anxious midwestern college students who can't wait to move to nyc

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Last night at W@@le F00ds the check out bagger was gabbin' to the checker about her and her boyfriends big move to the big apple. She was chittering with excitement.

Apparently her and her beau are applying to NYU together - because, "we both wanna go to grad school for something!"

Am I a big time bitter tosser for thinking this is funny?

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 18:47 (twenty-one years ago)

what happens if one gets rejected?

― phil-two (phil-two), Thursday, 10 March 2005 18:52 (twenty-one years ago)

New York City is for sellouts

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 10 March 2005 18:52 (twenty-one years ago)

"We both wanna go to grad school for something" is what makes the story funny. I mean is that an actual topic of study? If it is, I'm interested in signing up at NYU as well.

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Thursday, 10 March 2005 18:54 (twenty-one years ago)

nyu kids are adorable

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 18:54 (twenty-one years ago)

What do you think they will end up studying? I'm worried that such a big move could end-up having a detrimental effect on their relationship. Perhaps they should go for a holiday first?

― jel -- (jel), Thursday, 10 March 2005 18:54 (twenty-one years ago)

nyc will crush them

― laurence kansas (lawrence kansas), Thursday, 10 March 2005 18:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I wish they called it grad school here.

― jel -- (jel), Thursday, 10 March 2005 18:56 (twenty-one years ago)

ny'ers abbreviate everything

― laurence kansas (lawrence kansas), Thursday, 10 March 2005 18:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Though, I'm glad that people still get exited about stuff.

― jel -- (jel), Thursday, 10 March 2005 18:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm worried for their relationship, too.

What was also so great is that the girl acted like it was IN THE BAG RE: NYU.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 18:59 (twenty-one years ago)

was she a bagger or the checkout girl?

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:00 (twenty-one years ago)

the check out bagger was gabbin' to the checker

"we both wanna go to grad school for something!"

HAW HAW EDGEYOUMAYKATION THPBT PBBT

WHERE'S MAH MOUNTAIN DEW

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:00 (twenty-one years ago)

well, i mean, i am still excited about being an ice skater when i grow up but i dont go around babbling my hopes and dreams to anyone who will listen!!

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:00 (twenty-one years ago)

you have died inside, mandee.

i still wanna be a fireman who plays 2nd base for the baltimore orioles.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:01 (twenty-one years ago)

she was the bagger, babbling to the checker.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:02 (twenty-one years ago)

no wonder she thot it was "in the bag."

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Dude, Baltimore???

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:02 (twenty-one years ago)

But what if you got a call during the game, Stence?

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I meant excited. I guess people can get exited, dunno how it works mind.

This scenario is kinda like a Bon Jovi video synposis.

― jel -- (jel), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:03 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost - they'd sub in somebody else and i'd go fight fires in tight baseball pants!

allyzay, my dad lived in d.c. back then, they didn't have the nationals yet.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:04 (twenty-one years ago)

climbing up ladders in cleats might be tough tho.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:04 (twenty-one years ago)

LET'S GIVE EVERYBODY A MASTER'S DEGREE AND JUST BE DONE WITH IT

hstencil, you are now an M.A. in Electric Friendship Learning Management.

mandee, here is your dual M.S. in Duck Hunt and Red Cabooses.

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:05 (twenty-one years ago)

aw, check-out baggers, how quaint!

― u best check yself, Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:05 (twenty-one years ago)

me! me! I want a masters!

― teeny (teeny), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I will have two master's degrees soon. I guess that's greedy.

― jel -- (jel), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:07 (twenty-one years ago)

oh my god i would love to have an M.S. in duck hunt and red cabooses!!!

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:07 (twenty-one years ago)

This is exactly how NYC is a trap. It lures you in with fancies of culture and sophistication then CRUSHES YOU WITH DEBT and a shitty studio in outer bklyn.

Unless they think living on the extreme cheap is "cool & bohemian," in which case they should be stabbed.

― andrew l. r. (allocryptic), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:07 (twenty-one years ago)

dude, tombot, y'know i'd totally fail at that.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:08 (twenty-one years ago)

bah, outer bklyn is great.

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:08 (twenty-one years ago)

the fact that she is a checkout bagger really has no relavance. she just happened to be a checkout bagger. while i happened... to listen.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:08 (twenty-one years ago)

i am crushed with debt but i have a nice apartment only 5 stops in.

don't forget everybody: new bankruptcy bill rules don't take effect for six months!

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:08 (twenty-one years ago)

party!

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:09 (twenty-one years ago)

plus, i'm a lowly adjunct faculty member of the duck hunting department.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:10 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't understand why this would be funny

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Give us your tired, your poor, your idiotic. We'll take em all.

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:11 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.corcoran.com/property/nd/photo/gretsch_lg.jpg

― Darius Rucker Lookalike (deangulberry), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:11 (twenty-one years ago)

seriously, on brian lehrer's show today they had a bankruptcy "expert" (don't wanna know how he got to be one) advising people on how they could still declare before congress and dubya fuck everybody.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:11 (twenty-one years ago)

hahaha DEAN that looks like the GRETSCH BUILDING in Williamsburg! BUSTA RHYMES bought the penthouse!

Scourge of the artists, I tell ya.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't understand why these people would be idiots

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I just found it to be a bit naive. Hence, hilarious!!!!

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't understand why it's naive

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:14 (twenty-one years ago)

going to grad school for "something" is just a bad idea; that's the funny part for me. i mean, sure, law school, business, film, you have definite career options.

it reminds me of when I heard some kid at college saying how he and his 7 friends were going to get an apartment in amsterdam, 3 of them would work at a time and they would live out of a "communal pot" of cash and herb.

sure it will work, kids. go ahead.

― andrew l. r. (allocryptic), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:15 (twenty-one years ago)

teeny, you now hold a Master's in Huguenot Romance Administration.

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:15 (twenty-one years ago)

gabbneb, ARE YOU NAIVE?

