roll with the punches

One of my most influential teachers taught me to "roll with the punches," to react and adapt when things don't go as planned. I've been struggling for the past few years or so to stick to that lesson.

When it was 8th grade, and half the photographs for my PACE slideshow didn't develop, rolling with the punches was a breeze. I continued with my planned project, drawing the scenes that didn't work out on overhead film, which my teacher then shrunk to match the other slides in scale. I remember my show, Super Spatula, getting all the laughs it was supposed to despite the odd juxtaposition of slide image and drawn image.

When I embarked on my accidental academic career, I noticed a sharp decline in my rolling ability. And this year was the worst yet. I have been mulling over the contents of a weird faculty retreat that made me question my teaching habits and my role at this institution. During the retreat, we watched a video about the shift to 21st century ideas of education, and I couldn't help but feel powerless in the internet age.

What is the role of a lecturer in a world where everyone googles and cites Wikipedia as a reference?

Why does it matter, though? If people come to my class, that means they want more than Wikipedia, right? Wrong. Over and over again, I find indications that all students want from me is the bare minimum. They want to hear what they already know and think. They want to see what they've already seen. And they want to use Wikipedia or even blogspot as a serious academic reference.

I even questioned myself when I found an interesting link about cave art, which I teach at the beginning of the semester. But the link was for io9.com, a site I'm not familiar with and hesitant to put on my class website. It seems like part of my job is now to teach students how to filter the serious material from all the internet chaff, when they do not want that particular skill.

Add high schoolers to this mix, and it all ends in tears, literally. I cried because I felt so humiliated after the grand high school experiment exploded in my face. Suffice it to say that at the end of the day, some people just expect an A for being there, and if you aren't on board with that, they'll question your professionalism.

Not rolling at all now. Some might peg me as a digital media-loving millennial, but I really do feel like an analog dinosaur next to my students. I speak an entirely different language and cannot connect to them, no matter which sites I link to or which videos I play for them.

cool kids

I'm not sure what it means, that I feel most at ease when bantering back and forth with an older generation of academics in our little corner of the institution. And I do mean that...the adjunct work space is in a hidden-away corner of the institution. They aren't really my peers: several Baby-Boomers with grandchildren, mostly Gen X with kids in middle to high school. I'm one of the oddballs. I know there are more of us, but they don't seem to hang out in the corner.

And the weird thing is that I'm okay with that. I don't really want to be reminded of my own generation anymore. Neither those of us who are "making it," nor those of us who suffer from underemployment. I'm insanely jealous of the thirty-somethings with jobs, and hearing about unemployment makes me ill. It seems the more I read about possibly pursuing a PhD and making this academic thing more of a career than just paying the bills, the more I believe it is a terrible idea. And not in the Hollywood, bad-decisions-lead-to-happy-endings sort of way.

My generation seems to be lost. Or at least I am. Of the two "Xennials" writing in this bittersweet article in Good magazine, I side with the admitted "malcontent" born in 1983. I'm right there with you, pal.

But I don't want to hang out with you.

There has to be some name for it--if not, I could come up with one all my own--this compulsion to seek out people who are different, to be lost in the heterogeneous crowd. I always felt better walking around the city by myself. Having a friend along on roadtrips always made it more stressful. Conversing casually with strangers is infinitely easier than opening up to closer acquaintances.

My fear is that the strangers in the adjunct corner aren't strangers anymore. They ask me about Dad, and I share what's going on in my life outside work. I ask them about their wives and kids and travel plans. Horror of horrors! It's wrong, isn't it? Shouldn't I socialize with people who are in the same life stage as I am? What life stage is that, exactly? Chronically stuck. Circling the drain. Failed to launch.

