Niciodată nu mi s-a părut mai absurdă birocraţia, niciodată nu am avut impresia că cele mai superioare entităţi din Univers ar trebui să fie nişte şoareci albi de laborator [că altfel nu-mi explic!], niciodată nu am crezut că o să vreau să-mi iau zborul nu spre altă ţară, ci spre altă galaxie, şi niciodată nu mi s-a părut 42 mai potrivit ca Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Nu înţelegeţi nimic, a? Nici eu, dar cam aşa a început săptămâna mea, şi încă nu-i gata. Unfortunately, The Ultimate Question itself is unknown. Şi în plus e fucking frig afară! Oricum, după ultimele două zile mi-am amintit subit de filmul ăla, you know… The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, pe cât de stupid, pe atât de funny şi de ce să nu recunosc, true. Must see! So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish… eu mă duc să-mi fac unghiile.

Ah da, cu riscul de a părea redundantă: o iau pe ulei, indubitabil.

You’re sneaky little bastards, you know that, GREs? Hell, I bet you scored high marks on your own exam. You set up the most complicated, long-winded messages on your phone services to scare away questions. Actually, I don’t think there are customer representatives. There’s just the Matrix. A huge supercomputer with the voice of a ribbon-girl blonde cheerleader in a power suit that tells me to press 1 to continute. That’s really what the Matrix is, and you’ve trapped all college graduates in it to suck all their electrical impulses and dollar bills out of their orifices. After all, it’s not like I paid 51 grand a year for my education at this point. But kudos to you for figuring out another way to scam us!

Nevermind that you can’t tell that I’ve read Dante’s Divine Comedy in nine different translations, can make an incredible spaghetti sauce from scratch, or once trained for a marathon. Nevermind that my scores don’t speak to my social graces, charm, or cocktail party conversation. Nevermind that I’ve traveled through the Western Desert or am writing a novel. What matters are numbers, GREs, and you understand that with impeccable aplomb (aren’t you proud I used that word?) Numbers tell the truth. Numbers don’t lie. Except about someone’s intelligence when they’re a bad test taker. But that’s life, isn’t it? And you’re all about life. Especially in anaologies: life is written all over those. Here’s one for you:

GREs: real life :: unnecessary, impractical Renaissance-revival statuettes crafted of horseshit: _______

Bah, but people forget that you aren’t really about testing uselessly: you teach recent undergraduates valuable, practical life skills! Like spending an inordinate amount of money– and you teach us that pretty well. That baseline of $180 does it really well. And that $20 to send your scores to another school– my God, that’s like private tutoring in how to waste money. And for the overachievers (there are always some– how ever did you know?) who can’t wait to get their scores back, you tell them to calm down. Wait. Be patient. Or pay $12 to hear your scores on the phone when they’re been sent out and you won’t let them access them online.

And thanks, by the way, for the preparation booklet you sent me. Thanks for not sending it the DAY BEFORE THE EXAM (I checked the postmark).

You are a soulless, godless, unethical organization, ETS. Pontius Pilate at least washed his hands. GREs are your Rosemary’s Baby. Yes, you are Roman Polanski in this metaphor. At least he had the decency to produce art and run away. But no: you remain. And what do you produce? Pain. You produce pain. You are vampirically sucking out money I could use on food, ETS. But you’re doing it for our own good, you say? Because grad schools need you around to provide a level-planed standard of evaluation? Do you know what that makes you? You’re the Edward fucking Cullen of the academic system, sparkly in the sunlight of application reviews, but useless in Life.

That makes you the Diet Coke of the academy. Tasteless, useless to even dissolve teeth in. Useless to wash blood off the highway with. You would like that, too.

What am I saying, though? I’m sorry. You do have some good personal qualities, too. Like offering me a pencil to use during the exam (though it didn’t have an eraser. Beggars can’t be choosers, though).  You also have testing centers internationally, where you offer the traditional paper test to us over in the third-world; giving us children and friends of less privileged nations the advantage of no air-conditioning, thereby pitting the obviously advantaged students in the sweltering rooms of the Giza district in Cairo against the comfortably cold, less physically capable students of the United States. Genius, GREs; absolutely genius. Even with the testing environment, you test us!

And at least, at the end of the day, I had the satisfaction  of bubbling in every single letter of my name on the answer sheet in that preparatory thirty minutes.

That’s what I went to college to do, anyway.

::sigh::

I’m worn out by the fighting, the anger. I waited twenty minutes on the phone to get my scores because they hadn’t arrive yet.