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Gabbneb's right. For all we know, the girl is a Rhodes Scholar. But in our world, she's still a tool.

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:20 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, she might be brilliant, but I am prejudiced to begin with when it comes to college students in boulder, colorado.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Rhodes Scholars don't chitter.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:21 (twenty-one years ago)

the one Rhodes scholar I knew (oh wait, maybe he was a Fulbright? if so nevermind) at my school was a fucking tool. Rainbow suspenders, I kid you not.

Fortunately, Drew Daniels and Bill Clinton alone redeem the rest of the Rhodes scholars.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:23 (twenty-one years ago)

He was Mork?

― Leon the Fatboy (Ex Leon), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Kris Kristofferson. Rhodes scholar AND wrote "Me and Bobby McGee."

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:27 (twenty-one years ago)

The best part is when the NYU kids graduate and have to make a living and find out the only place they can afford on their gallery-intern salary is a windowless room in Bushwick (oh but it's on the L line) with a middle-aged chain-smoking computer programmer from the midwest.

― 57 7th (calstars), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:31 (twenty-one years ago)

he wasn't Mork, just a tool from Washington State who was a self-declared "socialist." Also, he had never seen a black person before he came to NY to go to school.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Dude, 57, get with the program. Bushwick is now known as East Williamsburg.

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:36 (twenty-one years ago)

i love how everyone thinks there are like three neighborhoods in all of brooklyn.

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:37 (twenty-one years ago)

wow i need to stay AWAY from this thread

― lemin (lemin), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know. Whenever I talk about all these agencies I have to go to for work I always end up saying " he works for the Dept of Health and Human Whatever" or "I had to go to Citizenship and Immigration Whatever Something". I am very professional like that.

― S!monB!rch (Carey), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:50 (twenty-one years ago)

yes, you do, lemin. you are from boulder and going to NYU -- GET ONE BAJA JACKET!!

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 19:59 (twenty-one years ago)

i think i had a reaction to this type of thinking and concertedly did NOT want to move to new york, to the point of NOT applying to NYU grad school when i probably should have.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:14 (twenty-one years ago)

so uh, the backlash begins here, or something.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:15 (twenty-one years ago)

mandee you are being mean here I think! people who are young and naive and have BIG DREAMS which will go wrong are my people :(

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:15 (twenty-one years ago)

That said, the reason I am leaving London is precisely because I hate what it does to people who move here from other parts in just this spirit and get hurt. Hate the game not the playa, or something.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:17 (twenty-one years ago)

HI DERE

― green uno skip card (ex machina), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:19 (twenty-one years ago)

continuing from Amateurist's backlash:
Fuck New York. New York destroys me. I can't wait to get away from here. (I don't go to NYU though; NSU. I doubt NYU would be much better; if anything, given the experiences of friends who have gone, it would probably be worse.)

― Ian John50n (orion), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:19 (twenty-one years ago)

this thread's dumb. why be condescending to a kid who wants to study and live in new york? you want her to be cynical, make off-the-cuff no-future remarks, and stay where she is?
i applied to grad school with no real idea of what i wanted to study (just really chose politics cos i liked reading political journals). same with my PhD (cos they'd pay me a scholarship to read political journals). now i'm an NYU professor, and i think that the idealism and optimism of a lot of students here is great!

― paulhw (paulhw), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Amateurist I'm giving you the M.S. in Sidetalking.

Carey you get yours in Shabazz

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:23 (twenty-one years ago)

i was sort of kidding about the backlash. at least, looking back on it, i'm not sure exactly why i was so adamant about not moving to new york. well, there were two "good" reasons i guess. one, i wanted to move somewhere i hadn't lived before, and i've both lived and spent a lot of weekends in new york. two, new york is really hard on a grad student, for economic reasons mostly. but a lot of my feeling was just plain old contrariness, and i'm not proud of that.

xpost

i wasn't accepted to a phd program recently, and as a "consolation prize" (although obviously it was not phrased this way) i was offered admittance by the shcool into what is essentially their "master's program in, you know, stuff."

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:24 (twenty-one years ago)

How am I being mean? I have moved to a big city before to get my masters in "stuff," and even came home broke with my tail between my legs - but I didn't chitter about it, at work, in front of people I didn't know.

I realize I am extremely cynical and bitter, and for the most part, i'm almost jealous of college students for their extreme optimism about the future.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

has this come up on this thread?: people who dropped out of grad school/otherwise had a bad experience in grad school giving blanket discouragement to people who have grad school ambitions? because that bothers me and it's come up more than a few times on ilx.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

what is essentially their "master's program in, you know, stuff."

Is this the program that Leeeeee is doing?

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

i applied to grad school with no real idea of what i wanted to study (just really chose politics cos i liked reading political journals). same with my PhD (cos they'd pay me a scholarship to read political journals). now i'm an NYU professor, and i think that the idealism and optimism of a lot of students here is great!

― 57 7th (calstars), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

I think people should go to grad school if they have ambitions and goals that can only be met by tying themselves to the rack and screaming "WHIP ME!" for a couple years. Otherwise there's no point.

― miccio (miccio), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

the thing i see most with nyu students who've moved here from other places to study "stuff" is that they're DUMB AS SHIT. but that's neither here nor there.

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:40 (twenty-one years ago)

paulhw: are you from new zealand?

― phil-two (phil-two), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:41 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah

― paulhw (paulhw), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:41 (twenty-one years ago)

well i don't necessarily think it's a good idea to go to grad school if the extent of your ambition is to study "stuff." although honestly i know a few people who got those "master's program in stuff" degrees and ended up doing ok. personally i waited until i knew pretty much exactly what i wanted to study to apply to grad school. but even in that circumstance there are people who tell me, "oh my god, grad school! turn around! turn around!" as though i don't have any sense of what i'm getting into. which bugs me.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:42 (twenty-one years ago)

i didn't have a bad experience in grad school, per se.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:44 (twenty-one years ago)

oh, i met you at tonic for sammy dee & plexus. in line for the port-o-potties!

