I was in the bathroom at my mom's work this afternoon, and I went to wash my hands. Everything had been going well: the toilet had flushed automatically when I stood up; I had to force the stall door open, but it was flimsy and I am strong (HTML joke, ha ha). I stuck my hands under the faucet and was rewarded with a steady, warm stream of water. And then I looked to my left, and there, instead of a regular soap dispenser, was, well, this. When I stuck my hand under its nozzle, or "head," as we might call it, the device shuddered and squirted--squirted--a small pile of pearlescent goop into my hand. How is one supposed to wash with that?
Monday, March 12, 2007
Automatic Penis
I was in the bathroom at my mom's work this afternoon, and I went to wash my hands. Everything had been going well: the toilet had flushed automatically when I stood up; I had to force the stall door open, but it was flimsy and I am strong (HTML joke, ha ha). I stuck my hands under the faucet and was rewarded with a steady, warm stream of water. And then I looked to my left, and there, instead of a regular soap dispenser, was, well, this. When I stuck my hand under its nozzle, or "head," as we might call it, the device shuddered and squirted--squirted--a small pile of pearlescent goop into my hand. How is one supposed to wash with that?
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Land of Opportunity
America is reportedly the Land of Opportunity, Land of Freedom. But many of the best and most interesting jobs require at least college education these days. Getting a college degree in the United States costs a lot of money. To wit,
In many of the European countries, university education is free, or practically so. Students only need find a way to pay rent and buy food and pay bills while being a student. France and England both seem to work this way (so say my chief source of information on European culture).
Medical aid is also friggin' expensive here, at least without insurance, and often insurance doesn't reduce costs much. To get good health insurance (and any eye or tooth plan), one generally needs a pretty good job. If one is self-employed, one pays for such insurance out of one's pocket. If one is poor and doesn't have enough work to give insurance then one is screwed. (Many companies don't offer health benefits unless an employee works more than a certain amount a week, often 20 hours or more, and some try to save costs by hiring many workers to work shorter shifts.) In Canada, the UK, France, and many other nations, health care is paid for by the state, largely. Citizens pay higher taxes to cover this and other services, but the result is that everyone has reasonably priced health care. Compare that to the reported 40,000,000 uninsured Americans, people who have to pay the full amount of their medical costs, which could range from a $50 check-up to thousands of dollars for surgery or costly medicines. (Virginia was given a shot of painkiller last October that cost over $700. I doubt that's the most expensive medication out there.
Now, I may be a little fuzzy on the details here, and I realize there is much I have not taken into account yet, but it seems to me that if one needs a certain education level to achieve certain degrees of wealth, comfort, influence, and health, and that education costs an average of $12,294 at best, there's a certain limiting factor to this so-called opportunity available in America.
According to the College Board's Trends in College Pricing, the 2006-2007 average total costs (including tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, transportation and other expenses as specified in Table 2) were $12,294 for students attending two-year public colleges, $16,357 for students attending four-year public colleges and universities, and $33,301 for students at four-year private colleges and universities. Out of state students attending public colleges and universities pay an average total cost of $26,304 [from FinAid.org]Chiefly, one pays for this with loans, savings, jobs, a lot of work in finding and earning scholarships and grants, or if one is lucky, one's family has the money for it.
In many of the European countries, university education is free, or practically so. Students only need find a way to pay rent and buy food and pay bills while being a student. France and England both seem to work this way (so say my chief source of information on European culture).
Medical aid is also friggin' expensive here, at least without insurance, and often insurance doesn't reduce costs much. To get good health insurance (and any eye or tooth plan), one generally needs a pretty good job. If one is self-employed, one pays for such insurance out of one's pocket. If one is poor and doesn't have enough work to give insurance then one is screwed. (Many companies don't offer health benefits unless an employee works more than a certain amount a week, often 20 hours or more, and some try to save costs by hiring many workers to work shorter shifts.) In Canada, the UK, France, and many other nations, health care is paid for by the state, largely. Citizens pay higher taxes to cover this and other services, but the result is that everyone has reasonably priced health care. Compare that to the reported 40,000,000 uninsured Americans, people who have to pay the full amount of their medical costs, which could range from a $50 check-up to thousands of dollars for surgery or costly medicines. (Virginia was given a shot of painkiller last October that cost over $700. I doubt that's the most expensive medication out there.
