving more thought to some other relationship issues as well. Those thoughts pretty much take me in circles. I like to wear circles, not think in them.
Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Monday, August 17, 2009
A minimal view of lots happening
Whew!! It has been a long time and a great deal has happened. Soon after my last post I moved out of my apartment in Shorewood while working a temp job at the Milwaukee Center for Independence in the payroll department. Eric, thankfully, was able to watch over the moving process at the end of June, though there were several hitches in the process. Namely a car running into the moving truck and some problems with the storage space I had reserved which led to finally obtaining a larger one further away. The larger size was probably a blessing as most people know I have a lot of stuff. At the end of June I had an interview in Chicago with the Census Bureau for a job with the Census Coverage Measurement department. It was pretty cool going to downtown Chicago and seeing all the hustle and bustle of business people in the midst of rush hour. The interview seemed to go so so as it focused quite a bit on supervisory skills which I only really have in the classroom. I did the best I could, and I guess that was good enough because I got the call on July 13 to start work for them on July 27... a mere 14 days later. So, I gave notice at the temp job and trained my replacement (a whole other story), found a place to live, and made hotel reservations for the first week of work which turned out to be training in Oak Brook, Illinois, site of the permanent Regional Office for the Census.
So now I am living in the area of Chicago known as North Center, living on the third floor with all kinds of locks between the outside and the inside of my apartment, parking on the street, riding the "El" to work and back, and settling into life here. There is a lot to get used to. While grocery prices are good here in comparison to other densely populated metropolitan areas like New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles (I saw an article about it recently), they really do suck. I need to take a serious trip to Woodman's, but then I also do not have much storage space for the items I would purchase. My cupboard is full as it is from the stuff I had in my apartment cupboards! It would help if it would get cooler so I can really get to some cooking and get back into the swing of things in that arena after quite a bit of time without frequent cooking- well without any real cooking to speak of. It is going to take some time to get more settled because there are still three weeks of Kilties to go so I am not able to move stuff back and forth between Milwaukee and here like I might want. Hopefully I can get more organized and clear some stuff out of here once Kilties is over.
So now I am living in the area of Chicago known as North Center, living on the third floor with all kinds of locks between the outside and the inside of my apartment, parking on the street, riding the "El" to work and back, and settling into life here. There is a lot to get used to. While grocery prices are good here in comparison to other densely populated metropolitan areas like New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles (I saw an article about it recently), they really do suck. I need to take a serious trip to Woodman's, but then I also do not have much storage space for the items I would purchase. My cupboard is full as it is from the stuff I had in my apartment cupboards! It would help if it would get cooler so I can really get to some cooking and get back into the swing of things in that arena after quite a bit of time without frequent cooking- well without any real cooking to speak of. It is going to take some time to get more settled because there are still three weeks of Kilties to go so I am not able to move stuff back and forth between Milwaukee and here like I might want. Hopefully I can get more organized and clear some stuff out of here once Kilties is over.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
My birthday
Tomorrow is my birthday, the Big 3-0 as my mom called to point out. Thanks Mom! I guess if I am that old she is, well, older also so she might feel the pain too.
When Mom called I mentioned that I feel like turning 30 marks my crossing over point from being young to being old. She said that maybe a generation ago 30 was considered old, but now it is young. I guess this is true considering the life expectancy predicts I am likely to live another 40 years or so, thus I am not even half way through my life. But my peers and I looking back at our parents lives, see that by the time they were our age they were settled into adulthood- they had a career (or at least long term jobs), a spouse, children, and you know, a cohesive life. I wasn't there but that is how it seems. When my parents were my age, they had been married for eight years, had purchased a house and been living there for about five years, had each been at their jobs for eight or more years, and were two years away from having me... at which time they were 'old' parents. I wonder if they had any student loan debt left? =) Me? I have no job past Friday at this point, much less a career, I have a boyfriend (thank God for that or things might be bleak, right?), and I have a home for about 12 more days. Things are not good. My friend got laid off recently in LA, not completely unexpectedly and posted on her Facebook a quote from her pastor that things can only get better from here. I think things can definitely get worse. But I have hope that things will get better in the near future. Things are obviously going to go one way or the other because I am kinda balancing on a fence post and I can only stay up here so long before I either fall on solid land or fall into the lake and potentially drown. But I have had two interviews in the past week and hopefully another in the next week. Maybe one will net a local job offer. If so, I have been invited to seek housing with some friends here who are relocating.
Now birthdays tend to create problems for significant others who feel compelled to give gifts. My lovely boyfriend is no different. I guess he has given it thought, barked up some trees, and come up empty handed. Poor guy. He wanted to buy me some Cole Haan Shoes that I really liked, but he couldn't find them on the Internet and he is too lazy to go to Gurnee to get them for me. I say tough luck, dude! And he then asked me what he should get me... I gave some suggestions but he did not like any of them. Really, maybe he should think outside the box, hey? He has time on his hands, what could he do with the time he has on his hands that would be nice? I don't know. Buying gifts under pressure is hard! I feel it. I have a month before his birthday, maybe I should get started figuring out his birthday present. I have some ideas, but they will probably go over as well as the Christmas present which is likely in a box somewhere in his house and has never been used. The other half of the gift went well, though, so I can take solice in that.
