And furthermore, how can it possibly be half over?
A glimpse into my life: I have a high stress, low-paying job at a nonprofit. I am taking the GRE in two weekends, and have yet to study any of the math. My earliest grad school application is due on December 1st--my portfolio is only halfway done, my actual applications are nowhere near complete, and my personal statement? What personal statement?
I would despair and give up completely if I didn't think I'd kill myself if I don't get out of this job and into school next year. I must go to school again. There couldn't be a better time, economically speaking, and I am fit for little else, let's be honest. Working makes me frazzled and tired, and I am really a much more interesting and worthwhile person when I am chill, rested, and have been flexing my intellectual and creative muscles. My poor, poor brain. Right now it's like a damn competitive hot dog-eating contest in there--all flab and atrophy.
I would prefer it were otherwise. Hence my campaign to A. care about work only as much as they pay me to (and that ain't much, kiddos), and B. Do nothing for the next three weeks but study, write, apply, and stalk that last professor who has yet to write my damn letter of recommendation .
Oh yeah, and get my hair cut tomorrow. And see my sister. And maybe spend four minutes with my boyfriend without yawning and/or wearing sweatpants.
And so the time has come for me to put my head down and power through the next month or so. Until it is over, I will daydream of the good old days in Spain when life was all wine and siestas.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Follow the leader...
...right off a cliff. No, not really. I just wanted to let all (3) of you know that you can click the "following" box on the right if you want to publicly acknowledge that you read and maybe enjoy my raving. It will make me feel special, and will make your name/alias show up, making you a defacto celebrity (crotch-flashing and public debauchery not included).
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Palin-O-Mania
Check out this article by Anna Quindlen for Newsweek. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Steel-Gray Monday
Thanks to the New York Times' online news updates, I found out: the Dow opened today down 300, and closed down 500; some investment bank I hadn't heard of until now (Lehman Brothers) is screwed in the same way Bear Stearns was, minus the bailout from the Fed; and Merrill Lynch, crippled and failing, sold itself to Bank of America.
Also, I am still unemployed.
Apparently all this Wall Street tomfoolery has to do with real estate. And by "real estate," I mean the fact that a while ago someone decided it would be a good idea to let high-risk creditors take out mortgages with only 10% down payments, broke those mortgages into little pieces, and then sold them to said investment banks with absolutely no regard for the inevitable: that these bad creditors would eventually be unable to make their payments, realize that their house hadn't "appreciated" like they would have liked, and that measly 10% down they paid isn't anywhere near enough to keep them out of the red. Cue the foreclosures, cue the frantic banks and plummeting stock exchange.
Now, I don't have a mortgage. I don't invest what little savings I have. Like I mentioned, I didn't even know who the Lehman Brothers were until today, and yet, that mysterious, omnipotent force, "the Market" affects me every day. So, I can conjecture that no matter what I, personally, do, the Market can screw me.
This wouldn't bother me so much if the same people who love talking about "the market" so damn much weren't also the same people who love to preach about "personal responsibility." I am personally responsible. I pay my bills and my taxes, I pick up litter (both my own and others'), I stop for pedestrians. All of that. And what does all that personal responsibility get me? Evidently a stay at my parents' place and few prospects.
I say it's high time we stop focusing on personal responsibility and start in on corporate responsibility. There's no reason the educated, financially savvy people involved in this whole real estate/bank/Dow backslide were not capable of foreseeing this possibility. Maybe they didn't, but that doesn't mean they aren't capable. The problem lies in the fact that it (apparently) is no one's job to foresee things. Oh, if only there were some sort of organization--separate from the corporations it oversees, yet still working in their best interest--that could keep an eye on them, predict possible issues, and have the power to put their foot down when said corporations come up with a hairbrained idea that might ruin the economy.
What's that? There is such an organization? And it already has the power to do these things, if it so chooses? That's right, how foolish of me, the government can do all this! In the form of regulation!
But again, the same people who constantly claim that "the market" will fix not only itself, but everything from worldwide hunger to my hangnail, are the ones who have historically been anti-regulation. Love of the free market and fiscal conservatism are perfectly legitimate positions to have, if that's your thing, but when you combine an essentially unregulated market with shortsighted get-rich-quick schemes (such as the real estate shenanigans described above) that end up biting the entire U.S. economy in the ass, it's pretty easy to start thinking that what's behind all this is not some economic philosophy or laissez-faire attitude, but rather pure, unadulterated greed.
