2 posts tagged “money”

I am unhappy, yet I am quietly happy. The federal government is taking money out of my bank account, which they have every right to do, because I still haven't paid off all my student loans. But it throws what little balance I have achieved into a precarious state. Disaster looms. If the whole spun-sugar cage collapses under its own weight, what will I do then? Not sure. Hard to say, really. But I've got a little side project--a little book project, a self-publishing thing, personal--and when I think about it, nothing can hurt me for long. It's like I'm humming on the inside. If I had known self-publishing could make me this happy, I would have stopped looking down my nose at it years ago.

I'm at home in the afternoon for the first time (except for days off) since I started this job October 18. I will work this evening for four hours only and I'm thrilled about it. I love the idea of extra money but working nearly full time has been hard on me/us.

Of course, nothing is ever so easy. I've been summoned to jury duty on Friday, and if I don't have to serve, I'm supposed to sub for a co-worker who is out this week. But then next week, next week I'm gonna be part time.

The job itself is good. I'm a little concerned that I'm going to lose faith in the younger generation, because essentially all the students I work with are remedial. I have to keep reminding myself that they're not all like this. Just the hundreds upon hundreds who come to my lab and know, on balance, almost nothing. Don't worry; I'm almost unfaiIingly nice. I don't hold it against them. But I have never been faced with so many blank looks. They are writing about violence and genocide, but by and large they don't understand my references to the Sudan, Rwanda, Stalin, Mao. The only thing they know is Hitler. Hitler, Hitler, Hitler. Many of them are under the impression that the U.S. entered World War II to save the Jews.

When I told Duff all this, he told me about Godwin's Law:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.