As I contemplate my home search, I realize I have low standards.
I know this because I watch a lot of HGTV.
On HGTV, buyers walk through potential homes complaining about the size of the bedrooms, the placement of the bathrooms in relation to other rooms, whether there are double sinks, the size of the master bath, if the metal trim or light fixtures are gold instead of silver, if the stove is electric instead of gas, that the countertops aren't granite, and more.
I have preferences, too, of course. I prefer vanities over pedestal sinks (more storage). I prefer gas over electric. And who doesn't like an updated kitchen?
The thing is I can't afford that much. Well, I understand that banks will lend me more than I feel comfortable with, but that's because we disagree on what "afford" means. And since Bay Area prices are crazy ridiculous (and Peninsula prices even more crazy ridiculous than the Bay Area at large), at my price range I just don't get to be picky.
HGTV buyers care about the size of the bedrooms? I care that there are bedrooms, period.
They care about the placement of the bathrooms? I care about the existence and working state of the single bathroom. More than one bathroom? What's that?
HGTV buyers want gas stoves over electric stoves? I want there to be a stove. Or at least a hookup for a stove, either gas or electric. You'd think the existence of a stove would be a given but it isn't.
So what I'm looking for is simple. A sound foundation, a roof that will last at least a few years, two bedrooms, everything else in working order. And if it was really great, it would have a range hood and a bathroom fan. Which you would think are normal appliances but not out here.
I don't even dare aspire to a dishwasher or air conditioning.
California. It's wack.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
In the Blood
I'm gathering I shouldn't keep donating blood.
I donated blood earlier this spring right when I was starting to come down with a cold. Surprisingly, they let you donate blood when you're coming down with a cold. I mean, I told them. I guess that if you need a blood transfusion you have bigger problems.
Anyway, that cold sucked. It took me forever to get over it (a few weeks), and it was worse than the other colds I've had. At the time I thought donating blood made it worse, since I didn't have the same amount of white blood cells as before.
Then I donated blood again last Friday, and I've been tired ever since. I've been having trouble sleeping in the heat but that can't account for all of it.
See, the thing is that I only ever barely pass on iron anyway. My cholesterol (which they test when you donate) tends to look bad because I have to stuff myself with meatloaf the week beforehand in order to have enough iron. And I've never had above 12.5 g/dL hemoglobin on the times I have had enough hemoglobin to qualify. The cutoff is 12.5 exactly, too.
I've always tried to donate blood because I figured other people needed my blood. I don't have any diseases and I'm not afraid of needles, which makes me a good candidate. But with the low iron, the latex allergy (which the technicians sometimes seem to resent me telling them about), and the fact that this happened the first time I tried to donate:
I guess I need my blood too.
I donated blood earlier this spring right when I was starting to come down with a cold. Surprisingly, they let you donate blood when you're coming down with a cold. I mean, I told them. I guess that if you need a blood transfusion you have bigger problems.
Anyway, that cold sucked. It took me forever to get over it (a few weeks), and it was worse than the other colds I've had. At the time I thought donating blood made it worse, since I didn't have the same amount of white blood cells as before.
Then I donated blood again last Friday, and I've been tired ever since. I've been having trouble sleeping in the heat but that can't account for all of it.
See, the thing is that I only ever barely pass on iron anyway. My cholesterol (which they test when you donate) tends to look bad because I have to stuff myself with meatloaf the week beforehand in order to have enough iron. And I've never had above 12.5 g/dL hemoglobin on the times I have had enough hemoglobin to qualify. The cutoff is 12.5 exactly, too.
I've always tried to donate blood because I figured other people needed my blood. I don't have any diseases and I'm not afraid of needles, which makes me a good candidate. But with the low iron, the latex allergy (which the technicians sometimes seem to resent me telling them about), and the fact that this happened the first time I tried to donate:
I guess I need my blood too.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
In Which I Explain The Economy
I've had a breakthrough lately I'm going to share.
I work in cell culture, which involves forcing Chinese hamster ovary cells to make proteins they don't want to make, which someone else then purifies out of the soupy, smelly morass and our company uses in clinical trials or sells on the market.