Because let's be honest, here. The chances that the CEOs of these banks are going to be destitute as a result of their poor decision making are approximately zero. We see this all the time: a big company goes down, all its employees are let go sans pensions and severance pay, yet the top executives somehow escape with millions in "bonuses."
I'm not saying Person X should be punished to the point of homelessness for being shortsighted or wanting to turn a profit. I realize that in a situation like this, sometimes there is no one Person X to blame; culpability in these cases is spread around like frosting on a big ass cake. However, the fact remains that the economy's misfortune is someone else's gain. People made money on these deals, a lot of money. They may lose it in the stock market (which would be poetic justice), but they probably won't. They may be in their private jet right now, on the way to the Cayman Islands--all while the rest of us "normies" struggle. And that's not right.
So part of me was glad that the Fed decided not to bail out Lehman the way they did Bear Stearns. "Deserved, punks!" I thought gleefully. But their demise may not be theirs alone, as that moody little tramp, the Dow, proves. According to Paul Krugman's op-ed in the Times today, if Lehman bleeds too hard and too fast, it could take down a lot of other banks with it. Well, isn't that wonderful.
It's high time the companies that screw everything up were held accountable. Even better would be if they were hindered from screwing everything up in the first place. I agree with Paulie: "if institutions need to be rescued like banks, they should be regulated like banks."
So if anyone in power is reading this, I'd like to put in my vote for some sensible regulation, please. Also, if you have any job openings, I'm ready to start immediately.
Also, I am still unemployed.
Apparently all this Wall Street tomfoolery has to do with real estate. And by "real estate," I mean the fact that a while ago someone decided it would be a good idea to let high-risk creditors take out mortgages with only 10% down payments, broke those mortgages into little pieces, and then sold them to said investment banks with absolutely no regard for the inevitable: that these bad creditors would eventually be unable to make their payments, realize that their house hadn't "appreciated" like they would have liked, and that measly 10% down they paid isn't anywhere near enough to keep them out of the red. Cue the foreclosures, cue the frantic banks and plummeting stock exchange.
Now, I don't have a mortgage. I don't invest what little savings I have. Like I mentioned, I didn't even know who the Lehman Brothers were until today, and yet, that mysterious, omnipotent force, "the Market" affects me every day. So, I can conjecture that no matter what I, personally, do, the Market can screw me.
This wouldn't bother me so much if the same people who love talking about "the market" so damn much weren't also the same people who love to preach about "personal responsibility." I am personally responsible. I pay my bills and my taxes, I pick up litter (both my own and others'), I stop for pedestrians. All of that. And what does all that personal responsibility get me? Evidently a stay at my parents' place and few prospects.
I say it's high time we stop focusing on personal responsibility and start in on corporate responsibility. There's no reason the educated, financially savvy people involved in this whole real estate/bank/Dow backslide were not capable of foreseeing this possibility. Maybe they didn't, but that doesn't mean they aren't capable. The problem lies in the fact that it (apparently) is no one's job to foresee things. Oh, if only there were some sort of organization--separate from the corporations it oversees, yet still working in their best interest--that could keep an eye on them, predict possible issues, and have the power to put their foot down when said corporations come up with a hairbrained idea that might ruin the economy.
What's that? There is such an organization? And it already has the power to do these things, if it so chooses? That's right, how foolish of me, the government can do all this! In the form of regulation!
But again, the same people who constantly claim that "the market" will fix not only itself, but everything from worldwide hunger to my hangnail, are the ones who have historically been anti-regulation. Love of the free market and fiscal conservatism are perfectly legitimate positions to have, if that's your thing, but when you combine an essentially unregulated market with shortsighted get-rich-quick schemes (such as the real estate shenanigans described above) that end up biting the entire U.S. economy in the ass, it's pretty easy to start thinking that what's behind all this is not some economic philosophy or laissez-faire attitude, but rather pure, unadulterated greed.
Because let's be honest, here. The chances that the CEOs of these banks are going to be destitute as a result of their poor decision making are approximately zero. We see this all the time: a big company goes down, all its employees are let go sans pensions and severance pay, yet the top executives somehow escape with millions in "bonuses."
I'm not saying Person X should be punished to the point of homelessness for being shortsighted or wanting to turn a profit. I realize that in a situation like this, sometimes there is no one Person X to blame; culpability in these cases is spread around like frosting on a big ass cake. However, the fact remains that the economy's misfortune is someone else's gain. People made money on these deals, a lot of money. They may lose it in the stock market (which would be poetic justice), but they probably won't. They may be in their private jet right now, on the way to the Cayman Islands--all while the rest of us "normies" struggle. And that's not right.