Everyone across admissions departments admits that this is an outdated method of assessing potential graduates. When the hell are American universities phasing them out, then?

I just want to go to grad school…

* Isaac Asimov’s “The Relativity of Wrong” uses an “English Lit major” as its punching bag. Damn you Asimov! (via)

* The Savage Critic explains misogyny in the Marvel Universe.

The origin of our vagina monster? It’s a woman wanting sex. Sex makes women crazy and dangerous. The result of female sexual excitability is a “genetic W.M.D.”…

The obvious conclusion to draw from DARK REIGN: THE LIST– X-MEN #1 is that at the close of 2009, a woman with an appetite for sex is apparently the very definition of fear and horror for Marvel comic creators and their audience.

* So weird to see Canada being a less responsible global citizen than the U.S.

* “Tea Party” now more popular than GOP.

* ‘How Joe Lieberman Turned The Public Option Fight On Its Head.’ Ezra Klein has some details on the latest set of compromises brought about through the Democratic Party’s ongoing negotiation with itself.

* Meet your new GRE.

* And MetaFilter has your music videos of the day.

Uau, momentul zero chiar a fost duminică… Şi azi m-a lovit din senin, când am rămas fără net [deloc grav/tragic/trist de altfel], am făcut un mic tur introspectiv după ce am terminat cele două cărţi, una începută prin august, cealaltă acum o lună. Ce mai, am zis despre prea multe lucruri: o să mă gândesc la asta/aia/cealaltă [atâtea!!!] după 15 noiembrie, acum am alte chestii mai importante, o să fac aia după 15 noiembrie, o să mă reapuc, o să termin, o să încep, o să trăiesc dupa 15 noiembrie, TOTUL-totul după 15 noiembrie… atunci începe adevărata mea viaţă. Căcat. E trist când mă gândesc că până acum, cel puţin ultimele luni [două, trei, 7] au fost doar cu minus în faţă, de genul numărătoare inversă. Puţine plusuri… sau?

Şi chiar am început să mă gândesc la asta/aia/cealaltă [atâtea!!!], şi vă zic eu, nu-i deloc plăcut, pentru că mi-am blocat sentimente, trăiri, manifestări, nevoi şi dorinţe atâta timp, şi acum când vreau/pot să fac ceva nu ştiu de unde să încep [şi eventual să repar TOTUL pe care l-am stricat prin a-l lăsa pentru după 15]. Sunt atâtea! Şi eu care m-am simţit oarecum fără un scop ultimele două zile, de parcă viaţa mea n-ar fi început atunci, ci s-ar fi terminat.

DAR sunt foarte fericită. Mi-am împlinit cel mai frumos şi cel mai longeviv vis, adică e doar începutul visului, dar e cel mai frumos dintre toate. Din lume! Ok, ok, mai e wish-list-ul, dar visul ăsta era o condiţie neapărat necesară ca să mă apuc de el. Acum ştiu că orice căcat s-ar întâmpla în jurul meu întotdeauna o să-mi fie ok, prin simplul fapt că mi-am demonstrat mie [şi nimănui altuia] că visele se pot împlini. Şi de fiecare dată când mă gândesc la asta rămân prinsă într-o stare de plenitudine şi serenitate cu topping de entuziasm, oricât de mult greu urmează şi oricât de non-roz o să-mi fie cândva [fie şi mâine].

Fără niciun mişto sau ironie, dragostea chiar cere sacrificii [umane?!?]. De răbdare nu zic nimic, n-am aşa ceva.

Hauteur : 15cm
Technique : terre cuite

Hauteur : 25cm
Technique : terre cuite

Hauteur : 28cm
Technique : terre cuite

Hauteur : 40cm
Technique : terre cuite

Hauteur : 53cm
Technique : terre cuite

Hauteur : 41cm
Technique : terre cuite

Hauteur : 56cm
Technique : terre cuite

Hauteur : 56cm
Technique : terre cuite

I’m convinced that graduate school applications were designed specifically to weed out all the people who were “just thinking” of applyin to grad school. I’m reminded of the painful and idiotic process that undergraduate applications were, and working as a Senior Fellow for the Admissions Office last year hasn’t really restored my faith in anything. Sure, the process is a “human one”; your application gets read twice at Middlebury College. People discuss it. They argue for you; they argue against you. And tons of extremely qualified applicants get turned down everyday, NOT because they’re unqualified, or that we don’t want them, but we’re a small, liberal-arts school with a limited number of spaces.

I’m sure that grad school is a rarefied form of this process: after all, Midd’s got 500 spots — most programs I’m applying to have funding for 12. This time, however, you’re expected to be somewhat qualified for the things that you want to do. After all, you have a degree.