My job is to try and make as much drug as possible. Our manufacturing facilities are a certain size, so how much drug comes out of each reactor is ultimately a function of only two things: how many cells there are, and how much drug each cell makes. There are a lot of factors that change how many cells there are, and a few things that affect how much drug each cell makes, but when it comes right down to it that's all you've got.
There are a lot of options to get more cells. Higher temperature, more food, sometimes less food, better food, special food, etc. How much drug each cell makes is mostly genetic and I don't understand a lot of it. It's harder to change, so we talk about it more. It even gets its own name: "Specific productivity".
The realization I've had is that our economy works the same way. I've been confused by different explanations of the economy. Some people say government spending grows the economy, some say it doesn't, etc. Because how does an economy grow?
Like cells!
(FYI, I know I'm a nerd, no one needs to point this out.)
Economies grow. Obviously. Otherwise we'd still be living in wood-heated houses without electricity or access to dental care. Like Europe outside the major cities which no one seems to acknowledge. Cough. Obviously TVs get cheaper from year to year. Obviously every person has more stuff than before. More food, more cars, more technology, larger homes, more clothes, more cable channels, etc. So where does it come from?
Just like cell culture, there are only two ways: more people who make stuff, or each person making more stuff.
If there are more people who are producing things, be it services or actual physical things like cars or breakfast cereal or knit caps to sell on Etsy, there is a net increase in things. This would be population growth. It could either be more people actually existing (more immigration, more births) or more people working (like when women started entering the work force). Conversely, the productive population decreases with unemployment, when people leave the work force (voluntarily or not).
Just like cells, specific productivity is harder. Each person has to make more things. And that sounds hard, but it happens all the time. The first time you knit a cap it takes forever and is ugly. By the tenth hat you're whipping them out three a day and can do patterns and stripes. Every time you implement a computer system that saves time off of doing something, that increases specific productivity. Every time you automate an activity, freeing up a person to work at something else, you're increasing specific productivity. For instance, a bank with five workers could only handle so many customers a day. But with ATMs that can handle the mundane withdrawals and deposits, those workers can handle more complex transactions, sell mortgages, etc.
And with that concept, everything is starting to make sense to me. For instance, how could our economy grow during this recession? Well, for one, I think they're fudging all the numbers, but even so, the economy can grow if the increase in specific productivity is larger than the decrease in productive population. Unemployment has risen, but companies are doing the same work with fewer workers or workers are putting in longer hours, both of which would increase specific productivity.
It also explains why bounce-backs from recessions can be pronounced. If the workforce increases its specific productivity during recessions because they had to make do with fewer workers, when the population grows again the total production will increase at a faster rate than if the old specific productivity had been maintained. It's as if recessions are opportunities to learn - to winnow the chaff - to get rid of the dead weight - to make things more efficient.
And it helps me understand why the current recession has gone on so long. Mostly, the government's intervention has messed with both ends of the scale. Extended unemployment insurance keeps the population down, because people have financial incentive to stay unemployed (let's face it, we're all lazy and wouldn't work if someone is actually paying us to sit on our butts and watch TV). Stimulus funds to governments and companies to prevent layoffs means they don't have to learn out of necessity and don't increase their specific productivity. It may have prevented additional population decrease, but not enough.
This way makes much more sense to me than anyone who describes the economy as a pie.
I work in cell culture, which involves forcing Chinese hamster ovary cells to make proteins they don't want to make, which someone else then purifies out of the soupy, smelly morass and our company uses in clinical trials or sells on the market.
My job is to try and make as much drug as possible. Our manufacturing facilities are a certain size, so how much drug comes out of each reactor is ultimately a function of only two things: how many cells there are, and how much drug each cell makes. There are a lot of factors that change how many cells there are, and a few things that affect how much drug each cell makes, but when it comes right down to it that's all you've got.
There are a lot of options to get more cells. Higher temperature, more food, sometimes less food, better food, special food, etc. How much drug each cell makes is mostly genetic and I don't understand a lot of it. It's harder to change, so we talk about it more. It even gets its own name: "Specific productivity".
The realization I've had is that our economy works the same way. I've been confused by different explanations of the economy. Some people say government spending grows the economy, some say it doesn't, etc. Because how does an economy grow?