So part of me was glad that the Fed decided not to bail out Lehman the way they did Bear Stearns. "Deserved, punks!" I thought gleefully. But their demise may not be theirs alone, as that moody little tramp, the Dow, proves. According to Paul Krugman's op-ed in the Times today, if Lehman bleeds too hard and too fast, it could take down a lot of other banks with it. Well, isn't that wonderful.
It's high time the companies that screw everything up were held accountable. Even better would be if they were hindered from screwing everything up in the first place. I agree with Paulie: "if institutions need to be rescued like banks, they should be regulated like banks."
So if anyone in power is reading this, I'd like to put in my vote for some sensible regulation, please. Also, if you have any job openings, I'm ready to start immediately.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Katie is perplexed
I just don’t understand other people sometimes. Particularly when it comes to their supreme awkwardness in real life coupled with a strange (and actually more awkward, come to think of it) openness when it comes to pouring their souls out on their computer screens.
Yes, folks, I’ve been trolling around the Interweb again, and as usual, my conclusions regarding mankind and its future/ultimate demise are bleak.
Through the miracle of Facebook’s status updates, I now know more about the lives of old high school acquaintances than I do about my friends who’ve moved away (they’re not avid updaters). Attention girl I was in choir with one year who “friended” me out of the blue several years ago: I do not want to know that much about your moods. Or your party habits…or your medical history. Seriously.
I know people feel a certain sense of security on the internet. It’s kind of like picking your nose in the car, I guess. You feel separated, but in reality the dude in the pickup in the next lane is laughing his mullet off. To be clear, in this metaphor, I am that dude, now sans embarrassing hairdo. And to be honest, the laughing is often nervous and uncomfortable.
The real disconnect for me is that I would never write some of the things I’ve seen on peoples’ profiles. They’ve got their deepest personal issues hanging out all willy nilly for everyone to see! It’s embarrassing, for God’s sake! If they realized that the mini feed was informing me, an old acquaintance, of these things, they would croak.
Or maybe not. Maybe it’s the over-socialized, A-student, law-abiding small child within me that makes me too closed-off to share. It’s a viable theory, to be sure, but that’s not the only factor in play here. Certainly my early-instilled sense of appropriateness would never lead me to type, “Katie is really hoping she gets her period soon! :/”, for example. But I would also never write, “Katie is having a bad day and really needs a hug,” either. Partially because I’m particular about just who hugs me and I don’t want just any of my 300 “friends” approaching me on the street. But no, the real reason is, I would be far too concerned that others would judge me as weak, or lame, or socially awkward if I shared a genuine emotion via the internet, of all things. Why would I worry about that, you ask? Because I judge people that way. Not necessarily for saying, “Billy is sad,” but certainly for “Jessie needs a man PRONTO!!!1! ;)” and absolutely for “Louisa just wants to be held until the storm ends.” I mean, really? The latter is so sappy and trite, and the former is so…gross.
I have been known to be sappy, trite, and gross (sometimes all at the same time), make no mistake. I am every bit as emotionally complex and deeply ridiculous as anyone else on the world wide web, but, here’s the thing: why advertise it? My god, when I think about how easily I click “accept” when someone random sends me a friend request, the mere idea of sharing the intimate details of my life with them makes my mouth taste like bile.
It’s easy to say, “yeah, they’re really concerned about you. Narcissist.” But it doesn’t matter who’s actually concerned, because the Facebook’s ways are mysterious: the mini feed provides gossip and Wall-quotes indiscriminately, without heed to which of your “friends” you actually care about. Just ask me. I can tell you all about “Misty’s” alcoholism and “Timmy’s” mood swings. And that “Clara” really likes bad poetry.
What does this culture of over-sharing add up to? Why is it that I should know more about my recently out-of-the-closet acquaintance’s love life than I do about my friends’? (Perhaps that I am not a very good friend, but if friendship means finding out that many details on a regular basis, count me out. It really is just…a lot of information). I’m not sure if it means people are all emotionally retarded and can’t express themselves properly in reality, or if I am too easily scandalized. Likely a little of both.
When all is said and done, I don’t know why it is that some people love nothing more than to tell the internets the exact details of how they lost their underwear last night when I carefully consider even admitting to my hangover this morning. I like to think it stems from my inherent superiority, but that’s my answer to everything. I suppose how much you share with the world (virtual or otherwise) is up to you, cowboy. The consequences will vary—a potential employer may decide to pass on you, I may judge you. Or nothing will come of it. You know, either or. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve only got this to say:
Katie is over it.