And why the GREs? Didn’t I get past standardized tests after high school? I avoided test-taking classes in college because I’m BAD at tests!

I don’t want to call myself a medievalist. I don’t want to call myself a modernist. I love theory. I love translation. I’m in Egypt for a damn reason. Can’t a guy just be interested in Shakespeare and skip a few centuries to the interwar period? Doesn’t that make me more interesting, Academy?

Bah, there’s hope yet. I just gotta buckle down. I just wish I didn’t have to box myself up into a resume, a letter of intent, a few recommendations, and a thirty-page writing sample. I’m more than that, UPenn. You deserve more than that, UChicago.

Back to the drawing board. Thanks for tuning in. You may return to your regularly scheduled programming now.

Cineva [de fapt toată lumea] spunea că nu-i ok să începi o chestie în ziua de luni: de luni mă las de fumat, de luni mă duc la sală, de luni o să fiu atentă la sentimentele oamenilor şi n-o să-i mai folosesc ca pe nişte obiecte sexuale, de luni o să mă spăl şi sub unghii, de luni o să învăţ să… căcat, aţi prins ideea. Na, eu m-am gândit aşa să-mi bag piciorul [că p*lă n-am] în mitul ăsta şi în toată ideea de zi de luni, şi să fac ceva special, şi cum problema mea gravă era că mi-am inversat ritmul somn veghe, am zis: de luni mi-l reglez!!! Să fie clar! Şi brusc mi-a venit ambiţia [cred că de la supradoza de vitamine] şi m-am trezit! După 3 ore de somn şi 6 alarme, plus un câine care lătra insistent în faţa geamului, nişte vecini psihotici  şi oameni care vorbeau în casă de parcă erau pe dealuri diferite [ok, şi până acum se întâmplau toate astea, minus o alarmă, dar n-aveam ambiţie]. Dacă vreţi să vedeţi ironie fină, sarcasm, scârbă sau răutate pură încercaţi să purtaţi o conversaţie cu mine acum, gen, deşi asta intră oarecum în contradicţie cu faptul că am capacitatea intelectuală a unui melc beat. Ah da, şi poate vreţi să speriaţi un copil… ştiţi cadavrul ambulant? Na.

Sunt extrem de bine dispusă, păcat că nu se vede şi din afară…

Uneori cred că oamenii frumoşi au viaţa destul de grea. Nu zic de mine, eu reuşesc prin diverse metode să estompez din propria superbitate, în principal îmbrăcându-mă ca o boschetară, adoptând poziţia ghiocelului sau gesticulând ca o apucată şi zicând multe tâmpenii. Multe şi greu de ignorat. Etc. Zic de restul, care au oarecare social-skill. Păi mie un om frumos, care mi se pare MIE frumos, ar trebui să-mi spună acelaşi lucru de cel puţin două ori ca să fiu atentă şi la ce vorbeşte şi nu doar la buzele prin care ies cuvintele sau ochii şi pielea perfectă pe care le are [sau să devin un-pic-imună la frumuseţe, prin expunere prelungită]. Pentru că de fapt eu sunt o superficială, şi-mi place să mă uit. Insistent [uneori mi-am luate câteva pe după cap de la prietenele mele că mă holbam prea mult la un blond-blond bronzat, cu dreaduri, pe stradă]. Adică şi de asta am ochi, ce căcat. Ceea ce e trist, la un anumit nivel. Bine, acum teoretic ar trebui să definesc frumuseţea din punctul MEU de vedere, poate aşa se găsesc câteva explicaţii pentru unele acţiuni retard, dar e prea complicat şi mi-e lene şi e 4 dimineaţa şi vreau să merg să visez cu şi despre frumoşi, unde chiar aşa, n-am cum să dau greş. Si nu uitaţi, copii: make love, not awkward sexual advances.

