postings of a professional redhead » life

Well, the economy finally hit me

Sidney — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:48:52 +0000

I found out I might be laid off last week. I thought at first I was in shock, since I had no reaction; but after a few days, when the “yes, The Man and Big Brother, Inc. are cutting outsource employees from our company by 50% next year and you’re part of that 50%” statement was made I realized that I’m sort of glad – relieved, even. I mean, I’m not saying the prospect of being jobless, searching for a new job, and collecting unemployment appeals to me – but the thought that finally change has come and I can’t ignore it has made me feel free. I’ve been less than an advocate for Connecticut since I ended up here, and this is my opportunity to get the hell out of this state. Yes, I’m comfortable, yes I own my condo (and how I hate the condo association!), yes I have a life here and friends here and my parents are here – but I’m 28 – and I want to live somewhere I truly ENJOY. I want a job that I ENJOY, that CHALLENGES me, and especially where there is room for me to ADVANCE and CONTINUE MY EDUCATION, since sadly that is not the case here; I’m as high as I can go until people start kicking the bucket. I also never want to be an outsource/contract employee Ever Again. I will miss the winter (as I’m primarilly job searching in FL, SF, LV, OR, & DC) but I will also NOT miss the winter. My eyes are mostly set on DC, FL, and LV, but we shall see. Wherever I go, I do plan on finally buying that sailboat I’ve wanted since I was a teenager.

Work, life, and everything in between

Sidney — Mon, 04 May 2009 00:31:22 +0000

I have been ignoring this website, but well you know what they say about girls who have time to write in their journals…anyway! Life these past few months has seen quite a few changes. My amazing roommate and I have been getting along swimmingly, and I finally decided to have a chat wiht him about our living situation. He originally moved in temporarilly, on a month-to-month basis, while he was going to consider buying his own house, or getting an apartment by himself. Previously he had been living in a flat with a handful of other people almost half an hour from where he worked; here with me he is just down the road from work. So I went into his room one night and teasingly told him, “we need to talk about the living situation. When you originally moved in here it was going to be temporary, but it seems as though you are making no effort to move out.” The look on his face was priceless! I then told him I loved having him here, and that he is welcome to stay for as long as he wishes.

I never thought I would be one to live with a roommate again; the last one I lived with ended terribly, with her calling the police on my guests when I had a dinner party! I did have two friend roommates after college who I enjoyed living with, even though when I was in college, I found out that being best friends with people does not always mean you can live together in harmony when one summer Catherine and her girlfriend, and my girlfriend and I, shared a tiny, flea-infested flat in West Philadelphia. It was a record-breaking summer for heat, and there were no jobs to be found so my girlfriend and I ended up working as telemarketers selling circus tickets for the Potsdam Police Department. We had to beg for money for bus fare home one night when they raised the rate on us, so it was a stressful summer. I even played my trumpet on the street for tips! We made the most of it, but it was a hard summer, and my girlfriend and I ended up going home early after having so much trouble paying our own way. Catherine’s mom was awesome though; she would bring us cases of Heineken and Mike’s Hard Lemonade (hey, we were poor college kids, we had no taste) and take us to dinner every weekend.

Moving on to work issues…I’m sure the current ecomonic crisis is being felt by all. We had 200 people laid off at my company last week, and I am hanging onto my job by the skin of my teeth. Luckily I’m considered “low-cost outsourcing,” otherwise I would be collecting unemployment right now.

Happy New Year!

Sidney — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:39:56 +0000

This year the roomie, a friend and I all hung out talking until the wee hours of the morning. I had a couple glasses of wine, and we ate sushi.
Last year I rang in the New Year at Pat Troy’s in Old Town Alexandria, VA with Catherine. I may or may not have made out with fellow redhead/pub singer Rocky Guttman.
The year before I that went to the International Club of DC’s NYE Gala with Catherine.
The year before I that went to GirlBar in Las Vegas with my fabulous girlsistergirlfriend Jocie.

As you can see, my NYE events seem to be getting tamer and tamer. Granted, this year I was supposed to have a Giant Party at my place – but everyone but one friend of ours canceled due to the massive snow storm (read sarcastically; we had 4″ of snow). Is it surprising that as we get older, we get lamer?

