General Musings Part 23

You may not see many blog updates from me in the near future since I'm sorting through internship applications for my film company. If you want to apply, go see the ad on Mandy.com.

Otherwise, got a ton of links & some insights/remarks on them. Here we go:

Edie Falco just rocks! That's all. I have the EXACT same viewpoint on reality TV "celebrities." Plus, she's a great actress; I have every season of "The Sopranos" and think "Nurse Jackie" is great. This just makes me respect her more than I might have.

I can agree on rejection sometimes being a good thing. I got rejected on the very first round of cuts during sorority recruitment my freshman year; if I hadn't, I might not have become an AST member & gotten the valuable leadership experience I have.

I probably wouldn't have the career I have if some law firm had hired me instead of all of them rejecting me for jobs. Probably wouldn't have passed the NY & CT bars on the first try if I'd gotten into CUNY School of Law (I found out after I started law school that they had a 50% bar passage rate vs. my school's rate being about 80%). Finally, if I hadn't gotten dumped by guys all the time while in Atlanta & CT and completely shunned by them while growing up in NC, I probably wouldn't live in NYC now and would just be miserable wondering about what might have been. Nor would I have nearly as great a spouse as I've got.

The establishment has also done next to nothing for me. I've reconciled myself to the fact that it will continue to do nothing for me. That means non-traditional resources and learning how to hustle. I think I've more or less accepted that I am anti-establishment and in a way, I rebel from it. I figure I'll keep doing things or my terms or I'll die with some dignity because I didn't sell out.

The problem is if you're in a position of do or die. Then you end up poor. Here's a Cracked article telling you about that.

All of this is true, btw. I saw flashbacks of my childhood as I read it & I even described life as a child as living in an endless game of Tetris on Level 9-5 (for those unfamiliar w/Tetris, this is a level where the pieces are almost at the very top & you have to stress out big time to either get them in properly to reduce your pile or die; in fact, I believe it's the hardest level in the game).

Speaking of being poor, there have been yet more articles on the high costs of college (forget grad school since no one seems to give a damn about that unless THEY went themselves). One study says the cost of a college degree in light of this economy isn't worth it.

You'll see constant resources telling people to learn a trade or even just be uneducated. That might work for some people but it's not a one size fits all solution by any means. I agree that the value of degrees is becoming deluded & that pisses me off but I'm not sure a mass movement to toss out "book learning" is the answer. Some people aren't smart enough or insightful enough to go educate themselves. Some of us also aren't the self-study types. Teaching yourself can be EXTREMELY difficult, especially if you don't have someone who knows about the thing you're trying to learn around as a resource or to make sure you're understanding the concepts.

Another problem is that college (at least as I understand it) is also supposed to be about broadening horizons & getting new experiences away from your parents, your little town and your local community. I went to school out of state by myself and think that the experience is important for transitioning to the real world. There are experiences and skills I use from that time now that I'd have never had if I'd just been in my hometown or around everyone I knew from high school while attending college. "High school, Part 2" doesn't help anyone. Who even really, truly enjoyed high school?

So I think before advocating the live at home approach, people should consider these facts. What if a kid is like me & wants to go someplace where no one the family knows is living? What if the kid is really smart? Do you punish them by saying "Son, we know you're an academic scholar & were in National Honor Society but sorry, you're going to community college." Perhaps taking away that stigma of community & junior colleges would help but in most places, they are regarded as not the place for academically gifted students. If you want this to be a viable path, those schools are also going to have to hire top notch faculty who know what they're doing, give a crap about the students learning the material & teach them practical skills.

I just think living at home when you're an adult robs you of the experiences you get when you're on your own and have to deal with paying bills, buying your own groceries, doing laundry, feeding yourself, managing your time and even participating in social events. My parents certainly wouldn't have let me bring guys home or stay out until 5 a.m. at a party while I got to do this stuff when I lived on campus in a single dorm room.

There's also the networking opportunities, Greek life & so forth that you're just not going to get in some of these proposed ideas. You don't have to dorm with strangers or interact with those different from you if you're living with family or going to community college. Living in a dorm prepares you for getting a roommate in an apartment and dealing with people at a job who aren't the same as you.

I think there should be some kind of arrangement where kids who want to go to school far away & can't afford it can do this. Happiness trumps & if you're going to spend the money, you'd better make sure your kid is happy or they'll just flunk out anyway.

I've said this before but I still firmly believe in it. I racked up loans to do this but I wouldn't trade my experiences to be debt free & miserable. That's precisely what would happen if I'd not followed my ambitions in life.

As a former retail worker, this just pisses me off. Standing for long hours is part of the fucking job! It's not a job that requires grad school & if you're doing this as a career, it's motivation to go to school so you can get a job easier on your health. Any job that has a low barrier to entry requires some manual component. I don't see servers suing over this & they have a much harder job than the average sales associate. Being a sales associate is a cakewalk by comparison.

This fact is one reason I would not go back to retail. Some jobs are for younger people. If you are not up to the inherent demands of the job, stop whining and filing lawsuits! Use that money to go get an education or to fund lobbying efforts/protests to government officials so better paying jobs are out there. Don't take it out on store owners.

Second, if you leave seats out on the sales floor customers will inevitably sit in them no matter what you do. When I worked in retail, we had chairs & customers sat in them. Are you going to walk up to customers & make them move so you can sit? That will leave a very good impression on customers. How would you feel about seeing your sales associate kicking back in a chair during working hours? Especially if the worker kicked a customer out of it? That could get really ugly in a lingerie section if it's a man who's stuck there because his wife/girlfriend forced him to go bra shopping with her. Not to mention making kids move! These people would sit in our chairs all the time. We'd look lazy if we did it.

Does anyone find this ironic in light of the attempt to create censorship in this country with the COICA act? Apparently, the senator who originated it does not keep up with what's going on in his own house. Once again, these morons are trying to turn the USA into China. See this for details and do the right thing. If you want censorship, find a theocracy to live in. You've got many to choose from. Don't inflict it here, capice?

Whew, can't believe this is the 250th post.