1. pop culture bloggeur

2. “so, are you gonna be a teacher?”

3. be homeless

4. win on cash cab every single fucking time why can’t you hear me through the tv the answer is GUMMI BEARS YOU IDIOTS

1. Don’t get credit cards. Just don’t. If you find that it is unavoidable, make sure you’re responsible with them.

2. Do your prereqs at community college. As much as it might suck to live at home for an extra year or two and go to High School Community College, you’ll save money in the long run.

My comment about “High School Community College” is not meant derogatively, per se: I realize that many comm. colleges offer challenging courses and top notch instructors, but for me, community college meant going to school with a lot of my high school classmates again.

On the other hand, I don’t want to diminish the quality of the time I spent at Michigan State for my first two years. I think I grew a lot in those first two years and it is entirely possible that I would be a lot like my high school self still if I hadn’t wanted to go to university right away. That would not be a good thing.

3. Make the most of your parents’ health insurance while you are covered. If you have chronic pain in your side for an entire summer, don’t wait until you end up in the hospital during finals week to see a doctor. It’s inconvenient to make the trip home to see your doc sometimes, but if you can be treated before the issue becomes a full blown problem resulting in more chronic pain, more hospital visits, and more bills. A copay is easy to cover, but a $1300 bill for a useless xray that the insurance won’t cover is downright scary. I guess I’m just lucky it’s not a bigger number.

4. Don’t rush graduation. I crammed 19 credits into one summer and it is one of the biggest mistakes I made in college. And maybe I’m biased since I’ve been virtually unemployed for 8 months and have lived in psuedo-isolation from my friends since August (arguably since May, since I was at class and work all last summer), but if I’m being completely honest, I didn’t have a plan. And while I realize that planning wouldn’t have solved every problem I have, I would like to think that if I’d taken an extra year of school to figure things out I would have set clearer goals for myself, taken more time to acquaint myself with the job market or make a more concerted effort towards getting into grad school and I would have had more direct resources like profs and the career center and all those things that a college campus has and real life doesn’t to help me get my head on straight.

Ok, I cooled out for a bit. Went outside, jumped on the trampoline, almost peed my pants, got a sunburn on my leg while wearing pants, felt good enough about life to call up my student loan companies. I took out Stafford loans as well as private loans in college, so I am fortunate enough to have two banks to deal with!

The first company was super nice and it was easy to get to a real person to ask questions. They are a local-ish bank where my Federal loans are from. I will be able to defer my loans for six months, all I have to do is fill out a form.

The second company made me listen to four different menus before I reached a real person. This company was recommended to me by my school’s financial aid office and it has always been super easy to apply for loans through them. I will also be able to put these loans in forbearance for six months.

If I return to school, my loans will automatically be deferred too.

Part of me wonders why it is so easy to put my loans in deferment/forbearance. Like, it’s too easy. But the other half is relieved that I won’t have to worry about it again until December.

I got home early enough tonight to sit down and chat with my mom and have dinner. Our chit-chat was interuppted when my youngest brother, Andy, needed some encouragement with his homework.

He has a project where he needs to write a mock interview with Andrew Jackson and then videotape it with his partner and he performing it in character. Andy’s partner is not so good, in Andy’s eyes, and it’s clear that this will not be a very collaborative effort. My mom asked Andy how he paired up with this kid and my brother answered with obvious reluctance and shame, “Both of us didn’t have partners after everyone else chose….”

Man, when he said that, I wanted to cry and hug him. I felt so bad for him as he admitted that.

My mom—always a rationalizer, rarely sympathizer—said the most horrible thing to Andy. She told him that she’d bet that this other kid prolly didn’t want to be Andy’s partner and that he probably thought he got the shaft just as much. For context, my brother has major problems with writing and abstract thinking which make creative projects like the one he is working on very hard, not to mention his humanities classes in general. Reglardless of what actually is, I thought that was the meanest thing my mom could have told Andy. I didn’t have the guts to stick up for him there though. I tried to look as sympathetic yet shocked at my mom’s fucked up way of consoling Andy.

Then we got the real trouble with the assignment. Public speaking. Something every teen fears during the only time in their education when they will have mandatory courses dedicated only to giving speeches. Another reluctant admission from my brother: “Well, I just. I, you know, don’t have that many friends in that class. And. I’m just not popular, Mom.”

