Yesterday I spent ten hours on a plane when I was supposed to spend only four; I am tired and have nothing more to give you than this clip from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.
(Please do not mistake my tiredness for whininess; I understand that sometimes planes are delayed and I don’t want Louis CK showing up at my doorstep calling me an ungrateful cunt and demanding that I go thank Steve Jobs or a meadow or something.) Please submit your own links you’d like to chat about in the comments while I sleep in.
Tags: half-assed jobs, link roundup
Related Posts
In “I hate everything” news, Exxon Settles $9 Billion Pollution Case in New Jersey for Far Less because of course they did.
Continuing the trend, here’s a list of every person that was ever killed as a result of hazing in the United States. I shared this on Twitter a little while ago but I can’t stop thinking about it.
Ugh, oil/gas barons. I can’t wait to get out of this industry (I’m a technical writer, most of what I do relates to safety, but still).
I’m in consulting myself and will likely be working on one of those aforementioned projects before the end of the year. I’m so, so not looking forward to this.
I’m in Houston, so basically everyone I know and love is connected to the oil/gas industry in some way, and it’s fine, I don’t judge them for it. You can make good money to take care of yourself and your family and (in my case) travel to see more distant friends/family. It’s just every now and then you see a link like the above one and remember what’s going on at the top.
Yeah. Everyone. You do not exaggerate.
Okay, I also have loved ones in real estate, medicine, and banking – the other Houston industries – but find me a family in this town not somehow tied to oil/gas, I just dare you!
Heh, exactly. And honestly, it’s hard to resist when there’s such good money attached to it (until just very recently, anyway) and you know it’s hard enough to get by in this world, let alone without any comfort of nicer things (or again, being able to travel to see other places).
(Are there ever any Houston Toast meet-ups, by the way?)
(Not so far as I know, but we can, like, be the change we want to see in this world, etc. Email me – mel @ melaniegreene.com – if you want to bat around ideas!)
Live cheap & secure in Houston, have cash & motivation to go visit elsewhere!
Great, thanks! I emailed.
“Live cheap & secure in Houston, have cash & motivation to go visit elsewhere!”
Mayor Parker should really adopt that as our new city slogan.
I get to Houston regularly from my current home in College Station. May I be included, please?
more = merry
email me, all Houston & Houston-adjacent Toasties!
I do think we should call this Texas Toast
MrChouffe is in the industry as well, on the title/deed/exploration side, and he’s been laid off since January. Careful what you wish for. :-/
Oof, good point — I’m really sorry for MrChouffe and all those who got laid off this year. My company had their first layoffs (as far as I know) too.
I do frequently remind myself how fortunate I am to have gotten this job with a company that values me so much. Yes, I’m job-searching for another industry (and an entirely different region of the country), but my predicament is SO different from those who are currently unemployed. I had a bad interview yesterday, but it didn’t actually make my life any worse! And it’s a privilege to be in that position of looking for something else, in a different industry.
RIP Scott Krueger 9/29/1997
He lived down the street from me growing up. He was one of the brightest, kindest kids in our town. His parents built a little house adjacent to the cemetery where he is buried to always be near him.
Yes. He and I were the same class at MIT, though we didn’t meet. His death was a terrible, preventable tragedy.
Oh that list is crazy. Hazing sucks – which, sadly, I know from personal experience. I got to have buckets of..whatever the hell the senior members saved for a solid week..dumped over my head. And then we walked a mile in the heat to an outdoor car wash and were hosed down to get the worst of it off. I hadn’t wanted to join in the first place, but my mom had convinced me. I cried for 2 days.
That list of hazing deaths is terrifying. I don’t understand how people can feel comfortable with carrying out hazing.
I don’t even know if I can click that hazing link. I felt bad enough about sending 4 younger students on a totally innocuous scavenger hunt, because they got caught in a raintstorm in the middle of it. I don’t know how people can live with themselves and justify hazing.
I stumbled on it while learning about water poisoning, and was so horrified at the things that happened – and continue to happen, being about as far away from organizations that may haze as can possibly be. It’s truly terrifying.
Aw (for your travel troubles, not the lack of links). Yes, take this time to sleep, please. Hope the destination was good.
ETA: I watched the Louis CK clip but missed it if he called someone a cunt, or was that elsewhere? Or maybe it’s not a direct reference to a quote.
He didn’t call anyone a cunt in the clip, but it’s a word he’s fond of saying so it’s fair to assume that’s what he’d call Mallory!
