05.31.08

How many Earths did you get?

Posted in Environment, Uncategorized tagged , , at 8:46 pm by kyrias

As a result of tooling around online and reading about greener ways of living — I looked up the website for Consumer Consequences: the interactive website that tells you how many Earths would be needed if everyone lived like you do.

Frankly, I think it’s a useful thing to take a look at, but I don’t put that much store by it.

For the record, I plugged in some numbers based on my predicted living methods when I go to Boston, upon which it told me that we would need 3.1 Earths if everyone lived like I did. If I used the numbers for when I’m living at college, it would be 2.7.

It’s useful, yes, but only so much as it reminds me to live more lightly on the Earth and doesn’t plunge me into depression.

I think, the simple fact is that the Earth has way too many people. I’m not saying: “Oh hey, it’s all hopeless and we’re never going to get the result of 1 Earth unless we all start living on communes and farming our own food — so let’s all just screw it and do whatever we want.”

But, at 6.6 billion people on this planet — really, what can we do to make it so the results get down to 1 Earth? I got down to 1.1 Earths by almost never leaving the house, walking when I did, and eating all vegetarian. At that point, I said: “Fuck it, this is ridiculous.”

I’m willing to try and do my best, but I draw the line at where life becomes not-fun. Although I try to eat vegetarian most of the time, I like my bacon once in a while. I also like steak once every so often. The need for commuting isn’t going to go away, and neither am I going to sit at home all night after work and twiddle my thumbs because buying books involves cutting down the Amazon and going out to the movies consumes too much energy.

Also, if you really think about it — having kids is really bad for the environment. Throw-away Pampers, anyone? And you’re essentially bringing someone else into the world to help consume it, and what’s even worse is that you might raise a kid who is a veracious carnivore, who hates recycling, and was born to shop.

What then?

In the end, sure there’s some entitlement going on — but I’m not going to make my life a study in asceticism just because there’s 1.3 billion people in China alone and India close behind.

Not that I’m bashing those two countries — they have so many problems regarding population and they know it. Neither am I saying: “ZOMG, white man’s burden!”.

But the question isn’t always as clear cut as edifying yourself.

05.30.08

Oh joy - wedding bells

Posted in Money tagged , , , , at 12:30 am by kyrias

I recently found out that I was invited to two weddings in the month of June.

CRIKEY that’s gonna be a TON of money.

I say recently, because one of the brides didn’t bother telling me until about a week or so ago that she was getting married on June 7th and I plumb forgot that the other was so close.

I read on Theworldofwealth that even simple weddings can be surprisingly expensive — but what I really am going bonkers over right now is how expensive it is to go to them.

For the first wedding, I’m going to fly in since Greyhound didn’t turn up to be that much cheaper than Air-Tran. Bear isn’t going to go because he can’t afford to — and really, he’s not fantastic friends with her anyways. Cue the not telling us until really, really recently. To be honest, I’m friends enough to want to go, but on the other hand she and I haven’t really kept in contact at all since she left college.

Flying in alone costs 260 dollars, not even including the price of the trip to and from the airports if our friends don’t pick us up. Not including hotel stays or even food. 260 dollars may not sound like a lot — but when you’re on a $5 a day food budget — it bloody damn IS a lot.

For the second wedding, we’re actually not sure if we’re going or not. We’re positive that we won’t be able to either take a Grayhound or fly in — so we’re hoping on hitching a ride with a friend. That would make it just the cost of gas. Except that she’s heading in early, so we’d be missing more days of work (Bear would be taking a whopping FIVE days off and we don’t even know if McD’s will let him), paying for more nights in a hotel at $99 a night, food costs, and there was the wedding gift. If McD’s refuses to let him go or is likely to cut his hours because of this, then he’s not going.

I honestly don’t know what possesses people about wedding registries so that they ask for $80 dollar kettles for boiling water in. But that’s another article entirely.

On top of all the costs that are flat out, there’s also the fact that Bear will be missing almost a full week of work and I will be too.

