We Further Interrupt This Program

To follow up on City Girl's post ...

Honestly, I don't think you would have been happy at Really-Good-State-School. It wasn't on the East Coast for one, and theater and fencing weren't it's big focuses for two. At least you have a college degree that didn't come off the internet. You didn't go to a community college that accepts everyone who can pay, and you graduated in four years. The national average is now at 5 - 5.5 years spent in undergrad.

Besides, name recognition of undergrad (unless you went to uppercrust ivy league, not all the places that think they're ivy league but aren't) isn't good for much. Work samples and personal references from your old boss are. Internships to prove yourself with said old boss are. And then in your field there's name recognition. For example, if you study Latin at MIT I don't think anyone will care over much. Iowa never makes top ten lists as an overall institution (unless it's a really good football year) but their writing program is the undisputed No. 1 in the country for the past 25 years.

Oh, and if you read the manifest (mission statement, whatever) of Really-Good-State-School you'll see they don't give a crap about whether you're an in-state resident or not. They want to be seen as a "national" school.

Personally, I'm glad I didn't apply to Really-Good-State-School. People around here always wanted to know if you were planning to go there, if you got in there or not and it really pissed them off that I hadn't applied. I didn't want to go to the freakin school! I wanted to go someplace far enough away (preferably out of state) that my mother wouldn't show up unexpectedly. That I wouldn't be tempted to slink back to my parents houses every time something went wrong in college. I knew I needed to learn to be independent and going out of state helped me with that.

But more to the point why does this woman care so much? Honestly, where you went to school doesn't matter that much. Yes, in certain circles the weight of a good name does wonders, but for the most part life becomes about having that bachelors degree and proving yourself. Getting your foot in the door someplace and making the best of it. So long as you're alive, happy, and paying your bills so that the IRS/debt collectors don't come knocking, then your college days should be fond memories. Not a list of regrets based on facts and figures of which school is better on paper.

We Interrupt This Program...

To bring you a "bitch of the week."

I've been thinking about what I want to write for my "spring cleaning" post, BUT this just happened and I have to get it off my chest since it's pretty consistent with my complaints of the past.

The following conversation took place this past Saturday around noon. I had just finished a six mile walk (no I'm not kidding. YES this is City Girl. What do you mean you don't believe me???) and was sitting down to lunch with a friend and her family. After discussing jobs we fell into the inevitable school discussion, including majors, etc. and I then had the following exchange with her aunt (again, please keep in mind I had just walked six miles and was very hungry):

Aunt: "Where did you grow up?"

CG: "In ********, **"

Aunt: "Really? Isn't Really-Good-State-School there?"

CG: "Yep. A lot of my friends went there, including my current roommate."

Aunt: "But you went to Mediocre-Out-Of-State-School?"

CG: "Yeah."

Aunt: (Clearly flabbergasted) "Why?"

CG: "Well, I didn't get into Really-Good-State-School."

Aunt: "Even though you were in state?"

CG: "Yeah. Actually, my parents went there as well. It's where they met."

Aunt: "Your parents went there, and you grew up there, and you still didn't get in?"

CG: (Beginning to become irrate) "Yeah...well...I don't think my grades were good enough. It's a very good school. I was wait listed but didn't get in."

Aunt: "Wow. Were you surprised you didn't get in?"

CG: (Realizing that her irrate-ness is now becoming palpable. Hopes this will be a good indication that the conversation should end) "Not really, I guess. I mean, like I said, my grades weren't very good."

CG's Friend: (Trying to intervene, bless her heart) "What were their averages there?"

CG: "I don't really remember. It was over six years ago when I applied."

CG's Friend: "Well, Mediocre-Out-Of-State-School is pretty good."

CG: "Yeah, it's not bad."

Conversation is blessedly dropped as food arrives.

Ok, really, "Were you surprised that you didn't get in?" Who says that? I mean, I know circumstances were such that I was very tired, hungry, and therefore more emotionally sensitive than I otherwise would be. But really? Am I crazy for being offended by that comment? I suppose offended is the wrong word. Shocked at the audacity? I dunno. I'll let Speak Coffee choose a statement to best describe the above conversation. She is the writer. I mean, I didn't even get into Really-Good-State-School even though I grew up there and both my parents attended. Can you believe it???

Bitch of the Week: ticking clock

Contributor: Speak Coffee

Ticking clock, ticking clock, ticking clock.

Actually, it's the rhythmic ticking of the expanding heating duct above my head. But it's varied creakings and thumpings only feed my anxiety by building up the pressure then slowing down until I find I'm holding my breath, not letting it out until a certain number of ticks have passed by.

I'm waiting on the ticks. And at the same time I'm watching, terrified, as they pass me by.