Like cells!
(FYI, I know I'm a nerd, no one needs to point this out.)
Economies grow. Obviously. Otherwise we'd still be living in wood-heated houses without electricity or access to dental care. Like Europe outside the major cities which no one seems to acknowledge. Cough. Obviously TVs get cheaper from year to year. Obviously every person has more stuff than before. More food, more cars, more technology, larger homes, more clothes, more cable channels, etc. So where does it come from?
Just like cell culture, there are only two ways: more people who make stuff, or each person making more stuff.
If there are more people who are producing things, be it services or actual physical things like cars or breakfast cereal or knit caps to sell on Etsy, there is a net increase in things. This would be population growth. It could either be more people actually existing (more immigration, more births) or more people working (like when women started entering the work force). Conversely, the productive population decreases with unemployment, when people leave the work force (voluntarily or not).
Just like cells, specific productivity is harder. Each person has to make more things. And that sounds hard, but it happens all the time. The first time you knit a cap it takes forever and is ugly. By the tenth hat you're whipping them out three a day and can do patterns and stripes. Every time you implement a computer system that saves time off of doing something, that increases specific productivity. Every time you automate an activity, freeing up a person to work at something else, you're increasing specific productivity. For instance, a bank with five workers could only handle so many customers a day. But with ATMs that can handle the mundane withdrawals and deposits, those workers can handle more complex transactions, sell mortgages, etc.
And with that concept, everything is starting to make sense to me. For instance, how could our economy grow during this recession? Well, for one, I think they're fudging all the numbers, but even so, the economy can grow if the increase in specific productivity is larger than the decrease in productive population. Unemployment has risen, but companies are doing the same work with fewer workers or workers are putting in longer hours, both of which would increase specific productivity.
It also explains why bounce-backs from recessions can be pronounced. If the workforce increases its specific productivity during recessions because they had to make do with fewer workers, when the population grows again the total production will increase at a faster rate than if the old specific productivity had been maintained. It's as if recessions are opportunities to learn - to winnow the chaff - to get rid of the dead weight - to make things more efficient.
And it helps me understand why the current recession has gone on so long. Mostly, the government's intervention has messed with both ends of the scale. Extended unemployment insurance keeps the population down, because people have financial incentive to stay unemployed (let's face it, we're all lazy and wouldn't work if someone is actually paying us to sit on our butts and watch TV). Stimulus funds to governments and companies to prevent layoffs means they don't have to learn out of necessity and don't increase their specific productivity. It may have prevented additional population decrease, but not enough.
This way makes much more sense to me than anyone who describes the economy as a pie.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Big Hands, Small Hands
I used to have a children's book that was a compilation of fantasy and possibly science fiction stories. It had a blue cover, and my name was written on the endpaper because I loaned it to my friend Jen in middle school. I don't remember the name (this will become a theme). I don't remember most of the stories, though it did have a portion of The Silver Chair which was my first introduction to not liking C. S. Lewis.
But one story I remember because it disturbed me. It was about fat little hippopotamus-like creatures that lived underground in burrows like hedgehogs. They drank tea, too, so it was obviously by a British author. I forget the name of their species (see, a theme), but it was cutesy and full of consonants, like Snuffaleupagus only not Snuffaleupagus because that's the character on Sesame Street and he's adorable. Anyway, they were plump and white and you knew this because the short story had several illustrations.
The plot of the story was that this one fat hippopotamus-creature's home was invaded by a thin, black, spider-like creature and I am at this very moment wondering if there were racial themes that went completely over my twelve-year-old head. Anyway, the freaky, spindly creature scared the bejeebers out of the fat thing and after some cloying adventures they became friends.
In any case, I don't know why but the story, or rather the pictures, stuck with me. The bloated white animal contrasting with the spindly black creature. Sometimes the pictures would float into my mind when I was in bed, and they would keep me from going to sleep. It had something to do with the contrast between the fat and the thin gave me a feeling of too much size that confused my brain.
Anyway, all of this is prelude to a weird thing that happened to me today. I was in a meeting with my boss's boss before she goes to China for a few weeks, and all of a sudden the white and black creatures popped into my mind and my hands felt gigantic! I felt as if my hands were suddenly twice their normal size and weight. They felt heavy in my lap, as if my shoulders were being pulled down.