La fel cum Universul se încăpăţânează să mă iubească rectal între ghilimele la intervale regulate, la fel şi eu detest ceva, mai mult decât orice. Nu detest aşa mult ura, nici prostia, nici răutatea, sunt alegeri mai mult sau mai puţin personale, dacă un om nu vrea să se schimbe, eu cu atât mai puţin pot să fac ceva. Nu detest nici iubirea, romantismul, şi siropurile deşi uneori par că dau în diabet şi mi-e greaţă de la ele, dar sunt atât de dulci şi frumoase atunci când trebuie. Dintre toate lucrurile oribile şi dezgustătoare din lume, aş putea să suport orice miros, tocmai pentru că nu-l simt, şi se ştie că am văzut ceva căcat la viaţa mea, la propriu. Şi nici sângele, bolile sau moartea nu-mi sunt complet nefamiliare. Am văzut şi creier, fie la el acasă, în cutia craniană, fie întins pe asfalt sau pe vreo targă în Urgenţe. Şi totuşi, în tot haosul în care mă scald, mi-am găsit singură un echilibru. Şi cel mai mult detest instabilitatea. O detest cu fiecare celulă, fiecare mitocondrie, fiecare cromozom din cei 46, din cele miliarde de celule. O detest aşa cum unii detestă să fie ţinuţi în braţe atunci când sunt la pământ, doar pentru că par vulnerabili. O detest pentru că îmi distruge orice urmă de echilibru, pe care singură mi l-am creat, doar ca să-mi demonstreze că orice echilibru fără dezechilibru e egal cu zero, ca atunci când nu ştii ce să crezi despre ceva care nu are termen de comparaţie. Mai mult, detest incertitudinea. Pe de altă parte, unde ar ai fi farmecul să ştii tot, să nu te întrebi, să nu te răscolească instabilitatea şi să nu ai pulsul ca undele făcut de un seismograf în plin cutremur, ca al unui adrenaline-junkie pregătit să sară-n gol.

Da, recunosc, damage-control-ul contează foarte mult, dar până acolo nu pot să nu mă las atrasă şi dezintegrată de cele mai întunecate părţi ale antimateriei domniei sale, Universul.

Later edit: cam la 3 ore după ce-am scris chestiile de mai sus, Universul mi-a demonstrat că e capabil şi de ironie. Nu fină, nu-nu… Grosolană! Probabil cândva o să mă amuz copios, acum însă…

Photo by gfpeck

It’s entirely understandable that being unemployed is not a fun situation. You aren’t making any money, in fact you’re probably getting into debt,  you’re living with your parents, you’re not starting that next chapter of your life, you’re not learning anything new.  It’s just bad.

But if you’re like me, you’ve heard the following statement a fair amount of times from people who have worked now for 20+ years.

“Enjoy it while it lasts because once you start working you’ll never have as much time for yourself as you do now.”

I usually nod politely to these comments while thinking smugly to myself, “I DON’T have time to myself! All I do is look for a job 24/7!”

So, again, the argument seems to be leaning towards the fact that unemployment is just bad, with nothing beneficial about it at all.

And then comes the part where I start to understand the other perspective.

I have realized lately that these career people with 20+ years under their belts actually have a point. Being unemployed leaves you with time to do what you want. Should doing what you want be looking for a job during all waking hours, then that’s your choice and I encourage you to stand by it. However, if you’re like me, a schedule like that would result in a pretty quick burnout rate.

What I’m getting at is that life needs balance. Even in college, classwork was balanced with extracurricular activities such as clubs or sports. Who says you can’t create a campus style life in your unemployed world?

In fact, you can do even more than you did while in college because now you don’t have any homework! Think about all those different ideas you’ve had in your head about trying ice hockey or volunteering at the YMCA. Now is the time to do it.

Unemployment is like a forced leave of absence. So, you might as well take advantage of what you’ve been given. Obviously you need to keep your eye on the ultimate goal of getting a job, but you just might find that you can discover some new passions and interests along the way.

Just to get you thinking, I’m going to list some of my ideas for my unemployment explorations.

1. Join a gym – there’s no better time to get in shape when you don’t have the excuse of “I have sooo much work to do!”
2. Clean out your room – look at it as getting organized for when you move out. It helps keep you thinking positively and gets you excited for the future.
3. Visit friends – unemployment means that you’re not tied to a schedule. Take advantage of that and visit friends whenever you can. There’s nothing better than a spontaneous trip to NYC in the middle of the week.
4. Take a class – I’ve always wanted to take a self-defense class but it never fit into my schedule. Guess what I’m doing next Monday? =)
5. Get an internship – so what if you can’t get paid?! It’s great experience and they’re easier to get than jobs because of the fact that no money is being spent on you. Sure, it might feel like slave labor at times, but its better to have something to do that you’ll keep learning rather than only looking for a job. Think about how much better your answer would be if an interviewer asked you, “So, what have you been doing since you graduated?”
6. Read – I’m absolutely in love with the fact that I can read what I want to read before bed instead of modern philosophy. Take a trip to your local library and see what they’ve got to offer. My library has a free audiobooks service where you can download the books for free and then burn them to CD. It’s perfect for those many trips to visit friends that you’ll be taking.
7. Take your GREs – maybe you don’t want to go to graduate school now but you might in the future. Take advantage of your fresh brain and your free time and study up and take the test. The scores last for ten years so you’ll be set for whenever you do or don’t decide to get your  master’s.
8. Be wait staff or bar tend at a restaurant – both are definitely fun jobs and great skills to have that are transferable to many other jobs. Most importantly, anywhere you go there will be a need for wait staff or bartenders. Plus, don’t forget the tips are usually pretty nice.
9. Explore – is there any part of your town you’ve always wanted to visit but you never did just because of time? Check out your town website and see if there are any special events going on or guided tours of different parks. Frequently, you can find hidden treasures that you might have typically overlooked.
10. Network and Socialize – many areas have young professionals networking groups that you can get involved with. They’ll usually host happy hours or other events that can help you meet lots of interesting people and possibly learn about people who could help you get a job.