Now, I may be a little fuzzy on the details here, and I realize there is much I have not taken into account yet, but it seems to me that if one needs a certain education level to achieve certain degrees of wealth, comfort, influence, and health, and that education costs an average of $12,294 at best, there's a certain limiting factor to this so-called opportunity available in America.
Monday, February 19, 2007
43 Things
You would think that a Web site like 43 Things would be, as it markets itself, a useful and inspirational tool for accomplishing that great bugaboo, your goals! (What is 43 Things? It's a Web site on which you can register an identity and post Things You Want To Do so that everyone in the whole world can see, comment, cheer you on--and even adopt your goal as his or her own. "Discover what's important, make it happen, share your progress. Find your 43 things." That's the tagline.) But see, on visiting for a few minutes, I found myself wanting to register so I could add a comment to someone else's goal (to stop overthinking things) and then I started clicking around to see what other goals were out there. So now I start to see the trap. It's not a productivity/encouragement Web site at all! 43 Things is meant to steal my time away from me so I never get anything done.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Friday, February 9, 2007
The Job Search Goes...Romantically?
From a Gmail chat we had this morning:
Virginia: you going to ACD thingy at 1?
me: yesh
Virginia: ok see you there then!
hugsss
me: actually, see you a bit sooner maybe. Gotta come to library to print/scan
Virginia: ok
me: now I'm done w/phone stuff.
me: & will have more stuff to add to my resume.
Virginia: smooch
smooch
me: :-D may I add those to my resume?
Virginia: sure thing
Virginia: they can call me to verify :p
Waging...pakefulness?
This is kind of how I feel at the moment, it being 4:30 AM and I having been awake for half an hour on 3.5 hours of sleep. I am working on a job application so as to send it in by a noon GMT deadline. Noon GMT=7:00 AM EDT. So far, so good.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Surprise...Ice!
After an unseasonably warm and not-snowy debut, winter finally coughed and sputtered to a start here about three weeks ago. It turned cold suddenly, cold enough that I found myself actually hoping for the heating to work in its usual ridiculous overtime way so that I would be warm enough under my down comforter. (That's a slight exaggeration.) And generally, it stayed fairly cold--not as cold as Boston, and definitely not as cold as Michigan or Canada or other cold places, but for a state in the lower Northeastern United States, not bad.
Still, it refused to snow until about a week and a half ago, when the clouds decided to shake their shaggy heads a little and let down a few tiny flakes. This has mostly been the situation since: cold weather, occasional snow flurries, occasional dusting of white stuff on the colder pieces of ground. From time to time, a thin blanket (more like a cotton sheet)over lawn and street and car.
Last night, the only difference was that it was warmer out, slightly above freezing, so the big flakes that fell melted into a fine slush on the pavement when they landed. The grass looked nice and pretty, as if some magical baker had come by with his bag of flour and lightly dusted the green places of the city. But otherwise, the ground was merely wet.
This morning, I woke up groggy, and after talking to Virginia on the phone a bit, decided I was going to surprise her by meeting her for a kiss before she went into the city to study at the New York Public Library. After gathering myself enough to be dressed and reasonably insulated against the cold, and bearing my car key in one hand and a bottle of mango nectar in the other, I stepped out the door...and onto a patch of ice that had formed from the slush of the previous evening.
This was the fun part: falling happened very slowly. I felt my foot slide and tried to stop it the way one usually does when one slips. But my foot kept sliding. I dropped the juice and tried to catch myself on the outer glass door, or the railing to my right, or the brick corner post but missed, I think. I twisted and my feet kept falling, began to move down steps. I slapped my right hand on the other railing, but it was covered in ice and my mittens slid and my keys disappeared from my grasp. My body extended fully, my torso turned downward to face the stairs, I landed and continued to slide. My left hand gripped the top step. My feet stretched out down the stairs, my hip bounced on the corner of one of the slate steps, my right hand came off the railing and grabbed for another step. I stopped. Ouch.