The idea that what you do on New Year’s day says something about what the rest of your year will be like is interesting…not sure I believe it, but here’s what I did…

Woke up sometime after noon, put on pajamas (I do have a roommate now…he is very cool, but I’m not sure he’s interested in entertaining my desire to run about the house in slippers and panties). I then played WoW…not my level 80 warlock, but a new druid I rolled on his (alliance) server, for four hours, before calling Ploman and demanding his presence for dinner. I made delicious “homemade” spaghetti sauce, frying up green and yellow squash, green and red peppers, onions, garlic, asparagus, spinach, stewed tomatoes, and a can of tomato and basil Costco sauce…and while Mike (vegan) and I (semi-vegan) loved it, Ploman picked around the plethora of veggies and complained about the lack of meat. After he went home, I watched the new “Elizabeth” movie, which wasn’t half bad, and did some house cleaning.

Woke up New Year’s Day the Second to Ploman calling – he bought me a few of my favorite pastry at the Cuban bakery and was on his way over. I quickly showered, and hung out with him savoring my pastry while he wolfed down not one, but TWO foot-long multiple-dead-animal subs…I wish I had that man’s metabolism. It just ain’t fair. I decided to go to Ikea and pick up a table for the new giant printer I purchased (not realizing just how Huge and Giant the thing is) and stopped by the Honda dealer to get my oil changed and buy Ploman some all-weather mats for his car for Christmas. More house cleaning, more video games…all in all, a pretty relaxed and boring holiday. Maybe this will be a relaxed and boring year, full of good friends and good times.

Now on to other house stuff…have I mentioned yet how much I LOVE having my roomie? Some interesting things that have happened this past week:

Woke up from a nap hearing a deep, scary voice; start freaking out thinking we’re being burgled, or worse. Turns out it’s a video game roomie plays; the voice of the boss is scary to me in a half-awake state.
Watched roomie play another video game, this one involving killing lots of zombies. Some of the zombies explode bile all over you and make it hard to see the screen. That night, I had nightmares…about zombies. Over-active imaginations FTW!
Meeting up in the kitchen at 2am to cook vegan goodies. Nom, nom.
Being nagged to do dailies. Yes! I need to be nagged to do dailies! Who doesn’t?!
Hearing him talk to the cats amuses me. Now I’m not the only crazy person in the house who talks to them. He also loves playing with the kitten, and teases him with the laser pointer and plays fetch with his woobie all the time. It just warms the cockles of my heart.
Roomie is a very kind soul, but if he dies a lot repeatedly in-game, I start hearing the fuck bomb every other word being yelled into his microphone. This amuses me greatly.

Next weekend we’re having a potluck and gift exchange with friends. It should be fun! Until then, I’m back at work, and missing my four-day weekends greatly.

Florida Famcation

Sidney — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:32:33 +0000

I’ve been away…on Famcation. Famcation to Orlando, the ultimate tourist destination for families worldwide, for a whirlwind week away with some of my mother’s side of the family. Specificially, my parents, myself, my mother’s sister, her wife, and their two boys my favorite cousins.

We had five day park hopper passes. FIVE DAY. So vacation went a little like this…TL;DR!