Schadenfreude can be so delicious: http://badassdigest.com/2015/03/03/davis-aurini-f…
I had not yet heard of that documentary. And I wish I never had. What a bunch of fuckwads.
If it makes you feel any better: I very much doubt it will ever see the light of day. But yeah, they got about 60k from backers apparently, which is just fucking depressing.
“…bathrobe couture pioneer…”
Excellent. I am sad that this “documentary” was ever even an idea, but, the world is a terrible place so whatever. This article is fantastic though!
As a furlough-eligible DHS employee, I’m getting my schadenfreude by reading the right-wing laments over House leadership’s “surrender” on this very important “can DHS stay open” question.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414765/hous…
I would watch a TV show about Mystery Beavers, solving crimes, saving the environment
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31019…
“We have to raise enough money to run the five-year monitoring program. This means keeping tabs on these animals, knowing where they are and what impact they have on the local landscape, people, wildlife and economy.”
Where do I apply for the job of beaver monitor? I would happily follow those little guys around all day.
Today in Neurotypicals Pretending They Understand Autism: a bunch of parents treating their kids like delicate instruments that need fine tuning to reach their idiot savantism genius potential.
DC folks– weather people are anticipating 8 in of show and the House just canceled tomorrows votes so its looking like a SNOW DAY will be upon us! Recommending everyone to stock up on red wine / fancy cheeses / steaks and favorite breakfast food items (which you will likely be able to eat FROM BED).
Oh man, thanks for the heads up! I already took Monday off because I felt like it, short week for meeee. *crossing fingers*
I live in Boston and my brother lives in DC – he texts me every time it snows to pretend to whine, since he knows we have multiple feet of snow on the ground. It’s starting to sound like he may have a case, though…
Anybody want to meet for a Toast snowball fight?
I like your wine & cheese suggestion. Who needs milk and bread?
Last night my walk home (in MoCo) was so slippery I was going to call out if the temp wasn’t about freezing this AM.
I wish the storm would wait till Thursday night so that a) I would have a three-day “weekend” and b) I would be at boyfriend’s house (I spend Thursdays there, but Wednesdays at my place)
Yeah, I’ve been doing the penguin walk everywhere. It feels really silly, but whatever works! Better than breaking a tailbone.
I am having turkey burgers and Scotch for dinner tonight because I anticipate being able to simply roll over and be at work (read: log into my computer) in the morning!
If a Toast snowball fight is going to happen, I will be there! At least two of us live in NE! We could take over H Street!
Baltimore girl here. Cheese and crackers. Chinese take out. Soup. Some desserts. Coffee. Soda
Look at these happy lil pigs!
I want to go to there!
Growing up we went to Aquarena Springs all the time (a theme park) that featured a swimming pig that I adored. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krsMUmgwEys
Last summer there was a really great local story here about a pig EMERGING FROM THE SEA! People were hanging out on the beach, and then this little pig just swam out of the ocean, stood up, shook himself off, and then trotted away. Delightful!
I’ve read enough Greek mythology to know that this story ends with someone getting pregnant.
Maybe Circe let him go and he swam all the way home.
Oh little pigs are just so adorable somehow. Yay!
Oh. my. god.
Thank you for this! It is a truly bright spot in a dreary, crappy day!
In other news, Alabama’s doubled down on giving federal courts the middle finger, because PROCREATION is such a crucial issue under such danger, y’know: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/us/alabama-cour…
The whole Dress/color perception thing reminded me of something I read long ago: some languages don’t differentiate between green and blue, and as languages evolve, they tend not to acquire words for colors like orange and purple until after they have words for green, blue, and yellow. I first heard about this in regard to a purplish kind of cabbage is called “red cabbage” by some people and “blue cabbage” by others. That’s food-related, so I blogged about it.
But then I saw this piece from Business Insider that takes that same research about language development and puts it alongside an experiment which showed that members of an indigenous tribe with no language for blue can’t consistently differentiate between the colors blue and green.
I would read articles about colors all day long. Blue is the most popular color in the world! Blue is literally the world’s favorite color. How weird that we don’t all see it the same way!
This essay on what color, exactly, a wine-dark sea is might be up your alley.
Something that most people don’t get a chance to see very often is that deep water far from land can actually be very dark, which was always how I interpreted “wine-dark”–as dark as wine, rather than actually the color of wine. It especially shows up when the sun is low in the sky: (Edit: I didn’t personally take this picture, but someone I know did, and I was on board the vessel).