The less fun part was figuring out how to get up. I took stock of myself. (Bruised hip, scraped fingers, sore wrist and thumb. Okay.) I took stock of the stairs, which were almost completely covered in ice, and the railing nearest me, which was as well. My bottle of juice lay calmly on its side at the top of the steps. My keys had vanished; I suspected they had ventured into the bushes to my right. I pushed myself up, grabbed both railings, steadied my feet, and gingerly climbed the stairs. I re-collected my juice and went back inside to regroup and strategize. Something would have to be done, and quickly, if I were to make it to see my baby.
In the end I ventured outside cautiously and realized that a filament of bare concrete lay exposed on one side of the stairs, thanks to the notorious warming effect of sunlight. I made it down the steps, and after rooting around in the bushes for a bit, found my car keys down by the sidewalk. I hopped in the car, drove off, and, happy ending, got to surprise and kiss Virginia! So she was all smiley and happy when she got a ride into the city, and I was all smiley and happy as I drove to the store to get rock salt so that I might do battle with my icy nemesis. And a good time was had by all.
Still, it refused to snow until about a week and a half ago, when the clouds decided to shake their shaggy heads a little and let down a few tiny flakes. This has mostly been the situation since: cold weather, occasional snow flurries, occasional dusting of white stuff on the colder pieces of ground. From time to time, a thin blanket (more like a cotton sheet)over lawn and street and car.
Last night, the only difference was that it was warmer out, slightly above freezing, so the big flakes that fell melted into a fine slush on the pavement when they landed. The grass looked nice and pretty, as if some magical baker had come by with his bag of flour and lightly dusted the green places of the city. But otherwise, the ground was merely wet.
This morning, I woke up groggy, and after talking to Virginia on the phone a bit, decided I was going to surprise her by meeting her for a kiss before she went into the city to study at the New York Public Library. After gathering myself enough to be dressed and reasonably insulated against the cold, and bearing my car key in one hand and a bottle of mango nectar in the other, I stepped out the door...and onto a patch of ice that had formed from the slush of the previous evening.
This was the fun part: falling happened very slowly. I felt my foot slide and tried to stop it the way one usually does when one slips. But my foot kept sliding. I dropped the juice and tried to catch myself on the outer glass door, or the railing to my right, or the brick corner post but missed, I think. I twisted and my feet kept falling, began to move down steps. I slapped my right hand on the other railing, but it was covered in ice and my mittens slid and my keys disappeared from my grasp. My body extended fully, my torso turned downward to face the stairs, I landed and continued to slide. My left hand gripped the top step. My feet stretched out down the stairs, my hip bounced on the corner of one of the slate steps, my right hand came off the railing and grabbed for another step. I stopped. Ouch.
The less fun part was figuring out how to get up. I took stock of myself. (Bruised hip, scraped fingers, sore wrist and thumb. Okay.) I took stock of the stairs, which were almost completely covered in ice, and the railing nearest me, which was as well. My bottle of juice lay calmly on its side at the top of the steps. My keys had vanished; I suspected they had ventured into the bushes to my right. I pushed myself up, grabbed both railings, steadied my feet, and gingerly climbed the stairs. I re-collected my juice and went back inside to regroup and strategize. Something would have to be done, and quickly, if I were to make it to see my baby.
In the end I ventured outside cautiously and realized that a filament of bare concrete lay exposed on one side of the stairs, thanks to the notorious warming effect of sunlight. I made it down the steps, and after rooting around in the bushes for a bit, found my car keys down by the sidewalk. I hopped in the car, drove off, and, happy ending, got to surprise and kiss Virginia! So she was all smiley and happy when she got a ride into the city, and I was all smiley and happy as I drove to the store to get rock salt so that I might do battle with my icy nemesis. And a good time was had by all.
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