subdee

One week into the job hunt, and I have five offers -- not bad, considering I only applied to six places. o_O WHAT. Either I underestimated my resume, the central New Jersey job market, or the demand for nearly-graduated physics majors willing to work part-time for minimum wage and no benefits. Possibly all three!

...It sort of breaks my heart that I would not be able to actually live off any of these jobs. How the heck do people with actual rent/food/utlities/health insurance/car insurance/phone expenses manage, anyway?! (Ans: they find different work.)

As things stand I am looking at some combination of:

( job descriptions behind cut )

I don't knowwww. What do you guys think? ...though I can't make any decisions until I hear back from the Chapter One people re: definitely getting at least one whole day at the store. (And the B&N people re: actually being hired, and the law firm people re: actually having enough work, and the library people re: the position still being open, and...aha, jumping the gun, much?)

Setting your sights low: nearly all outcomes exceed expectations! XD If I had known that finding a job was this easy, I would have applied for work before this. (She says, conveniently forgetting that work, no matter how easily obtained, is still hard work.)

Semi-related: Career meme results. (In comments.) Those jobs all sound really cool, but I haven't done math in almost two years. I MISS IT A LOT <-- no doubt the reason why that list is dominated my analysis/logistics/computational jobs, har har. I can't tell whether a math job is something I really want, though, or whether I'm just going through some kind of phase.

***

IN OTHER NEWS, finished The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore, have reviews written up on paper for both, will post tomorrow or Sunday, depending on how much time it takes to finish throwing away the last remnants of my childhood (ie, clearing out the basement) on Saturday.

The good news is that my uncle (and my aunt's mother) are going to be fine. The bad news is that if I don't find a job by next week, I am in eminent danger of being co-opted into watching my hyperactive cousin on a REGULAR irregular basis.

I have a burning desire to discuss the family situation but I sure as hell am not going to do it online or through text. *stares at phone* Pick up, pick up.

PROJECT KEEP-THIS-ENTRY FROM BEING SPAM: Go!

A. linkblog
http://greenapple2004.livejournal.com/119303.html
Murakami of Gravitation fame.

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Moe
Moë @ uncyclopedia, from the same person who wrote the hilariously accurate Bleach article. (Help, I'm in danger of becoming an embarassing fangirl.) I think it's a little unfair to use Hayao Miyazaki as an example in that article, though, considering he's completely opposed to Moë-I-mean-Moé.

http://harukami.livejournal.com/640325.html
"An educational Affair" -- Snape/Harry fanfic. The BEST Snape/Harry fanfic ever written. XD


B. meme
Instructions: go to imdb.com and look up your ten favorite movies. Pick three Plot Keywords from each, then post the keywords along with these instructions, and see whether anyone else can guess the movies.

1. Heist, Fast Motion Sequence, Unintelligible
2. Marseilles France, Brooklyn New York, Chase <-- still un-guessed.
3. Fraternity, Mental Institution, Alternative Timeline
4. Waitress, Infidelity, Multiple Outcomes
5. Sunglasses, Prison Planet, Sequel to Cult Favorite
6. Erotica, Bibliophilia, The Devil
7. Telephone Booth, Altering History, School Project
8. Conspiracy, Cryptology, Former Best Friends
(Couldn't decide which movies to pick for numbers 9 and 10.)

( already guessed )


C. old entry
I have folders for unposted entries: draft (earlier versions of posts which have since found their way onto livejournal), list (wip lists for things like fsts or themed fic recs), notes (notes on books etc that I need to polish up before I can post them), undecided (things I'm note sure I want to post), and old (documents I have since decided I am never going to post).

Here's something from when I had poster's block (early June):

( this issue is out of date )

The rest was some stuff about the story I was trying to write, which I am still "working" on. XD; But now it's not a mental block that's holding me up, but RL combined with sheer laziness.


D. (very) late thanks
♥♥♥ v_voltaire. Val got a permanent account and transferred the rest of her paid time to me. She says it's no big deal but from where I'm standing, it looks very much like someone bought me six months of paid time. <333 Sorry, would have thanked you sooner, but I was trying to do it with fanfiction, haha.

Back in New Jersey again. My brother just left for college with all the silverware, plates, cups, pots and pans, etc I brought back from Michigan, which of course he was welcome to though I kind of wanted to keep them as a symbol of my resolve to some day move out of my parents' house. -_- Oh well.

In other news, I met cynic_in_charge in New York last weekend! We got lunch then went to the Met then met serendip and hemlocke and some other people for dinner, all her suggestions. I'm afraid I was a little out of it since I'd stayed up most of the night before reading *cough*, but I still had a great time. Apologies to Eve et al. for being a bore if I was one. Eve doesn't smile as much as the constant XDXDXDs might lead one to believe, but she really is a brat, just like she claims. *g* Here's hoping we can meet up again sometime.