Well. It is my birthday now. I am just going to try to enjoy it. Focus on the good things, the happy times in my life. Mom says the 30's are the best years, and Mom's always right, right?
When Mom called I mentioned that I feel like turning 30 marks my crossing over point from being young to being old. She said that maybe a generation ago 30 was considered old, but now it is young. I guess this is true considering the life expectancy predicts I am likely to live another 40 years or so, thus I am not even half way through my life. But my peers and I looking back at our parents lives, see that by the time they were our age they were settled into adulthood- they had a career (or at least long term jobs), a spouse, children, and you know, a cohesive life. I wasn't there but that is how it seems. When my parents were my age, they had been married for eight years, had purchased a house and been living there for about five years, had each been at their jobs for eight or more years, and were two years away from having me... at which time they were 'old' parents. I wonder if they had any student loan debt left? =) Me? I have no job past Friday at this point, much less a career, I have a boyfriend (thank God for that or things might be bleak, right?), and I have a home for about 12 more days. Things are not good. My friend got laid off recently in LA, not completely unexpectedly and posted on her Facebook a quote from her pastor that things can only get better from here. I think things can definitely get worse. But I have hope that things will get better in the near future. Things are obviously going to go one way or the other because I am kinda balancing on a fence post and I can only stay up here so long before I either fall on solid land or fall into the lake and potentially drown. But I have had two interviews in the past week and hopefully another in the next week. Maybe one will net a local job offer. If so, I have been invited to seek housing with some friends here who are relocating.
Now birthdays tend to create problems for significant others who feel compelled to give gifts. My lovely boyfriend is no different. I guess he has given it thought, barked up some trees, and come up empty handed. Poor guy. He wanted to buy me some Cole Haan Shoes that I really liked, but he couldn't find them on the Internet and he is too lazy to go to Gurnee to get them for me. I say tough luck, dude! And he then asked me what he should get me... I gave some suggestions but he did not like any of them. Really, maybe he should think outside the box, hey? He has time on his hands, what could he do with the time he has on his hands that would be nice? I don't know. Buying gifts under pressure is hard! I feel it. I have a month before his birthday, maybe I should get started figuring out his birthday present. I have some ideas, but they will probably go over as well as the Christmas present which is likely in a box somewhere in his house and has never been used. The other half of the gift went well, though, so I can take solice in that.
Well. It is my birthday now. I am just going to try to enjoy it. Focus on the good things, the happy times in my life. Mom says the 30's are the best years, and Mom's always right, right?
Thursday, May 28, 2009
The weekend, plus some before
So Eric chided me about writing about the weekend so I guess I should get to it! But really I could probably go back a little further. So let's go back to Saturday the 16th. That morning I headed off to Chicago to pick up my parents. It rained their first day there so we stuck around and went to the Field Museum where we saw the Early America exhibit, Pirates, and the dinosaurs. Then we drove back to Milwaukee, saw a little of the city and ate at Trocadero. Sunday morning was Graduation, which was lovely though the speaker went on a bit. Then lots of pictures and off to Mader's for brunch. My parents are buffet brunch fans and I am a fan of going to buffets at restaurants that have food that I don't really know well, then you can get an understanding of what is what and what you like. Like the Indian restaurant: they have a great buffet with stuff I would probably not order off the menu but now I know that I like it so I can order it in the future... or just go to the buffet! Ryan, however, is not adventurous in food so it was amusing. Anyway, it was a good time. After a little digestion and changing time, the parents and I went to the Harley Davidson Museum which was pretty cool. I didn't know any of the history and of course seeing all the old bikes is interesting. We did attend a very horrible little talk about the bricks on the outside of the building. The content was good and I learned from it, but the presentation was deplorable. After our visit to the gift shop we drove around the city a little more and then went to Alterra at the Lake, which is pretty cool and the parents liked it. What is there not to like about it? It is in a cool building, has greenness outside, and a lake across the road. We ran into Brian and his family there, which I had a feeling we would though he lives in Whitefish Bay so there was really no reason to expect it (an example Ryan). After getting caffinated we came to my apartment and hung out for a while. My dad offered to help pack but I decided against it as I wasn't ready for it. Then Dad wanted something to eat so we went to California Pizza Kitchen where no one wanted to wait on us, which got comical after a while. But we finally ate and it was good. I took Mom and Dad back to their hotel and went to bed myself. On Monday I picked them up and we went to the Pabst mansion which was really a cool place. I recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it. It was perfect for my parents as it only took about an hour which was good for my dad and involved an old house which was good for my mom. It reminded my mom of one of the houses she grew up in. They are trying to refurbish the place which isn't easy and takes a lot of money. Especially since the Milwaukee Diocese bought the place and sold all the furnishings so they are trying to get them back or buy similar items. After our experience at Pabst we met Eric at Fugyama for half-price sushi lunch. There was a lot of sushi consumed and it was good. With full bellies all four of us got into my car and headed to the O'Hare. I think this was the heaviest my car has ever been with four big adults and a full trunk, but we made it just fine. On the way back Eric and I took a walk through Gurnee Mills and didn't find what we wanted so we stopped in Kenosha too. Then I was starving so we went to Olive Garden where I ate salad and breadsticks and three bites of my entree. Starving, I say. Wednesday Eric came grocery shopping with me and then I had my House Cooling Party which was fun and entertaining. People came, people left, people came, people told funny stories, we band geeked out, bonded over memories of Jars of Clay "Flood," and killed three bottles of wine, since that is all I had. I should have made margaritas.