― phil-two (phil-two), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:44 (twenty-one years ago)

hey phil-two - didn't realize that was you! cool...what did you think of that gig anyway?

(not exactly meaning to sidetrack the thread, but I know there are people who are ultra-cynical about grad school, often for personal reasons, but mask this in other ways...)

― paulhw (paulhw), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I am not cynical about grad school - my older sister is getting her doctorate and I'm totally jealous of her. Mostly it just comes down to jealously. I wish I had the money (or the smarts), and the determination to pursue what I truly want, but instead I've dug myself into a pit of DESPAIR!!

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:50 (twenty-one years ago)

you can find a way to make it work without much money. it makes it a lot harder, and your options are a lot more limited, but it's possible.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I went to Columbia to study international diplomatic relations, something that was listed on their website.

After they accepted me and I agreed to go there, I was informed that there was no actual program for that at that time in undergrad, and I had to elect something else, so I chose History.

Now, that I am locked in and ready to graduate, there's a fucking undergrad degree for international relations through SIPA.

I will never get a masters' degree, because this makes me so so angry.

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Dude, Mandee, you need to ask a moderator to change the "midwest" in the thread title to "front range!" Don't fall victim to this generalized coastal bullshit version of "midwest!"

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:56 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah but in order to get some sort of funding, you usually have to have pretty good GRE scores, or a good GPA or something, none of which I have.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 20:57 (twenty-one years ago)

mandee: i don't mean to condescend by telling you stuff you already know, so if you already have thought about this, please forgive me. but you can try to get a master's degree from a local school while working a job. if you get really good grades in that, then the possibility of getting into a good phd program and getting some kind of assistantship or fellowship is not so far off.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:00 (twenty-one years ago)

YOU guys are missing the point here which is that bag-ppl are a dying breed. also i never really thought of colorado as midwest before, more like midNOWHERE. lol./

ally u are lucky to study history at columbia i think howard zinn did that and HE IS A STUD>

― historian, Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:01 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't like howard zinn much....

there are lots of good history folks at columbia. although maybe some of them are retired? what about kenneth jackson and eric foner?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:03 (twenty-one years ago)

WHY DONT U LIKE HOWARD ZINN JERK

― seriously, Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:04 (twenty-one years ago)

okay, i'm growling now.

naievety put aside, i can't see how anyone can fault ANYONE for wanting to move to NYC from (at least) boulder, but that's just me.

― lemin (lemin), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I am not anxious to move to NYC, and it's not because I don't love love love NYC. It's because I'm just not there yet. I need some more skills and more work experience before I get that reasonably-well-paying job in New York that would be essential to my enjoyment of it. I don't see the point of being dead broke in Manhattan when you could be living rather comfortably anywhere else. Then you're just depressed because you can't take full advantage of all the amazing and expensive shit going on there. I do not want to live in New York unless I can afford to eat somewhere fabulous once a week. Because I can already do that here.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:07 (twenty-one years ago)

haha! wait, that was me. except my roommate was a middle-aged anti-smoking gay computer programmer from the midwest. and it was a windowless room off the bedford stop.

(paul, i had an okay time. i thought plexus was more fun than sammy dee. it was nice hearing them play upstairs instead of that shitty basement. mark your calendar though: april 6th - magda, matt dear, heartthrob at canal room)

― phil-two (phil-two), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Ken Jackson and Eric Foner both still teach there, as does Mark Mazower now, and Alan Brinkley is going to return to teaching.

This doesn't stop the fact that this was not my degree of choice and they created my degree of choice like two months after I declared!

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:09 (twenty-one years ago)

the only thing i find maddening abt this thread is that sunburned and amst are (i think) both in chicago and that's STILL NOT ENOUGH FOR THEM. chicago is kinda my nyc see.

― journeyman halfdeclined, Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:09 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't have any great hatred directed at howard zinn or anything. i guess he's helped to give a lot of people an alternative perspective on american history that they wouldn't otherwise have, and that's valuable. and it's probably thanks to my reading his books as a preteen that i can now look back and criticize same books.

that said, there's something glib and reductive about his version of american history, as much as the pre-revisionist histories he obviously was reacting against.

and once he came to speak at my school, and was paid quite handsomely for it, and yet he didn't prepare a speech at all, and just rattled on boringly about having been in "the movement" for 30 minutes. i thought that showed a real hubris and it bugged me.

xpost

how is chicago not enough for me? i might be moving to IOWA for chrissakes.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:10 (twenty-one years ago)

lemin, i was totally joking. yeez.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't see the point of being dead broke in Manhattan when you could be living rather comfortably anywhere else

living comfortably in magnificent boredom

― phil-two (phil-two), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:11 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost Chicago is fine. New York is better.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:12 (twenty-one years ago)

see i think it's pretty plain that yr first paragraph >>> in significance than the following two. and i think he's intentionally reductive really.

i thought you were just talking abt moving to nyc soon or something, i dunno i guess not. but don't move to iowa jeez.

― corn, Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Clearly jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! has an inferority complex about not living in New York, and wishes to project this on a hapless, optimistic, young couple, while at the same time makng him or herself feel superior by judging them. Nice.

― shookout (shookout), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:15 (twenty-one years ago)

living comfortably in magnificent boredom

Right. But dude, being broke fucking sucks, and is to be avoided.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:16 (twenty-one years ago)

oh god, i hate it when people get all high and mighty about not judging people. this thread was mostly in jest.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I moved here from the midwest, but I'm not in college and I have no money.

― David Allen (David Allen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:18 (twenty-one years ago)

just be happy wherever you want to live, okay people?

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:19 (twenty-one years ago)

SHAME ON YOU, MANDEE. SHAME.

― miccio (miccio), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:19 (twenty-one years ago)

How is this funny? I don't understand.