I just had the thought that my musings about the adjunct corner do not qualify as cultural clash. Maybe I'm not so different from the other teachers, despite decades of life in between. That just makes my lack of those "signifiers of success" that much more painful. How did I get into a Gen X mindset without all the Gen X bells and whistles? Where is my mortgage? Where is my white picket fence? Shouldn't I have those before I am qualified to sigh heavily at the snotty Millennials that fill the hallways and roll through the campus stop signs?

The knowledge that many of my peers have over thirty years of secondary teaching experience or doctorates or families seems suspended long enough for me to derive actual pleasure from hanging out in the corner. There is the IT guy whose phone sounds like the Star Trek (TNG) comm, and the geology professor who yells at the nursing faculty for using the community Xerox machine. Granted, those nursing gals do tend to cause several paper jams.

There are the math professors--all former high school teachers--who tease me over my far too subjective discipline of choice. They tease everyone else, too, so it's no big deal. One has to keep his desk super clean because of an immune deficiency, but he makes it entertaining, writing "No Adjuncts Allowed" or piling furniture in front of the desk to prevent the next English professor from sitting down. The mock battle over territory is a welcome respite from fearing the dull stares of students in the next hour.

There is the political science professor that I could probably talk to for hours on end if we didn't have work to do. And she's Republican. That's how deep I'm in this. I get along with people who I would expect to look at my liberal self with conservative scorn. I'm the only art history nerd in the adjunct corner, yet I fit in.

This fitting in is a very strange sensation, mind you, considering my experiences as a student. Before I stood in front of a whiteboard to earn money, I was an outcast. Now, I imagine we are the cool kids of the faculty. Too cool for our own offices. We can't be bothered to hold regular office hours. Health insurance is so over. Our clique is not impenetrable...full-time staff and tenured faculty are welcome to stop by. I don't even mind seeing students in the grocery store anymore. This is naturally what happens when geeks and nerds become cool.

I'm way too comfortable with this. Where is the angst? Wait, I just remembered I'll never be able to retire. Oh, and my part-time socializing eclipses even my closest relationships that are in dire need of repair. There we go, angst recovered!

Elegy for a term paper tossed in the trash

You weren't that bad...worth a B-, for Pete's sake! Yet, it might be that one capital letter that the student glanced at before tossing you aside, as if to say "good enough, no need to improve." Not even a pat on the back for you, term paper, for being satisfactorily organized and formatted. Not a second wasted on how your argument might have been strengthened with well-chosen citations.

You were tossed in that trash can far too soon. You had a whole life ahead of you. A life of study and reflection on essay structure and grammar. A life worthy of academic praise.

I'm sorry, term paper, that your creator doesn't give a damn about you.

I suspect many term papers are thus abused and cast away. But what about the students, these creators-turned-destroyers? What is the motive, the thought process behind such a callous attitude toward the written word? And why do I care?

As I picked up a random person's large McDonald's pop to place in the trash, I noticed a term paper with familiar green comments written (rather politely and stylishly, if I may be so bold), in the margins. It was the term paper of one of my students who had finished an exam earlier that day and picked up his term paper on the way out. And, also on the way out, he deposited that paper in the trash. There is, say, a 20-foot walk between my table and the trash can, so I highly doubt the student absorbed any helpful tidbits between picking up and pitching.

To which I say, "Thank you. I'll lose no sleep over your bad grade tonight."

That trashed term paper is a symptom and symbol of the larger ills of academia and the Millennial generation (or at least how Millennials are viewed in society).

This student grew up in the same region I did. I don't know his family background, his social status, or any of that, and I shouldn't know. But I can tell he is at least ten years younger than I am, so he's a Millennial whereas I identify myself (defiantly!) as Generation Y. We are different, yet the same.

We are different, because no one taught him to value his work. Or at least to include writing in what he considered "work." That attitude is far too prevalent these days. Too many people (*cough*Business majors*cough*) think writing is not a worthwhile skill, not something to be practiced and perfected. Writing is simply the act of expressing your ideas, which I should think is useful in any profession. My parents might have stopped reading my writing around 10th grade, once it got more and more esoteric, but they never allowed me to think of it as worthless. Writing made it possible for me to succeed in college, then graduate school.