Yes, folks, I’ve been trolling around the Interweb again, and as usual, my conclusions regarding mankind and its future/ultimate demise are bleak.
Through the miracle of Facebook’s status updates, I now know more about the lives of old high school acquaintances than I do about my friends who’ve moved away (they’re not avid updaters). Attention girl I was in choir with one year who “friended” me out of the blue several years ago: I do not want to know that much about your moods. Or your party habits…or your medical history. Seriously.
I know people feel a certain sense of security on the internet. It’s kind of like picking your nose in the car, I guess. You feel separated, but in reality the dude in the pickup in the next lane is laughing his mullet off. To be clear, in this metaphor, I am that dude, now sans embarrassing hairdo. And to be honest, the laughing is often nervous and uncomfortable.
The real disconnect for me is that I would never write some of the things I’ve seen on peoples’ profiles. They’ve got their deepest personal issues hanging out all willy nilly for everyone to see! It’s embarrassing, for God’s sake! If they realized that the mini feed was informing me, an old acquaintance, of these things, they would croak.
Or maybe not. Maybe it’s the over-socialized, A-student, law-abiding small child within me that makes me too closed-off to share. It’s a viable theory, to be sure, but that’s not the only factor in play here. Certainly my early-instilled sense of appropriateness would never lead me to type, “Katie is really hoping she gets her period soon! :/”, for example. But I would also never write, “Katie is having a bad day and really needs a hug,” either. Partially because I’m particular about just who hugs me and I don’t want just any of my 300 “friends” approaching me on the street. But no, the real reason is, I would be far too concerned that others would judge me as weak, or lame, or socially awkward if I shared a genuine emotion via the internet, of all things. Why would I worry about that, you ask? Because I judge people that way. Not necessarily for saying, “Billy is sad,” but certainly for “Jessie needs a man PRONTO!!!1! ;)” and absolutely for “Louisa just wants to be held until the storm ends.” I mean, really? The latter is so sappy and trite, and the former is so…gross.
I have been known to be sappy, trite, and gross (sometimes all at the same time), make no mistake. I am every bit as emotionally complex and deeply ridiculous as anyone else on the world wide web, but, here’s the thing: why advertise it? My god, when I think about how easily I click “accept” when someone random sends me a friend request, the mere idea of sharing the intimate details of my life with them makes my mouth taste like bile.
It’s easy to say, “yeah, they’re really concerned about you. Narcissist.” But it doesn’t matter who’s actually concerned, because the Facebook’s ways are mysterious: the mini feed provides gossip and Wall-quotes indiscriminately, without heed to which of your “friends” you actually care about. Just ask me. I can tell you all about “Misty’s” alcoholism and “Timmy’s” mood swings. And that “Clara” really likes bad poetry.
What does this culture of over-sharing add up to? Why is it that I should know more about my recently out-of-the-closet acquaintance’s love life than I do about my friends’? (Perhaps that I am not a very good friend, but if friendship means finding out that many details on a regular basis, count me out. It really is just…a lot of information). I’m not sure if it means people are all emotionally retarded and can’t express themselves properly in reality, or if I am too easily scandalized. Likely a little of both.
When all is said and done, I don’t know why it is that some people love nothing more than to tell the internets the exact details of how they lost their underwear last night when I carefully consider even admitting to my hangover this morning. I like to think it stems from my inherent superiority, but that’s my answer to everything. I suppose how much you share with the world (virtual or otherwise) is up to you, cowboy. The consequences will vary—a potential employer may decide to pass on you, I may judge you. Or nothing will come of it. You know, either or. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve only got this to say:
Katie is over it.
Good day to you all...
Hello, friends. As you can see, I have caved to the pressures of The Internet and made my own blog. Really, this was a long time coming, as three of the things I love in this life are writing, ranting, and showing off. Basically, I am currently unemployed, perpetually indignant, and often analytical. The down time combined with my natural tendency to write out both my thoughts and my rants could lead to only one thing: my debut into the BLOGOSPHERE! Please, please, hold your applause.
The title comes from one of my favorite of J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories. Writing has always been a labor of love for me, and as for the squalor, well, that just comes naturally. I hope you enjoy my essays and indignation. If not, that's okay. There's plenty of internet for the both of us.
The title comes from one of my favorite of J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories. Writing has always been a labor of love for me, and as for the squalor, well, that just comes naturally. I hope you enjoy my essays and indignation. If not, that's okay. There's plenty of internet for the both of us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