― gabb neb (kenan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:20 (twenty-one years ago)

shame on all of us.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:21 (twenty-one years ago)

ny'ers are too pally

― laurence kansas (lawrence kansas), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

THEY WANT TO GET MASTERS' DEGREES IN "SOMETHING" DOES NO ONE ELSE SEE TEH FUNNY? U R ALL EDUCATED PEOPLE, U SHOULD SEE WHY THIS IS AN AMUSING LITTLE VIGNETTE.

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I have multiple-personality issues about NYC and Chicago. On one hand I'm mildly a homebody: I really do appreciate having a nice big apartment and some actual money; I don't need Exciting Stuff to Do every night; most evenings I'm content with some dinner and a few hours at home working on writing, and it's that mood that leads me to miss Chicago. It's that mood where I don't want tumult and a jam-packed social calendar: just good friends and a big sunny living room and biking up Ashland listening to Heavenly. On the other hand: sometimes I do go for the mad socialization and constant shit-to-do -- even if I know I'm never going to get really into it, even if I'm mostly just there as an observer. Sometimes I go for the fact that in Manhattan I can -- scarily -- surround myself with people working on the exact same stuff I am, and genuinely connected into it, and offering that opportunity my way. I have no idea which way this thing will end up shifting; I wouldn't be at all surprised to get a little older and just want a nice big place and an easygoing teaching job in a calm Chicago neighborhood -- or hell, even a little college town. Or maybe that's just the novelist's pre-ordained expectation.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

also -- can i just vent that i POURED MY HEART OUT, admitting JEALOUSLY, and then i get accused of being judgemental, I'm getting pretty steamed up.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:23 (twenty-one years ago)

chicago is the starter city of the midwest. but it's still good.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:25 (twenty-one years ago)

shookout, you get the PhD in STFU.

nabisco you will receive an M.A. in Creative Writing. Oh wait.

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:27 (twenty-one years ago)

My girlfriend keeps telling me she wants to live on a farm someday. I keep telling her she can do that with someone else.

Funny, nabisco thinks of busy social schedules when he thinks of New York, and I think of French food. It's got it all, really.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:30 (twenty-one years ago)

mandee you had no right make grad students and ny'ers defensive about their grad studentry and ny'etry just because you're defensive about your lack of it. come here for your spanking.

― miccio (miccio), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Mandee is a sweetie and is just making an observation.

I can't comment on the rest of the thread.

Go Raiders!

― Senior Executive/CEO (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:31 (twenty-one years ago)

TOMBOT I WANT 1 2

― go raiders!, Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:32 (twenty-one years ago)

see i think it's pretty plain that yr first is greater in significance than the following two. and i think he's intentionally reductive really.

yeah, i think this is fair. i'm tainted i guess by the progression of my thinking re. zinn. i forget his importance sometimes. i do find his interviews and autobiographical stuff ("you can't be neutral on a moving train"--worst metaphor ever!) to be very hard to take sometimes.

xxxxxpost

anyway i think ally has got the point.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Way to turn that one around, Miccio.

So Chicago's a really beautiful balance between (a) having plenty of exciting city stuff going on, and (b) being comfortable and relatively easy to live in; the only extra thing I want about it is for "the kids" to be just a little bit more pretentious and working-on-stuff, in the NYC way. (And I say this thinking more of like bars around Wrigley where there's that weird blandness of 10,000 kids who graduated from area colleges and now have consulting jobs and can occasionally seem a little interchangeable.)

I'll have an MFA, Tombot! The "F" is how you know I didn't actually have to study stuff.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, christ, I suddenly want to punch something.

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)

do it!

― Senior Executive/CEO (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:37 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm trying to think of something funny to say to match the jest level of this thread. it's not working, primarily because i know that in a couple of years i'll be just as useless as broke as the kids who're coming here to study "something" will be. regardless of why i came (and believe me, it wasn't because i was blinded by the fucking city lights or other reasons idiots come), where i'll end up will probably be that shitty apartment off the L train.

― lemin (lemin), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:39 (twenty-one years ago)

i know something who is leaving chicago for new york for the reason that nabisco describes: the seeming (relative) lack of pretentious/working-on-something (hm i'm thinking of "theory of achievement" right now) kids. although i've never found there to be a particular deficit of such kids, if you know where to look. not that i'm looking these days. because i'm a hermit.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:40 (twenty-one years ago)

leaving because other people aren't doing something seems weird. do it yourself!

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:41 (twenty-one years ago)

this is of no help to anyone except me, but i have a very be-happy-where-you-are you-can-find-anything-anywhere (in a metaphysical sense, not a we-have-the-Film-Forum-in-dubuque sense) attitude these days. as long as you have interlibrary loan, the world is your oyster!

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:41 (twenty-one years ago)

we can be roommates, and hang our nyu diplomas on the wall above the roaches nest

(xp)

― phil-two (phil-two), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Ha, lemin: need a roommate? Also, can I share your health insurance?

Ams, I think it's the "know where to look" part -- there are plenty of kids like that in Chicago, and I doubt it's some huge struggle to immerse yourself in with them, but I do feel like with NYC it can be a bit more ... well, instant, maybe. In fact I kind of feel like with every individual industry or pursuit or whatever around here there's kind of a high-school thing going on: whatever it is you're doing, you can fall in very easily. It's fucking irritating, sometimes -- you can't just meet someone in a bar without hearing about how they're writing this thing, or playing in this band, or a plus-size model, or need to call their agent, or GOD.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:44 (twenty-one years ago)

lemin, move to Cleveland! I hope my sobbing won't keep you awake at night.

― laurence kansas (lawrence kansas), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:45 (twenty-one years ago)

dude nabisco hook a brotha up with some plus-size models!

(naw, just kiddin')

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:45 (twenty-one years ago)

hstencil, one of my friends is a plus-size model!! she also has an nyu diploma.

― phil-two (phil-two), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:46 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm not really into models.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:47 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah will you hook me up with a plus sized model? not for romantic interest, or anything. I'm thinking we can go glow bowling or something? it'd be fun.