I have been working on a grant funded project this semester so I got some work on that done and applied for a lot of jobs. Friday evening Eric and I made Pho for dinner which was fantastic, much better than I expected. Later we went to celebrate Guy's birthday at Buffalo Wild Wings and then back to Guy and Bridget's place for margaritas, Wii oddness, and drum corp videos. Saturday Eric and I actually made it to Kilties practice on time for once! I had a ton of clothes on by managed to take some of them off over the course of the day- yipee- and get started on my tan for the year. We had dinner at Infusino's with 17 other people! Crazy! On Sunday we did more practice which we made it to again on time... wow a streak! After practice we headed back to Milwaukee to rescue Eric's friend from a wedding at the Art Museum. Wish we could have gone to the wedding. We took her to Water Buffalo and talked for a while. Monday had us in Racine by 8:15 am... I am amazed. We marched in the parade- yay! I love a parade! We then went to the mall and walked around for a bit before we headed to Greg and Missie's party where we stayed for 10 hours! A lot of people graced that party and a lot of food was consumed. Games were played. It was a fun time with a bunch of fun people! Tuesday I pretty much stayed put to recover from the weekend- it was quite a lot of running around- outside for over ten hours three days in a row. Great time. And now I am back to the grind of finishing the grant work, and trying to find a job and a new place to live though I can stay here through the end of June.
I have been working on a grant funded project this semester so I got some work on that done and applied for a lot of jobs. Friday evening Eric and I made Pho for dinner which was fantastic, much better than I expected. Later we went to celebrate Guy's birthday at Buffalo Wild Wings and then back to Guy and Bridget's place for margaritas, Wii oddness, and drum corp videos. Saturday Eric and I actually made it to Kilties practice on time for once! I had a ton of clothes on by managed to take some of them off over the course of the day- yipee- and get started on my tan for the year. We had dinner at Infusino's with 17 other people! Crazy! On Sunday we did more practice which we made it to again on time... wow a streak! After practice we headed back to Milwaukee to rescue Eric's friend from a wedding at the Art Museum. Wish we could have gone to the wedding. We took her to Water Buffalo and talked for a while. Monday had us in Racine by 8:15 am... I am amazed. We marched in the parade- yay! I love a parade! We then went to the mall and walked around for a bit before we headed to Greg and Missie's party where we stayed for 10 hours! A lot of people graced that party and a lot of food was consumed. Games were played. It was a fun time with a bunch of fun people! Tuesday I pretty much stayed put to recover from the weekend- it was quite a lot of running around- outside for over ten hours three days in a row. Great time. And now I am back to the grind of finishing the grant work, and trying to find a job and a new place to live though I can stay here through the end of June.
Friday, May 8, 2009
It's Friday and I am Fried
I bet that title means to some something other than what I intend but at this point I do not care. It is Friday, I am tired, it has been quite a week.
Tuesday, of course, was the big day: I defended my thesis and I passed. I thought I would be elated or happy or something of that sort, but not really. This could be because of the work that still needs to be done on my thesis. It would be okay if it was an add this, take out this sort of thing, instead I am charged with a rewrite of a large portion using a different sort of language- acktdhabrahbbbb! Different sort of language?!! Yuck. So I am not done and making very slow progress because I practiced that language I was using before pretty hard. And so I am also still stressed about the whole thing, thus not sleeping well, thus tired, thus not thinking clearly, thus not writing clearly, thus not getting it done. And there is plenty else to do like find a job and a place to live. To that end I have sent emails, filled out applications, sent CV's, and sent inquiries. I also took money out of my mutual funds so I don't bounce checks and/or run out of money and I am not happy about having to do so.
I went out on Tuesday night with several people to celebrate my successful defense and Cinco de Mayo at the same time. A margarita and a bunch of Mexican food left me super full. It was a good time.