I tried moving them to different positions, but each time they were stationary the sensation came back. My mind kept replaying the comparison that my hands were the explodingly fat white hippo-creatures.
By the end of the meeting the feeling had abated. The meeting went well so I don't think it was a stress response. But it was very strange! I hope I masked it well, though I suspect I was a little less communicative than normal since there was a running dialogue in my head "What the heck--Maybe if I move like this it will--Stupid white guys--my hands aren't like the fat white things--etc".
The front of the book had a dragon on it. Still don't remember the name.
But one story I remember because it disturbed me. It was about fat little hippopotamus-like creatures that lived underground in burrows like hedgehogs. They drank tea, too, so it was obviously by a British author. I forget the name of their species (see, a theme), but it was cutesy and full of consonants, like Snuffaleupagus only not Snuffaleupagus because that's the character on Sesame Street and he's adorable. Anyway, they were plump and white and you knew this because the short story had several illustrations.
The plot of the story was that this one fat hippopotamus-creature's home was invaded by a thin, black, spider-like creature and I am at this very moment wondering if there were racial themes that went completely over my twelve-year-old head. Anyway, the freaky, spindly creature scared the bejeebers out of the fat thing and after some cloying adventures they became friends.
In any case, I don't know why but the story, or rather the pictures, stuck with me. The bloated white animal contrasting with the spindly black creature. Sometimes the pictures would float into my mind when I was in bed, and they would keep me from going to sleep. It had something to do with the contrast between the fat and the thin gave me a feeling of too much size that confused my brain.
Anyway, all of this is prelude to a weird thing that happened to me today. I was in a meeting with my boss's boss before she goes to China for a few weeks, and all of a sudden the white and black creatures popped into my mind and my hands felt gigantic! I felt as if my hands were suddenly twice their normal size and weight. They felt heavy in my lap, as if my shoulders were being pulled down.
I tried moving them to different positions, but each time they were stationary the sensation came back. My mind kept replaying the comparison that my hands were the explodingly fat white hippo-creatures.
By the end of the meeting the feeling had abated. The meeting went well so I don't think it was a stress response. But it was very strange! I hope I masked it well, though I suspect I was a little less communicative than normal since there was a running dialogue in my head "What the heck--Maybe if I move like this it will--Stupid white guys--my hands aren't like the fat white things--etc".
The front of the book had a dragon on it. Still don't remember the name.
Monday, June 13, 2011
On the Art of Conversation
Back in the olden days, higher-class women were judged on their accomplishments:
Painting
Drawing
Embroidery
Hemming
Fancy-work
Designing furniture
Playing the harp
Playing the pianoforte
Singing
Speaking Italian
Speaking French
and many other things I'm sure I don't know about because they haven't featured in Jane Austen novels. But one of the important ones was the art of conversation. The young ladies in society were expected to be able to support wide and varied conversation with anyone who came their way in society.
Speaking personally, I'm not very adept, socially. I've come a long way from how I was in high school or even college. Being part of a big church and working at a big company have a lot to do with that. But new situations make me anxious. I'm exquisitely conscious of saying the wrong thing, which I do frequently. I hear all my own mistakes. So when social interactions go badly, I assume they're my fault.
But I'm beginning to think maybe it isn't my fault all the time. Because I've realized the art of conversation boils down to interaction. It's about one person saying one thing, and the other person saying something related to that thing or asking a question about that thing, then the other person saying something else related to what the second person just said, etc.
I think that's why in the past I've noticed there are some people I can just talk to. With whom conversation is easy and effortless. People who come to mind include my sister, friends from high school, the guy from my heat transfer project sophomore year at Tech whose Facebook profile was him passed out drunk in a mini-fridge, and the ChemE I designated NewGraham to differentiate him from the Graham I already knew from band. When you say something and someone responds based on what you said, and you have a chance to respond to what they said? That's conversation!