Further success is pending. And I suppose that's why I have difficulty finding fault only in the student. It's a tough world out there. Yet that's why parents foster a sense of pride in a job well done. Whatever that job may be. That's why teachers give stickers, smiley faces, and praise...at least, they used to before all the standardized testing. The apathy of our students is of our own making. And once they're apathetic, there doesn't seem to be a way of reversing the process. Not that I've found...

I end with this question: how can we expect Millennials to value earning their way through work, when we don't teach them to value what work they do in school?

purpose

Movies that most people wouldn’t waste their time on are one of my few vices. The others include Coca Cola and sleeping in. So, if you needed further proof of my lack of wildness, there you are. One of those movies is Ever After, and I bring it up only because one line has been repeating in my head for a few months now: “I used to think, if I cared at all, I would have to care about everything...and I’d go stark raving mad.”

That is rather like how I feel right now. Maybe not the stark raving mad part, but the anxiety about finding a “purpose.” I’ve been honing in on something to do with my own journey beyond southeast Ohio and back again, but that makes me wonder if I should keep piling on the purposefulness. Do I care about poverty? Hunger? Child abuse prevention? Sure. I wish I could solve it all.

I have trouble letting go. In effect, I let go of the Heifer Project for some complicated and silly reasons that no one has thus far directly asked me about. I completed a term in AmeriCorps, but chose not to pursue another. In all fairness, that decision came at the same time I was asked to add a second art history class to my schedule. The field I obtained two degrees in of course takes precedence. So letting go feels good. It’s a relief, in many ways, but it is also...sad isn’t the proper word. Bitter is too strong. Disappointing, perhaps?

One of the major criticisms of my generation—and the next one—is that we’re wayward. We flit from job to job, from interest to interest. But isn’t that a more natural way to live? Apart from the nuts and bolts of it all: eating, sleeping, socializing; can one really dedicate their lives to one thing, or one realm of things, and stick to it? Maybe not in this job market. One of the few good things about my crooked path is where I am right now, teaching. It’s growing on me. That’s not to say I’ll be a professor from now until the end. But I’ve found a realm I’d like to stay in/near/vaguely adjacent to.

That realm is difficult to define. Not simply “the arts,” not just “academia.” I want to be involved in the literacy movement as well as art history. I want to keep trying to broaden the views of people who have never seen the value in looking beyond Ohio’s borders. Or even the county’s. I’ve already let this drive me a little crazy, taking it personally when one student or another doesn’t see the value and might never see it. That’s the caring about everything, or everyone, part.

But, did you read up there, “I want to be,” not “I am”? I still feel like I am in flux. Not settled. Not like I’ve found my place. At what point do I become just a talker and not a doer. Am I already there? Looking back on the past three years, I wonder why I haven’t already reached maximum purposefulness. Yet while I say I’m in flux, am I really where I am meant to be? Where is the line between passion and waywardness? Because I seem to be dancing on it.

Aren't we all hard-working Americans?

All right, I suppose I understand that all government expenditures are under a harsh lens these days...but can Congress really shut down PBS and NPR?  I've heard that NPR's income, though partly Federal funding, is largely from private donations.  You know, their tag line is "this program was made possible by viewers like you."  That counts as acknowledging taxpayers as much as donors, in my view.

I'm really concerned that institutions like these as well as museums and non-profits are the first on the chopping block.  Isn't there a number out there circulating that such funding makes up maybe 10% of the Federal budget?  And then there's teachers, who, unlike Saturday-night babysitters, earn on average $1.24 per child per hour.  And these are the first cuts?  Sheesh.

