travlingcollegegraduate.wordpress.com
I figured it’s a little more applicable now that I’ve graduated and am no longer Mom’s “traveling college student” for her agency anymore. It’ll be much of the same thing as it’s been here, but more travel related stuff as I work and travel and hopefully my photography integrated in, too!
I’ve decided that each time I go somewhere new, I’m going to blog about it. It seems like an effective use of my web space, right?
Well, I’m in New Jersey! Yay! That makes something like 27 or 28 states that I have been to! Hooray! No, I’m not really at the Jersey Shore, and no I haven’t seen the pregnant Snooki or the Situation…which is a good thing. I’ probably throw a tomato at both of them. I also get to go to a New Jersey Devils game Sunday night at their arena in Newark, meaning I will have been to 3 of the 30 NHL arenas. That’s two bucket list items that I am slowly chipping away at.
I’ve been in training all week for my new job, so I really don’t have much to say about New Jersey, except that all of the people I have met are EXTREMELY nice…and I keep catching a bit of a different accent slipping out when I talk (or should I say taolk?) to any of the locals. Damn code switching! :p
I’m going in to New York City this weekend. Staying in Times Square. Seeing Alan Rickman on Broadway–from the THIRD ROW. Also going to try to stop into actress Pauley Perette’s (aka Abby on NCIS) bakery…which, judging by the Google map, is somewhere in the vicinty of the hotel and theatre. I’m also going to see my aunt in Brooklyn, and be thetypical tourist. I’ll have a full report of that and the Devils/Flyers game at some point Sunday or Monday night.
Two months and a week ago, I graduated. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have a place of my own. I didn’t know what I was doing.
Then, in January, insurance totaled my car as a result of damage from running over a dead deer. They handed me a check and I was supposed to go buy a new car. Again, I didn’t know what I was doing, and I was stuck at Kroger with a paycheck that made me wonder how I was going to afford a car payment and still move out of my parents house at some point this year. But despite the sheer terror I felt about making my first adult decision with no real help from my parents and the fear of not being able to move out soon, I found myself with a new car. The same week I got the car I found out that I got the job I had been interviewing for. Funny how things work out like that.
Then today, my mom and I decided to start looking at some of the apartments that we had been looking at online. The second apartment we visited clicked, and I knew that’s where I wanted to be. We walked in to tour a one bedroom and something just felt like home, even though the place was empty.
So sometime this summer, between June 1 and August 1, I will be moving out of my parents house…for good. I’ve “moved out” every year since high school graduation…but moving back to school is completely different. There’s still the promise of “going home” when the school year is through. This is different. When I go home, I’ll be going home to my own place. My parents won’t be there cooking dinner. Dad won’t be sitting in the living room playing Alice. Pandora and Purrsephone won’t be tearing around the house after each other.
It’s a little frightening how quickly everything has fallen into place. I’m not sure I’ll ever be 100% ready for it, but is anyone ever ready for that kind of change? The way I see it, life changes like these are sink or swim…and I have every intention of swimming.
Back at the beginning of the year, I made a list of the things that I wanted to accomplish this year.
For as long as I can remember, I had a certain vision in mind for what my life would be after I graduated from college. Degree. Job. Boyfriend/long term relationship/whatever. Moving out of my parents house right after graduation. Etc.
I graduated on December 17th. Degree. No job. No relationship. Moving back in with my parents. Life was NOTHING like I thought it would be, and it still isn’t. Let me recap.
Back in October I ran over what I assume was an already dead deer. Had a dealership in BG look at it when I did my tire rotation and they said it was fine. A few weeks later, my car starts making a noise that I know wasn’t there before, but since they had said everything was fine, I assume it’s something different or a one time deal. But the noise started to get worse. Finally, after graduation and Christmas, I take it to a Subaru dealership–without mentioning anything about the deer–and they call with a laundry list of things that need to be fixed because it “looks like you may have hit a deer at some point.” So then I call the insurance and have to take my car to a pre-approved collision center. I do that, I get the estimate, I take the car back to them last week. When they put it up on the rack, they find more things that are damaged, which upped the estimate, which means they had to send it back to my insurance to look at. Then I get the call this morning…since the cost to repair the car would be 75% of the base value, they are required by law to total the car.
So, since Dad works for Nissan, he starts running numbers and looking at models that I may want to consider. I get home from my job interview, we eat, then we go to the dealership to test drive a car I want. Little did I know that I would be making one of the biggest decisions of my life tonight. And I had to do it on my own. Dad was there for moral support, but I had to say yes or no to the sales person all on my own.
I was terrified. Sick to my stomach. Yeah, I can make a decent sized down payment on the car, but still. The idea of a car payment AND a student loan payment terrified me, especially if I’m still at Kroger (hopefully I won’t be, but still). I could do it if I lived at home, rent free, with my parents, using any Kroger pay check I could to go towards the car payment, the student loan payment, and then the rest in savings for when insurance payments come around (conveniently at the end of February right now…right after a new car). But the LAST place I wanted to be as a college graduate was living my parents, even though I love them dearly. But I know that I can handle it if I have to.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure when I pick up the new car on Friday, I’ll be like a kid on Christmas, after the shock of “holy crap I just bought a car” wears off. I just honestly can say that this is NOT what I was expecting to have to face in my first couple of months in the real world. It’s the first honest to goodness big girl decision that I have had to make in my post college life…and as Dad put it, the next couple will be buying a house, getting married, having kids, etc…one thing at a time, Daddy dearest. One thing at a time.