So it is Danny Gokey Day here in Milwaukee. I am not sure if the mayor or anyone else decided this, but FOX certainly did. I think it would be interesting, considering last week the governor and the mayor were giving press conferences about Swine Flu, for this week the topic of a press conference to be Gokey Day. I digress. They are having a big pep rally at Summerfest Grounds. Apparently I decided not to go and am instead writing this in my office after attending a colloquium here in Sociologyland. But the Bucks Wild peeps are performing at the shindig and were supposed to go on about 45 minutes ago (3:00), though the FOX people said the gates opened at 4:15. Not real sure what the story is, but I am sure I will hear about it later.
This weekend brings yet another weekend of Kilties in my life. We are supposed to put the first and second movements on the field, but the weather is supposed to be bad tomorrow. Who knows what is going to happen? I don't. Hopefully we will make good progress, have a good time, and everyone will maintain a positive attitude. I so long for the days when I showed up, did my stuff and went home without all the excess drama and gossip. It would be particularly easy this year, being in the Guard, to be completely oblivious to everything going on in the rest of the corp. I just need some more energy to make it through the weekend without dying!
Now, pretty much everyone is gone from the department so I think I will go home soon. My apartment is a disaster area, the dishes seem to be mutiplying. But in all reality lots of dishes are what you get when you take on multiple cooking projects. I also have a mountain of laundry. All this needs to be get cleaned up as my place will be shown this weekend. Then it needs to stay clean because Mom and Dad are coming next weekend when I will be graduating. Can't believe that is coming up next weekend- time is flying.
Tuesday, of course, was the big day: I defended my thesis and I passed. I thought I would be elated or happy or something of that sort, but not really. This could be because of the work that still needs to be done on my thesis. It would be okay if it was an add this, take out this sort of thing, instead I am charged with a rewrite of a large portion using a different sort of language- acktdhabrahbbbb! Different sort of language?!! Yuck. So I am not done and making very slow progress because I practiced that language I was using before pretty hard. And so I am also still stressed about the whole thing, thus not sleeping well, thus tired, thus not thinking clearly, thus not writing clearly, thus not getting it done. And there is plenty else to do like find a job and a place to live. To that end I have sent emails, filled out applications, sent CV's, and sent inquiries. I also took money out of my mutual funds so I don't bounce checks and/or run out of money and I am not happy about having to do so.
I went out on Tuesday night with several people to celebrate my successful defense and Cinco de Mayo at the same time. A margarita and a bunch of Mexican food left me super full. It was a good time.
So it is Danny Gokey Day here in Milwaukee. I am not sure if the mayor or anyone else decided this, but FOX certainly did. I think it would be interesting, considering last week the governor and the mayor were giving press conferences about Swine Flu, for this week the topic of a press conference to be Gokey Day. I digress. They are having a big pep rally at Summerfest Grounds. Apparently I decided not to go and am instead writing this in my office after attending a colloquium here in Sociologyland. But the Bucks Wild peeps are performing at the shindig and were supposed to go on about 45 minutes ago (3:00), though the FOX people said the gates opened at 4:15. Not real sure what the story is, but I am sure I will hear about it later.
This weekend brings yet another weekend of Kilties in my life. We are supposed to put the first and second movements on the field, but the weather is supposed to be bad tomorrow. Who knows what is going to happen? I don't. Hopefully we will make good progress, have a good time, and everyone will maintain a positive attitude. I so long for the days when I showed up, did my stuff and went home without all the excess drama and gossip. It would be particularly easy this year, being in the Guard, to be completely oblivious to everything going on in the rest of the corp. I just need some more energy to make it through the weekend without dying!
Now, pretty much everyone is gone from the department so I think I will go home soon. My apartment is a disaster area, the dishes seem to be mutiplying. But in all reality lots of dishes are what you get when you take on multiple cooking projects. I also have a mountain of laundry. All this needs to be get cleaned up as my place will be shown this weekend. Then it needs to stay clean because Mom and Dad are coming next weekend when I will be graduating. Can't believe that is coming up next weekend- time is flying.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Ah-la-la-la-la-le-lu-ah and the phone story
Two weekends now I went to Oregon/Washington for Kim's wedding. It was a good time. I got to stay in a hotel and got a good amount of work done on my thesis. I think this is a useful thing for me to know- I get a lot of writing done in a hotel room. Expensive way to get writing done, but I will store that knowledge for later. I also got to see Amanda and her boyfriend, Scott, while there and that was good as well. What I did not do, and will pay for a while for, is call another friend I have who lives in Seattle- only a two hour drive away. He is not very happy with me as a result of my failure to call. This is because he (like me, actually) is the kind of person who will drive two hours to and from a place to meet someone and hang out for 15 minutes. I did feel bad about not making the call as I had previously mentioned him possibly coming to the wedding with me. But as it turned out I flew in Friday night and out Sunday morning and I had a thesis that needed to be done by the next Tuesday. Knowing if I called he would certainly come down and that I would feel bad cutting the visit short I didn't call. Unfortunately this did not go undetected as Amanda then went up to Seattle and visited with him and there was no hiding that I had been in the region. I got a phone call the next Sunday while I was at Kilties that totally called me out. I apologized but I don't think I am back in the good. Meanwhile, when I got back I had to deal with Ryan who was not at all happy to drive down to get me from O'Hare. Pretty sure my friend from Seattle would have picked me up from O'Hare if he could.