After dinner I crawled up to Dyckman Avenue to see falxumbra and asprosdrakos in their new apartment, which is absolutely amazing. Antique bathtub, beautiful wood floors, high ceilings and decently sized rooms (though the kitchen is a bit small). I'm a little jealous. Some other friends of theirs from Mount Holyoke whose livejournal names I don't know were also there, and we talked and watched DVDs until 1:00am, at which point I would have had to run to catch the last train, so I stayed the night instead. I really want to do this again sometime too -- but in this case I don't have to hope, it WILL happen. <333 V, good luck with the job hunt!

I finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon on the train ride out and back, but I don't think I can bookblog it other than to say OMG AMAZING and READ IT RIGHT NOW. About a crippled cousin and an angry cousin who make comics together in 1930s New York City. The comic is called The Escapist and the book is about the things both cousins are escaping from -- in Clay's case, being gay, and in Kavalier's case, having family in Prague who are in danger of being annihilated by Hitler. Very very very good book. It's especially awful and frustrating when Kavalier rages against current events and current apathy and you realize it's 1939 -- another two years until the U.S. even enters the war, and another 4 years after that before the war will be over.

The book contains an amazing amount of historical detail but is set in an alternate timeline, and you can sometimes see places where Chabon threw his hands up in the air and started making it all up -- but he's good at making things up, so except for a very few places, the invented detail feels as real as any of the actual detail. (Hard to tell the difference, in fact.) My only other "complaint," I guess, is that the main characters are in some ways overdetermined -- by the time Kavalier arrives in New York City, he has the skills of a stage magician, an escapist, an amateur radio operator, and an artist, and all of these skills get used at some point in the novel -- but hey, this is fiction. Though the combination was so good I had a little trouble believing it, there's nothing wrong with a little transparent plot construction.

In summary, <3s all the way. Recommended if you like reading about comics or about gay issues or about Jewish issues or in fact, just recommended period.

I also read The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America by Daniel Brook (Yale grad) a few weeks ago. The Trap is a short, easy-to-read book that combines history with a lot of interesting personal examples. Brooks isn't really saying anything new or beyond common sense but he brings together a lot of disparate information and says it well, plus quotes extensively from other people who also say it well. I really enjoyed the book since 1) it was well-written and easy to follow and 2) it was about me.

The book discusses rising income inequality in the United States as not just a problem for those who find themselves trapped on the bottom half of the divide, but also for recent graduates from top universities who find themselves "forced" to work long hours in the private sector at jobs they really don't like, just so they can afford a basic decent lifestyle in certain (insanely expensive -- prices driven up by the super-rich) parts of the county. The basic argument is that education debt, health care expenses, and the costs of getting married/buying a house in a nice neighborhood/putting the kids through college make it really hard for most graduates to go into the public sector, even if they really want to.

I couldn't really find any fault with the author's arguments, but this might only be because I am ignorant. Well, one problem is that last week, for example, when it looked like whole sections of the financial services market might collapse under their own weight, an argument that we should fight for a more equitable income distribution because the current system leads low job satisfaction for privileged members of the upper middle class seemed kind of quaint. XD; In effort to be more critical, I submitted it to the Yin test: What would Yin (my friend the econ major who works as an analyst in Philadelphia) say about this book? I think he would complain that the author only focuses on U. S. policies, as if it were solely Reagan's whim that destroyed FDR's New Deal, and that you have to look at world economic conditions to see how much the redistribution of resources from the public to the private sector was necessary, even if it did lead to some people making out like bandits at the expense of many others (which I think he would argue, is not necessarily a bad thing).

In summary, recommended to recent U.S. college graduates who won't roll their eyes at a book that is all about the problems faced by America's second most privileged tier (after the heirs and heiresses).

I stupidly agreed to do this with a friend WHO WILL REMAIN UNNAMED. Note: this is not ur typical paranoia meme -- it's more about the journals than about the people behind the journals. (And it's not particularly hard to figure out who these are, either. XD;;)

( brie )
( camembert )

Part two (part two! *dies*) coming up.

EDIT: Part Two

I got a message from a Paulo Coelho fan inviting me to "enter his universe":

http://sub-divided.livejournal.com/112702.html?thread=1271102#t1271102

The livejournal community is warriors_light, short for "Warriors of Light." I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I did put forward a generally positive opinion on "The Alchemist," and googling "Paulo Coelho" and "livejournal" puts me on the second page of search results, so it's not like you would have to be an uber-dedicated obsessive to find that entry and comment on it.

On the other hand: why do I feel like I'm being recruited into some kind of cult?! "Warriors of Light," isn't that name a little creepy? Combined with the cult-like symbol of the sword bisecting the circle, and the close personal relationship some of the WoL posters seem to have with the Canon of Paulo Coelho, doesn't the whole thing seem a bit...overly intense?

Gahhhh. Can't I just say that on the whole, I enjoyed the book, thought it was interesting, and was glad I read it, without somehow indicating that I subscribe in any way, shape, or form to the author's personal philosophy? Or that I have a particular desire to read any of his other works?

No?

Next up: Amitav Ghosh, The Glass Palace. After this I'll only have The United States of Argula, Daniel Brook's The Trap, and Tanith Lee's Paradys series left to blog about, yay. (And all books I read more than a month ago, but shh.)