The opposite, which is what I'm recognizing now, is monopoly. Where one person doesn't hold up their end of the bargain on responding based on what the other person said. I've noticed a few different flavors:
1. Classic Monologue-ing. This variety includes one person talking only about themselves, their activities, and their interests. They will answer questions but will not ask any. They will not respond based on a comment the second person makes, but will instead continue their initial topic.
2. Monopoly Through Silence. This variety, often masquerading as shyness, is one person's refusal to "reply in kind". They also will answer questions but will not ask any. They will also not respond based on a comment the second person makes, but instead stays silent or makes at most a minimal response like, "Mm," or "Interesting". This forces the second person to continually ask questions to draw the first person out. This might occasionally be legitimate shyness, but can also be laziness or passive-aggression.
3. Disconnected/Superficiality. This specialized variety at first bears the appearance of a real conversation because there appear to be related responses. However the responses don't follow the same vein as the original topic, derailing the conversation the second person wanted to have. For instance, "I had a rough week. My grandfather died on Tuesday. We were really close." "I had a rough week too. I'm supposed to alphabetize a whole drawer of files and I really don't want to." A symptom of this is when one person drops conversational breadcrumbs, but the other person won't follow the trail. "I forgot to buy pears at the store today. I've been very distracted. Work was busy, and also I'm looking for realtors because I've decided to buy a house." Here, a conversational response would be "You're looking for a house? How exciting! What type of house are you looking for?" or "My aunt is a realtor. Would you be interested in working with her? She's a fantastic businesswoman." A disconnected response would be, "Pears are awesome" or "I'm so glad I bought my house four years ago and am done with it. It was a horrible process." Thus, in order to continue the conversation, the second person has to abandon their topic and switch to the first person's topic.
And I'm also realizing how exhausting it is to deal with monopolizers. With type 1, you never get to talk. Less effort, but unless you're intensely interested in every single thing that person has to say, you're going to be bored silly the entire time. With type 2, you talk a lot, but it's only questions. Type 2 is energy-sapping. Type 3 is emotionally exhausting because you never get to say what you want to say.
I tried to make Excel graphs illustrating these but it didn't work.
Painting
Drawing
Embroidery
Hemming
Fancy-work
Designing furniture
Playing the harp
Playing the pianoforte
Singing
Speaking Italian
Speaking French
and many other things I'm sure I don't know about because they haven't featured in Jane Austen novels. But one of the important ones was the art of conversation. The young ladies in society were expected to be able to support wide and varied conversation with anyone who came their way in society.
Speaking personally, I'm not very adept, socially. I've come a long way from how I was in high school or even college. Being part of a big church and working at a big company have a lot to do with that. But new situations make me anxious. I'm exquisitely conscious of saying the wrong thing, which I do frequently. I hear all my own mistakes. So when social interactions go badly, I assume they're my fault.
But I'm beginning to think maybe it isn't my fault all the time. Because I've realized the art of conversation boils down to interaction. It's about one person saying one thing, and the other person saying something related to that thing or asking a question about that thing, then the other person saying something else related to what the second person just said, etc.
I think that's why in the past I've noticed there are some people I can just talk to. With whom conversation is easy and effortless. People who come to mind include my sister, friends from high school, the guy from my heat transfer project sophomore year at Tech whose Facebook profile was him passed out drunk in a mini-fridge, and the ChemE I designated NewGraham to differentiate him from the Graham I already knew from band. When you say something and someone responds based on what you said, and you have a chance to respond to what they said? That's conversation!
The opposite, which is what I'm recognizing now, is monopoly. Where one person doesn't hold up their end of the bargain on responding based on what the other person said. I've noticed a few different flavors:
1. Classic Monologue-ing. This variety includes one person talking only about themselves, their activities, and their interests. They will answer questions but will not ask any. They will not respond based on a comment the second person makes, but will instead continue their initial topic.
2. Monopoly Through Silence. This variety, often masquerading as shyness, is one person's refusal to "reply in kind". They also will answer questions but will not ask any. They will also not respond based on a comment the second person makes, but instead stays silent or makes at most a minimal response like, "Mm," or "Interesting". This forces the second person to continually ask questions to draw the first person out. This might occasionally be legitimate shyness, but can also be laziness or passive-aggression.