Great find!
How I wish I could be on that boat right now myself instead of at work, also. >.>
that is exactly what I’ve always taken that phrase to mean – that the sea is not actually the color of wine but that you’re out deep enough and the weather is such that the water is really really dark.
idk, to me it seems like the people trying to determine exactly what homer meant by “wine-dark sea” might be overthinking it just a tad
which vessel is that?
SSV Corwith Cramer–we were somewhere in the vicinity of Bermuda when that picture was taken.
I was W-42 on the fall trip south in 1978 – the yards are a tip-off!
I was C-210, and then when I couldn’t bear to leave, stuck around to be a deckhand and assistant scientist for a while. I never did a trip south, but they have a reputation for being lumpy!
And those yards are a dead giveaway. You can also see that the fisherman is wing and wing with the mainstaysail, which is nuts. I love that picture.
I’ll be reading those links over lunch. Thanks! I feel like I’m in a tiny minority who thought the whole dress meme was fascinating and I couldn’t understand all the hate for it. But I’m also in a tiny minority who didn’t see it as either blue/black or white/gold. I thought it was gray/beige, soooo…..
The dress meme was amazing, and I love every facet of the discussion around it. A friend of mine used the meme in a sermonette about how people can look at the same thing and see two different things. My Dad opened his law class on Monday by asking about the dress (I don’t know if this was relevant to his topic of the day at all or if he just did it for kicks, but knowing him, I bet he tied it in somehow). (Also, blue/brown)
ACTUALLY!
OMG.
The LanguageLog posted a thing Monday before about how suspect that experiment as described in the Business Insider is!
Also, the comments point out that “wine dark sea” is literally a potential color of the Mediterranean at sunset, which I had NO IDEA but makes a lot of sense! Apparently the water is so clear and vibrant that the red of the setting sun tints the sea.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=17970
That post is such a good rebuttal! Thanks for linking to it.
I was really excited when I saw it, because the language <=> perception thing is endlessly fascinating to me, and when I saw references to that experiment in the past, it seemed a little bit absurd. I could see the difference in the green squares (in a much better reproduction), but didn’t have a unique word for that separate shade.
Likewise, not having “a word” for a color doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to describe it. We still say “red-violet” to describe that section of the color chart because we don’t have a single word for it yet, though we do have “maroon” and “fuchsia”, which border red-violet without being red-violet.
Have you read Deutscher’s Through the Language Glass? It’s pop linguistics, so glosses over some of the detail, but love that book, particularly for his stance on the relationship between language and perception; namely that there is some, which so many argue against, as a backlash to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
His take from the colour stuff, if I remember correctly, is that the language we speak makes certain colour borders more salient to us than others. The more familiar we find the colour border to be, the faster we can identify the odd one out.
YES.
Or I think I have?
It’s on my bookshelf at any rate, along with all my John McWhorter books and my intro to linguistics texts (SO BUMMED that my university didn’t have anything beyond intro level, and I couldn’t afford to transfer, so I only got 2-3 “real” classes in the subject, though my first year classical Greek class professor emphasized a lot of formal linguistics stuff to help us make connections better in learning, which I didn’t realize until I tried learning German the traditional way and was extra frustrated).
If I haven’t actually read it yet, I’ll have to prioritize picking it up soon, because it will have been on my To Read stack for years. 😛
I too am a fellow lite-linguistics dilettante. I’ve only done a few papers, but ended up writing my MA not in the field, but close. I find coming from outside the field I’m interested in problems that linguists aren’t really working on/interested in, but yet I don’t know enough technical detail to get in there myself. Anyway…
When you get around to reading it (again?) I’d love to hear your thoughts.
So this famous deaf Japanese composer didn’t actually compose his ingenious works- he had another man doing it for years.
Also, its been a year since Flight MH370 disappeared and here’s an article about how fucked up the investigation was/is
Oh wow I feel terrible for Niigaki but I’m glad he made it out ok. The thing about including the anime reference in the symphony, as a sly little “fuck you,” made me laugh.
Man, I love stories about pathological liars. ” It was like he had the temperament of an artist, but lacked the tools to actually create art” is a great quote.
I finally finished reading about the composer and dang. I’m glad I stuck with the story – it’s almost incredible. I am impressed at how Samuragochi insisted even at the end when interviewing with the NR writer that he still did far more than there’s any evidence of (ie: missing instruments, lack of tapes, &c.)