Still not one to coddle  or sugar-coat my mom tells him that he won’t lose any friends then. This time I just couldn’t stand my mom’s ineptness. She doesn’t level, never steps into our (as in me and my sibs’) shoes, so she hardly gets it. I spoke up and told Andy about how I used to turn red and start sweating when I’d have to give a speech and that I used to be really shy. My mom tried to make a joke or something.

I just feel so shitty for my brother. He’s a good kid and deserves to be loved and I remember how easy it was at 13 to feel like I wasn’t very loved and that I didn’t fit in anywhere. I mean, god. I remember thinking that at 19 very explicitly and the thought has crossed my mind in the last 8 months. What really makes me feel bad for him is that I know my mom has lost patience with him and doesn’t want to help him as much anymore (but she will continue to try as much as her nerves allow) and his dad (my stepdad) probably has an education level equal to that of my 13 year-old brother.

And I guess I just feel guilty, because I know that I’m moving this weekend and not coming back here to live again.

How do you tell someone that it’ll get better when it seems like there is no hope whatsoever?

caragh:

Ah, the age old question… Do I feel like a broken and weak little girl because I put on Fiona Apple or did I put on Fiona Apple because I feel like a broken and weak little girl?

It just reminds me of that constant feeling from the moment I wake up, you should feel happier than this, you should feel happier than this, because there is no need, no reason, to not be happy. I am alive, my family and friends are well. I should not be taking any of this granted.

I am happier when I’m doing. And I have not been doing much of anything lately. Gotta keep my head on straight. Soon, my mini-vacation to California. Then, my summer classes. Then, maybe, possibly, moving to San Diego. A whole different coast. A whole new set of people. It will not be the same. I hope that’s true.

Some days I wish I could unzip my zipper, step out and start my real life. How can this be it? This can’t be all of it. I’m missing something. I’m constantly, achingly missing something.

I don’t know. Too many cold meds. Not enough socialization this week. I’m going crazy with this cold. I need to see some friends, ASAP.

(via icanread)

I spent my 19th year wishing I was 35. Maybe I still wish I was 35, if only that means that I am financially secure, happy, and safe. I can’t decide if it is cynical or naive to think that I might feel happier or safer if I was financially in the clear, but right now that it my biggest problem and the thing that I feel I have the least control of in my life. If nothing else, I hope that at age 35, I don’t need to be making post-dinnertime runs to the ATM to deposit $3 into my checking hoping to the high heavens that I will not be charged an overdraft fee for the negetive balance that was just incurred by a forgotten $5 charge. Man… just to not have to worry about that kind of miniscule bullshit that doesn’t even matter in the big scheme of things would be a huge luxury.

This morning, Allison was talking to me about last night and said, “Were you mad at us? Did I do anything?”

I told her no, it wasn’t anything anyone did and that “no, dude… I was just mad at society.”

Like, who the fuck am I to sit back and say that I am mad at society? I just sound like the biggest asshole sometimes.

(via juliasegal)

Hot shower. Yummy soft PJs. Cool glass of water.

Paint my toenails. Gonna watch The Fall (Lee Pace is so dreamy).

Take a nap and wake up for Conan’s first episode of The Tonight Show.

Go back to bed and face the music of adulthood in the morning.

As in what does it all mean. What is my life about? Who am I? Why isn’t my life the way I want it? HOW DID I GET HERE.

These are my problems:

• I haven’t completely gotten over the fact that I graduated from college (a year ago) and that I’m not a student anymore and that the rhythm of my day to day life is totally different from what it has ever been.
• I never anticipated that I would have to “get over” not being in school.
• My identity was so attached to my lifestyle as a student, resident mentor, night receptionist, Spartan, etc. that now, without those things, I’m not sure who I am.
• I am desperately trying to reinstate that identity. And I thought I had a plan for that, you know—but that plan is DOA now. And now I feel lost all over again.

I talked to my best friend on the phone after 3 or 4 months of not talking. The occassional message on Facebook or email here and there, but few actual conversations really since we graduated in May 2008.

The break in silence was spurred by an impulsive email I sent explaining my hurt and disappointment in how things had turned out. The next morning when I woke up and realized I had sent that message, I felt terrible and was convinced I had just driven my friend away. Less than 24 hours later, however, I heard back from my friend to learn that she realized everything I’d said and she was very sorry.