Fly into Orlando, 7pm. Pick up rental car. Again I was not put in charge of rental car, so this process takes a good hour. They try to sell my mother and father on insurance and I have to repeatedly tell them, “we have it covered on both our car insurance AND your AmEx card, so DON’T PAY AN EXTRA $500 FOR THEIR OVER-PRICED SCAM INSURANCE!”
Pick up keys to rental house. I was under the [wrong] impression we would be at rental house for entire week of vacation. Later on, I am corrected to this incorrect assumption.
Go grocery shopping. My aunt had sent a grocery list for our (apparently only five day stay) at the rental. I have attached it to the bottom of this post for your amusement. Grocery shopping takes approximately two hours too long.
Show up to rental house, 11pm. There was no actual keys, there is a code we punch into the front door. Which doesn’t work. Despite warnings “if you punch this in incorrectly three times you will be locked out of the house for ten minutes,” my mother punched the code in three times. Cue her calling rental place, me pulling out my much-anticipated Publix sandwich, cracking open a warm beer on the wall of the house, and having a picnic in the driveway while waiting for some kind of handy-person to let us in the house. Did I mention it was 40 degrees in Florida? I’ve never known it to be so cold down there!
Finally get into rental house. My mom leaves immediately to go pick up the rest of our happy vacationers from the airport. My father and I settle in for some “House,” and I log into WoW on my laptop. Ahh…vacation.
1am. Rest of the family shows up. Yay! Ok, goodnight!
7am the next morning. Woken up by screaming. Oh right, I forgot my cousins are never told to be quiet when they wake up in the morning. Insert earplugs, go back to sleep.
8am. Despite multiple warnings that I am NEVER to be woken up by cute little boys, someone thinks it is funny to send them into my room to wake me up. I am not amused. If I wanted to be woken up by little kids, I would have one of my own right now. Incidentally, waking me is akin to poking a hibernating bear with a thorny stick mid-winter. My nickname senior year in college was either “Grumpy Bear” or “Mama Bear” depending on the day.
9am, head to Epcot. Bond with Aunt’s wife over need for caffeine. Offer to buy family coffee. While waiting in coffee line, am badgered by youngest cousin that he needs a chocolate muffin. Aunt’s wife tells him if he’s hungry, he can eat his sandwich. We leave line and head back to group, where aunt demands, “did you buy him a muffin? No? I’ll go do it.” Find out later from my dad that youngest cousin stomped his feet, crossed his arms, made a super angry face and said, “if I don’t get a chocolate muffin, I’m going to be a cranky boy all day long!” Emotional blackmail at its finest, people. At six, he’s already better at it than I will ever be. This starts a trend, he needs a chocolate muffin every day for the rest of vacation. When I attempted to steal a bite of said muffin, he slapped my hand away and screamed at me “NO! that’s MINE!” I don’t blame the six year old…
Whoever packed lunch for us forgot my sandwich. I end up getting shitty vegetarian plate from shitty fast food service.
Finally, the day is over! We go home, and on the way…pick up PIZZA! Pizza happens to be one of the very few things my cousins will eat (the other foods they eat include and are limited to, mac&cheese, chicken nuggets with tons of ketchup, peanut butter & honey, eggo waffles, dry oatmeal, or bread with butter). It’s also one of my least favorite foods, unless I make it at home and it’s A) cheeseless, or B) has vegan cheese. My younger cousin, who I shall call Muffin Boy from now on, eats over half of a 14″ pizza by himself. I’m sure if they ever did a CT scan of him they would find his arms and legs are hollow.
After pizza, I log onto my laptop in front of “House.” Ahh, vacation…did I mention I had my own room at the rental? So awesome. I was amazed I didn’t have to share with my cousins!
The following day we went to the Magic Kingdom. Yo, ho, yo, ho a pirate’s life for me! It was still a weekday so the place was empty, we managed to do the following all in one day: Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Tom Sawyer’s Island, Pirates of the Carribean (which is much changed from when I was last on that ride, it now includes Captain Jack Sparrow), Swiss Family Robinson, Jungle Cruise, It’s a Small World, Haunted Mansion, Tomorrowland Speedway, Buzz LIghtyear’s Something (my father and I skipped this in order to do), Space Mountain. It was a busy day, and we stayed until the park closed. I was my older cousin’s “roller coaster buddy,” and my father was Muffin Boy’s roller coaster buddy. This meant we were hanging with them all day long, and I got to know my older cousin pretty well. He’s a pretty cool kid, for a 7 year old.
Next day? Animal Farm, or House, or maybe it was Kingdom. Anyway, we started off with the Safari, which was AWESOME and I wished I could walk it with my super big camera. That didn’t happen, they can’t even bring the safari bus to a complete stop, which was very frustrating to me and seemed to defeat the purpose of a “photo safari.” If there are actual animals to be seen, stop the damn bus and let us actually get a shot or two off. After that we went to the petting zoo for a really long time, during which I took a nap on a bench. The boys were then off to the Dinosaur park (which probably would have fascinated me…fifteen years ago) and my father and I went on the one roller coaster they have at AK, some sort of Mt. Everest ride. It was the best Disney roller coaster I’ve been on, and we bought our photos, so now I have two roller coaster pics of my father and I. He’s my roller coaster buddy. After that they wanted to do some kind of Lion King video, so my father and I went to Asia, where we saw some tigers, drank some tea, and generally chilled out for a little while.
After dinner, I log onto my laptop in front of “House.” Ahh, vacation…oh fuck, did I mention my laptop DIED? Yeah, total sadness, though it IS a five year old laptop.
The following day everyone was going to go to the Cape (Canaveral) but my mother had some sort stomach plague that involved holding a bucket while sitting on the toilet. I felt like I was getting it too, but it just turned out to be bad eggnog (reason #28934723987 to be vegan, people). I stayed home, and my father, cousins, and aunt went out and did stuff, possibly put-put, and shopping. Aunt’s wife watched tv and knitted all day. I always try to knit, and have a scarf I’ve been working on for awhile, but tend to be too OCD when I knit, trying to make every stich even, which defeats the purpose of it being an activity to reduce stress.
A good friend of mine from high school drove from Tampa to visit me that night. We went to a vegan Chinese restaurant, and then to a pool hall, where much beer and billiards were enjoyed.
It’s now Sunday. We have to pack up and move to….(cue drumroll please)…ANIMAL HOUSE LODGE!!! That’s right, we leave the sanctity of our wonderful rental house (where I have my own room, a first on family vacations) to go brave staying with 983432890840329 other tourists on Disney property. My father and I were both surprised by this development, as no one had told us we would be going there.
Checking in at the Lodge; they needed one person from each room to be there at check in so I was standing with my aunt when the woman tells her that the rooms she specifically requested aren’t available, which is just the beginning of a 10-minute conversation about making sure we get rooms with “a good view of the animals” (I should note, there are not many rooms WITHOUT a good view of the animals, IMO). Then the woman checking us in tells us she has our rooms – one with 2 queen beds (for my parents and me) and one with a queen and bunk bed (for my aunts and cousins) and my aunt says, “no, that’s not what we want. We need two bunk beds.” Well folks, the only way to get two bunk beds there is to have A) non-adjoining rooms, B) 1 queen bed + 1 bunk bed…in each room. I complain about B. I’m not happy about B. B means that me – 27 year old homeowner, hoo-ha engineer and general ADULT, will be sharing a bunk bed with a little boy. When I dared to complain about this fact, and the woman checking us in asked my aunt, again, “are you sure you wish this reservation? She does not seem happy with the arrangements,” my aunt waved her question away and told her to “ignore her, she’s not awake yet.”
Go to room; sit on bunk bed; reasoning for me to have bottom is so BOTH of my cousins can sleep on top bunk BOTH nights (instead of, I dunno…TRADING OFF?). Immediately hit head, hard, on bunk bed. Imagine that – it was made for much shorter people than myself. Proceed to hit head about 25 more times before putting down foot and refusing to sleep on bottom bunk. It didn’t matter anyway; my cousins were too scared to sleep away from their moms, so they didn’t end up crashing in our room with us, anyway.