Also, Toast-friends who made Mallory fly ten hours to come talk to you at Kelly Writers House on Monday, tell us all about it! I was tied up with a writing deadline but was envious envisioning all the Phillytoasts jammed into one place, hanging out and making jokes about art history.
Yes yes yes! I was also buried under a work writing deadline and couldn’t go, and I was filled with regret. (also, I totally see what you did there with the Phillytoasts being jammed into one place. Ahem.)
The weather was so bad that I couldn’t make the drive over from here but I am envious of everyone that was able to go!
I saw it! It was very good. Mallory is an excellent reader (I guess that can sound a little condescending, but a lot of writers don’t actually improve when they read their work; of course, obviously if she was the sort of person who was a bad reader i would probably lie and say she was a good reader anyway, but actually I am telling the truth!) and also has very good hair.
The thing was super-crowded, so some of us ended up squished out into the foyer where we had to watch on a big TV, but that was okay, it was still pretty fun. There were also snacks! Some kind of bacon and date thing, I think?
Anyway, I left without talking to anyone because large groups of strangers make me deepy anxious!
Seconding the large group spurred social anxiety and Mallory’s awesome hair
It was so fun! I was afraid I wouldn’t make it in time (I work about an hour’s bus/trolley ride away from Penn, and SEPTA is…well, SEPTA), but wound up getting there just in time. Mallory wore a glorious sweeping skirt (also she is either very tall, or I am very short–possibly both) and read to us in many dramatic voices.
After the reading, I blabbered at her about forgetting to bring my copy of Texts from Jane Eyre (she signed a piece of scrap paper instead, which I have pasted into my book so it’s almost like she actually signed it?) and also asked about her new house in what I hope was a non-creepy way. Also, I had a lovely conversation in the signing line with an adorable Toastie named Katie (maybe Katy?) and there was a reception with free wine, nibbles, and an enormous chocolate cake.
Best night ever, in my opinion.
I don’t have a link to share, so I will act as provider of your Daily Dose of Chris Evans:
Oh no. I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole and I have so many more now.
My reaction to the latest DC snow forecast:
only our trains are not as well-equipped to pierce through the snow
I accidentally made a noise like the “huh huh huh huh” Beavis and Butthead laugh.
Thanks, you’re doing God’s work.
I have some Chris Evans gifs that don’t see a lot of use, so I’ll just unload them here if you don’t mind.
The more the merrier!
Tiny Steve Rogers doing pushups was basically me until yesterday. So many work-related struggles.
#2 — “Steve Rogers watching Tony Stark, waiting patiently for the penny to drop” — is one of his best expressions.
ahhhh
bless you, you are truly doing the lord’s work.
(for some reason my language goes all religious around this meatball.)
All the things. He can do them to me.
So, the ACE study is something I just heard about, and it is really fascinating. Are there any public health or epidemiology Toasts that can help me put it into perspective? NPR did a story on it on Monday, and it’s been stuck in my head ever since.
Not an epidemiology/public health toastie, but I have been a fan of the organization Aces Too High (acestoohigh.com) for years, and they have some case studies on their website of school districts etc. doing trauma-informed work to change how they work with kids.
A bit late, and not an epidemiologist, but I do work in public health and would like to grow up to be one! The original study was definitely interesting, but limited. I do not wish to discredit the original authors in any way, but I would like to point out a few limitations based on my cursory reading of the CDC page and the NPR transcript.
Firstly, the study is small. The authors tout the 17,000 individuals who responded — who are overwhelmingly demographically similar: all respondents belonged to the same health care network and sought care in the same city. There may be interesting correlations for this subpopulation, but correlation =/= causation, and the study is not representative of the state of California, let alone the entire world. Conducting a larger, potentially more representative study would be expensive and time consuming. Out of necessity, epidemiological studies are often small and retrospective, but it does limit the significance of the data, and the lengths to which you can extrapolate.
Secondly, the study is retrospective. This relies on people’s memories and willingness to disclose unpleasant experience. Individuals with particularly traumatic childhoods will usually remember, some will block experiences out, and some will decline to respond to inquiry. Some of this is negated by the folks on the other end of the spectrum who had particularly happy childhoods and feel the compulsion to lie about it. Clearly, this is also a case where following an infant through to death without interference in order to conduct a randomized prospective study (usually considered the gold standard) would be unethical — the clinicians, teachers, public employees, etc., who would conduct such a study are (at least in Nevada) mandatory reporters who must notify the proper authorities of any suspected child abuse or neglect. You can’t just ignore it “for science”.