Unless you live under a rock, chances are you know at least something about S.O.P.A (Stop Online Piracy Act) and P.I.P.A (Protect IP Act).
Now, I can understand why the government would want to stop online piracy, and I can understand why some Hollywood and music executives or whatnot would support this bill. What I DON’T understand is how the men and women in suits in DC think that this is even remotely close to being constitutional on any level. Say I upload a video to YouTube that uses a popular song as it’s soundtrack, a song that I paid for. That video could get flagged, censored, and removed because of the use of the song. What to know what the post-SOPA internet would look like? Click here. Yes, online piracy is an issue and should be addressed, but there has GOT to be a better way to do it without infringing on our first amendment rights.
All 3 of the people that represent me in DC support this legislation, and it makes me absolutely sick. I don’t know a SINGLE person that actually supports this, and the fact that so many men and women in suits STILL insist on passing in sickens me. What frustrates me the most is what my representative, Marsha Blackburn, has said about today’s internet protests: ”It’s shameful that the critics of this legislation have resorted to these sort of gimmicks that do nothing to help move this process forward.”
Uhm. Excuse me? What part of “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” did you miss in you basic high school government class? And do you NOT see the point behind our peaceful protests? We don’t WANT this process to move forward! And as a member of the House of Representatives, she should be taking the time to LISTEN to what people have to say about this and do what the majority of her constituents want, not just the handful of potential supporters that work on Music Row think and want.
Here’s another thing. Both TN Senators and Blackburn are Republican. Republicans typically claim that they want less government intrusion. Hello? If that’s the platform you run on, STICK TO IT. Because if that’s what Republicans really think or want, then there should NOT be this many (R)s in the support column for SOPA and PIPA. I’m sorry, but at the rate these guys are going, I’m writing in Batman/Bruce Wayne when election time comes in November, just to make it clear that I’m pissed and have no intentions of supporting them.
SOPA and PIPA are both up to be voted on next week. Between now and then, if you don’t agree with the legislation, do something. Call your Senators and your Representative. Write a letter…actually, this is the one instance I recommend sending them an email instead. It’ll get there faster–a letter might not get there on time. But make your voice heard. Make them do their jobs. Make them remember that Lincoln said that a government of the people, for the people, by the people shall not perish from the earth.
And I’ll be the first to say it…if SOPA and PIPA still pass next week, even after the events of today, I will have lost any and all faith in the US representative form of government. I’m really beginning to understand why Thomas Jefferson said that “every generation needs a new revolution.”
2011 in review
2012 resolutions
Earlier today I overheard someone dissing on Obama. Before you freak out and think that I’m some crazy liberal jumping to Obama’s defense, I’m not. This is just something that I was thinking about.
I completely understand that people have differing opinions and that not everyone agrees with everything that President Obama does. But the things that I heard these people saying were uncalled for. I’m not saying everyone has to LIKE the President or the things that he does or stands for, but the POSITION should be respected. He is the leader of our country, our commander in chief, the man that represents our country to the rest of the world. Even if we don’t necessarily like him, shouldn’t we respect him anyway?
My name is Becca Schaefer, and I am not ashamed to say that I am Christian when it comes to my beliefs. I am also not afraid to say that I FIRMLY believe that God loves EVERYONE.
With that being said, Rick Perry’s new commercial makes me sick. To say that I am APPALLED is an understatement. For those that haven’t seen it…Watch it here.
How.on.EARTH. can you say that someone, openly gay or not, wanting to serve in our military is a sign of something being “wrong” with our country?! How DARE you.
This issue doesn’t come down to being a religious argument, because it is NOT about religion. It’s about basic human rights. Consider the following statement: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Sound familiar? It better. Even our Declaration of Independence, the document that MADE our country, says we have certain unalienable rights: life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness. What’s so wrong with someone loving someone and wanting to spend the rest of their life with that someone? Who CARES if they happen to be gay? WHY DOES IT MATTER? It’s no one’s business but their own. Don’t like it? Fine. Leave them alone and continue about your business.
I just…UGH. I’m so pissed right now that I can’t even formulate a proper argument against this commercial. But I will step off of my sometimes liberal leaning soapbox and leave you with these words from Hillary Clinton:
“It is violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave. It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished. It is a violation of human rights when lesbian or transgendered women are subjected to so-called corrective rape, or forcibly subjected to hormone treatments, or when people are murdered after public calls for violence toward gays, or when they are forced to flee their nations and seek asylum in other lands to save their lives. And it is a violation of human rights when life-saving care is withheld from people because they are gay, or equal access to justice is denied to people because they are gay, or public spaces are out of bounds to people because they are gay. No matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we are, we are all equally entitled to our human rights and dignity.”
A few days ago I posted this video. What’s going on
If you read in the comments, people are saying that Jonah faked this video, that he’s lying about his situation, and leaving hateful comments. Whether or not these comments have any truth, I don’t know. But why does it matter? The fact of the matter is that there are NUMEROUS kids out there who feel the same way Jonah does in this video. The issue is still there, whether these people leaving these crappy comments want to believe it or not.
Today, I found this video. A response THIS is what we should be saying and showing people going through the same things Jonah is going through. THIS is what we should be doing, along with stepping up and saying something if we witness bullying. Those of us who wont tolerate the bullies need to stand up and let the victims know that we’re on their side, that they do have a million reasons to be here, and that there are people they can reach out to when they need them.