Not to sound like a total Scrooge. I want to go. But I really don’t feel like we can afford it at this point.

The only shining point right now is that none of our other friends even has a significant other.

05.29.08

Blogs and when they intersect with Real Life (TM)

Posted in Uncategorized at 1:04 am by kyrias

I just got back from Tiredbuthappy and she brings up some ideas that I’ve been tossing around for a while.

Right now I’m starting over fresh with this blog with no one who knows me reading it, etc. To a larger extent, I created a site which is hosted by something I’m paying for because this way I can back up my own archives in case Wordpress ever fails me horribly. Also, I wanted a site where I wouldn’t ever run the risk of being shut down because of having mature content or whatnot when I didn’t specify.

But also, the blog that I was posting to is now read by certain RL friends of mine.

That’s fine. I essentially posted a link on my old LJ telling them of its existence.

However, I wanted a place where I could talk about stuff and not worry about offending someone or having my job on the line.

If I had depression or OCD or bipolar or anorexia or even just any old personal crisis — then I wouldn’t want my boss or coworkers reading my personal blog. I wouldn’t want them reading it either in case I decided I really wanted to vent about how my boss was ruining my life with her OCD demands while not paying me nearly enough…etc.

Sometimes I don’t want to address something with that person in RL. It’s not being passive aggressive; it’s just that sometimes I acknowledge that there are certain things about certain people that bug the HECK out of me, but they’re not going to change and we all know that and hence talking to them isn’t productive at all. So why do it?

I guess this is why people keep separate blogs. I feel slightly twitchy about doing this, because to a certain extent, if I’m blogging here every day, my other blog is going to suffer because I just don’t have that much stuff to say sometimes. Also, it feels like a kind of betrayal to some extent. “Hi, here I was and now I’m gone because you found me!”

In the end, though, it needed to be done. I wanted something that I could blog on and be able to show people IRL: “Here, this is my writing.” without there being huge amounts of drama.

We’ll see how it all pans out.

05.28.08

Too many bank accounts?

Posted in Money tagged , , at 3:54 pm by kyrias

I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and wondering how useful it is to have multiple bank accounts. Or, to be clearer, how useful it is to have more than — say, five bank accounts.

Right now, I have:

  • First Merit - local bank account I opened because of ATM proximity in basement of student center
  • ING - web-based bank account for high interest rates
  • Chase - my credit card provider so it’s all in one place
  • Wachovia - my bank from hell that I really need to deal with
  • Bank of America - opened on a whim because of a promotion and now hold their credit card

I also used to have a Citibank account which has since been closed because of a mysterious 5 dollar deficit and I’ve been toying with the idea of opening some more bank accounts for rate-chasing purposes.

I’m probably going to close my First Merit account after I leave my college town and I’m probably also going to try to close my Wachovia bank account — after I try ONCE more to get back my $100 dollars that they took. At a certain point, it’s sending good money after bad to keep mailing them my information and re-requesting copies of checks.

I Googled “too many bank accounts” and stumbled over this post from fivecentnickel from way back. The people who have ten or more bank accounts make me feel slightly better about my own surplus of accounts — but really, to what extent are they really necessary?

Right now I’m only dealing with about 1k of revolving money at most.

With the stock market where it is right now, I’m a bit frightened to do anything with it. My Vanguard retirement account only made $50 dollars last year — although it’s at least not losing money, that isn’t beating out inflation by a long stretch.

So, maybe if I’m keeping 10k or more in a savings account, it might make more sense to rate-chase seriously. But with only 1k hovering around, the percentage points don’t make that much of a difference in the .0x range.

Also, I suspect having that many accounts makes it harder for me to keep track of how much money I actually have. I guess I’m going to have to dig around for a program or whatnot to keep track of everything automatically before I start losing money because I forget about it. *grin* I think unless I can find something shiny that I’m guaranteed to check and update on a regular basis, I’m going to try and keep my accounts to five at most.