3. Disconnected/Superficiality. This specialized variety at first bears the appearance of a real conversation because there appear to be related responses. However the responses don't follow the same vein as the original topic, derailing the conversation the second person wanted to have. For instance, "I had a rough week. My grandfather died on Tuesday. We were really close." "I had a rough week too. I'm supposed to alphabetize a whole drawer of files and I really don't want to." A symptom of this is when one person drops conversational breadcrumbs, but the other person won't follow the trail. "I forgot to buy pears at the store today. I've been very distracted. Work was busy, and also I'm looking for realtors because I've decided to buy a house." Here, a conversational response would be "You're looking for a house? How exciting! What type of house are you looking for?" or "My aunt is a realtor. Would you be interested in working with her? She's a fantastic businesswoman." A disconnected response would be, "Pears are awesome" or "I'm so glad I bought my house four years ago and am done with it. It was a horrible process." Thus, in order to continue the conversation, the second person has to abandon their topic and switch to the first person's topic.
And I'm also realizing how exhausting it is to deal with monopolizers. With type 1, you never get to talk. Less effort, but unless you're intensely interested in every single thing that person has to say, you're going to be bored silly the entire time. With type 2, you talk a lot, but it's only questions. Type 2 is energy-sapping. Type 3 is emotionally exhausting because you never get to say what you want to say.
I tried to make Excel graphs illustrating these but it didn't work.
Friday, May 27, 2011
The Fourth R
When I was in college, the band put on an elaborate city-wide scavenger hunt once a year. I only did it once my junior year. Through a variety of circumstances I ended up on a team with several younger trombones and we hurtled around Atlanta in an old minivan finding and deciphering clues.
Since it was the band, there were shenanigans. The instructions said to bring, among other things, water guns and towels. One of the trombones I was with brought his Super Soaker, and once when we encountered another team at a clue site he shot it at their car and almost got them. We definitely weren't near first place but we were progressing decently until the evening when things started getting weird. We reached a clue site where the clue for our team was defaced. We called in to the command center and the person on the phone said they were calling us cheaters and jerks who didn't deserve to go further in the competition. Because the guy shot a Super Soaker! It was confusing that they were so mad when they said to bring water guns, and since he didn't get anybody wet (much). They claimed he almost got a laptop inside the car wet. But still that didn't have anything to do with us cheating at the clues. In any case we ended up stopping a clue later or so.
But the disturbing part was afterward. The competition had a website that listed the teams, and after the competition, the winners. A few days after the competition I noticed on the website that they had posted on the website that our team were disqualified for being cheaters and jerks! I forget the exact phrasing they used, but something along those lines. Our entire team's real names listed with defamatory comments. You found the website when you searched for our real names.
I was MAD. One guy shoots a Super Soaker and our whole team gets vilified on the Internet? Whiny, over-share blog aside, I'm very conscious of my "internet presence" and don't want false, negative comments about me online. So I tracked down the event organizers and called.
The thing was, each year the scavenger hunt is organized by the previous year's winners. And alumni can play, so with their advanced age and additional resources they tend to win. The organizers that year was a group in their 30s who had long since graduated and supposedly moved on.
So I, a 20-year-old college student, called and argued with the lead organizer guy, a married engineer in his mid-30s about why it was inappropriate for his team to defame innocent parties for a stupid water gun. He was so irrational and so unreasonable (though they did finally take it down), I had this thought over and over: "I shouldn't have to be the adult in this situation."
I've been feeling like that lately. I'm an adult. And a defining characteristic of being an adult is being reliable.
Being reliable is returning emails and phone calls promptly.
Being reliable is showing up prepared and on one time.
Being reliable is keeping plans and not changing them unnecessarily.
Being reliable is doing your job.
I'm really tired of being reliable when very few other people are.
I'm tired of being the adult.
Since it was the band, there were shenanigans. The instructions said to bring, among other things, water guns and towels. One of the trombones I was with brought his Super Soaker, and once when we encountered another team at a clue site he shot it at their car and almost got them. We definitely weren't near first place but we were progressing decently until the evening when things started getting weird. We reached a clue site where the clue for our team was defaced. We called in to the command center and the person on the phone said they were calling us cheaters and jerks who didn't deserve to go further in the competition. Because the guy shot a Super Soaker! It was confusing that they were so mad when they said to bring water guns, and since he didn't get anybody wet (much). They claimed he almost got a laptop inside the car wet. But still that didn't have anything to do with us cheating at the clues. In any case we ended up stopping a clue later or so.