― David Allen (David Allen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Models have the best coke.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:49 (twenty-one years ago)

(Phil I think I was thinking of yr friend when I typed that. She mentioned it and it was definitely one of those NYC everyone's-doing-something moments. Though now that I think about it the "something" in a lot of cases is just having a more glamorous job than might be had elsewhere; someone who writes for VH1 isn't necessarily "doing" more than someone who files papers at an insurance office.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:51 (twenty-one years ago)

oh and hstence, just own up to it: you're totally thinking "no fatties."

(Im going to be slain now)

― David Allen (David Allen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:51 (twenty-one years ago)

i like girls of all shapes and sizes. i do not discriminate. but i don't think i could date a model.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh yeah, the lemon kind. Scrumptious!

xxxxpost damn

― Babaganoush (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:53 (twenty-one years ago)

(nabisco, when i read your post i was like omg hes totally talking about me, liz, and b3cky from v3rlain3. that asshole! hah)

― phil-two (phil-two), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:53 (twenty-one years ago)

aren't plus size models usually not very fat at all?

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:53 (twenty-one years ago)

hstencil cares not for the fine coke.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't see the point of being dead broke in Manhattan when you could be living rather comfortably anywhere else.

like, uh, the other four boroughs? or long island or new jersey?

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I already live in Brooklyn, except it's called the Near Northwest Side.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:55 (twenty-one years ago)

(No, Phil, it was just the one! I mean, Jesus, the other two are hardly even examples: every single person I know is either in a band or writing a book or has a gallery show he wants me to go to! And it's cool, very cool, just a little overwhelming sometimes. I think I'm developing a novelist temperament, you know.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Does anyone really go to grad school for any reason other than avoiding work a little longer and "studying something"?

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 10 March 2005 21:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:00 (twenty-one years ago)

well im going to go to the store now and get some generic detergent, and then dine on $1 fried pork dumplings, because im ass-broke in manhattan

― phil-two (phil-two), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Though now that I think about it the "something" in a lot of cases is just having a more glamorous job than might be had elsewhere; someone who writes for VH1 isn't necessarily "doing" more than someone who files papers at an insurance office

yeah, but when you have a "glamour" job and all your friends have glamour jobs too, it all cancels itself out: a job's a job's a job, the money is shit, you're only working in entertainment because you're not smart enough to go into engineering or medicine, and everyone around you knows it despite their pretenses. i guess a glamour job is good if you wanna impress your grandma back in wisconsin.

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Does anyone really go to grad school for any reason other than avoiding work a little longer and "studying something"?
-- walter kranz (kranz_walte...) (webmail), March 10th, 2005 9:59 PM. (walterkranz) (link)

where do you think professors come from??

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:03 (twenty-one years ago)

mmm fried dumplings sound awesome!

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, that's what I mean: it makes it seem like people are all "doing" exciting things, but really they just have fancy-sounding jobs.

Follow up from before -- I mean, it's not very practical to think of post-graduate education as some sort of rarefied work-avoidance thing: there are loads and loads of career options for which post-graduate training is pretty essential. You may have noticed that there are like lawyers and doctors and dentists and biologists and computer science engineers and academics in the world, none of whom qualified to do that stuff as undergrads. Even for people in the arts and the humanities, I'm not sure that shot holds much water.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:05 (twenty-one years ago)

when i was writing my thesis, i lived in brooklyn, and loved it (and learned to live almost exlusively off of Goya beans and rice). Now that I'm employed, I live in Manhattan (NYU subsidised housing), but in a lot of ways, i prefer the brook. I can't go for good runs in Manhattan - no prospect park so close...

(x-post) yeah, and like nabisco says, you need both a PhD and half a dozen published pieces to get any job in a university...it's not "worth it" from a $ point of view.

― paulhw (paulhw), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:06 (twenty-one years ago)

if you want to be an "arts administrator" of some sort, they usually want to see an MA/MFA on your resume.

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:07 (twenty-one years ago)

i just want to be voice actress. spencer chow to thread.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:08 (twenty-one years ago)

i had goya beans with my dinner last night!

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Spencer played me his voice-acting background music tape. In his car! While driving through Santa Monica!

― Milo Smiley (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:10 (twenty-one years ago)

ALSO ACCOUNTANTS.

xxxxpost

― its true, Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Well and geez, post-grad education isn't just important for being an academic: think of the sciences, people! As far as rewarding career paths go, I'd have no complaints against, say, doing years and years of (well-funded) biomedical research and then picking up a starting salary up in the $80K range to continue it for a private entity. Any kind of engineering, architecture, mathematics; any kind of science, pure or applied; these aren't exactly career paths to sneer at, for god's sake.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:10 (twenty-one years ago)

to interject in the walter/nabisco dialogue about the worth of grad school:

i mean, it's true that there are two trends, possibly unfortunate:

(a) the increasing professionalization or psuedo-professionalization of fields that probably don't NEED to be professionalized...and where something is definitely lost in the process. so certain metiers that once had more of an apprentice system now require graduate training. which creates a different sort of class situation (as in, economic class) in those metiers as before, though not necessarily better or worse.

(b) the increasingly availability at large universities of catchall master's programs (apparently as a kind of siphon for phd program almost-rans) that while possibly worthwhile for some also serve as a kind of cashcow for said universities, and increase the (i think deleterious) sense that you "need" to go to grad school to get any kind of decent job, even one that nominally doesn't require any kind of specific professional training. that's pretty much why i look askance (sp??) at these programs, not because i'm judging the people in them.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:11 (twenty-one years ago)

i am sort of anxious to get out of manhattan. maybe it's because i need to have some sort of mental separation between where i live and where i go to school/work. or maybe it's because manhattan is fucking expensive.