I’m really not going to hound bankrate.com regularly and transfer my money around unless I have a lot more spare time on my hands. Not to mention there is that little point of losing interest for the few days when it’s in transit. There’s calculators online that will tell you if your shift is worth it or not.

Ah…now to try and set up that automatic-millionaire gimmick.

05.27.08

Aw shucks…

Posted in Health tagged , , at 2:43 am by kyrias

I didn’t realize I didn’t have Blog stats activated.

Which means that if anyone happened to click through here over the past — say 36 hours — Blog stats doesn’t know about it. :(

Pure vanity and ridiculous number-euphoria, I know.

Anyways.

It appears that using my computer late at night is actually keeping me up way past my bedtime.

Patently obvious, you say?

Fair.

I didn’t know that, asides from the Internet surfing keeping my brain engaged and therefore less likely to be sleepy, the brightness of the computer screen also acts very much like a lightbox. Light boxes are often used in light therapy for people who have sleeping problems and also Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Apparently, the brain is less likely to produce melatonin — which, if you follow natural supplements and all that, is a hormone that helps regulate your sleep cycle — if you stare at a computer or TV.

In fact, for many people who have problems sleeping, it is suggested for them to go outside and get exposed to bright light first thing in the morning. Then, as the day progresses, dim the lights in the bedroom or house as you move towards rest.

I did a quick Google for a list of things to do to help promote sleep at bedtime and came up with the usual suspects:

  • Drink milk –the tryptophan and carbohydrates in milk will help boost seratonin production.
  • Don’t use the bed / bedroom for anything that isn’t sleep-related.
  • Use aromatherapy to create associations between a certain scent and bedtime.
  • Try chamomile tea if you’re lactose intolerant like I am — the flavonoid Chrysin supposedly relieves anxiety and promotes sleep. However, although there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that supports this, medical studies have not shown it to actually help. On the other hand — can’t hurt to try, right?
  • Have sex. I’m not even kidding. The oxytocin released during sex is supposed to help promote sleep.
  • Take a warm bath or shower before bed.
  • Meditate. If it puts you to sleep in yoga class, it should now, right?

Unfortunately, if you’re: lactose intolerant, a college student who lives in a suicide single, allergic to ragweed (hay fever) and therefore allergic to chamomile, single and therefore have no one to have sex with …

Then I’m very sorry that this wasn’t that helpful. But maybe aromatherapy and meditation will still work?

05.26.08

Obesity and prejudice

Posted in Health, Money tagged , , , at 7:26 pm by kyrias

I remember a paper I did on obesity and prejudice a while back.

Studies show that people who are considered over-weight are more likely to:

  • Have a smaller salary than people with an equivalent job
  • Be refused a promotion / job / rent / etc
  • Be seen as lazier / dumber / less hygienic/ less personable
  • Be charged a higher premium for insurance

Not to mention other indirect losses. For example, a person who’s considered overweight is also less likely to be married — therefore missing out on the benefits of marriage, both monetary and mentally. There are other studies that show married people live for longer as a results of having someone to share their joys and stress.

Note that I keep saying “person who’s considered overweight”.

The prejudices that are in place are especially problematic because the standards for what is considered “fit” is constantly in flux, even by medical standards. Also, the BMI standards for what is considered overweight have been subtly shifting over time to reflect society’s opinion. This isn’t even taking into account the fact that the usual calculation of BMI doesn’t work across all populations. For example, they don’t take into account athletes, who usually have much more muscle than the average person. In those cases, BMI doesn’t work well, because then they’d be considered overweight — when it’s just that muscle weighs a lot more than fat and a simple calculation involving weight and height isn’t going to take that into consideration.

Prejudice against obese people has been called the last acceptable prejudice. I wonder if and when there will come a time when it is addressed formally — after all, it is illegal to discriminate for reasons of sex, gender, race, and class — this has to be addressed sometime, right?

