On shuffle

My iTunes is on shuffle right now, and the chorus of the current song keeps repeating the phrase "Is anybody waiting at all?" As it turns out, the answer is yes. Scott's grad school apps have been in for almost a month, and we're at that point where responses are trickling in. So far, the tally is one yes (from a safety school) and one no (from the reach school), and Scott has two interviews scheduled for next week. Starting off with an acceptance is the most overwhelmingly relieving thing about the whole process, even if it's a yes from a safety school. It means that you are for sure going on to grad school, which takes some of the pressure off. I remember well what it was like to get a yes right off the bat. Huge sigh of relief. And with more schools indicating "maybe" by inviting Scott to interview, a sense of excitement is definitely there at the possibility of having multiple options to ultimately choose from. It's pretty fun to see Scott so thrilled about this newest adventure. I admit, I'm a little excited too. But with 5 more schools yet to respond, things are still utterly up in the air. My way of dealing with situations beyond my control is to make a spreadsheet, crunching the numbers and weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the schools that are still in the running. Ridiculous, right? I know. Especially since it's me, and not him that is agonizing over the numbers. He thinks it's hilarious. Maybe it is, just a little. But seriously, higher education really is ridiculous. You pay a ton of money just to get the admissions committee to look at your application, you spend weeks of stressful anticipation waiting to find out if those schools are going to give you the privilege of giving them even more money, and inevitably there will be schools that determine that even though you are perfectly willing to give them tons of your money, they aren't going to waste their time inundating you with knowledge. And this is even before you set foot on campus for the first time. Wow. You would think that one year out of grad school, I'd be at least a little less jaded about the whole experience. Nope. The song playing now describes how I feel about school. I...Hate...Everything About You. And I'm not the only one that feels that way. Grad school makes people worse versions of themselves. I really hope MBA Scott isn't anything like Law School Me. Maybe that's my real apprehension about this whole situation.

Blindsided on an idle Thursday

One of my all time favorite songs includes the following admonition: "Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday."

I was never very good at following this counsel, as I am, by my very nature, a worrier. Today has been one of those days where I find myself agonizing over the big fat question mark that has managed to insert itself into the effortless routine of my current existence. At this very moment, Scott is in the throes of grad school applications, which means that this year, he's actually serious about getting that MBA. That's right, folks: it has been a drama three years in the making, but he took the GMAT last Saturday, narrowed his list of grad school selections, and is now banging at the door of higher education, anxiously waiting to see who answers. This is the year where it all happens. School in September is an all but foregone conclusion. He has applied to schools in the area and a handful of programs in various parts of the country, as is customary when you want to make sure you have options when you make a decision of this magnitude. With those options, comes the possibility of having to find a new place to call home. I can't help but reflect on how different the process was when I was in his shoes. I had no job, no commitments and no significant other to speak of, which meant I had nothing tying me down to a particular locale. I was invested nowhere which made me literally willing to go anywhere, and that was perfectly alright. I was able to fit all my earthly possessions into the back of my trusty Honda and go wherever fate took me, which incidentally, was the fabulous Pacific Northwest. It all worked out so perfectly, even though I do recall being an complete basket case when I was embarking on this particular adventure. Fast forward four years. Now, relocating means excitement but tempered by a healthy dose of anxiety. Will Scott be able to transfer with his job? Will I be able to find a job? Where will we live? How will this affect our other plans and goals? Can we afford to move? And of course the most daunting of all, the prospect of having to take the bar exam in another jurisdiction. Double shudder followed by a dry heave. The stumbling blind part, before you know that everything is going to work out, is the most stressful part of all. And as my lunch break winds down, I can only hope that work will occupy enough of my brain to keep the unnecessary fretting to a minimum.

The motivationator

When I was in my last year of law school, I had a countdown calendar to graduation, affectionately nicknamed "The Motivationator." I desperately needed something, anything, to keep me motivated to trudge on in those waning days of bitterness and malaise. Counting down the days motivated me. As a post-higher education adult, I must ask myself, what motivates me now? I have decided that planning awesome vacations motivates me. Maybe I should have been a travel agent. Planning our post-bar European vacation definitely carried me through those dark, dark months of bar preparation. And now, our next destination is Hawaii. And why not? We live on the West Coast, making travel to and from the islands (comparatively) cheap and (relatively) easy. As I try to keep my cool with never ending paperwork and ever present needy clients, I find that all I need to do is take a mental break and envision myself lazing on the beach or scuba diving at the reef, and presto. Will to live: restored. I think the planning is almost as fun as the vacationing itself. As part of our preparations for this trip, I have to get my open water diving certification, which is another fun thing to counterbalance the less fun aspects of being a grown up. I can't wait!! I have to say, tapping the savings account for a purpose other than paying down student loans is a most inviting prospect. 9 months to go. Let the counting down begin.

Now do you understand?

A friend posted this on his Facebook page, and it was too good not to share.


