The Chinese have a saying that roughly translates to "With money, you can't do everything. Without money, you can't do anything."
Times are really tough right now. The job market is awful, which really hurts me being a recent graduate, and I feel really discouraged (yes, again) in this job hunt.
It's not until you don't have that you realize how much how your life relies on it. I'm not talking about little things like cell phone bills. I mean even trying to make long-term improvement to your life is hard. I'm taking classes to get a professional certificate, which I'm hoping will be the true key to opening doors for me, but the classes cost money. Gas to get to my classes costs money. Printing new business cards so I can properly network and find opportunities cost money. All of these things are investments so I can build myself a good future but am I in any position to fund it?
I read on SavvySugar that the bad economy might actually be really good for new graduates because not being able to find a job right away will give them the time and opportunity to figure out what it is they really want to do and not waste time in the first position they can find. I like this bright spin on it and I've always been the voice of optimism but I'm finding it hard to digest.
I keep a smiling face and always said that things would work out; I just have to be patient and keep working at it.
I'm sorry to sound so depressing but it's just so, so hard for me right now and for the first time in a long time, I am genuinely concerned that life won't just work itself out and my little bubble will get burst and I just won't know what to do when I'm down to my last dollar.
Chin up, right?
Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The Thought That Counts
I've said before that I'm a recent college graduate without a career or a job yet. That being said, I am lacking in all sorts of means to be green and simple the way I really want to be. Living in an apartment and not having solid cash flow means a lot of things are just really not feasible no matter how much I want to help the environment, save energy, or simply live better.
When No Impact Man wrote this detailed article about vermicomposting, the use of worms in composting, I got very excited about the idea of composting. As someone who is now cooking a lot of vegetables, the increasing amount of stuff being thrown away is disturbing. Never mind all the political connotations about our land fills, throwing something away that isn't actually bad just doesn't seem to sit right with me. So, I read the article and did a little more research on vermicomposting, but the more I read, the less this seemed feasible for me to do right now. For starters, an apartment is not generously spaced. Even though the composting can be done in a storage bin, I really don't have a good place to put it. Furthermore, I don't have any place to store anything else that might go with it -- extra paper for the bedding, the fertilizer when it's complete, etc. Another big point was that I read it would take about 6 months for the first batch to be ready. Now, 6 months isn't a really long time but let's consider a few other things... I have a lease on this apartment. I could be moving in a matter of months and to be realistic, probably a few more times in the next few years. Even though it's just one bin of worms, I have to move it several places before I have a real garden to use fertilizer in. That's the other thing -- I don't grow anything yet. I did start some tomatoes lately but they're not even big enough to leave their first pot and I haven't even started talking about all the little extra things I need for gardening. Again, living in an apartment, particularly one you won't be in very long, makes all these things very inconvenient.
Energy conversancy is even harder. Yes, I would like to have energy efficient things but I live in a complex. A tiny complex. I have to use their washers and I don't have any space or place to do line drying or air drying. So yes, it costs me extra money and to be quite honest, I really hate using laundry rooms anyway. They don't maintain the machines as well as they should, my clothes always smell funny, and don't get me started on laundry room drama. My dream is use solar panels but that's something that won't be realized for a long time.
The hardest part of it all is reading these blogs and hearing these suggestions I have thought of myself or great ideas that had never occurred to me before and not being able to do any of it.... right now. One prime example is water -- I've heard over and over again not to buy bottled water and a lot of suggestions of alternatives, but like I keep saying they are just not doable for me now. I do have a Britta water filter but I really dislike the taste of Britta water. Tap water tastes strange to me too. What I'd rather have is a filter straight from the sink, like my parents have at home, but again, I live in a complex.
So, I do the little things, as I can. I recycle the cans and bottles I use now. I try to get my groceries from the stores that buy local. I frequently avoid fast food. And one day, I'll be able to conserve the way I really want to... until then, I just have to keep wanting to.
When No Impact Man wrote this detailed article about vermicomposting, the use of worms in composting, I got very excited about the idea of composting. As someone who is now cooking a lot of vegetables, the increasing amount of stuff being thrown away is disturbing. Never mind all the political connotations about our land fills, throwing something away that isn't actually bad just doesn't seem to sit right with me. So, I read the article and did a little more research on vermicomposting, but the more I read, the less this seemed feasible for me to do right now. For starters, an apartment is not generously spaced. Even though the composting can be done in a storage bin, I really don't have a good place to put it. Furthermore, I don't have any place to store anything else that might go with it -- extra paper for the bedding, the fertilizer when it's complete, etc. Another big point was that I read it would take about 6 months for the first batch to be ready. Now, 6 months isn't a really long time but let's consider a few other things... I have a lease on this apartment. I could be moving in a matter of months and to be realistic, probably a few more times in the next few years. Even though it's just one bin of worms, I have to move it several places before I have a real garden to use fertilizer in. That's the other thing -- I don't grow anything yet. I did start some tomatoes lately but they're not even big enough to leave their first pot and I haven't even started talking about all the little extra things I need for gardening. Again, living in an apartment, particularly one you won't be in very long, makes all these things very inconvenient.
Energy conversancy is even harder. Yes, I would like to have energy efficient things but I live in a complex. A tiny complex. I have to use their washers and I don't have any space or place to do line drying or air drying. So yes, it costs me extra money and to be quite honest, I really hate using laundry rooms anyway. They don't maintain the machines as well as they should, my clothes always smell funny, and don't get me started on laundry room drama. My dream is use solar panels but that's something that won't be realized for a long time.