But the disturbing part was afterward. The competition had a website that listed the teams, and after the competition, the winners. A few days after the competition I noticed on the website that they had posted on the website that our team were disqualified for being cheaters and jerks! I forget the exact phrasing they used, but something along those lines. Our entire team's real names listed with defamatory comments. You found the website when you searched for our real names.
I was MAD. One guy shoots a Super Soaker and our whole team gets vilified on the Internet? Whiny, over-share blog aside, I'm very conscious of my "internet presence" and don't want false, negative comments about me online. So I tracked down the event organizers and called.
The thing was, each year the scavenger hunt is organized by the previous year's winners. And alumni can play, so with their advanced age and additional resources they tend to win. The organizers that year was a group in their 30s who had long since graduated and supposedly moved on.
So I, a 20-year-old college student, called and argued with the lead organizer guy, a married engineer in his mid-30s about why it was inappropriate for his team to defame innocent parties for a stupid water gun. He was so irrational and so unreasonable (though they did finally take it down), I had this thought over and over: "I shouldn't have to be the adult in this situation."
I've been feeling like that lately. I'm an adult. And a defining characteristic of being an adult is being reliable.
Being reliable is returning emails and phone calls promptly.
Being reliable is showing up prepared and on one time.
Being reliable is keeping plans and not changing them unnecessarily.
Being reliable is doing your job.
I'm really tired of being reliable when very few other people are.
I'm tired of being the adult.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Admit It
So, I'm pretty sure my asparagus fern has bit the dust.Fluffy has been a good plant. I bought him sophomore year of college from Kroger. Karen bought a plant at the same time, and named hers "Penny" because she was annoyed when I paid for mine in coins (and the self-service kiosk stopped accepting quarters so I had to use smaller denominations). He survived the indoor heat wave of Spring Break '04, and a summer with Karen in which she decided he wouldn't fit in her car so she trimmed him an inch above the dirt. He survived all that.
So I guess I kept expecting him to come back from turning entirely brown this winter, but no dice.
Now I'll have to find something else to plant in the giant pot I bought him.
I completely zoned out at work today around 4 pm. I was working on a journal paper I've been supposed to be writing for nigh on two years. I know I just need to knuckle down and do it, but I find writing a journal paper very intimidating. The style of writing in journal papers is completely different than how I write.
I write so you can understand it.
4 pm really is my desired quitting time. After 4, I just don't want to be there. Not that I can't be totally productive after 4. Not that I haven't spent 12, 13-hour days at work. I've seen the south side of midnight more often than I'm comfortable with. It's just that that's the time of day where I don't want to be doing anything related to work. Though normally doing something interesting, like data analysis, keeps my mind off my desired quitting time.
And turns out writing a paper isn't consuming enough, so I felt the 4 pm very strongly today. And then, in looking for something else in my email, I saw my boss's boss said she wanted the paper by the end of June, not by June. So I went home.
Tomorrow will also be a short day at work. I'm taking time off to go on a homes tour with a real estate broker because I've decided to buy a place of my own this year for the following reasons:
1. Real estate prices are down, so now is a good time to buy.
2. Interest rates are currently down but likely to go up, so I want to get in before that.
3. I anticipate heavy inflation coming down the pike, which benefits debt-holders, so it's good to buy now before prices inflate.
4. I have saved enough of a down payment to avoid an FHA loan.
5. I want to be able to paint walls.
6. I want more outdoor space for plants besides three feet of walkway outside my door.
Of course, with what I think is a responsible monthly payment, the only places I can afford are next to the railroad tracks or the highway, are being sold "as is", or are in an area of Redwood City in which all business advertise only in Spanish. The houses my real estate broker thinks I can afford are nicer, so we're going to disagree. Though the prices I told him were 10% below what I'm actually willing to pay so we might be able to find a middle ground.
We'll have to see. I'm fine with ugly but I want structurally sound.
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