I should know by now that not everyone has the same priorities as I do.  And not everyone thinks of the world in the same way.  I quickly learned that "grown-ups" don't always get it right.  I find it really sad that I have to be surrounded by like-minded "young people" to be taken seriously.  Even then, I'm not sure I wow people the way I used to.  I may have little tidbits of prestige on the resume, but for some, even Columbia doesn't impress.  In terms of art history, it should be hallowed for Meyer Shapiro, who earned the first doctorate in the field.  Some just shrug it off.  (One in particular I am pretty sure was just trying to sleight me...and it worked)

None of this is really connected, unless you count the issue of prestige when deciding which jobs count and which do not.  Teachers should be pretigious, as well as other "cultural workers" out there in libraries and museums that make the world a little less stark.  Even though it isn't only good old boys now, it seems there is still a secret kabal of good old boys and girls that won't let me in.  Not that I want in.  I just want to make a career and a living without fearfully wondering if the majority of Americans think my career choices are worthless.

Without even having a "first career" unless you count internships and temporary posts, I seem to have been redirected like so many other Americans...but without decades of income behind me.  I feel like I'm in limbo.  Maybe I'm being directed to less of an arts-themed career and more of a service one (although I still don't see much difference...), and my latest attempt to organize a Heifer Project event is a sign pointing in that direction.  I'll serve...but I can't volunteer for the rest of my life.  And apparently I'm too educated to be a shop girl.  Dang it.

what is merit? or, how I would like to bitch slap my high school guidance counselor

So I had a random memory today of my physical therapist, Vitaly.  During the usual chitchat that I assume was supposed to distract me from the painful and tiring processes, he told me that a lot of younger trainers and therapists were getting not only Masters degrees but also Doctorates.  And those with the most schooling, no matter how green, were favored for employment.  Over those with more experience, yet "lower" degrees due to the fact that a Doctorate didn't exist when they were in school.

Well, if only it worked that way for me.  I'd like somebody, just one employer, to overlook a few things in favor of arbitrary information.

How am I supposed to keep up with all of these HR prejudices that seem to contradict one another?  They want good schools, but also lots of experience.  They want responsible employees, but shy away from advanced degrees.  It all seems designed to force me to lie, and that's something I really don't want to do.  I don't want to pretend I already live in Philadelphia, or that I didn't go to graduate school.

Of course I'm assuming that the people with whom I am competing are playing fair.  And I have a sneaking suspicion that they aren't.  To fail and preserve my character, or to win by selling my soul?  That is the question.

I know for sure by now that all my "hard work" in grade school means bupkis.  Not even the whole "it shows you can start something and complete it" bit doesn't satisfy me.  So the existential crisis continues for a third year...what is this life about?

give me a job

A facebook friend posted this a week or two ago:  "what should you value more in a professional experience: quality, or "quantity", that is, length of commitment? is it just my generation, or are most people always looking for a better, more interesting, or just more convenient way to earn their living and enjoy their work?"


Of course the reading of this reminded me of how I am racked with guilt over being one of those Generation Y losers who haven't stayed at one place of employment for multiple, continuous years.  I try to justify, and think over the reasons why I have not stayed.  Well, I suppose it began with college.  I worked summer only.  Then work-study at the Columbus museum came along, interrupted by an internship in D.C.  I did go back to Columbus, yet I doubt that counts as continuity.  Then graduation...and work-study ended and the museum had no place for me.  I volunteered for a few months, worked retail for a few more, then got back into the old Development office for a few months.  Then I had the awesome idea to go to graduate school.  Ooops?  More work-study, but there wasn't enough work to last past May both years.  Summer jobs.  Unpaid internships.  Volunteering.  Substitute teaching.  2010 Census.  Then finishing the last 4 months of the Zanesville museum's education grant.


I want to know, quite simply and unequivocally, does the past decade of my life make me ineligible to work for a living?


Because it was all supposed to do the opposite.

there's a name for it

Despite past attempts to google "unilateral edema," I only now have the name of a fairly rare syndrome that has been bothering me for a decade:  May-Thurner Syndrome.  This latest epiphany comes after paying a vascular specialist $35 to take a 2-second look at my leg and call up her colleague on her snazzy iPhone 4.