The rest of vacation was kind of a blur – my dad and I spent a day at Epcot by ourselves and had a blast, and then went out for BBQ just the two of us that night. My father and I have a love/hate relationship; we get along really well becasue we are basically the same person – unfortunately that means we butt heads quite often as well.

I have some really cool photos I need to post, but I’ll have to get around to that later. I’ll be amazed if anyone other than my mother reads this entire post.

EDIT: I forgot to post the grocery list. Here it is, in all its glory:

this is just for us – add what you will eat in 4-5 days

If possible, milk and meat(ckn nuggets) organic, if not don’t worry about it
1 gallon orange juice-natural with pulp if possible
1 gallon whole milk
2-3 gallon skim milk
1 package plain flour tortillas (burrito size)
4 loaves whole wheat bread – not too whole grainy/healthy looking
16 gala apples
12 pack diet coke
1/2 pound Sumatra or Gold Coast coffee, Starbucks if in supermkt
Eggo Mini-Waffles 2 packs, “Lego” kind if possible
Quaker Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal
2 packs bagels
butter
1big-2 small jars organic smooth peanut butter
jar honey
hard salami/sliced provolone sandwiches for lunch E & L
1 package club crackers
1 package wheat thins
Dinner stuff for boys:
4 cans Campbell’s tomato soup
Chicken nuggets, organic if possible
Digorno’s frozen pizza, 1/2 cheese, 1/2 pepperoni or 1 each
Cheddar cheese
Vanilla-flavored fat free half-and-half small container
ketchup for ckn nuggets
mustard for sandwiches
?ingredients for easy dinners: grill cheese sandwiches/tacos or
burritos/fettucini alfredo/salad etc/grilled chkn/hamburgers (there is a bbq
at the house)
?Costco dinners: frozen pizza/frozen manicotti/lasagna/frozen whole cod
fishsticks, etc.
laundry det/trash bags/tp, etc