I guess I can say this: my thesis defense is scheduled for Tuesday. I would like to say that my thesis is done, but I don't know if this is the case as it is likely to see revision before it is signed and submitted to the department. My committee has a copy of the monster but I have made some changes since that copy. I am looking at family structure and I defined it as single parent, two biological parent, or other. In my initial analysis I used other as the comparison category but that doesn't actually tell us much. It didn't occur to me until I was talking to Eric two Thursdays ago while folding clothes that I could use single or two parent families as the comparison category and be able to say something. But this change meant a bit of work to revise the table and the text of my paper so I did that yesterday and will have to present revisions to my committee at my defense. I don't know if such a thing is typical, but it is what my adviser suggested and at this point my adviser is God of the situation- what he says goes. So it seems that this is good. I have been taking on an attitude of "don't count the eggs before they are hatched" in all things related to my thesis. I am fully aware that my committee could decide I am not done and give me a list of things that must be done which will delay my official completion. This could mean I don't actually graduate.... they are collectively God of that (hmmm.... how polytheistic of me). But I got my graduation regalia yesterday in the mail and the parents are coming to town for graduation so it appears that I am walking if nothing else.
The job search is sucking. I am frustrated by the bad application formatting and the repetition in the process. It is so hard to put effort into the applications when my experience is that few of them will even be considered. Eric applied for a job in Madison and a few days later received an email from a staffing company in Philadelphia saying that while he was qualified for the job they decided not to forward his application. Not an encouraging message to get. But of course we have no choice but to press on.
Amanda came to visit Wisconsin this week. I picked her up from the airport on Monday night. We went to lunch at Ryan's shop on Tuesday then to the Milwaukee Art Museum- I really like that place. Then her friends came and picked her up and took her to town in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin that I will not name. I guess it was not quite to her liking so she escaped and came back to Milwaukee last evening and Eric joined us for a trip to Lakefront Brewery for the tour and fish fry complete with Polka music. It was great! My second time on the tour, this one was more entertaining, and my first time at the fish fry which was yummy and fun. Will have to see about going in the summer to see the crowds. Today we got up, I made breakfast, Eric finally showed up, Amanda packed up, we went to the Public Market for a quick lap, and took Amanda to Amtrak and off she went to Chicago to meet Scott at his aunt's house in Evanston.
Aha! The phone story. This is a funny one, I think. So I have been sick this week: coughing, sneezing, nose stuffy. Went to see the doctor on Monday- no Swine Flu for me, but I was on anti-biotics that did not improve my health as quickly as they usually do. Point is I had not been sleeping as well as I might due to waking up for various reasons chief among them coughing. Well Wednesday night I settled in for some better, cough-less sleep and kept sleeping through my alarm. I didn't wake until 8:30 and needed to be in class by 9:00. I quick got up and dressed, it wasn't until I was putting on my shoes that I realized that it was raining outside. Well, at this point my only hope of making it to class on time was to ride my bike so I did that and ended up with soaked jeans by the time I arrived at school. So, being sick, I was unhappy with this (unavoidable, given my mode of transportation) outcome and I was locking up my bike which of course did not want to cooperate and I ruched to class. Well after class I was meeting with my advisor to discuss the above issue with my thesis. I returned to my office to hear that one of the department secretaries had called for me. That is odd since she would normally just walk down the hall instead of calling. So I headed back down the hall to see what she wanted and here she came down the hall. "The police called, they have your cell phone," she said. Hmmm. That's interesting I had not noticed that it was gone. So I head back into the office and call the police department as instructed. So I get on the phone with the officer who has my phone and he tells me he called my mom!!! In California!!! Immediately I am calculating what time it must have been in CA and contemplating the fact that I got tattled on. "She didn't want to talk to me at first," the officer tells me. "But when I told her who I was, who I work for, she was more willing." I bet! As it turned out it wasn't until about 10:30 Milwaukee time, 8:30 CA time that this all took place so my mom was at a school and was not happy to be on the phone because that doesn't look good. So the police officer on the phone asks me a bunch of questions: my address, office phone, office number, so forth. Then I hang up, tell my office mates the deal and resume what I was doing on the computer. The office phone rings, I answer, and it is my father!! Letting me know that the police have my phone. "Thanks, Dad," I say and hang up. My office mates are laughing, "Was that really your Dad?!" Yes, yes it was. So I got my phone back and all is back to normal-ish.... I mean as normal as my life gets.