Tick, tick, tick.

Today I received in the mail my "free" copy of a chapbook of poetry for a contest I entered a year ago. This is a copy of the winning chapbook, not my own manuscript. It was something of a let down. About 50 pages, 4x4" and cheaply bound. I understood what "chapbook" meant, but still ... I'm not terribly sad that it isn't my name on the cover of this sad litttle thing. At the same time, it is one more opportunity that I reached for. And I feel good about that. But it's one more that's over. And now I have this sinking feeling, this question of what's next? are you ready for the next thing because you need to be ready, ready NOW!

Tick, tick ...

Ever feel like you're wasting your life away? Well, duh, I think most of us get that sooner or later. But the emotion is presenting itself pretty strong this week. Yes, Paralith said I'm the one who still takes writing "seriously" but who is taking me seriously? What am I doing to convince them that they need to? Why aren't I on the next thing by now?

Sticking with writing is easy for me because it is the one thing that I am good at that doesn't feel like work. I just dump out my mind onto the page and many a day it doesn't even seem like I am in control. *Pointing to today's story as exhibit A.*

I'm turning out 1,000-4,000 words of new fiction every day now. Which is great. Except it is spread over several projects and makes me feel like I'm slowing down the process. That's why I'm hearing the ticking clock bearing down on me. I need to finish some sort of small tangible goal ASAP. Actually, I need to send out three short stories to literary journals. I've decided that is my "tangible" goal for the weekend and I'm procrastinating on it in order to write this post.

Tick ...

Shall we even get into the whole job hunting thing? I think not. I'm making myself nervous enough as it is.

Then there's the "relationship" thing. So there's this "Millionaire Matchmaker" show on Bravo. Which is great to watch because it makes me feel good about all the guys I've dated not being as in need of help as these really rich but genuinely clueless guys. However, the matchmaker-lady spouted off something about "Are you really committed to this idea of falling in love? Because if you don't want it, it's not going to happen. ... Once you open yourself up to the idea the universe rearranges itself."

Part of me was like hey, yeah! What a great way to think about the world! That all it takes is you being truly committed to an idea! This is already a large part of my I will make it! I am a writer! mantra, but when I applied it to myself and a relationship ... nope. Not gonna happen. Still scared shitless.

Bitch of the Week: A Little Self Bitching

Contributor: Paralith

This isn't as angry an entry as my last Bitch of the Week, but I think this still kind of fits. What I'm bitching about today is myself.

Speak Coffee wrote in her writing blog about our days in high school when she, City Girl, and I would all write stories and share them with each other every day as we wrote. Speak Coffee is the only one of us who has continued to follow writing seriously.

For a long time, I wanted to follow writing seriously too. For a while, I also thought I might want to pursue art seriously too. In fact, I chose the colleges I would apply to based on the variety of options they offered - art, writing, and science.

My efforts at art had started to die long before I went to college. My last semester of high school, I spent one period as an assistant to the art teacher I'd had for two previous classes. She told me she'd be happy to help me develop some pieces for a portfolio during that semester, if I wanted to apply to art school at some point in the future. But I wasted that whole semester, and made no efforts to make any pieces, even as I watched several of my friends do exactly that (including Speak Coffee, if I remember correctly!) When I went to college, I made a few attempts to enroll in a class or two at the art school, but it was difficult enough where I gave up after a year.

I'm not sure what exactly was going through my mind at that time; I had always enjoyed art, ever since I was little, and when I applied myself, I could be pretty good. The only thing I can blame, really, is laziness. Simply not enough motivation.

I held on to writing a little tighter. I declared myself a double major in English and Biology, largely to ensure that I could apply to my school's advanced senior year writing program at the end of my junior year. I took two creative writing classes, and took care to screen my potential teachers to that I would be able to write science fiction and fantasy stories. I had discovered that my large university's writing program largely frowned upon "genre fiction," a term I had never heard prior to that point. It was something I railed against with relish, and claimed that I would show them all with my writing that genre fiction could stand up with traditional fiction.

But for the whole year between my last creative writing class and the application deadline for the writing program, I did not revise and complete my primary piece as I had planned. I said I would, but I didn't. The deadline came and went, and I did nothing.

I really did love writing - I loved my stories that I wrote. And the piece I had planned to apply to the program with had been well received by my classmates - many of them specifically told me that they didn't usually like fantasy, but they liked my story. One of them called my dorm room that night she first read my story to tell me how much she liked it. What more encouragement could I have asked for? But somehow, day by day, I let time go by without working on my story like I should have. Clearly, I didn't love writing enough. I dropped my English major and went for straight biology.