So-Called Social Networking, Part 1

Sidney — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:23:16 +0000

I’ve been thinking about writing a little about Facebook for awhile now, and finally I’ve been spurned to action; The Doorman has an interesting post about random people from his past whom he has become friends with via Facebook. This is very timely because I’ve just received a barrage of new Facebook friend requests from…People From My Past. So here is a recap of SOME of the worst (and one best!) weird and “inappropriate” Facebook friend requests I have received in the past few months…

Middle school popular bitch; a little background: middle school was basically hell for me; I was in band, in gifted, wore braces and glasses, and was a total clueless tomboy. I had no idea that between 5th and 6th grade girls were supposed to start shaving their legs! So one day after P.E., as I’m self-consciously changing because my mother has not gotten me any bras yet, she yells “Ewwww! Get something to cover those nasty things up!”

Really? Now I realize that it was probably a normal every day thing for a trog like her to drop an insult so nasty and mean, but…why the fuck was she looking at my boobs, anyway? That was really upsetting for super-tomboy-socially-awkward 12-year old me. Needless to say I hit “ignore” to her friend request.

Another friend request came from a guy who unfortunately was also in the I.B. program at my high school, so we shared 75% of our classes each semester junior and senior year. He HATED me. I HATED him. He used to verbally harass one of our teachers to tears, and I would yell at him about it and tell him to his face in front of everyone that I thought he was a giant bully compensating for a tiny cock. When we dissected pigs and my girlfriends and I refused because we were vegetarians, he threw little pig organs at us for a week. I blocked him on Facebook, and while I was at it, searched out other people who I couldn’t stand in high school and blocked them as well.

A girl who tried to get me arrested for things I Did Not Do in high school added me as a friend. Really? BAN!

Another friend request came in from someone whom I am actively afraid of, so I won’t go into many details. Creepy Fuck stalked/harassed me online and in real life for years and did some truly heinous things to both me and friends of mine. I’ve been ignoring him for years, but you know that Morrissey song, “the more you ignore me, the closer I get…”

And of course, I received a friend request from Super Crazy Bitch. I’m not friends with her and I have made it clear by blatantly ignoring multiple years worth of friend requests on just about every social networking site that she finds me on that I really want nothing to do with her and her crazies. I also banned her. Ban, ban, ban – I love that feature.

One of the first times someone added me for reasons I couldn’t fathom, it was someone who I was stuck dealing with both in school, band, and church – and in all of those places, we didn’t get along (you know it’s bad if you can’t get along with someone, even at church). I sent her a “nice” message basically saying, “we weren’t friends, if I recall correctly you were a bossy bitch who annoyed me, but if you want to get to know each other now that’s cool.” Her response? “Well you were a know-it-all little shit who drove me crazy, but I’m game if you are.” We’re actually pretty decent friends now, so I’m glad I kept an open mind about her.

So sometimes I end up getting to know someone I never would have in high school or middle school, and think to myself “ok, so maaaaaaybe I can see some value in these stalker sites.” There are a few people who I never hung out wtih just based on that vast cultural chasm between high school juniors and seniors, and I’m really happy that we had Facebook around so we could find each other and become friends now that one year of age difference isn’t a big deal anymore. So for the most part my experience with Facebook has been a good one, and I have been able to use it for the purposes intended.

Does anyone else have any fun stories of weird friend requests on any kind of “social networking” site? Please share in the comments!

Plugging my Trainer

Sidney — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:27:47 +0000

My trainer is a singer/actor in addition to be a sports/fitness fiend, and this Friday night is opening night of his latest play, and I’m PSYCHED – it’s South Pacific!!!! South Pacific combines three of my favorite things – musicals, Michener, and Hammerstein.

The Operahouse Players are performing November 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29, & 30; Fridays and Saturdays the show starts at 8pm, Sunday the show starts at 2pm. If you’re interested in going, call 860-292-6068 for tickets. General admission is $20, over 60/under 12 cost $16.