I guess I can say this: my thesis defense is scheduled for Tuesday. I would like to say that my thesis is done, but I don't know if this is the case as it is likely to see revision before it is signed and submitted to the department. My committee has a copy of the monster but I have made some changes since that copy. I am looking at family structure and I defined it as single parent, two biological parent, or other. In my initial analysis I used other as the comparison category but that doesn't actually tell us much. It didn't occur to me until I was talking to Eric two Thursdays ago while folding clothes that I could use single or two parent families as the comparison category and be able to say something. But this change meant a bit of work to revise the table and the text of my paper so I did that yesterday and will have to present revisions to my committee at my defense. I don't know if such a thing is typical, but it is what my adviser suggested and at this point my adviser is God of the situation- what he says goes. So it seems that this is good. I have been taking on an attitude of "don't count the eggs before they are hatched" in all things related to my thesis. I am fully aware that my committee could decide I am not done and give me a list of things that must be done which will delay my official completion. This could mean I don't actually graduate.... they are collectively God of that (hmmm.... how polytheistic of me). But I got my graduation regalia yesterday in the mail and the parents are coming to town for graduation so it appears that I am walking if nothing else.
The job search is sucking. I am frustrated by the bad application formatting and the repetition in the process. It is so hard to put effort into the applications when my experience is that few of them will even be considered. Eric applied for a job in Madison and a few days later received an email from a staffing company in Philadelphia saying that while he was qualified for the job they decided not to forward his application. Not an encouraging message to get. But of course we have no choice but to press on.
Amanda came to visit Wisconsin this week. I picked her up from the airport on Monday night. We went to lunch at Ryan's shop on Tuesday then to the Milwaukee Art Museum- I really like that place. Then her friends came and picked her up and took her to town in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin that I will not name. I guess it was not quite to her liking so she escaped and came back to Milwaukee last evening and Eric joined us for a trip to Lakefront Brewery for the tour and fish fry complete with Polka music. It was great! My second time on the tour, this one was more entertaining, and my first time at the fish fry which was yummy and fun. Will have to see about going in the summer to see the crowds. Today we got up, I made breakfast, Eric finally showed up, Amanda packed up, we went to the Public Market for a quick lap, and took Amanda to Amtrak and off she went to Chicago to meet Scott at his aunt's house in Evanston.
Aha! The phone story. This is a funny one, I think. So I have been sick this week: coughing, sneezing, nose stuffy. Went to see the doctor on Monday- no Swine Flu for me, but I was on anti-biotics that did not improve my health as quickly as they usually do. Point is I had not been sleeping as well as I might due to waking up for various reasons chief among them coughing. Well Wednesday night I settled in for some better, cough-less sleep and kept sleeping through my alarm. I didn't wake until 8:30 and needed to be in class by 9:00. I quick got up and dressed, it wasn't until I was putting on my shoes that I realized that it was raining outside. Well, at this point my only hope of making it to class on time was to ride my bike so I did that and ended up with soaked jeans by the time I arrived at school. So, being sick, I was unhappy with this (unavoidable, given my mode of transportation) outcome and I was locking up my bike which of course did not want to cooperate and I ruched to class. Well after class I was meeting with my advisor to discuss the above issue with my thesis. I returned to my office to hear that one of the department secretaries had called for me. That is odd since she would normally just walk down the hall instead of calling. So I headed back down the hall to see what she wanted and here she came down the hall. "The police called, they have your cell phone," she said. Hmmm. That's interesting I had not noticed that it was gone. So I head back into the office and call the police department as instructed. So I get on the phone with the officer who has my phone and he tells me he called my mom!!! In California!!! Immediately I am calculating what time it must have been in CA and contemplating the fact that I got tattled on. "She didn't want to talk to me at first," the officer tells me. "But when I told her who I was, who I work for, she was more willing." I bet! As it turned out it wasn't until about 10:30 Milwaukee time, 8:30 CA time that this all took place so my mom was at a school and was not happy to be on the phone because that doesn't look good. So the police officer on the phone asks me a bunch of questions: my address, office phone, office number, so forth. Then I hang up, tell my office mates the deal and resume what I was doing on the computer. The office phone rings, I answer, and it is my father!! Letting me know that the police have my phone. "Thanks, Dad," I say and hang up. My office mates are laughing, "Was that really your Dad?!" Yes, yes it was. So I got my phone back and all is back to normal-ish.... I mean as normal as my life gets.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Politics and the Economy