An Easily Understandable Explanation of Derivative Markets
By hydle Published: June 8, 2009

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit . She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.
She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).
Word gets around about Heidi’s “drink now, pay later” marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi’s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit .
By providing her customers’ freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Heidi’s gross sales volume increases massively.
A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi’s borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.
At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then bundled and traded on international security markets. Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as AAA secured bonds are really the debts of unemployed alcoholics.
Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.
One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi’s bar. He so informs Heidi.
Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since, Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and the eleven employees lose their jobs.
Overnight, DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS drop in price by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the banks liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.
The suppliers of Heidi’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the various BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the Government. The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers.
Now, do you understand?


http://www.hydle.com/blog/archives/338/comment-page-1

Restless

The lunch hour is winding down and I have a ridiculously huge stack of files on my desk. I've been daydreaming about 5:00pm since I walked into my office. I am about 6 months into the "new and improved everything" life I so eagerly anticipated last summer, and already I find myself grappling with the inclination to move on. There has to be a name for my condition. I think I'll call it Existential ADD. On Sunday I spent an hour teaching a class of 14 year old girls how to get their lives in order, with the overarching theme of "don't be dumb." I'm pretty sure I said that at least 5 times. The world is yours, with its infinite possibilities. Don't be dumb, and life will be easier for you. I live my life by that mantra, and I like to think I haven't made an excessive amount of dumb choices. However, with each choice I make, a roadblock appears in front of the option I did not choose. And the infinite possibilities life offers become more and more finite for me each day with every road not taken. It's hard not to idealize that road not taken. I sometimes find myself looking around at others and taking stock of my own life, which inevitably leads me to believe that I'm somehow behind, or not where I thought I would be at this stage in my life. Of course this is ridiculous; I'm exactly where I knew I would be based on the choices I've made, but I still can't help but feel restless. I always thought of myself as a creature of habit with an affinity for routine. After all, there is comfort in familiarity. But as day to day life becomes more and more predictable, my current routine is starting to feel an awful lot like a rut. And while I'd very much like to escape that rut, I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever the next big thing is, it won't be big enough to hold my attention indefinitely. I wonder if they make a pill for this?

Thinking about higher education?

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this on more than one occasion, but I'm the type of nerd that loves to see my life organized into graphs, spreadsheets and lists. It makes life so much easier to have lists telling me what I need to accomplish and graphs illustrating for me how I'm managing my finances. But this particular graph just makes my soul whimper.

That's what my cash flow looks like, each and every month. That massive blue chunk comprising half the graph? Those are my monthly student loan payments. With the 20/20 clarity of hindsight, and in a nod to my aforementioned affinity for list making, here are the top 10 things I'd rather be doing with the funds in blue:

10: Replace my aged and battle-worn computer with a MacBook Pro.

9: Mid-winter mini vacation in Hawaii.

8: Sock it away in an IRA.

7: Replace the balding tires and cracked (in 4 places) windshield on my car.

6: Swap out my wedding ring set for new bling from a jeweler that isn't in danger of bankruptcy (I'm looking at you, Zales).

5: Weekend trip to DC to see the cherry blossoms.

4: Rebuild the savings account.

3: Buy ski gear and take advantage of the awesome skiing in Oregon.

2: Snag tickets to random Olympic events and take a road trip to Vancouver.

1: Monthly mortgage payment on a house.

The babysitter's club

The New York Times published an article a few weeks ago, lamenting the demise of law school grad "golden ticket" jobs with big firms. Can I just say that, while the very thought of having a job with a big firm is the motivating force behind many a law student's miserable existence, for me, it sounds utterly unappealing. As in, I'd rather take a nap in the middle of the interstate than take a job with a big firm. But I can't really dispute the fact that even in a recession, first year associates at large firms make (fill in the blank) times as much money as I'm currently making, and sometimes a six figure job does sound like it would be nice. But those six figures come with the requirement that you work 80 hour weeks, sign away your soul, and promise your firstborn to the firm. A first year associate quoted in the aforementioned Times article stated, “If you do the math, you’re making less than a babysitter — not a nanny even, but an actual babysitter in high school.” Suddenly it doesn't sound like the golden ticket holders are really all that lucky. It also got me thinking about how being a lawyer is very much like being a babysitter. Every day, I have to deal with demanding clients who are convinced that their case is the only one I should ever be working on. I recall babysitting small children who were equally convinced that providing for their personal entertainment was my sole purpose for existing on this earth. As a lawyer, I have to clean up the messes people make of their lives. As a babysitter, you have to clean up the messes kids make of...pretty much everything they touch. As a lawyer, I have to put my best face forward, even when that means feigning civility when a client is going off on a rampage about something I did or didn't do. As a babysitter, tying up a tantruming kid and throwing him in a closet is always a temptation, but you know you'd never get away with it, so you fake nice until they stop screaming. For lawyers, the hours are long and the job is often thankless; at least if you're babysitting on a Friday night, you can help yourself to the fridge and the television. And at the end of the day, when you break it down to an hourly wage, for all those hours you toil, for all that fancy education you have, for all your lofty ambitions of helping people navigate the complicated legal system, you're really just playing babysitter, with compensation to match.