The Opera House is located at 107 Main St. Broad Brook, CT.

I’ll be there opening night, and again the 23rd for a matinee.

Hanging with Ploman

Sidney — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:03:00 +0000

Ploman glares at me for not closing the sliding glass door

It’s the 12th. Wrath is coming out at midnight. Ploman and I are currently watching movies, waiting for that magical time to hit so we can head to the game store and pick up our copies the moment it is released. Yeah, it would be smarter for us to wait until tomorrow. But if we did, you would miss out on all the photos I’m sure I’ll be taking of the gomers dressed up like WoW characters…!

In other news, I’m going on a date with The Grinch tomorrow night. Why am I calling him The Grinch? Because that’s what we call him at work. He’s a mean SOB and rubs everyone the wrong way. He’s been nothing but mean to ME (think: little boy kicks girl on playground in elementary school), but when he asked me out he was so super-enthusiastic, I couldn’t bring myself to say no. I will probably be a total bitch to him all night, anyway.

I’ve decided that having heterosexual male friends (such as the grumpy glare-bot above) is good for me. We get to talk about girls we think are cute together, and he gets to point out why most of the guys I talk to are total douchebags. Between Ploman and Mr. T, I sometimes feel a little overwhelmed by testosterone.

And since turn about is fair play, I’m going to post a photo of myself. I’m posting one that John aka IneRLogic took – he paid me $100 to model, and thus helped me buy my first digital SLR camera.

If you’re my friend on twitter, you’ve seen the tiny version of this photograph. I’m actually on the pool table in the basement of my house in this shot, and as Bill likes to point out, (random trivia) I tend to shoot with an open bridge…

Anyway, Ploman can never stay very angry for long…because stuff like this happens when he comes to my house:

Watching Ploman’s reaction to the ironman movie is hilarious – especially since he is spending half his time playing with the kitten. We can’t wait until the kitten stops being hyper, and turns into a lapcat like Bandit.

Sidney & Catherine

Sidney — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:13:53 +0000

Catherine the Great and I, our first year in college. Our hair is wet because…well that’s a fun story.

She and I both were stressed out. She, much more than me…her first rugby game, she broke her wrist. I still had tennis to destress me. So, her mom put her up in that schmancy froofy hotel in Northampton (I refuse to link them, they short sheet you and over charge you) but in a little private cabin! With…(drumroll please)…a giant tub with whirlpool! I decided it would be an awesome idea to take a bubble bath. No, I’m not going to post the bathtub photos – yet. Anyway, that’s why our hair is wet, and well…it’s probably one of my favorite memories from college. Hanging out off-campus with nothing to do but keep each other company and destress. She’s my platonic wife, you know!

PS, in case you didn’t know, I’m in the tie dye.

Baby you can drive my car

Sidney — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:57:50 +0000

This weekend I went car shopping with my best friend, Ploman. There was a giant sale at one of the local dealerships, and he had seen online that they had an ‘02 Civic with 60k miles for $11k. I told him he had to take me with him because I’m Super Negotiator when it comes to buying cars. When I bought my CR-V, there was still a waiting list for them, and I still managed to get them to sell to me well below MSRP, as well as extend my warranty and throw in all-weather mats for free.

We were walking around the lots, and ended up in the back lot where they literally have more cars packed in then you would think possible. I guess the current economic crisis has really affected the car dealerships. As we were walking out to a reasonably-priced Civic with relatively decent mileage, I noticed a red Accord coupe and pointed it out to Ploman…and that was the end of that. They wanted WAY too much for it, though it is a very nice car; leather heated seats, CD changer, sunroof, alloy wheels, V6 w/6-speed manual, etc. etc. – basically, I would have purchased that car had I been looking. I managed to talk them down over $3K from what they originally wanted, made them drop his financing by 4 points, as well as throw in a 3-year full bumper-to-bumper warranty with my “you will not take advantage of me, I grew up going to the flea market every weekend” attitude. Which gets me thinking…

Why is it we can negotiate prices at places like flea markets and car dealerships, but not at department stores? Why can’t I go to Sears and say, “you know, I really like this vacuum cleaner, but it’s just $45 too expensive?” When is the price negotiable? Is there an etiquette rule for price negotiations?