Even after graduating from college, during my Lost Year, my boyfriend tried to encourage me to spend my ample free time (while I was "working" on getting a job) working on that story again. He talked about finding a literary agent to help me out. He tried to help me work out some serious world-building issues I had with the story. But again, I continued to let days go by in which I didn't work on it - I watched TV, played video games, surfed the internet. Needless to say, my boyfriend was pretty disappointed in me.

Looking back on this sordid history is one of the things that helped jar me out of the worst part of my Lost Year. I was and am still ashamed of myself and my laziness, and my seeming inability to do what's good for myself. I did the same thing during my Lost Year when it came to getting a job, taking the GRE, applying to grad school. I realized I was letting my whole life go down the toilet, and that I had to change.

I hope, one day, to go back to that story, or to writing in general. I've managed to get my motivation in science, now I just have to work that into the rest of my life. It hasn't been easy, but I'm trying.

Bitch of the Week: More of a WTF of the Week

Contributor: City Girl

This post will be brief, but it depressed me enough that I thought it was worth noting.

Ah, facebook, what would I do without thee? How would I know which of my high school acquaintances that I haven't spoken to in five years is now with child without your endless wisdom? How would I know whether or not my friend Sam's relationship has finally come to an end for the umpteenth time? How would I know that the woman who hired me is, in fact, six months younger than I am and graduated from college a year after I did?

...

I realize that this is not of the norm. Fate has favored this girl, the company I work for is not that big, and she does have a tiny-yet-commanding presence that I will never be able to achieve. Even knowing what I know now I still view her as being about 10 years my senior, but in my soul of souls it depresses me that in the year I spent detouring in other activities (some of which could very well be considered of The Crazy) I could have been achieving real job status and would not now have to be addressing the pros and cons of living on Ramen Noodles for the forseeable future.

I think this ties into Speak Coffee's post about employers wanting vanilla. It's so true!!! They want vanilla starting with the path you choose to pursue in college. And the fact that I have now detoured from that path gets a big ol' WTF from most people I meet or interview with. Even interviewing for my current internship I was asked: "Are you SURE you no longer want to be an actress?" Yes, I'm SURE dammit! I'm sorry I wasn't born knowing exactly what I wanted to do with my life and have instead detoured from my "path" in a myriad ways. Is it really that uncommon to not know what you really want to do in college? I think it was acceptable when I was in high school, but in the four years I was in college and beyond it has become...uncool? Geez, you really have to know EXACTLY what you want to do to get anywhere in this world. Or you have to be really good at pretending you know. Which is what I did to get hired at my internship. Which I love by the way.

Except for the fact that my superior is younger than me totally weirds me out and makes me feel even more certain that I wasted the last year of my life. People (ex: my mother) can tell you that you will have a use for whatever you learn, but in the real world (at least in NY) they don't care. They want you to know exactly what you want to do and be an expert in your area.

Good thing I took those acting classes in college or I would never know how to pretend to know what I want to do with my life.

Bitch of the Week: Land of the Morons

For my bitch of the week, I unabashedly choose the electricity company Pepco as my victim.

When my boyfriend and I first moved into our apartment in July, a few weeks after our move-in date we received one of those friendly "Intent to Disconnect" letters, as no one had come forward to accept responsibility for the electricity at our address. Fair enough. We called Pepco to sign up - and my boyfriend was already on the lists. Oh. Must have been a mistake. Letter sent out before the apartment building put our names in. Fine. We're even able to go to the Pepco website and create a convenient online file for our account.

A week later, we get another Intent to Disconnect Letter. Still, no one has come forward to accept responsibility. Um, yes, yes we have. So we must call Pepco again. Like most big service companies they have an irritating phone menu that you have to talk to, clearly and loudly and in a quiet room, before you get to actually talk to a person. When I do finally get to a person and explain my problem, after being on hold for a minute I'm told some interesting news - we had been given the wrong account number. The account for our address was actually under a different number that we were unaware of. Lovely.

But the person I talked to said she fixed everything, and that I just had to make a new file on the Pepco website for the new account number. I do so, and the intent to disconnect letters stopped coming. For a while. You see, four months later, we had yet to receive a single bill. Nothing in the mail, nothing in email for either of us, no payments due listed on the Pepco website. And we get another intent to disconnect letter for our truancy.

That's when I realized that, when signing on to our file on Pepco's website, the account number nicely displayed in the top right hand corner was still the old, wrong account number. Um, what the fuck? So again I'm on the phone to Pepco. The first person I get to says she can't help me, and sends me to another division. The people there say they can't help me either and that I have to go back to the first division and ask to talk to a manager. Back at the first division the woman I talk to is surprised that I asked for a manager, since she can help me herself. Makes me wish I could find that first person I talked to and strangle them.