Now I have thought previously that I had the definitive answers and treatment would commence, but those were false idols, apparently.  I guess the tendonosis (yes it's a word despite Google Chrome's protests), and lymphedema are only part of the story.

So to explain it briefly, my left iliac vein (vena cava...vein coming up from my left leg) has been compressed by my naughty little artery that passes over it and slightly to the left.  The vein walls narrow, blood flows less freely and swelling ensues.  There you have it.

Treatment is up for discussion, considering I have been told that I'm too young for the invasive stuff (with a hint of "with all the old people out there suffering from fatal conditions, why are you complaining?"), and I really don't know the full consequences just yet.  What my reading thus far has taught me is that I am just the right age and gender to be afflicted with such a syndrome.  It presents predominantly in women in their teens to twenties, and is possibly congenital.  So take that, old people, you aren't the only ones with problems!

Now the next step is to decide how vocal I want to be about all this.  Do I tell my whole family, considering the risk of clotting?  Do I risk them not taking it seriously enough, or worse, freaking out like a bunch of Chicken Littles?  Just when do I get to make my sister feel guilty for calling this actual affliction my "fat foot"?

I do feel mismanaged by all the doctors I've ever seen.  Except Dr. Daou (so far...).  I tried to express this to the specialist, and her response was, "Well, no one ever gave this diagnosis because they aren't specialists."  That besides the point.  What I want to know is why no doctor has ever sent me to her before.  Ten years.  Really?!  Everything I'm reading now states that at the top of the differential for unilateral (one-sided) swelling is DVT, deep vein thrombosis (clots).  And right below that...May-Thurner!  So let's break it down:  back when the swelling first presented, no one took me to the doctor.  First betrayal of a child's trust in her grown-ups.  Then when I take matters into my own hands, the doctor scans my ankle but does not check for clots. Not until 2010 is an ultrasound of both legs performed that rules out clotting.  But no one took that next step. Blame it on a succession of substitute doctors (Daou was out of town) but either way...they are supposed to do their jobs.  Now, finally, I have an actual diagnosis.

So, what's stopping me from believing that doctors don't bother reading new papers and journals to update their differentials and help the people who trust them?  Seems to me healthcare "reform" could go a lot further.

But don't forget, no matter how young you are, be your own advocate!  I had my parents and doctors etc. yelling and griping and throwing up their hands in frustration, but I've got my diagnosis now.  Healthcare is for everyone, not just the older generations who for the most part have been irresponsible with their own bodies (Dad, for one, has never sought treatment for his tinnitus and continues to work with heavy machinery).  No young girl should ever feel like I used to feel.

last week or thereabouts

I’m sitting in my 90 year old grandmother’s living room tonight, watching and waiting for any sign she’s having trouble walking or otherwise getting around.  It’s not out of the ordinary for someone her age to be achy, or to require a walker, yet we’re all wondering what tomorrow’s tests and scans will reveal.  Her pain medication might make her more unsteady than usual; therefore I am having this impromptu sleepover.

Now the young and restless voice in my head is telling me I am too young for these worries and responsibilities, yet who else can do it?  In the other house there is a 6 month old, and Dad isn’t much of a nurse.  But still, here I am, highly educated and desperately wanting to see the world, and I’m stuck in a living room.  Naturally my thoughts drift to my mother, whose expertise would be most welcome in a time such as this.  It still grates on me that the loss of my mother requires further loss, in terms of sacrifice.  A heightened sense of responsibility toward my family, and thus the surrender (or just postponement, I hope) of global dreams.