Thirdly, the NPR report mentions that the studies which used this data may not be adequately controlling for other personal variables with a known health effect, and teasing out the relative impact or influence of all these variables is a Herculean effort in and of itself. There are a myriad other genetic or environmental variables that determine health outcomes, and many of them are synergistic, or may mask the effects of other variables. The report also notes that the questionnaires did not account for the frequency or number of childhood traumatic events, nor ask respondents about positive factors.
In short, the fact that a correlation was made between childhood trauma and poor health outcomes indicates that more people should be interviewed and the questionnaire should be expanded, rather than continuing to analyze the same 20-year-old data. I had never heard of this particular dataset before, though, and should have lots of reading to keep me interested. Thanks for the links!
DOJ findings in Ferguson investigation:
The Justice Department will issue findings Wednesday that accuse the police department in Ferguson, Mo., of racial bias and routinely violating the constitutional rights of black citizens by stopping drivers without reasonable suspicion, making arrests without probable cause and using excessive force, officials said.
Federal officials opened their civil rights investigation into the Ferguson police department after the uproar in the St. Louis suburb and across the country over the fatal shooting in August of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, by Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson police officer. A grand jury in St. Louis declined to indict Wilson in November.
Federal officials will not bring civil rights charges against Wilson, but they see their broad civil rights investigation into the troubled Ferguson police department as the way to force significant changes in Ferguson policing.
I’m thinking of a mid-life career change (eeeeeeeeek) and am looking at massage therapy with a possible yoga certification on the side. Anyone have experience with mid-life career changes or doing massage therapy for a living? The idea of change (and significantly decreased income) terrifies me, but I think I’ve reached a plateau of satisfaction at my current job and I’m looking at a downward slope of stagnation with it. HELP.
Well I did the mid-life change thing, but the writing is something I’d been working on for a long while, and I build a nice-ass safety net to let me do this for a good while in expectation that it’d take a couple years for the world to recognize my genius and pay me millions of dollars to type words every day, so the decreased income was part of the plan here.
I am toooooootaly change-adverse, though, in general, and prior to this had the same job for 20+ years, live in the same city I was born in (though I did high-tail it out of here during college/grad school), haven’t moved since 1997, etc. So the writing is a real risk but keeping other things stable keeps me stable.
And DAMN am I enjoying it. I may not accomplish everything I want on a given day, and I’ve had all kinds of wonkiness to do with my working schedule (being up until 3 am isn’t nearly as productive as I think it is), but the transition has been wonderful. I’m ridiculously happy with my life right now. It’s fun, it’s rewarding (if not financially rewarding just yet), and all I need is a good massage therapist to help me out since I spend all day curled un-ergonomically around my laptop now. (Some would argue that what I need is more time strengthening my core and improving my posture. They might point out the 10 pounds I gained since I started working from home. I’ll ignore them.)
One of the quotes on my desk:
Think ahead to how you can get the things you want.
Formulate a plan.
Execute the plan.
If necessary, rewrite the plan and start over.
I am super change-adverse, too. I’ve held my current job for 14 years and I’ve been in secretarial/admin work since 1997. So…yeah. Super scary. My quit date isn’t for a while, though. I’m looking at another year in this job to build up a safety net.
Thank you so much for writing this all out, and I will totally be your massage therapist if/when I get my certification.
IANAMT, but I’ve been friendly with mine for several years, and the thing that strikes me is how very careful he is of his hands and arms; he avoids stuff like skating and skiing (risk of falls) and martial arts (impact), and he doesn’t drive, to better limit his chances of wrist or hand fractures in case of accident. He is absolutely in the right profession–he’s caring, smart, educated, and fond of people–and he loves his job, but he’s pretty upfront about having made some compromises that not everybody would find easy. And no doubt there are MTs who make different choices, but if you’re making the List of Things to consider, I think those are possible candidates.
That said, good luck! Make the choice that happies you.
Interesting! Well, nothing’s going to keep me from driving (and honestly, biking is way more dangerous around here than driving), but thanks for bringing up the other things. I really love boxing. Good food for thought.
My former MT (I quit my job = I no longer commute to where he works every day) is, well, a massage therapist, and his wife is a violinist with the opera here, so the two of them are totally careful with their hands/arms for life. They’re pretty cute.
I don’t have personal experience, but I have several friends/acquaintances who are or have been massage therapists.