― lemin (lemin), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:12 (twenty-one years ago)

i didn't finish that post.

basically i was saying that there are two possibly worrisome trends regarding postgraduate education. however as nabisco has pointed out more clearly than myself, there are plenty of totally essential reasons to attend a graduate program. the aforementioned doctors, lawyers, engineers, professors, accountants, businessmen, diplomats, etc. etc. etc.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, catchall humanities programs, yeah: I don't think we'll quite know the value of these things for a few years still, and they very much do appeal to people who feel a need to further their education but just want to continue along the generalized liberal-arts fields they were skirting before. (They're starting to do PhDs in creative writing now, even, but I think that's just a fellowship for you and free teaching for them.)

But let's be honest about the bulk of post-graduate education and the careers it links to: law, medicine, public administration, psychology or psychiatry, economics, on and on and on!

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:14 (twenty-one years ago)

i have a question perhaps for another thread:

does the increased professionalization of a field lead to greater class diversity (and opportunity) in that field, or lesser? i guess this would have to be evaluated on a case by case basis (i.e. what was the field like before).

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Bag people at co-ops are not so unusual, although I always tell them I can do it myself cause otherwise I feel like I'm exploiting them.

― Dan I., Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Ha ha, wow I was just kidding there. But I really don't see anything wrong with the impulse to stay in school as long as possible. I sort of wish I could have done it. I do think that the practical side of it is probably a bit overstated though. Apart from Med school and Law school most other advanced degrees seem to be a huge gamble. How many jobs are there really for academics? Don't a large percentage of people with advanced degrees end up doing work that doesn't require the degree and even sometimes hiding it so as not to seem "overqualified?" Something like an engineering degree seems practical but as far as I know the economic reality in the US shows otherwise.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:20 (twenty-one years ago)

And to be honest I have much more respect for someone who just wants to go to graduate school to "study something" than someone who wants to be an accountant, businessman or diplomat.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't see the difference between the two people listed, apart from the fact that one knows what he wants to study and one hasn't decided yet.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:26 (twenty-one years ago)

there's nothign wrong w/ that dan, i'm sure they appreciate it! however IF you see a small group of white men wearing suits strolling around trying to look interested knowledgable and observant guided by an attractive woman in her early 30s or anything like that be SURE to be like "THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BAGGING MY GROCERIES" and then tell them how much you APPRECIATE IT AND ITS THE ONLY REASON I SHOP HERE!

i don't know if those exec tours happen at supermarkets (ok i doubt it) but it did at this factory i was at. they made trash bags.

what is a co-op?

― hm?, Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:26 (twenty-one years ago)

i should note that whole f00ds is NOT a co-op. its a chain.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:29 (twenty-one years ago)

(More precisely, Walter, I guess I'm kinda irritated by your offering your "respect" to people you assume are studying purely out of interest, instead of those evidently-horrible people who want to qualify themselves to do a job they're interested in doing. There's some weird combination of class bias and romanticism-rockism in there. I respect all hell out of someone who's interested in working in a given field and studies to make that possible and then does it; what's not to respect?)

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Sorry, I mean no offense to the accountants and businessmen of the world. Rather than saying "respect" I should have simply said that I would rather be friends with the people who end up with the useless impractical degrees. Possibly because I only know those types of people anyway. Maybe that is some kind of romantic class bias on my part, but the main thrust of this thread has been biased in the opposite direction: respect for people who study "useful" things like accounting and ridicule for people who just want to study something.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:41 (twenty-one years ago)

a keen interest in "something"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Oops, that was still unclear. In my previous post I obviously made the (possibly incorrect) assumption that the person who just wants to "study something" is going to end up with a degree in music, creative writing or something else "impractical" since if they only know they want to "study something" they obviously don't have the drive to end up in law school.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:44 (twenty-one years ago)

And obviously there I wound up belittling the fields I supposedly "respect" by implying that they don't require the same level of drive. Oh well, I think I should shut up and go study something.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:46 (twenty-one years ago)

No one who goes to law/business/public administration/public affairs/journalism/medical school does not go to said school without the full intention that they will become a lawyer/business person/public servant/politician/journalist/medical doctor, respectively. Also, such educations are completely useless for any other purpose.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:52 (twenty-one years ago)

er, "goes to" for "does not go to"

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Ha, don't worry about it, Walter. I just wanted to insert that I don't really believe anymore in these assumptions that studying arts or humanities is a fun self-directed endeavor and studying "practical" applicable things is drudge work for people who just want money and security. In the end I know people studying practical/lucrative things who seem to have twice the passion for it that I have for creative writing. And weirdly enough I think I study creative writing because it actually is one of the more "practical" things I can do -- or at least it fits best with the skills and experience I have. So in the end I think everyone gravitates toward whatever exerts some genuine pull on them, whether it revolves around their loving the topic itself (and it's not so unimaginable that someone might love law or biochemistry or something!) or whether it's because the training will qualify them for a position they think they'll love.

Gabbneb I kind of disagree with you. People with law degrees, for instance, wind up doing about a billion different things -- look at government and administration all over the map. There's a decent amount of sway to a lot of those other examples, too -- how many MDs do you think the pharmaceutical industry employs?

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:56 (twenty-one years ago)

New York is basically a big overpriced post-undergrad dorm-like purgatory where people stay in their pajamas until 2pm, study in the hallways, use dirty communal bathrooms/kitchens, eat at the cafeteria, go to parties all night and occasionally go streaking. And it smells like urine and trash all summer because there are no alleys.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Thursday, 10 March 2005 22:59 (twenty-one years ago)

(i guess i was too little the sarcastic!)

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:00 (twenty-one years ago)

ihttp://www.thewho.info/images/81TLTH-UK-JAE.jpg

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:03 (twenty-one years ago)

It's weird how people get touchy about baggers at supermarkets but no one ever bags their own stuff at Best Buy or a record store or etc.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:10 (twenty-one years ago)

go raiders, step up and receive your MS in Inkjet-Sheffield Relations.

walter, you have earned an MFA in Acrylic Titties.

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:16 (twenty-one years ago)

New York is basically a big overpriced post-undergrad dorm-like purgatory

no, that's just williamsburg.

