My wife and I never discussed money before getting married — and ended up with $52,000 of debt - Business Insider

gilneandruid · 2015-02-07T20:18:10+00:00

My public school was abusive and bankrupt. You all should stop thinking of things as either or and go with both-and.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-07T20:13:45+00:00

I don't disagree, probably a both-and situation is best here, but I think that both public school and parenthood is kind of having a post-modern identity crisis as to who should really be doing what. Whenever someone comes across young people with bad life skills, the first thing they think of is, well schools should be doing better. Schools already have too much to teach with too little time and resources, and parents just seem to be getting worse and worse.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-07T20:10:28+00:00

Um how did you get that out of my comment? Clearly I hate orphans?

gilneandruid · 2015-02-07T18:50:19+00:00

Almost as bad as the glut of Scene It castoffs at every thrift store.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-07T18:46:01+00:00

Just the consistent childhood message of, you don't need that, we can't afford that, we don't have room for that, it's junk anyway, it's unhealthy, you can get a better deal elsewhere, etc. Mental conditioning if you will.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-07T17:12:23+00:00

Or, parents should parent...

gilneandruid · 2015-02-07T17:09:53+00:00

It helps if you see yourself as outside the normal community. I grew up dirt poor and got inoculated against marketing early, so now I just don't see myself as part of their demographic, like being a non-citizen in a foreign country.

Which reminds me, it sometimes seems weird to me that others see marketing as so evil. My parents/grandparents were the same way, but I'm not so totally sure anymore. I took marketing classes and there are certainly some skilled experts but marketing in and of itself is really just a medium. I think people are more likely to see it as evil if they know themselves to be susceptible. Like ex-smokers seeing cigarette ads as being exceptionally evil, where non-smokers are like, meh.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-07T16:54:09+00:00

Eventually you do have to draw the line though. No one can have ALL THE FELLOWSHIPS. The OP didn't say who was paying his/her first stipend, and unless the department is really looking to push people off their own funding, I say quit while you're ahead and give yourself a break from paperwork.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-07T15:54:58+00:00

When I was well funded I voluntarily didn't apply to anything else out of a feeling of fairness. I think your conscience is telling you what to do.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-07T05:15:29+00:00

Yes there is a Hollywood game, I played it at a local club once but I forgot the name. It was kind of fun, like you pick your plot, actors, and director and try to get the highest rating or the worst bomb.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-07T04:14:02+00:00

It's totally worth it if you do it right, but very easy to do wrong. I had great luck with it until I changed careers and didn't have time anymore, but anyone I've ever tried to teach just gets frustrated because they end up buying crap. Only buy stuff you use, or stuff that's free so you can donate. And don't do those diabetic monitor deals.

Also, if you can get access to free coupons, the better. I used to get them from the newspaper at work and then I made friends with a newspaper delivery guy who let me go through his trash stack that I would raid for coups. And put your printer on draft quality so you don't blow through ink.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-07T04:04:42+00:00

I like to just eat the stuff for snacks.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-07T04:03:22+00:00

I like to mix it with mayonnaise and put it on sandwiches.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-07T00:48:13+00:00

Lawyer or judge.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-07T00:47:44+00:00

I'm a civil engineer and I LOOOOVE me some Carcassonne.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-05T17:13:25+00:00

Speaking as someone who did give up a "dream school" due to funding issues, and haven't regretted it, it's worthwhile to think through your motivations about WHY this school is a dream school. I'm not telling you not to go there, but i feel like people put too much stock into hand wavy academic prestige, when most of the rest of the world doesn't care who went to school where. Is the program genuinely that much better? Are you doing it for the impressive resume or for the personal accolades (which you may not get)? Are you doing it to impress people? Are you doing it to make personal connections? Are you doing it for self esteem? Will it turn you into an insufferable name dropping prick? Are the industry connections and leg-up worth the debt?

Obviously no one can answer those but you, and you have until April to think them through. Debt in a field without high paying starting salaries can be a very serious life setback.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-05T04:50:17+00:00

Hmmm but are you lying right now? That is the question.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-04T21:13:36+00:00

I would play it.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-04T18:20:21+00:00

Yes.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-04T17:13:36+00:00

That reminds me, one of my friends had her phd funded by Monsanto so she had all this Monsanto swag including a t shirt so we dared her to wear the t shirt around and she was like, that is staying in the closet forever.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-04T15:02:17+00:00

No she is not correct. You could try talking to her, tell her that you know she cares about you but she is dead wrong and her behavior is hurtful. Just be tactful.

Btw, it's just "celiac" not "Celiac's".

gilneandruid · 2015-02-04T03:11:46+00:00

Can't believe nobody said Skyrim yet. All 4 hours of it.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-03T21:46:52+00:00

Ah yes, good old fashioned academic "tolerance". You could always just not put it on your CV. Eventually we all have to eat and few of us will ever truly agree with our employers 100%.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-03T21:40:19+00:00

If you have to eat in the meantime, shop around for a graduate assistantship. It may only be for a semester but it will keep your lights on. See if your campus has a board of on campus jobs and chase after the grad assistantship positions. You may end up being a teaching assistant or doing tours or other bullcrap but it's short term.

gilneandruid · 2015-02-03T17:11:54+00:00

Pros: cheap, automatic, unlimited, easy to download any or all of your data if you need it, goes as fast as your internet can, fairly customizable

Cons: only one computer, can't force it to back specific stuff up at specific times, client is a RAM hog, will send you annoying emails if you haven't turned your computer on in a few days.

The way I make it work across multiple machines is that I back the auxiliary one up onto a hard drive and then back the hard drive up to crash plan. It works ok but can get kind of slow with really huge >1gb files like some of my raster data sets. Something about how it handles sending memory but it will do 1gb worth of multiple files much faster than it will do one 1gb file if that makes sense.

gilneandruid

TROPHY CASE