nostalgia

I'm feeling very nostalgic for school right now. This is a bit unusual for me. Certainly I've missed college in many ways. I feel like I had a lot more going on then, and my world felt bigger. It was nice to be busy and to be actively progressing toward a goal. I've been bored a lot since and have often felt stagnant.

It's the academic side of college, the knowledge acquisition, that I haven't pined for, exactly. I didn't particularly enjoy many of my classes the last year or so of my undergrad, and I wish I could go back and redo some of it. I was taking the classes that would fill the requirements for my degree without much consideration, and I anticipated finishing in a timely manner (at the time it seemed important to me, but now it seems like graduating is overrated unless you have something to move on to immediately afterward).

I did really enjoy some of my classes, especially the ones I took at the beginning of my major. But later on, I took some that I didn't enjoy and didn't do that well in. I graduated feeling disillusioned about my college experience. I lost a bit of my faith in the goodness of learning. I felt like all I had learned was how to get by not doing everything I was supposed to.

Now, after two full years of being out of school, I'm feeling this sense of nostalgia and remembering the academic portion of college somewhat positively. I think that means I'm recovering a bit from my disillusionment. Maybe I'll even go back to school . . . someday.

For those of you who are done with school, what was your transition to the "real world" like? What do you feel like you learned most from your college experience?

i bought glasses online

It was a leap of faith, but I'm satisfied with the result. And I'm definitely okay with paying 20 dollars for a complete set of glasses, frames and lenses.

The website lets you "try them on" virtually before you buy. Here's what I was going off of:

And here's the real thing:

Not bad, right? They seem pretty comparable to other glasses that I have had initially. Just got them in the mail today.

desperate for chapstick

Seriously, why don't I just throw this thing of chapstick away? Goodness knows I have like 50 others (not all of which are so depleted, either).

economic insecurity

I don't really know how I feel about tax cuts for the wealthy, not really because of any strong leftist political views, but I just feel like those who have enough money to not have to worry about money (my definition of "economic security," which this article says you need about $68,000 a year to achieve for a family of four) don't really need more.

The estimate of $68,000 a year seemed pretty reasonable, and it kind of freaked me out because Tim and I might be poor for a long time (hello, long-term students). Oh yeah, and wage increases aren't really keeping up with inflation either (hello, crappy economy and oil crisis). What's the opposite of economic security? Oh yeah. Hello, economic insecurity.

I heard someone or other (a Republican senator maybe?) talking on the radio a while ago saying that the wealthiest 2 percent in America deserve tax cuts because in order to be wealthy in America, you have to work really hard. Also, tax cuts for the wealthy translates into more jobs, which translates into better economy for everyone! I don't know if I can get past the generalization that those who are wealthy work hard to get there. It doesn't seem like a fair claim. There are a lot of people who work hard and don't get wealthy, too. I don't really think wealth is always merit-based, though I'm sure there are plenty of wealthy people who deserve it and use it to benefit other people besides themselves and their families.

I think most people deserve economic security. Not enough people have this right. It'd also be nice (though it's probably a privilege, not a right) to be able to afford "middle-class amenities such as vacations, dinners at restaurants, flat-screen TVs, cable subscriptions, movie tickets or other entertainment." (That quote comes from the article linked above, "Beyond 'Surviving': Defining Economic Security.")

Anyway, even though I am constantly worried about money, things always seems to work out okay in the end, and for that I'm grateful.

phone woes

I really need to update contact information in my phone. Especially for Husband Tim: I have two numbers that are no longer valid saved under his name. One of them is a work phone number for a job he hasn't been at for almost a year. Another is his cell phone number. He hasn't had a cell phone now for a few months. I really should stop calling it "his," because I just found out last week it belongs to someone else.

I accidentally sent a text to that number instead of the number associated with Tim's Gmail account. It said the following:

"Is it bad that i steal feminine products from the bathroom on the second floor whenever i need them? i don't even attempt to bring them from home"

The reply was something like this:

"Sorry, same number but new person. I don't know you"

(Sadly, I deleted the message from my phone so this is not verbatim.)

bigger than me

Contributing just $5 to the relief effort for Japan gives me a good feeling. I just looked at http://livingsocial.com/redcross and saw that over $2 million was raised. It makes me feel like I'm part of something bigger than myself. I love being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for that reason.

seize and desist

Today I was editing something and saw the word cease used incorrectly. I looked at it for a full minute and looked it up on m-w.com before I realized what it should be: seize. I seriously thought, "Is there a sense of the word cease that means this? Maybe it's one of those words like cleave, peruse . . . " (you know, auto-antonyms, contronyms, antagonyms; whatever you want to call them, they're kind of interesting).