To be honest, I’m actually not so sure of that, especially with the amount of sanctioned self-hate going around about weight.

05.24.08

Broke college students and their money options

Posted in Money tagged , , , at 7:03 am by kyrias

I just came back from Get Rich Slowly, where they were talking about broke students and their money issues.

To be honest, I think that some of the comments were overly harsh. Especially the people who felt that it was necessary to open up with “I have no sympathy”.

Well then.

I really felt that some of them automatically assumed the worst out of the situation. Person in question must be a lazy bum / not trying hard enough / has questionable priorities or money handling issues, etc.

Personally, I went to a private college where the average course load was 4 credits and you had to petition to overload because four classes and whatever other electives such as art/dance/phys-ed/ music/labs on top of that were more than enough to keep the average person well occupied.

I worked 20 hours a week because I felt like I had to support my book-addiction, along with my occasional eat-out splurge. But it was at minimum wage, and depending on how much your state determines minimum wage to be — after taxes it really isn’t too much.

And to a certain extent, if I’m paying 40k a year for my college experience, I kinda want to participate in the extracurricular activities: perhaps attend a guest lecture or two, potentially work an internship or two, possibly get involved in Moot Court or the student government association, network some, maybe have a life.

On that note, I have more than one friend who dropped out of college because they couldn’t afford it.

Unfortunately it’s not always that simple as some of the commentators would have it.

One friend is not eligible for more money from FAFSA because her parents, who aren’t willing to support her, earn too much money. She has dropped out of college to work full-time to come back to college once already. Another friend got kicked out of college because her grades dropped too low, partially as a result of her being too tired to deal with school work after working her job.

It’s not always possible to ask parents for help or live at home or cut down your expenses or find an additional job — whilst your private school is still jacking up their price by 3k a year.

With that in mind, what are some of their options?

If the amount of money that needs to be rustled up is smallish, just enough to pay for books/food/rent… I’d suggest some or all of the following ideas:

  • Sell plasma
  • Sell sperm / eggs1
  • Join online research panels2
  • See if there are any clinics or college departments who are running studies who pay cash
  • Depending on the school you go to, you may be able to run a mini-business doing chores for the richer students. No, not including writing their papers, sheesh.

Those are the “easy” ways to get some quick cash if that’s all you need. If you want to learn more about the conventional ways of working your ass off earning spending money, I’m sure there are plenty of people on the Internet who are eager to tell you how you can work 60-80 hours a week. Pizza delivery, bar tending, UPS truck loading … that sort of thing.

If you actually want to make private school tuition and it’s a significant chunk, it probably makes much more sense to just take out a student loan.

Student loans would make more sense because they usually have a lower interest rate than the blood sucking credit cards. It’s usually around 6%-8% as compared to 13%-19% for credit cards. Even if they did share the same interest rates, you don’t actually start paying for them until after you finish your schooling. So potentially you could just keep collecting degrees until you die, and never pay it back — but that’s a bad way to live, really. Student loans aren’t just for tuition either — you can also take out enough to pay for bills and so such. If you’re really smart or really suicidal, you can even invest some of it.

While you’re taking out loans, don’t forget to try and get more out of FAFSA , make money cleaning your dorm-mates rooms for un-taxed quick bucks, ask your school if they give out merit scholarships, and check out Fastweb.com for more scholarship money options.

1. Look it up. Women should be careful to ask about potential risks, but the payoffs can be huge: 8k or more. Asian women might especially want to look into it, as potential parents are willing to pay as high as 25k, since Asian women are also much less likely to want to donate.

2. This actually isn’t as foolish as it sounds — it does take a while, but when you cash out, that $50 dollars you get is nothing to sneeze at.

Hello world — aka mission statement?

Posted in Uncategorized at 5:04 am by kyrias

I suppose this is where I state what this blog aims to do.

For the record, I’m not entirely sure.

I’ve decided to try and write more — see if readership/friends/money follow.

With that out of the way, let’s see if we can get on with it, shall we?