At a time when we have a President who has called for bi-particianship it seems to me that there is even more particianship. My perception is likely clouded by a) the lack of attention I paid to politics when Bush was President due to my semi-perminent state of cringe, and b) the enormous amount of attention Obama gets in the media- as the grandpa I was sitting in the spa with last night pointed out, there has not been a day since he took office that he has not been mentioned on the news. I have no problem with particianship and the fact that our two parties have differing opinions, but the benefit of having differing opinions is that each can challenge the other which can lead to better ideas and decisions. Unfortunately differing opinions seem to be leading to stupidity. Republicans seem to be morally opposed to agreeing with Democrats, not on the principal of the idea but instead on the principal of agreeing. Further it seems to me that Republicans are getting dumber. Last night I was watching CNN and a Republican legislator from Bakersfield, CA (complete with a background with changing images of Bakersfield) was complaining about how stimulus funds are being spent. The governor of Ohio, I believe, he said is going to spend a load of money $23 million or so on a study rather than projects that apply the shovel to the ground and provide jobs for hardworking people... or something like that. Hello! Wake up! Get your head out of your butt!!! Obviously this guy doesn't know what a study is and for this I think the voters of Bakersfield should send him to school. Someone has to do a study. Actually a bunch of someones are often involved with a study. And these people get paid. If there are not studies to be done, these people may not have jobs. So doing a study provides jobs for people. Educated people, people like me, thank you very much. And this is what I am concerned about. In case you have not been paying attention the past 10 or 20 years we have this little problem with immigration and we Americans are snobs and don't want to do menial labor. So why are we so intent on providing menial labor jobs? In the US our educational institutions are factories of knowledge. We need to provide jobs for these people who we have already subsidized through funding to institutions of higher learning, and financial aid and subsidized loans to students. Where is this in the economic recovery plan? I am not hearing about it. I am hearing about cleaning up trash, and re-paving highways. How many Republican lawmakers want those jobs for their children. I am not knocking these jobs, they are vitally important to the infastructure of the US. Increasing the number of them, will, duh employ more people. I just see an imbalance of focus on these jobs to the exclusion of other jobs.
On Thursday I had an "ah-ha" moment when I was at a lecture given my Saskia Sassen, a world famous sociologist who is most known for her research on globalization. I had been having a funny feeling about the bailouts being given to the financial sector and the fact that it seemed that as the US economy tanked so did the world economy. Dr. Sassan was talking about the tension between the national and the global, which people seem to want to see as exclusive of one another but they really can co-exist. She pointed out that the bailouts given by the US government were not bailing out a national system but instead are bailing out a global system. Ah-ha. That is totally the case and why should the US carry the responsibilty in this area? Which goes to the G-12 (that's the right number, right?) and all that happened at that meeting...
Okay. All for now. Off to the wedding festivities! Another friend willingly surrenders her last name.
On Thursday I had an "ah-ha" moment when I was at a lecture given my Saskia Sassen, a world famous sociologist who is most known for her research on globalization. I had been having a funny feeling about the bailouts being given to the financial sector and the fact that it seemed that as the US economy tanked so did the world economy. Dr. Sassan was talking about the tension between the national and the global, which people seem to want to see as exclusive of one another but they really can co-exist. She pointed out that the bailouts given by the US government were not bailing out a national system but instead are bailing out a global system. Ah-ha. That is totally the case and why should the US carry the responsibilty in this area? Which goes to the G-12 (that's the right number, right?) and all that happened at that meeting...
Okay. All for now. Off to the wedding festivities! Another friend willingly surrenders her last name.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
One thing, and then another
I have written a few blogs in the last couple of weeks but I am trying to follow the adage "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all." Not an easy task. Especially when some others do say not nice things. Apparently I said something not nice, in a moment or five of anger about a month ago that will continue to cause me problems for a while. But maybe we will get to that in a future post, maybe not.
My grandmother died on March 27 which is somewhat ironic since my grandfather (opposite side) died on September 27, 2008. In six months I lost two grandparents or 50% of my grandparents (oooh, yeah too much statistics and data analysis lately). That sucks. Now, this may be difficult to understand or some might find it harsh, but my grandma dying was a good thing in a bad way. Different people experience death and the resulting mourning in different ways and I think anger was the most prominent stage in my mourning process for my grandmother. She was old and she was in bad health. But she didn't do much of anything to fight her dissintigration into bad health and instead sat in her house and did not much of anything. A crossword, some reading, ordered stuff from catalogs, and waited for people to come visit her when she could have been hanging out at the senior center or with her great grandchildren or daughter and son-in-law. But after grandpa died and she moved to Bishop, she just seemed to have lost her desire to live and for this I am angry. But I think I am getting over it. I guess she got what she wanted... the chance to be with grandpa again. I just wish that her family had not had to experience her giving up on life as a result.
Tomorrow is Easter and this means that I can eat meat again. I was doing pretty good on this vegetarian thing until Wednesday and then I was over it and wanted some meat. A little chicken, fish, a good taco- come on!! Hopefully eating meat again will not make me sick. Eating vegetarian wasn't all bad, I just got a bit tired of all the beans I was eating in order to get some protein. I didn't eat as many eggs as I thought I might and really it was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be. Eric was pretty supportive in that he ate what I fixed, but when we went out he always got something with meat in it. Yesterday I really wanted some of his pasta with chicken in it!!! I am hoping as I merge back into omnivore status that I will not overdo the meat consumption just to make up for lost time. One thing I learned from my experience is that there are plenty of meatless meals that are good and so I plan to keep some of these foods in my diet. I was disappointed that I did not seem to have lost much weight. In that way I kinda wish I had observed Passover instead as I always seem to lose weight when carbs are removed from my diet. It is clear I love carbs.