For those of you thinking of buying a car, now is the time – it’s a buyer’s market. Remember my attitude; “well, we have a car that works. We don’t have to buy this car from you if we don’t like the price” and don’t take no crap!

Academia just isn’t my bag, baby

Sidney — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:06:33 +0000

You’ll notice in my blogroll that I have a few medical-type blogs that I read (they’re great reads, check them out). I’m actually fascinated by medicine, and my family is full of medical-type people; my mother and aunt (father’s little sis) are RNs, my aunt (mother’s little sis) is a pediatric intensivist (her 2nd career after she was a hot-shot lawyer in L.A.), and her partner is an APRN (ob/gyn). To this day my family regularly asks me if I would please-please-please consider going to medical school – despite having a very successful career in engineering, and a just-starting career in wedding photography. Their reason for asking me still, even though I already have a career? “Because if some of these idiots I work with can be doctors, you could do it blindfolded and with your hands tied behind your back” – attribute this to all four medical field relatives, as they have all said this to me at one point or another. It’s not just medical school though; regularly from everyone in my family, some friends, and even old teachers, people are always suggesting some form of further education I should be seeking.

My father is the only person who is truly psyched about my chosen career – maybe because ohhh…we happen to work at the same place, and he gets to introduce me to his work friends all the time. “This is my daughter, Sidney! She’s the [blahblahblah] that they’re always talking about in the 8:30 meeting!” and of course, his chest puffs out with pride when he brags about me to people at work. (How I feel about being introduced to people first as his daughter and second with my title is probably fodder for an entire other post, actually…)

I wonder about this dichotomy, and why people seem so passionate about me going back to school. My mother is especially guilty of this; when I tell her “violence in movies makes my legs get weak and my stomach flip-flop, how the hell am I going to handle someone whose guts are spilling out of their body?” she switches tactics, reminding me of my stellar LSAT scores. “You could go to law school! They have a part-time program at UCONN! And those LSATs could easily get you into Yale!” Nevermind that I do not want to pay for either UCONN or Yale law school, not that my N.mumble GPA in undergrad would get me acceptance to either, anyway. My p.i. aunt is the same way; “you know, you really should at least go back and get an M.B.A. if you’re going to stay in the engineering field. You already hit the glass ceiling, you said so yourself.” My elementary school gifted teacher, who is now 89-years old and has recently converted to some sort of monkhood cult in the catholic church (the regular church was just “too liberal” for her) also brings this up during our bi-weekly phone conversations. “When are you going to medical school? You have the brains for it, you know. Your mother always wanted you to be a doctor.”

You can imagine my disgust when I caught my mother and her sister talking on the phone about my baby cousins (future, hypothetical seeing as they are 6 and 7 years old) SAT scores, and how they would affect into which colleges they would gain admission.

“I see now why my cousin Erin always told everyone she wanted to drive a dump truck! You guys put too much pressure on everyone! You know not everyone wants to be an over-achieving school nerd!*”

* My mother went to college for about 20 years, and has over four degrees framed and hanging on the wall. My father has double undergraduate and double masters degrees as well as an M.B.A. I managed to finish one major in college, and I haven’t seen my Smyff degree since graduation. I bet it’s framed on the wall with her and my fathers degrees, actually…

I really have minimal desire to go back to school; I barely finished college alive, to be honest. The only thing that kept me sane during my time there was my participation on the tennis team, a few amazing professors, and my ex-girlfriend (who is now happily married and expecting a baby in February, but we’re still friends, and she reads this site, so hi Katja!). An M.B.A. would probably be the quickest and dirtiest degree to get – but to what end? I once told my academic adviser in college that my career goal was “lower-middle management.” Well baby, I’m there now! Who else can say they reached their lifetime carrer goal by the tender age of 27? Between that and working to make money for my hobby (photography, specifically wedding), what else could I possibly ask for, career-wise?

Does anyone else have this constant academic pressure from their family? Is this a normal “I just want my baby to be all they can be and be the best and be successful and happy” wish, or is this indicative of a bigger problem? I think that everyone else in my family got the overacheiving striver gene, whereas I got the laid-back surfer gene. No offense to surfers, of course. They just tend to be the most laid-back people I know.