Something I forget is that I’m not the only one with problems. My problems seem huge to me, but that’s because they are MY problems. Other people’s problems—even if I can acknowledge the weight—don’t come home with me at night, I don’t have to care outside of a conversation; but, because of that, I forget that other people even have them. On top of that, I totally take it for granted that my friends who managed to secure fairly decent jobs soon after graduation don’t have comparable problems to me. I operate under the foolish assumption that everyone else has it great while I’m here barely scraping by.

Many of my friends aren’t dealing with the issues of how they are going to pay rent or buy groceries let alone pay back student loans, but instead with more abstract problems like hating their jobs but feeling stuck with the economy or being lonely in their new locales. We’re all dealing with something and I selfishly forget it in all my worrying about myself. These lessons are important for me to remember.

When I am upset, I call my mom or my brother or one of my friends. I tend not to call many of my friends that often, relying mostly on my brother or my former roomie to advise me or console me. But I think I need to make more of an effort in that department now. It’s not a matter of keeping tabs, so much as taking time to extend a hand toward those who might not wanna ask for it.

I can’t really help people in that many different ways, but one thing I am always able to do is listen.

“Man In the Mirror” by Michael Jackson

—————

I do a lot of my thinking while I’m driving. This weekend, I visited my family in Saginaw and deliberately getting out of town for MSU’s homecoming festivities (aka my friends from out of town visiting) which I had no money to partake in. On the drive home, I listened to this song and it struck a chord with me.

It’s an understatement to say I’ve been in a funk. Most of the last 12 months have been funk-ridden. And, I’m beginning to think it’s just me. Granted, Michigan has been hit so hard by the recession and it’s not unthinkable for a liberal arts’ degree holding college grad to be “having a hard time” in this job market.

But, no one I’ve talked to is taking it all so badly. People are making things work. So, I’ve decided that it’s gotta be me. There are so many external factors at work in my life, but they are merely shaping my choices and my outlook. I MAKE MY LIFE.

So, that’s what I gotta start doing, you guys. I gotta start making my life.

As if it isn’t surreal enough working in the building where I spent the first two years of college living and attending class, I ran into one of my old professors yesterday. A mentor, really.

God, I’d been dreading it! That’s a horrible thing to say, but it’s coming from that part of me that feels ashamed that I’m not in grad school yet and that I am not just treading water, I backtracked. There’s a certain humiliation associated with running into anyone from college—I feel ashamed that I can’t say that I’m doing anything productive with my education and my life.

Despite my anticipatory dread—as it was only a matter of time—I’m glad I ran into my prof. After only a ten minute conversation, I felt reassured. It means a lot to hear from someone you look up to that the thing you want to do is something they can see you doing.

So, I feel like I can do this. All I want to do is stay home and read and write and get moving toward my future. No more of this mothertrucking treading water.

It hit me. Hard in the face.

It hit me as I left the restaurant with my friends tonight that I am so bored with everything. The only reason I stayed out so long is because I wanted to see a band that had been setting up since shortly after I got there. Their set started as my friends decided it was time to leave.

Whatever, I guess. All I wanted was my bed by then.

I departed from my friends hurriedly.

——

It frustrates me when what I say is met with “Yeah” or “Mhmm” or “I know” or some other affirmative, but disinterested, dismissive answer.

It frustrates me more when I resign myself to those pithy little words. But it’s a pre-emptive resignation: why try if no one else will?

Does conversation exist? What has happened to those skills? Are we all so vapid that we don’t even make an effort to challenge ourselves with the task of understanding someone else?

Am I so self-centered and elitist that I can’t have a conversation with anyone who doesn’t ~get~ what I mean? Maybe. Is there anything really to ~get~ in what I say? Sometimes.

——

“One Step at a Time” by Jordin Sparks was on the radio.

You wanna show the world, but no one knows your name yetWonder when and where and how you’re gonna make it
You know you can if you get the chance
In your face as the door keeps slamming
Now you’re feeling more and more frustrated
And you’re getting all kind of impatient waiting

Relevant.

——

I’m like that kid in first grade who already knows how to read and has decided to see what glue tastes like for fun.

Ready for something new and something good.