It is a very physical job, which can wear you down after a while. Income is generally dependent upon how many clients you can treat in a day. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid, and usually it is not a job that comes with sick days or vacation time. I have at least one friend who eventually transitioned away, not because she didn’t love it, but because she needed a steadier job that came with health insurance. You also often have to deal with friends who don’t understand why they shouldn’t ask you to massage them for free.
The plus side is that you do actually get to do work that genuinely helps people; a good massage can make a HUGE difference in a person’s quality of life. You also get to meet a wide range of people; my friends have worked on NFL players and chemo patients. All of my friends who’ve done it also have expressed the ways in which the training has made them understand bodies in general and their own body in particular better and how that has affected things like working out and general awareness of their own health.
my friends have worked on NFL players and chemo patients
That’s great! I would love to be able to focus on older athletes or people who’ve come to exercise later in life. Helping people use their bodies better is important to me, and it’s something I do in my spare time right now (both in person and online). The physicality is actually one of the things that appeals to me. I am ready to not be in front of a computer 8 hours a day.
A friend of mine is actually preparing to do this very thing, and one of the reasons for the switch is that he’s been sitting in front of a computer all day for 20+ years and wants to Not Do That Anymore.
In his case, since he was a little concerned about whether the anatomy/physiology aspects of the training would be too much given his non-science background, he’s actually taking an online intro course in that area to test himself. Turns out he loves it and is doing well, which gives him more confidence about applying for RMT programs.
Good luck with your decision!
Good for him! I’m honestly looking forward to the the anatomy/physiology aspects of the training because I am ACES at that sort of memorization.
Not quite the same situation, but I did decide to switch to massage therapy when I was in my late 20s, and I loved it. It didn’t work out as a career for me, because of a stupid shoulder injury (truly the stupidest injury I’ve ever had — tripped over my own feet, went flying, landed on my shoulder and dislocated it). There may be a program that allows you to take classes outside of your current work schedule so you can get a feel for it. Even if you decide not to pursue it as a full-time career, it’s a nice skill to have, and if you keep up your license, you’ll always have it as an option.
Thanks for the input! This is more valuable than you might think because yeah, doing MT part time and then helping the Burgomaster with secretarial stuff part time is kind of my (vague) game plan. He thinks he could write (and sell) a lot more if he didn’t have to deal with the fiddly admin aspects of writing and publishing.
Im considering the same but I am freaking out about even writing a personal statement as it has been 10 years since I last studied. How do people write a personal statement anyway?!
(I think I am intimidating myself)
Good luck. And yeah, I actually right now work as a secretary for graduate students and I know from what I hear from admissions committees every year that the Statement of Purpose is the worst. GOOD LUCK!
Ha I bet they are. I dont know why Im so scared. I dont know about you but think being scared is a weird sort of procrastination for me. I need to stop scaring myself and start organizing things. Mid life career changes are totally possible and awesome and we owe it to ourselves to try!
Eeek, I’m about to do this right now! I just resigned from my job yesterday and am thinking to do yoga therapy teacher training and/or a reiki certification in the short term; long term I might go to acupuncture school. I’ve been pretty unhappy in my current (highly corporate) job for a few years and have been actively working on an exit strategy for the last few months. So I’ve already been through a lot of the fear and the second-guessing (though plenty more will come, that’s just the nature of the beast) and am about to get into the actual doing.
Let me know if you want to compare notes; I could use a moral support buddy! WE CAN DO THIS.
I don’t know much about massage therapy, but watch out on the yoga teaching; that one could lose you money. I just read this: http://thebillfold.com/2014/11/money-i-spent-to-m… and it’s a good cautionary tale.
I make art and I think some of the applicable lessons from the recommendations I’ve seen in “quitting your day job” probably apply here too- don’t suddenly and drastically cut off your income source, find ways to slide into the other job until you make enough to feel ok quitting.
I’m friends with the woman from whom I’d take my teacher training. She was my first teacher and I’ve been studying with her for (wow) going on twenty years, now. TBH, $2,000 for a training and certification (which is what she offers) doesn’t sound outrageous to me. This sentence from that article resonated the most with me: “what I spent was worth it because of the community I now find myself a part of, and because of the surprising ways in which teaching fulfills me.”
I don’t see that article as a cautionary tale as much as reassurance that THANK GOD I am not interested in spending scads of money on yoga clothes (my JC Penny leggings work great, thanks) or…yoga jewelry? Ew.