The hardest part of it all is reading these blogs and hearing these suggestions I have thought of myself or great ideas that had never occurred to me before and not being able to do any of it.... right now. One prime example is water -- I've heard over and over again not to buy bottled water and a lot of suggestions of alternatives, but like I keep saying they are just not doable for me now. I do have a Britta water filter but I really dislike the taste of Britta water. Tap water tastes strange to me too. What I'd rather have is a filter straight from the sink, like my parents have at home, but again, I live in a complex.
So, I do the little things, as I can. I recycle the cans and bottles I use now. I try to get my groceries from the stores that buy local. I frequently avoid fast food. And one day, I'll be able to conserve the way I really want to... until then, I just have to keep wanting to.
Friday, October 17, 2008
RSS
Okay, so I just realized that the RSS for FoUI was actually giving the feed for posts from RR and I've spent the better part of the last hour trying to navigate the AdSense and FeedBurner websites to
1) make sure the RSS feeds correspond to the correct blogs
2) cover the RSS, Atom, and XML feeds
3) activate AdSense on all the feeds
So, if there are any problems with the feeds on either http://randomshanna.blogspot.com (Full of Useful Information) or http://shannachoung.blogspot.com (Romantic Reflections), please email me at shannachoung@gmail.com with subject "RSS" and specify the feed that is not doing what it is supposed to do. Thanks!
1) make sure the RSS feeds correspond to the correct blogs
2) cover the RSS, Atom, and XML feeds
3) activate AdSense on all the feeds
So, if there are any problems with the feeds on either http://randomshanna.blogspot.com (Full of Useful Information) or http://shannachoung.blogspot.com (Romantic Reflections), please email me at shannachoung@gmail.com with subject "RSS" and specify the feed that is not doing what it is supposed to do. Thanks!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Links
Link dump! You know, I usually do this to clean out tabs in Firefox because I find so many interesting things that I want to share or just think are really neat and feel hesitant to close them right away because what if I want to look for it later and forget about it?? Well, lucky I have good 'ol blogger to use as storage. =P
Plus, I did say I would try and write more.
Porn for Women: Really, this is totally SFW... because this series of photographs depicts guys doing stuff like taking out the trash while commenting that he likes to do it before you have to ask him to. Girls eat this stuff up? You bet they do. This series has also been incorporated into a book and a calender.
If you don't know what 4chan is, I think you should consider yourself lucky. It's a landfill of pictures, gifs, etc. that are usually intended to be highly inappropriate/offensive for the sake of humor. BUT there is the occasional gem and this one was cross-posted by Cute Overload, which has yet to offend anyone as far as I know. This is Metallica's "Enter Sandman," told by LOLCATS.
23 Awesome License Plates for Computer Geeks.... speaks for itself.
6 Things Star Wars Teaches Us About Money and 25 Things I Learned About Business from South Park: some of these are a bit of a stretch but some are pretty interesting examples of financial concepts.
Also from BSPCN, 35 Places to Download Free, Legal MP3's. I haven't tried any of these sites myself but if you do, let me know which ones you liked.
Plus, I did say I would try and write more.
Porn for Women: Really, this is totally SFW... because this series of photographs depicts guys doing stuff like taking out the trash while commenting that he likes to do it before you have to ask him to. Girls eat this stuff up? You bet they do. This series has also been incorporated into a book and a calender.
If you don't know what 4chan is, I think you should consider yourself lucky. It's a landfill of pictures, gifs, etc. that are usually intended to be highly inappropriate/offensive for the sake of humor. BUT there is the occasional gem and this one was cross-posted by Cute Overload, which has yet to offend anyone as far as I know. This is Metallica's "Enter Sandman," told by LOLCATS.
23 Awesome License Plates for Computer Geeks.... speaks for itself.
6 Things Star Wars Teaches Us About Money and 25 Things I Learned About Business from South Park: some of these are a bit of a stretch but some are pretty interesting examples of financial concepts.
Also from BSPCN, 35 Places to Download Free, Legal MP3's. I haven't tried any of these sites myself but if you do, let me know which ones you liked.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Hiatus Explained
(x-post from RR, with edits pertaining to this blog)
Anyhow, the job hunt has been a bit depressing, realizing that I may have to settle for something that won't further the skills I've trained in event planning just to have money to get by... On top of that, I have friends in computer programming that are getting wonderful job offers. They tell me I'll probably get a lot more out of my career than they ever will because I really do love it... but in the context of finding a job, it's not the most consoling thing right now.
So, I haven't really been feeling in the mood to blog, but I'm slowly coming out of my slump. I recently started my certificate in Events Planning at USD, which really just means I'm taking a class right now called Entertainment Events Management since they don't offer classes simultaneously during the school year. More importantly, I've realized that I need to take action to make changes to my situation.
"If the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, water your own lawn."
Although, I'm finding it harder and hard to stay interested in random things online. I've let so many things just sit in my RSS reader because I haven't felt like going through them. I don't want to be one of those people that is just glued to their computer all the time because truthfully I get a lot more out of the things I do when I'm not sitting at the computer. Recently, I've read the entire Harry Potter series (which I think is wonderful) and started planting tomatoes. I've made a decision to pick up knitting sometime soon too.
Anyway, I will probably be dropping my Weekly Links feature but hopefully you will be seeing more of my blogging after this slump.
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