The closest we have to a medical expert in the family now is a veterinarian…not that her presence isn’t of any comfort, but Mom’s quiet authority was quite a luxury, looking back on it.  Prescriptions and scans and exams were not so incoherent.  Prognosis was not so scary.  And with just a few words she could put to rest the inevitable negativity and fear that Dad has running through his head right now.  While my sister and I are thinking short term:  monitor Grandma’s reaction to the pain medication and get her ready for her CT in the morning; Dad is leaping ahead:  power of attorney and hospital stays and dampened spirits at the upcoming birthday celebration.

The quiet right now, punctuated by my grandmother’s big clock and the shuffling of pages of her book, is rather disquieting.  I’m not exactly sure how worried to be.  It’s been a while since I have been this close to the medical goings on of a family member.  With Mom, it was brutally sudden, and with Grandpa, it was quiet and expected.  Not since Grandma Elliott have I had to play prescription courier or anything like that.  That was seven years ago.

I was just thinking the other day, how it feels that I’ve accomplished so little in this decade.  With only a few months remaining…will I make up for it?

loose ends

I knew this would happen...I'm mentally balking at the notion of sending my resume to New York places because I feel that New York is out of my league.  That's what a year in Ohio does to you.

I really need to bite the bullet and call the places I've already sent to, so at least I'll know they've dragged and dropped my resume into their computer's recycle bin.  It really stings.  As it did before.  And it's harder now to search for jobs, not because there are no openings, but because I feel I am not qualified for the openings.  Because I took that worthless internship my second year.  Because I'm on academic leave.  Because I'm here in Podunk, Ohio.  I cannot bring myself to lie or pad my resume.  And quite frankly...does it really need padding?  What else can I do but write an honest letter and let my skills speak for themselves?  A clever turn of phrase, in moderation, maybe, is all I used to need to impress a potential employer.

Sometimes I think I embody the phrase, "Oh, how the Mighty have fallen."  It really brings me down to think of all the potential I had in high school.  That I still had at OSU.  All that promise that now seems wasted.  And I know I've written sentences like that before.  At least there is still a little voice inside that insists:  I have fallen, but I'm still mighty.  I just wish I were more impervious to the things that make me feel less intelligent.

I'm wrapping up a "gig" as educator of a small museum with major financial and organizational issues.  Have I helped at all?  The idea of talking about what I've done with my boss is rather frightening.  I think I've helped in such tiny ways that it will all disappear not long after I'm gone.  Absorbed by larger problems.  Again and again like a litany of shame I describe to the people I run into around town that I'm applying everywhere I possibly can...waiting...licensed for substitute teaching...waiting.

am i speaking swahili or are you just not listening?

Of course, it might be fun to speak Swahili.  I just don't know anyone who understands it.

Every now and then I find an op-ed or an article that echoes what has been going through my mind:  the hypocrisy of conservatives, the misguided morality of both conservatives and liberals, etc.  But closer to home, it feels like I'm just some crazy Cassandra.   My refuge is the New York Times, which is admittedly a liberal paper, but I still see myself as a centrist.  Like Dan says, he's conservative in his heart but liberal in his head.  And I find that telling...for sometimes it seems like to be conservative is to ignore the logical thoughts in your own brain. 

I occasionally get my father's ear, and I remind him that the "us versus them" mentality gets nobody nowhere.  And he nods.  But then he continues to spout venom when it comes to animal rights activists and Muslims.  It's a vicious cycle...hate breeds hate, fiscal irresponsibility breeds more irresponsibility.  The latter is a reference to an article called the "Non-Profit Starvation Cycle" posted by a friend.  It's a pdf, or else I'd link to it somehow.  I'm just not feeling that html inclined today.  Anyway.  I think I'm feeling the words in that article all too well.  This job I have is afterall about to expire due to a lack of compassion and fiscal know-how.  What a sad situation we're in, us non-profit idealist art people, when our boards of trustees and executive directors cannot weather the recessional storm in a way that doesn't amputate all that is pure and good from the institution.  I've never understood how it could be deemed smart to fire good people in order to keep a museum open.  Those people are the museum!