I am working away on my thesis. Right now I am in problem solution mode as I am trying to maximize the number of cases on which my analysis is based by dealing with missing data issues. Somehow my analysis is down to 9000 some cases from 16000 cases so I need to see where all the cases went. Then I need to get on my horse and analyze this data. Then revise what I already have written, get it reviewed by the profs on my committee, revise, and put a bow on this hog! (Midwest humor?) Hopefully I will graduate on time. My dad told me yesterday that my parents have not bought their plane tickets yet.... oh, I just shake my head at that. Maybe they think I won't graduate and somehow we will know that in a reasonable amount of time before, or maybe they are just procrastinating like I did in making my reservations for the hotel in Vancouver where I will stay for Kim's wedding this coming weekend. Yikes! Kim will be married in seven days!!!
Both Eric and I have been applying for jobs. I think he really did apply for a job in Antarctica. If he goes without me I will be sad and maybe a little ticked off. But on the other hand I am cold here in Wisconsin and do you know how much the coats they suggest you have for being in Antarctica cost? Over $500. And I am tired of being inside here and hate the cold wind, how much worse will it be there? So maybe I should be happy the Norseman may go without me.
Tonight, another basketball game (go Bucks!) night. Keeping a positive attitude about it.
My grandmother died on March 27 which is somewhat ironic since my grandfather (opposite side) died on September 27, 2008. In six months I lost two grandparents or 50% of my grandparents (oooh, yeah too much statistics and data analysis lately). That sucks. Now, this may be difficult to understand or some might find it harsh, but my grandma dying was a good thing in a bad way. Different people experience death and the resulting mourning in different ways and I think anger was the most prominent stage in my mourning process for my grandmother. She was old and she was in bad health. But she didn't do much of anything to fight her dissintigration into bad health and instead sat in her house and did not much of anything. A crossword, some reading, ordered stuff from catalogs, and waited for people to come visit her when she could have been hanging out at the senior center or with her great grandchildren or daughter and son-in-law. But after grandpa died and she moved to Bishop, she just seemed to have lost her desire to live and for this I am angry. But I think I am getting over it. I guess she got what she wanted... the chance to be with grandpa again. I just wish that her family had not had to experience her giving up on life as a result.
Tomorrow is Easter and this means that I can eat meat again. I was doing pretty good on this vegetarian thing until Wednesday and then I was over it and wanted some meat. A little chicken, fish, a good taco- come on!! Hopefully eating meat again will not make me sick. Eating vegetarian wasn't all bad, I just got a bit tired of all the beans I was eating in order to get some protein. I didn't eat as many eggs as I thought I might and really it was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be. Eric was pretty supportive in that he ate what I fixed, but when we went out he always got something with meat in it. Yesterday I really wanted some of his pasta with chicken in it!!! I am hoping as I merge back into omnivore status that I will not overdo the meat consumption just to make up for lost time. One thing I learned from my experience is that there are plenty of meatless meals that are good and so I plan to keep some of these foods in my diet. I was disappointed that I did not seem to have lost much weight. In that way I kinda wish I had observed Passover instead as I always seem to lose weight when carbs are removed from my diet. It is clear I love carbs.
I am working away on my thesis. Right now I am in problem solution mode as I am trying to maximize the number of cases on which my analysis is based by dealing with missing data issues. Somehow my analysis is down to 9000 some cases from 16000 cases so I need to see where all the cases went. Then I need to get on my horse and analyze this data. Then revise what I already have written, get it reviewed by the profs on my committee, revise, and put a bow on this hog! (Midwest humor?) Hopefully I will graduate on time. My dad told me yesterday that my parents have not bought their plane tickets yet.... oh, I just shake my head at that. Maybe they think I won't graduate and somehow we will know that in a reasonable amount of time before, or maybe they are just procrastinating like I did in making my reservations for the hotel in Vancouver where I will stay for Kim's wedding this coming weekend. Yikes! Kim will be married in seven days!!!
Both Eric and I have been applying for jobs. I think he really did apply for a job in Antarctica. If he goes without me I will be sad and maybe a little ticked off. But on the other hand I am cold here in Wisconsin and do you know how much the coats they suggest you have for being in Antarctica cost? Over $500. And I am tired of being inside here and hate the cold wind, how much worse will it be there? So maybe I should be happy the Norseman may go without me.
Tonight, another basketball game (go Bucks!) night. Keeping a positive attitude about it.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
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!
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!
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