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:20 (twenty-one years ago)

why bag your own groceries?! that's crazy talk

― Darius Rucker Lookalike (deangulberry), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:25 (twenty-one years ago)

MFA in Acrylic Titties.

Allright, an MFAT! At least it's "something."

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:33 (twenty-one years ago)

When I came to America I was BLOWN AWAY that people bagged stuff for you, I felt I should try and stop them or something.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:48 (twenty-one years ago)

whenever I try to help the bagger bag the groceries they act like I am trying to hit on them!!!

okay, maybe not.

but when I lived in engerlund everyone had to bag their own groceries. it was kinda fun/stressful!

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 10 March 2005 23:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Mandee get on AIM! I am kinda drunk.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Friday, 11 March 2005 00:01 (twenty-one years ago)

just a sec, i gotta wait for my nosey co-worker to leave! plus i dunno if I can use AIM at work. we'll see.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Friday, 11 March 2005 00:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah okay I was confused cause around here co-ops are the only places where people bag yr groceries for you, and there's a co-op in duluth called Wh0le foods.

― Dan I., Friday, 11 March 2005 00:02 (twenty-one years ago)

And also cause it's a lot easier imagining the kind of people that work at co-ops talking about grad school in NYC than it is people who work in regular supermarkets!

― Dan I., Friday, 11 March 2005 00:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Supermarket bagger is the classic American make-work job. Double bagging keeps the bag industry in business, as well.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Friday, 11 March 2005 00:20 (twenty-one years ago)

When Bush says he's creating jobs, these are the jobs he's talking about.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Friday, 11 March 2005 00:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I have no problems with anxious Midwestern bag checkers wanting to move to NYC for grad school or a job or just excitement (though I agree that Chicago is plenty exciting). If you have the money and the means, you only live once, why not? But....the thing that gets me about certain New Yorkers is that they get into this bubble world where nothing exists outside of their world, and some people get so snobbish about it. Especially annoying is the people who move there from smaller and/or shittier places than Philadelphia (my hometown) and then have the nerve to look down their nose at me and my friends and my life. I have friends who move there and now I just learn to think of it as Vietnam. I might not ever hear from them again, or they will come back totally changed, frequently for the worst.

And of course, this is no slight towards the nice New Yorkers on the list.

― Sara Sherr, Friday, 11 March 2005 01:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Something like an engineering degree seems practical but as far as I know the economic reality in the US shows otherwise.
-- walter kranz (kranz_walte...), March 10th, 2005.

The engineering firm I work for was just in a mad dash to hire people, actually.

― David Allen (David Allen), Friday, 11 March 2005 01:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I went to NYU as an undergrad. Granted I am from the northeast (Providence), so I was somewhat prepared for the cultural climate of the city, but it was still a huge transition.

I definitely majored in "stuff" -- I have an interdisciplinary B.A. in Theatre & Politics. I don't regret going to NYU, but things being as they are, I was in no position to stay in NYC once I graduated.

If I ever go back to New York, it has to be with money.

― andrew l. r. (allocryptic), Friday, 11 March 2005 05:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I have friends who move there and now I just learn to think of it as Vietnam. I might not ever hear from them again, or they will come back totally changed

hahaha!

― phil-two (phil-two), Friday, 11 March 2005 05:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, that's brilliant.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Friday, 11 March 2005 05:43 (twenty-one years ago)

In some ways, though, moving to Chicago (which is not New York, I realize) has helped me sort out what I did and did not like about living in Texas. I hated the place with rancid passion when I left, but now I relize that a lot of that was situational, and there are some things I miss.

Not a whole lot of things, though. ;)

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Friday, 11 March 2005 05:44 (twenty-one years ago)

really the only things i miss about chicago, after moving to nyc, is the food (hot dogs, pizza, wet italian beef, old country buffet, pizza puffs, mongolian beef, crab rangoon). also being able to watch bulls games every night.

― phil-two (phil-two), Friday, 11 March 2005 05:49 (twenty-one years ago)

"When I came to America I was BLOWN AWAY that people bagged stuff for you, I felt I should try and stop them or something."

THEY DONT. actually i guess that's not true, at our local IGA (indie grocer assoc.) i THINK they still bag stuff for you AND if yr old and infirm they CARRY IT OUT TO YR CAR. the IGA in the larger nearby town did all this as well, in addition THEY UNLOADED YOUR CARTS FOR YOU IMAGINE. AND. they took care of them WHEN you where DONE. so all you did was SHOP. that store CLOSED DOWN. the only grocery store in that town now is a large supermarket that offers none of these jobs/services. getit?

i tried to be a bagboy while rrreading white noise.

― lindel carton, Friday, 11 March 2005 14:46 (twenty-one years ago)

phil, if you can bum a ride from someone, there's an old country buffet (aka "hometown buffet" -- same company tho) in staten island!

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:44 (twenty-one years ago)

didn't they have some kind of "we don't hire gays" policy at some point, and get sued (a zillion times) for it?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:47 (twenty-one years ago)

"When I came to America I was BLOWN AWAY that people bagged stuff for you, I felt I should try and stop them or something."
THEY DONT. actually i guess that's not true, at our local IGA (indie grocer assoc.) i THINK they still bag stuff for you AND if yr old and infirm they CARRY IT OUT TO YR CAR. the IGA in the larger nearby town did all this as well, in addition THEY UNLOADED YOUR CARTS FOR YOU IMAGINE. AND. they took care of them WHEN you where DONE. so all you did was SHOP. that store CLOSED DOWN. the only grocery store in that town now is a large supermarket that offers none of these jobs/services. getit?
i tried to be a bagboy while rrreading white noise.

-- lindel carton (lcarton4...), March 11th, 2005.

IGA? Where do you live?

(I thought they were only around me, back in mich)

― David Allen (David Allen), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:49 (twenty-one years ago)

didn't they have some kind of "we don't hire gays" policy at some point, and get sued (a zillion times) for it?

i thot that was denny's.

