(no subject)
Apr. 15th, 2008 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
phthalombrageI never expected finding an apartment to be so much of a pain in the ass. I'm looking at two more places Thursday, possibly more, depending on whether or not the umpteen people I emailed ever decide to get back to me. All this after traffic observation... I forgot to leave time to eat and feel like a slacker about Carnival shifts. So I'm doing one during the second half of the party for the Party. I hope I still get to meet various people I only know in legend.
The Pitt girls my mom liked so much said they found a roommate, yet reposted their ad. I emailed them about it. My mom would really like me to live with them, even though I'd have a basement room. And I agree that it would be nice to have the security of living with seemingly non-sketch girls around my age and that their apartment was pretty nice... whatever. I hope there was a problem with the roommate they found and they were not just being catty bitches and didn't have the balls to tell me they didn't like me. I can totally deal with that. I have before. But don't leave me hanging, this is already not fun.
Also, I have acquired a loaf of whole-grain bread with a shelf life of this week. Hooray for bread and eating peanut butter or veggie burgers on it! Veggie burgers with walnuts! I also have yogurt that expires in May. I should get on that.
My roommate is reading Calvin and Hobbes. It's almost like she's human! Last week she had some lame-ass female empowerment book, and I was pretty shocked, because that's something your mom's supposed to read when your dad is fighting with her all the time or she just thinks she should be even more of a bitch, but it turns out its authors had given a talk at CMU. I feel like I should go to talks, but am afraid of strange social implications of this, like possibly being asked questions if for whatever reason, nobody else attends. This is silly. I am also going to try to go to Pillow Project dance classes on Saturdays now, whee! Even though it scares the shit out of me, I know I can dance as well or better than the other CMU people that go every week, so I'm not too worried about them being like lol, ur n00. And draw again, on summer evenings.
Also, what's really nice is that when I emailed my summer boss with Kesden's advice to try to get a lab monkey job before turning back to MSC/Admissions, she said she sent out the email to the MSE profs herself. Sweet!
Three days later and almost two weeks after the start of my mom's visit, I am totally fine. It's kind of a relief, actually.
Maybe it also has to do with the facts that now Booth committee knows I'm not blowing them off, that I have more apartments to visit before April 25, that my parents' tax info finally showed up, that costumes are being ordered and plans are underway for extra rehearsals, that the bagger never got back long before 3 AM is gone (along with time-consuming Bagger #2 and mysterious vanishing Bagger #3), that my physics final has a conflict, and that my Sudoku solver code is being steadily filled in... If you catch my drift.
Looking for apartments it dawned on me that I will still be 18 until the end of July: One of the people I emailed was all "erm, erm, you're a freshman, and I have parties on weekends where friends come over to drink, nothing crazy, but you're underage..." I think I am a bit too young to have to be so much of an adult. I've been like that for a while, but it's finally catching up to me, because I'm starting to feel like I have to do everything myself and that nobody's really giving me any breaks anymore. Like I'm 25, without a steady job. It's not particularly great or empowering to have so much control over my own life because it's shitting on me and I still have homework on top of all these other oh shit urgent for continuation of life and health responsibilities and a job, and the things I do for "fun" sometimes have a shitload of obligations (DS lighting cues due tomorrow). So I have to make weird priorities, sometimes, one of which is not usually health or sanity unless the school sends me some kind of form with a deadline. I have a lot of control, but freedom, not so much. And I don't want to screw myself over just to feel more free. I just have to wait until I actually get a job that pays my bills and only keeps me occupied during more or less fixed hours and can build around this a little more stability. I hope that if I ever end up having kids, I don't end up ruining their childhood because I didn't really get much of one. But I don't have to worry about that for a while, because I am not *actually* 25, thank gods.
Now I will acquire LEDs with Rigel, who is not Katie Holmes, even though I haven't seen her in two weeks and though she now has shorter hair.
The Pitt girls my mom liked so much said they found a roommate, yet reposted their ad. I emailed them about it. My mom would really like me to live with them, even though I'd have a basement room. And I agree that it would be nice to have the security of living with seemingly non-sketch girls around my age and that their apartment was pretty nice... whatever. I hope there was a problem with the roommate they found and they were not just being catty bitches and didn't have the balls to tell me they didn't like me. I can totally deal with that. I have before. But don't leave me hanging, this is already not fun.