So, that’s only a few suggestions. Obviously, the list could go on and on depending on your interests or location. The overall message however, is that there are endless possibilities and we need to remember to not make ourselves feel miserable because we don’t have jobs. The truth is, life will continue to throw curve balls and so we need to learn how to make the best out of every situation. As “Pollyanna” as it may sound, you can always find a bright side.

So, with that, now it’s your turn. Go get a sheet of paper and a pen and start writing down everything you’ve ever wanted to do and then go and figure out how to make it happen.

I’m going to go sign up for bar tending school. =)

So I started a new job as the manager of a little boutique-y store in a high end gym. As an SCU graduate, it doesn’t really pay what I should be earning. But in this economy it’s a steady job, not stressful, and the perks such as a free membership to the gym are great. Overall I’d actually say I’m really happy with it. But I still see it as a temporary thing. I still want to go to grad school. However, there are currently some problems with that:

1.) I don’t feel like I’ve researched enough schools and I’ve been really bad about putting any time into that.

2.) I need to take the GREs and I’m scared about them since I never did the SATs and feel like I don’t know what to expect.

3.) I just haven’t been writing… I really need to make more effort to make consistant time set aside just for writing. I do have ideas floating around in my head, I just need to get them out.

4.) GREs training and the test itself, and grad school apps cost money. While this job does get my bills paid, I live very meagerly and don’t have much left over.

So… Even just this little iPhone entry is my effort to motivate myself. I need to research school and take the GREs. I need to start writing everyday, even if it’s just a silly little blog update.

So wish me luck….here goes nothing!

[Din seria o iau pe ulei, indubitabil]

95. [M2811255] Supravietuirea dupa moartea subita este:

A: incerta
B: certa
C: posibila
D: imposibila
E: contradictorie

Răspuns corect E

[Da Luci, şi mie îmi vine să-i iubesc bucal suav, cu un bocanc de armată pe cei care au redactat întrebările]

This week marks the launch of two new exchange traded funds, both of which intend to offer investors a direct hedge against inflation.  IndexIQ introduced the IQ CPI Inflation Hedged ETF (NYSE: CPI) and also introduced the IQ ARB Global Resources ETF (NYSE: GRES).

Investors generally need to seek investment returns that outpace inflation if they want to be up net-net throughout their lives.  That being said, it will be interesting to see how these measure through time.  In theory, these could offer Joe Public more hedging instruments for or against other investments used to beat the eroding factor of inflation down the road.  One of these ETF products, the CPI trade, is very easy to factor in the moves. The other, the GRES trade, is likely to be more complex than what many retail investors may care about; and what many institutions may aim to achieve on their own.

The IQ CPI Inflation Hedged ETF seeks to replicate the performance of the IQ CPI Inflation Hedged Index with a real return above the Consumer Price Index, before fees and expenses of course.

The IQ ARB Global Resources ETF seeks hedge against inflation and a real return through exposure to a diversified portfolio of commodity-related equities that represent asset classes affected by changes in inflation, such as equities, fixed income, commodities, currencies, and real estate. This is meant to identify global companies that operate in eight commodity-specific market segments and whose equity securities trade in IQ CPI and IQ ARB Global Resources ETFs.  This one has a broad diversification: livestock; precious metals; grains, food and fiber; energy; industrial metals; timber; water; and coal. It also includes short exposure to global equities as a partial equity market hedge.

Some ETFs are liquid and the demand is easy to see and the performance is easy to track.  Other ETFs are somewhat glorified hedge funds or mutual funds.  You’ll have to decide on your own which side of the coin to take.

JON C. OGG
OCTOBER 28, 2009