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:52 (twenty-one years ago)

no, i would swear it was old country buffet as well.

or maybe "cracker barrell" or something like that?

what do i know, i'm from chicago.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:52 (twenty-one years ago)

(where we haven't yet learned how to spell "barrel.")

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:52 (twenty-one years ago)

barrell williams

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:54 (twenty-one years ago)

"Black customers in 16 states also said they were subjected to racial slurs and served food taken from the trash, while Cracker Barrel management ignored or condoned such actions. The announcement comes four months after the company settled a Justice Department lawsuit accusing Cracker Barrel of similar discrimination claims at dozens of restaurants, mainly in the South.

That settlement found that Black customers at many of the country store-themed restaurants were seated in areas segregated from white patrons frequently received inferior service and often were made to wait longer for tables. Blacks who complained about poor service also were treated less favorably than whites. Cracker Barrel operates 505 restaurants in 41 states."

― andrew l. r. (allocryptic), Friday, 11 March 2005 16:00 (twenty-one years ago)

david i live in IL but i've seen an IGA in maine so i imagine they're pretty widespread.

― same guy, Friday, 11 March 2005 16:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Results 1 - 10 of about 445 for "old country buffet" discrimination.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 11 March 2005 16:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Results 1 - 10 of about 6,340 for "cracker barrel" discrimination.

― hmm, Friday, 11 March 2005 16:12 (twenty-one years ago)

we have a winnah

― andrew l. r. (allocryptic), Friday, 11 March 2005 16:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Your search - discriminationalist - did not match any documents.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 11 March 2005 16:13 (twenty-one years ago)

ya dudes i live in fucking worcester massachusetts...i have a high school diploma and a series 7 license. GET ONE COMPLAINT.

― Chris 'The Nuts' V (Chris V), Friday, 11 March 2005 16:15 (twenty-one years ago)

ooh look at mr big shot with his series 7 license! you go girl! ;-)

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 11 March 2005 16:26 (twenty-one years ago)

BAH!

― Chris 'The Nuts' V (Chris V), Friday, 11 March 2005 16:27 (twenty-one years ago)

They have IGAs in Australia!

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Friday, 11 March 2005 19:40 (twenty-one years ago)

If you don't go out a lot, is New York City/Manhattan very expensive? My impression is that rent is higher than in Los Angeles.

― youn, Friday, 11 March 2005 23:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't imagine rent being higher in Los Angeles than Manhattan.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Saturday, 12 March 2005 00:00 (twenty-one years ago)

If you're willing to put up with a horrible nasty studio apartment with the shower in the hall and less than 140 sq. feet, that's a 15-minute walk from the subway, you might get away with paying $600 a month. If it's in Queens, or near the projects in Brooklyn. I'm considering this very option now.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Saturday, 12 March 2005 00:28 (twenty-one years ago)

On that note, the Times article on finding an apt. under 1200:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/realestate/13cover.html

― Mary (Mary), Saturday, 12 March 2005 01:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Ways to live cheaply/cheaper in Manhattan South of Harlem
1) Find a rent-controlled apt (i.e. know someone or win the lottery)
2) Student housing
3) Have at least two roommates
4) Be an au pair

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Saturday, 12 March 2005 01:11 (twenty-one years ago)

hey mandee why were you shopping at whole foods anyway? isn't that the competition?

― hstencil (hstencil), Saturday, 12 March 2005 03:07 (twenty-one years ago)

This is why I just visit NYC, I guess.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 12 March 2005 03:27 (twenty-one years ago)

(shhhhhhh: NJ is cheaper!)

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 12 March 2005 04:06 (twenty-one years ago)

whole foods is a pretty good fucking chain. i've got more friends working at the co-op, but hey.

― lemin (lemin), Saturday, 12 March 2005 04:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Is it totally laughable to do an MA and possibly more in 'stuff' if what you might maybe want to do with your life is teach 'stuff' to undergrads?

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Saturday, 12 March 2005 05:46 (twenty-one years ago)

grad school is the LAST fucking thing i want to talk abt right now.

but anyway SIDETALKIN holy shit!! i started a thread on that a million years ago! one of M@tt H@lgeson's underlings (and a school friend of mine) was one of the first dudes pictured on that site.

― f--gg (gcannon), Saturday, 12 March 2005 09:12 (twenty-one years ago)

incidendtally, there was an article in the chronicle of higher ed in 02 about (read: destroying) these vague humanities MAs. they are all unfunded, ie no fellowships let alone TAships. i'm all for vague humanities shit, but really these are a total crime, if there is not even the possibility of you getting funding when you are in graduate education, you are being ripped the fuck off.

the quotes were nuts, all the kids were like "omg this is gr8 i'm totally in the middle of everything here" and the profs were like "except they're really totally not, those kids = dipshits, get into one real program plz" and all the admins were like "$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$" and the chronicle was like "tsk tsk"

― f--gg (gcannon), Saturday, 12 March 2005 09:27 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't like this truism that you can live hard in manhattan but live like a princess somewhere else, all else being equal. yes its a little easier to find street parking out here but christ, it's not like you change your manhattandollars in for lira.

― f--gg (gcannon), Saturday, 12 March 2005 09:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I was once an anxious midwestern college student who moved to NYC. In the ahem 24 years since then...
1. housing costs have skyrocketed
2. huge well-stocked grocery stores have proliferated

Connection or coincidence? You decide.

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Saturday, 12 March 2005 11:33 (twenty-one years ago)

there was an article in the chronicle of higher ed in 02 about (read: destroying) these vague humanities MAs.

geoff, do you have a cite for this article? I'd really like to read it!

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Saturday, 12 March 2005 15:33 (twenty-one years ago)

whole foods roxors. the one in the time warner center = lunch options galore!

― lychee mello (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 12 March 2005 16:07 (twenty-one years ago)

wf is fine but i don't want mandee to get fired.

― hstencil (hstencil), Saturday, 12 March 2005 18:50 (twenty-one years ago)

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anxious midwestern college students who can't wait to move to nyc - c/d?!!