Also, I have acquired a loaf of whole-grain bread with a shelf life of this week. Hooray for bread and eating peanut butter or veggie burgers on it! Veggie burgers with walnuts! I also have yogurt that expires in May. I should get on that.
My roommate is reading Calvin and Hobbes. It's almost like she's human! Last week she had some lame-ass female empowerment book, and I was pretty shocked, because that's something your mom's supposed to read when your dad is fighting with her all the time or she just thinks she should be even more of a bitch, but it turns out its authors had given a talk at CMU. I feel like I should go to talks, but am afraid of strange social implications of this, like possibly being asked questions if for whatever reason, nobody else attends. This is silly. I am also going to try to go to Pillow Project dance classes on Saturdays now, whee! Even though it scares the shit out of me, I know I can dance as well or better than the other CMU people that go every week, so I'm not too worried about them being like lol, ur n00. And draw again, on summer evenings.
Also, what's really nice is that when I emailed my summer boss with Kesden's advice to try to get a lab monkey job before turning back to MSC/Admissions, she said she sent out the email to the MSE profs herself. Sweet!
Three days later and almost two weeks after the start of my mom's visit, I am totally fine. It's kind of a relief, actually.
Maybe it also has to do with the facts that now Booth committee knows I'm not blowing them off, that I have more apartments to visit before April 25, that my parents' tax info finally showed up, that costumes are being ordered and plans are underway for extra rehearsals, that the bagger never got back long before 3 AM is gone (along with time-consuming Bagger #2 and mysterious vanishing Bagger #3), that my physics final has a conflict, and that my Sudoku solver code is being steadily filled in... If you catch my drift.
Looking for apartments it dawned on me that I will still be 18 until the end of July: One of the people I emailed was all "erm, erm, you're a freshman, and I have parties on weekends where friends come over to drink, nothing crazy, but you're underage..." I think I am a bit too young to have to be so much of an adult. I've been like that for a while, but it's finally catching up to me, because I'm starting to feel like I have to do everything myself and that nobody's really giving me any breaks anymore. Like I'm 25, without a steady job. It's not particularly great or empowering to have so much control over my own life because it's shitting on me and I still have homework on top of all these other oh shit urgent for continuation of life and health responsibilities and a job, and the things I do for "fun" sometimes have a shitload of obligations (DS lighting cues due tomorrow). So I have to make weird priorities, sometimes, one of which is not usually health or sanity unless the school sends me some kind of form with a deadline. I have a lot of control, but freedom, not so much. And I don't want to screw myself over just to feel more free. I just have to wait until I actually get a job that pays my bills and only keeps me occupied during more or less fixed hours and can build around this a little more stability. I hope that if I ever end up having kids, I don't end up ruining their childhood because I didn't really get much of one. But I don't have to worry about that for a while, because I am not *actually* 25, thank gods.
Now I will acquire LEDs with Rigel, who is not Katie Holmes, even though I haven't seen her in two weeks and though she now has shorter hair.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-04-15 04:21 pm (UTC)there...I said it
also, Katie Holmes is guano crazy
no subject
Date: 2008-04-15 08:31 pm (UTC)I guess you were right.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-21 06:49 pm (UTC)If the book is Women Don't Ask then I would not classify it as "female empowerment" of the sort I think you mean. Linda Babcock researches negotiation. One of her findings is that women and racial minorities tend to take the salary they're offered rather than negotiate for something better. Yet if women are advocates for someone else, they are just as good at negotiation as men. A sizable chunk of the gap in salaries between women and men may be attributed to women failing to negotiate, particularly early on in their careers (raises are usually a % of prior salary; it snowballs.)
There's some interesting research, some of it done at CMU. And there's follow up research that calls into question some of the preliminary conclusions drawn in the book (example: women and racial minorities are also more likely to be penalized for negotiation. So it's not just "stop being meek," there's more going on.) That makes for an interesting mental exercise: what would you think based on her studies, and how would you find out if you were right?
It's worth dropping in to listen to one of Linda's talks, no later than the end of junior year, to get a quick overview of Things Not To Do when negotiating your first job offer. My recollection is you won't get called on unless you choose to raise your hand and it is by no means a "let's bash men" sort of environment. Or, try her class if you have room for an elective. While it's listed as grad level it may be easier than your undergrad classes. I make those recommendations to anyone regardless of sex or race. You never know when you're going to need to negotiate the price of 44 pizzas. ;-)