I think it’s good if you know what you’ll get out of it, and who is training you. I don’t want to be a cold dash of water or be all, “here you go, helpful negativity from an internet stranger!”, because I think even if things didn’t work out people are resilient and there’s all kind of ways to land on your feet.
It’s more that I know more than one person who quit to do the following things: lawyering, trainer/yoga instructor and planner/public health and those fields are all at the moment I think, somewhat glutted. You have to know your specific debt and potential earnings really specifically in those fields- have a specialization or a connection to be sure it will work out.
Oh, yeah, I hear you. And the concern about finding clients is definitely my biggest worry. Luckily, I have an ego the size of Australia so I have that bolstering me. I mean, it’s not completely reassuring, but it’s better than feeling inadequate right out of the gate. Also, as you note, I do have a specific focus–deep tissue and sports recovery stuff, preferably with older athletes. So that’s something. Solid connections with my yoga instructor and a local weighlifting/CrossFit coach will help, too, I think.
I appreciate your thougts!
I want you to be happy. But give a thought to our needs here at The Toast. Will your transition allow you to continue your masterful gif posting here? We need our CleverManka.
But seriously, I want you to be happy. Even if it means seeing fewer posts from you. I am willing to suffer for your well-being.
I’m not gonna lie, the decreased participation of internet activity is a HUGE factor in the “Cons” column.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUFFERING.
Did anyone hear about the Waffle House Index used by FEMA to determine the severity of storms or other natural disasters? I hope the Waffle Houses stay open for all of you during the coming snow storms!
The Waffle House thing is actually something Craig Fugate used when he was a state director in Florida – he uses it to talk about continuity of operations planning and business/individual resilience. I think it’s a lovely metaphor, but it’s not something they actually use to direct actions or policy.
Dammit, @BestLaidPlans, now I want a waffle!
Mmmm, waffles.
ALSO HOLY SHIT. ACTUAL HOLY SHIT WHAT.
What the what?! I thought I could balance when I realised I could stand on one leg for like…a minute. These women are ridiculously talented!
Oh my god. Incredible. I’m feeling pretty incompetent over here in my office chair…
The little one is such a baby! I…actually work for a circus, and a lot of our acrobatic acts are former gymnasts from Russia and the Ukraine. It has always fascinated me to think about how young they start training and how their whole lives are basically dedicated to it. Maybe I’ll end up watching a casting video of these performers someday!
Whoa, seriously?? That is SO cool!!
You work for a circus! That’s pretty great (I imagine). Do you have any good resources you can point to on how modern circuses work, especially in the last fifty years? I have this short story I’d like to expand someday about a gritty run-down circus in the ’70s. A band of misfits and all.
It is pretty great! I am on the management side, not the creative side, but it is still awfully fun. To be clear, my company doesn’t have anything to do with animals or “freak show” type stuff (aside from, like, contortionists and sword swallowers and people with weird trained skills like that).
I can name a whole bunch of modern circuses for you to look into! La Soiree, Spiegelworld, Circus Oz, Palazzo, 7 Fingers, and of course Cirque du Soleil. The circus world (at least the part of it I see) is not particularly gritty now – there’s a lot of emphasis on luxury and glitz and glamour. And the performers (the good ones) are actually very well paid and in high demand. If you’d like more specifics, feel free to email me at llyfrgell at gmail – I’m happy to share info, I just don’t want to go into actual detail about the place I work on the public internet.
GYMNASTICS! I love gymnastics, it’s basically the pinnacle of human physical achievement to me (along with ballet), thank you so much for linking that.
I love that all three of them have varying strengths/builds/skills and it all comes together for this HOLY SHIT HOW ARE THEY HUMAN routine
I love how casually they are tossing everyone around. When it got to the doing moves on the girl’s leg who is doing the splits vertically is about when my jaw fell open.
I want to watch a heist movie with these three as the leads.
HOW?
My friend is a competitive pole dancer, and as a part of it she does some balance acrobatics with a couple of the other women. Everytime she posts a picture I’m amazed that anyone in the world can do that, let alone a person I know delivering it straight to my facebook feed.
Not a link, but a crazy mom story. I’m going to Costa Rica soon (yay!) with my Dad (ummm…remains to be seen). My mother is trying to give me advice. Last night, she called to tell me to be sure to pack a swimsuit. Really, Mom? I should pack a swimsuit for a trip that involves 2 days at the beach? Gee, I’m glad you told me,because I would have never ever figured that out. Also, I enjoy licking batteries. I look forward to the call the night before departure breathlessly reminding me to bring underwear.