After a long, arduous ordeal where we tried to get me into the right account, I was put on hold after which I was greeted with another surprise: the first time I set up an online file for the right account number, it didn't seem to stick. I had to re-register, from the beginning. Finally the online file works, and I make our overdue payment through the website. I make sure to sign up for paper bills, too. The intent to disconnect letters take a break.

The next two months, we receive our bills, I go to the website, I make the payments, and move on with life. It was holiday rush, we were crazy busy and spending money like mad, so I didn't realize that the money was not being taken out of my account. The third bill is, of course, accompanied by another intent to disconnect letter. I immediately go the website, see that the previous two payments were not listed as paid, and try to pay the whole thing. Another week later, another intent to disconnect letter.

AGAIN on the phone with Pepco. I get to a person and tell them my problem, and ask if there is any record of any of my attempts to make online payments. And of course, there isn't. Great. Now there isn't even proof that I've been effing trying to pay them but they won't take my money. I ask them if the fact that we had that previous mix-up with the wrong account number might be causing trouble, and I find out that our online file for that wrong account number is still active. Why didn't Pepco kill it last time I was on the phone with them? The woman tells me I have to close it out myself. Great. I go to the website, sign in to the old account (yes it's still there), and there's no clear way to kill it without potentially accidentally killing service to our apartment. I call Pepco again, and this time the person is like, Oh I'll inactivate the account for you. !!!!!! The first person said I had to do it!!!!!! *death*

I try, one more time, to make our payment through the website. No dice. The money stays in my account. I attempt to pay it over the phone, but they only take ATM cards and credit cards I don't have. Finally I decide to give up all my bank account info over the phone to make sure we can pay the damn bills before they cut out our service. And they don't even let me pay the full balance at once, just the overdue payments. Great.

So, days go by. The date by which our overdue payments are required to be in passes by. And the money still rests quietly in my account. At least now I have a confirmation number for my payment that the nice phone lady gave me, but I'm not taking any chances with these morons. I don't want our power cut off. I call them and they say the payment was listed as paid - days ago. I don't know how that works with the money still in my account, but fine. At last, today, the money gets taken.

Realizing that people as incompetent as those who work at Pepco are probably in charge of most of our basic necessities could be enough to make me paranoid. I still don't know why their damn website has ceased to work, so I'm just not going to bother using it anymore.

BitchFest ... it's like Oktoberfest only without the Lederhosen

Contributor: Speak Coffee

So about 72 hours ago I did a great bitch and moan regarding grad school program websites. Instead of reposting I LINK!

The rest of me just feels this need to accomplish something I can point to and show off. (Preferably something printed and bearing my name on the byline.) This is leading to a lot of wistful sighing I don't believe I've earned.

I hate looking for work. Hate the thought of working a crappy job that I'm smarter than simply because the economy sucks and my work experience is all over the board yet I really just want to do something completely different than the parts of the board I've already covered.

Employers don't seem like my 31 Flavors approach to the working world either.

Employers know they're hiring for a Vanilla position so they want to see Vanilla in your resume. They want you to pick Vanilla and stick to Vanilla. Lots and lots of Vanilla.

They say they like diversity of experience and that doing a little of this and that makes you a great candidate. But when it comes down to it, they really don't understand why you've handed them a resume that lists Black Cherry Swirl and Pralines 'n Cream and Gold Medal Ribbon when they just wanted to see mountains of Vanilla staring them in the face.

Then there's that awkward moment where I get to explain the writing thing. I could choose to gloss over it, but there's a time frame where I really did view myself as a full time writer even though I could gloss it over and say that I was just getting ready to move and then moving to start grad school.

There's the dreaded question have you had anything published?

Ug. Can we please go back to talking about that Black Cherry Swirl now? How about that Vanilla even?

What can you possibly answer to that?

No, but I won a local award that didn't come with publication. um ... that sounds like I started on Monday and gave up on Tuesday. Or No, but everyone thinks I'm great and it's just a matter of time. Yeah, that's not my ego talking that's someon else's that I would have had to have borrowed for the interview. Besides it's pompous. And I don't do pompous, I do spunky. Or I'm trying to break into a very difficult and specific market. Maybe if it wasn't for the fact that it sounds like I'm trying to make myself aloof.

How about answering with the truth that I thought I had my life figured out and those months didn't matter in the big picture so I didn't work then for any place that took out taxes. But I didn't have my life figured out, and I still don't, but I'm working on it, and if you give me a job I will continue to work on figuring it out while showing up on time everyday. And I won't do drugs on the job. I'll even pee into a little cup to prove it.

Anybody else feel demeaned by jobs that require drug tests? I do! Can't most of us tell these things anyway? And if you can't, why not just fire the person because they're not doing their work like a normal employer would?