But even as I type these words, I know they'll be misconstrued.  I know that no one will read every little paragraph and get exactly what I'm thinking and feeling.  That's the limit of language.  

It's like commenting on someone's post without reading the article they have cited.  That happens all the time...wall-posts are hijacked to get into some debate about what sort of non-profit (global or grassroots) better deserves support...something that is only indirectly related to the Starvation Cycle.  Ugh.  I got all mad about it and it wasn't even my wall!

I know there are just some people out there who will not see eye to eye with me.  It scares me, though, that a good portion of those people are in charge and capable of rendering me and my generation unemployable. 

compassion

It's not the be-all end-all...or end-all be-all...but something this country (as a whole society) lacks is compassion. Today there was a lady in line behind me who ordered a sub. No big deal there. Except that when it came down to picking veggies, she explained it wasn't for her...it was for the guy outside holding a sign that said "hungry." Now I've tried to give food instead of money before, and it didn't work. For some it's a health issue--food given by a stranger made them sick at some point--and for others, well, they'd rather have cigarettes or alcohol instead of food, unfortunately. If every single American was like the sub lady, we might be in a better situation than we are now.

I know it isn't so simple. Some people are too proud to ask for help. Others abuse the help that is given. All the Christmas food baskets my mother ever delivered couldn't solve the world's problems. But they helped those families have a merrier holiday.

A lot of Americans are afraid of becoming a "welfare state." These same Americans bemoan the dreary future for Medicare and Social Security (which is welfare...shhh! don't tell them!) And while Europe is slowly digging itself out of a rather deep financial hole, these Americans point eastward as if we need to learn a lesson. Well, we can learn a lesson right here on our own soil. The lack of compassion for others, those who are losing jobs and houses and livelihoods, is exactly what is sending this country down the drain. Like dirty bathwater. We cannot be the great nation of decades past when we have our own tired and poor yearning to be free (of debt) right here and now.

I've made no attempt to hide my bias toward my generation. I consider myself a bit of an advocate for the graduates and the interns and the assistants out there, being one myself. Yes, we need to create jobs for those who have lost them, which is what, in the millions now? But my focus is on the people who have not yet gotten a job. And I'm talking a real job with benefits and retirement and your very own desk and email account. I gave one of those up to go back to school, and although I most likely would have been "redirected" from the museum in the course of their renovation/lay-off-good-people campaign, I sometimes kick myself. There are "kids" out there, fellow generation Y-ers, who like me have moved back in with parents. Some send out 70 resumés a day and others have given up. Yes. There are recent graduates who have given up already. So much for commencing.

What is Congress telling my generation, when the interests of unions and industry make them focus on jobs for the older generations? When they filibuster an extension of unemployment benefits? Why can't we have the American Dream? Because we voted for Obama? Is this revenge?

I am about to commence the job search once again. And while the prospect of change has me a little giddy, I am deflated somewhat by the lack of compassion in my own backyard. When a sibling who has been working for over a decade complains about her retirement fund dwindling in such a way that (and I'm pretty sure this wasn't unintended) demonizes the very thing that has thrown me a lifeline--federal stimulus--I infer that older generations don't care what happens to us. As long as they can retire comfortably and drive their luxury vehicles, life is great. Meanwhile, remember those graduates I mentioned? Like me? Screw 'em. It's our fault for being born in the eighties. I should have known better...

Guess what. We'll be in charge some day. We are the future leaders. And then the next generation and then the generation after that. I've heard several conservatives preach about leaving debt for their grandchildren to pay...but no one is crying about hanging future generations out to dry. Let us get our start. Let us roll over our IRAs some day. It's not all about you and your retirement fund. Your wealth would be worthless, quite literally, if the next generations can't get their wealth started. So there's my socialist rant. With a capitalist twist...I want money. Let me earn it!

But I pledge this now: I will never drive a luxury vehicle.