Stop listening to her words, and hear her meaning: “I love you. I want to help. I’ll miss you. I’ll worry about you. Come back to me. Tell me I’m a good parent.”
But I hear you on how frustrating it is.
Zachary Quinto wrote a piece for The Guardian about his relationship with Leonard Nimoy. It’s very sweet: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/03/zacha…
And I enjoyed Neil Gaiman’s memories of Douglas Adams. Of course Douglas Adams admired P.G. Wodehouse. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/04/neil…
I am both desperate to read and to avoid reading those articles, because of the feels.
I didn’t tear up at either one, but my husband got misty eyed reading the Spock one. However, he cried at Pearl Harbour (what an awful movie), so he’s an easy touch.
Lesbians FTW, but actually I am ambivalent about this: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/survivors-1980…
…because I am a bad person and a bitter woman, and I don’t think women should ever volunteer to clean up after men who treat them badly. I mean, be a saint if you want to, but maybe fewer of our secular martyrs should be women?
There was a fair amount of that view floating about at the time, too.
In adorable news: TINY BUNNIES! ANTHROPOMORPHIC EVERYTHING! http://tinyurl.com/mxn4yu6
My squee may have shattered my coffee cup…
Dear Toasties,
If any of you write SF in any medium, and would like to learn more about quantum physics to use in your writing, there’s a new three-day workshop for just that purpose called The Schrödinger Sessions: Science for Science Fiction. It’ll be this summer in Maryland; the workshop, housing, and breakfast+lunch are free. Diversity is a priority in picking applicants, so please, if you’re interested, consider applying! More details at the organizer’s blog post (disclaimer: I happen to be married to him), and applications will open Friday.
I don’t write SF, but I’m rather closely acquainted with the Center for the Study of Science Fiction and I’m passing along this info to them right now!
Cool, thanks!
Is it because of quantum?
I didn’t stop by earlier this week, but if anyone else is interested in The Last Man on Earth (as I very much was), here’s a nice lil’ interview with Will Forte about the show. http://www.vulture.com/2015/03/will-forte-the-las…
I didn’t watch a lot of SNL when he was part of it, but Forte is perfect in Nebraska. PERFECT. EVERYONE IN THAT MOVIE IS.
Mandatory plug for how hilarious “The Brothers Solomon” is and how great he is in it.
“This one here is a…blue medical machine.”
Someone in my neighborhood created a deer skull totem on the beach. There have supposedly been other animal sacrifices on other nearby beaches. http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150302/rogers-pa…
I feel you, Mallory. Last night my office let me know that I needed to get on a plane this morning for some extremely impromptu business. Right now I’m on a layover 1,000 miles from home with a change of clothes and a laptop. Woohoo.
I never liked that Louis C K bit. it’s not unreasonable to expect something that you’ve paid for to work as advertised, and I’m sure he’s bitched out plenty of tech support people in his time when things he was paying for weren’t.
I really enjoyed this piece on “Why I Want to Live Like I’m in my 40s in my 20s” by Ashley Ford. As someone who can see 40 rapidly looming on the horizon, I can vouch for the awesomeness of the state of mind she’s describing.
Since this is kind of Open Threadish, is there a Toasties Portland meet up group?
Did I miss this getting posted to the Toast already? I just discovered it yesterday, and it ticks many of the boxes of my interests.
http://grantland.com/features/lifes-rich-pageant-…
Glad your flight ordeal is over! My sister in law got stuck overnight in New Jersey en route to us from Montreal…Planes are great, but at the same time, I’m not a fan.
I started giving this the Philip J. Fry eye mid-second paragraph, but perhaps someone else has a better benefit of the doubt for this guy and can finish “‘Why are there no girl presidents’ A response to my daughter”: http://theweek.com/articles/542323/are-there-girl….
Because what people used to think was true – that only white men were human – has been proved less and less true with time. As people with other skin colors and facial features and genders have fought for, and won, more equal treatment under the law, they will be able to run for office and eventually be elected.
which vessel is that?
Because what people used to think was true – that only white men were human – has been proved less and less true with time. As people with other skin colors and facial features and genders have fought for, and won, more equal treatment under the law, they will be able to run for office and eventually be elected.
I stumbled on it while learning about water poisoning, and was so horrified at the things that happened – and continue to happen, being about as far away from organizations that may haze as can possibly be. It's truly terrifying.
I was W-42 on the fall trip south in 1978 – the yards are a tip-off!