Sometimes I Feel Guilty

Ok, It's a lot of times.

It's summertime in the Hyland household and I'm off from school. I have nothing I really have to do. But right across the room is Sarah working away at a job she increasingly doesn't like.

It's summertime. I could just play video games all day. To some extent, that's what I'd like to do. But she's over there earning a living, grumbling about needy clients or her boss making more work for her needlessly. So I leave Steam alone in the tray, with all the other game launchers.

I know if I say this stuff out loud she will encourage me to do what I want and not worry about it. Right now school is my job and I'm on vacation.

The feeling of guilt in the summer is new this summer, but not overall. I've felt this way before. It has mostly to do with money. This is the first summer since I started school that I'm not earning anything. When I started I still had a full-time job. After I quit that I was able to get a fellowship to do astronomy research, but I switched majors and the fellowship can only go to stem majors. As if NASA doesn't use artists and writers. As if they don't need us to convey their importance to the anti-science crowd that insists we only spend money on something that directly returns the investment.

The feeling of guilt hasn't been all bad, however. My resistance to opening up a game on weekdays has led to some productivity on the home front. I've actually planted stuff in some of the planters outside, and the fish tank project I've been excited about starting is well underway.

But overall, living with guilt that has been imposed on me by outside systems (I'll explain later) has been negative. I hope to get out from under it soon.

The Ungrammaticality of Cats

I saw this comic ages ago and I keep thinking about it, mainly when I say nonsense things to my cats. I mean I'm constantly saying things like "It's a pet the kitty" as I'm petting the kitty. "pet the kitty" is not a noun.

So, because my brain is weird, I think about this comic almost every time I say something weird to my cats, which is multiple times per day.

Since this is a post about cats, here's a cat picture (or 2).

Ok, 3 pictures.

Government Spending

     I read a comment recently on the story about the governor's proposed budget where he wants to cut 40% across the board. It said something to the effect that when the economy is down the government should tighten it’s belt because that’s what happens when a household budget shrinks.

 *sigh*

     I really wish more people took economics classes or even an anthropology class. 100 level would be fine.

     When the economy is down the proper thing for a government to do is spend. The private sector has laid off people, not as many people are buying stuff, so more people are being laid off. One of the things the New Deal did was public works projects. The Golden Gate Bridge was one of those projects. It put people to work. They, in turn, spent money which boosted the private sector. Then when those projects were complete the private sector was boosted enough to have jobs for them.

     “But isn’t the government spending money it doesn’t have?”, you ask. Well yes and no. One of the government's functions is to print money. If they need more, they can print more. Of course, they can’t do this forever, hyperinflation is bad. However, the system we have in place for better or worse is we have a central bank that handles all this for us. So the government borrows to cover the deficit spending. This has a side effect of altering the supply of money in the lending market, which changes the interest rates which makes banks want to lend again. Then that allows the private sector to expand some more. Economy grows. What’s then supposed to happen, is, after the recession is over, the government stops deficit spending.

    

     Another thing, high marginal tax rates on the upper tiers are a good thing. If nothing else, companies invest back into the company more (usually in the form of higher pay for the workers and pensions) since only profit is taxed. There’s also an inverse correlation between high taxes and government corruption. People who pay a lot in taxes tend to not like it when their representatives rob the store, go figure. Taxes are an investment in the infrastructure governments provide, everyone should pay their fair share.

     

     As far as the anthropology end of things, governments arose to take care of the people. That’s it. There are some people that decry what they call the “nanny state”. That people seem to want the government to take care of them. Yup. That’s what it’s for. Armys protect a society from outside threats. Property records keep track of who owns what. Regulations on businesses keep the water and the air clean as well as making sure the products we buy are safe to use. Roads to get us and our products from place to place. Public lands need management. All of this costs money, tax money.

     

     And no one needs a billion dollars, let alone multiples of that. I know the human brain has a hard time understanding how much a billion is. It helps if you think of it as one thousand million. 1,000 x 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000 (Sorry, i didn’t warn you there would be math.) It would take multiple generations to spend that much, even if it didn’t accrue interest.

This is nuts.

Buy me a coffee!

Life After College

It was just this summer I was wondering what I want to do with my degree after  I receive it. At that point, I had no idea. (I'm going for English and a lot of people think you can only go into academia with an English degree but they are wrong.) I think I was just responding to some sore of schooling fatigue or something because I was telling a professor that "maybe I'll just get a part-time job to pay my student loans" and be done with it.

Well, I think I've found my career path, everybody! I want to be a proofreader/editor! Sounds exciting, doesn't it! "No, that sounds boring and unglamorous.", I hear you say. Well, of course it doesn't if you don't relish the ability to fix other people's typos. Or get excited to help other people's stories flow better when you find the part where they forgot to tell the reader a crucial detail of the plot. It may not sound exciting to you but it does to me and that's what matters!

Here's where I need your help though. I need practice and experience to get in the door. So, if you're writing your memoir or self-publishing a novel or know someone who is, let me know and we can work something out (I don't work for exposure, people die of exposure).

Also, don't forget to throw me a coffee using the button on the right, if you're so inclined. I've still got tuition to pay.

Ella

Do You Want to Buy Me a Coffee?

In order to fund my blogging (and possibly my last year of college), I signed up for ko-fi. (I think it's pronounced like coffee.) Right now it's set up to just accept small donations as I don't update this enough to ask for subscriptions. 

There's a handy button in the right sidebar if you're interested in buying me a coffee so to speak. Each 'coffee' is $3. Also here's my link: Donation link

So in the spirit of creating more here's a poem. I have no idea if it's any good, I'm not good at judging these things.

She walks through the forest

Amongst the greens and the browns

With the buzzes and the caws

The babbles and the sighs

She walks with the trees and the ferns

The insects and the birds

The streams and the breezes

The leaves caress her face

Wings whisper in her ear

She is clothed in sound

She walks

It's Not an Actual Book, Why Do We Still Turn the Page?

Right now I'm reading "The Calculating Stars" by Mary Robinette Kowal on Kindle. It's good so far. It's alternate history where a meteorite hits Earth and decimates the Eastern Seaboard. The main character is trying to become a Lady Astronaut because colonies in space need women. The species won't survive with just men, somehow they forget all that.

Anywho, the story isn't the only reason why the book is cool. It's equipped with the 'Continuous Scrolling' feature. I didn't think something so mundane sounding would be so exciting, but it's the coolest! I read an article some years back (OMG, I said 'some years back') that talked about the fact that with new technology, we don't need to continue to do things the old way. I don't remember what the article was but if anyone remembers I'll update this. I think the example they gave was calendars. But it's true about books too. Why should we be turning pages still? It's not a physical book. It doesn't actually have pages in the same sense. We don't read other documents like that unless we print them. It wasn't until I experienced a book with continuous scrolling that I realized how turning the page was annoying. It doesn't help that page turning on the Kobo app is still a little wonky. They may not even have to fix it if they started continuous scrolling. 

Well, it's almost midnight, I should go.

Words to Live by

Poem of the Day

I'm kind of cheating a little, I wrote this yesterday. Poetry is hard y'all.

Pro Tip

Narcissistic toxic people

Never change

They're still toxic

Even if they give you stuff