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Our Apartment, Makiki, Hawai`i
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I re-registered at UH. With the new semester, which starts next week, I've hit a new low — one class — but I'm still a student. Technically. I made the decision easy for myself by forgetting the closed-course override code and being too embarrassed to call Sharon to get it again. (I'd been automatically dumped by the UH system once before when I missed my pre-registration appointment in May.) One class. Three credits. Given the nightmare I'm going to face in terms of finding parking in the middle of the morning and darting too and from work, it's almost not worth it. But I'm glad I signed up. For the last couple of weeks, I'd been grinding my teeth non-stop, wondering whether or not I should just "take a break." As reasonable as the option seemed, though, it was like my whole world brightened the minute I was back in. Definitely the right decision. Of course, my pithy course load — if I can even call it that — means I can't work for AIB or UH Press anymore, but they've been weaning themselves off my dime-a-dozen services for a while now. Hell, I haven't even filed a timesheet in two months, so I know it won't exactly affect my checkbook. I hope they'll miss me. On nights when I trudge out of the office at 7:45 p.m., I certainly miss them. Campus jobs. You don't realize the scam you've got going 'til you lose it. A coworker was flipping through The Economist over lunch today and read a blurb about some recent "study" that concluded that the overall drop in the national crime rate we're seeing today stems from the legalization of abortion in the early '70s. Apparently, the reasoning is this:
Or in other words, crime is down because there are simply fewer people that are poor, minorities, from single-parent households, or part of any other group that accounts for a disproportionate share of the abortions performed in America. I don't think so. I mean, I'm pro-choice. And I have a pretty low opinion of my country and of the human race in general. But this theory smells like a textbook "spurious correlation" (see, Professor Bwy? I was paying attention!). I'd like to think the lower crime rate would have more to do with any of the vast number of major social movements and reforms we've seen in the last two decades than simply more aborted babies. It's just a little more complex than "less people = less crime." Obviously I'm not one of those people who believe in the "good old days." I've always felt that child abuse, domestic violence and many other social ills have always been problems. The only difference between then and now is Jerry Springer. After three days of silence, the hammers and drills returned today at the office as the guys from "Action Glass" came in to install all the... well, glass. They finished up around noon, filling in every corner and crack with some rancid mixture of silicon and other noxious chemicals. Even with two Vornados churning away, everyone on the mauka side of the office got just a little goofy over the course of the afternoon. This weekend they're going to tear up my office... or rather, my corner of the office. They're cutting down half of the existing side wall and adding half a wall in front, making a dentist-esque reception counter. (Guess who's slated to be the receptionist?) In the meantime, they're dragging my desk, my files, my shelf of videos and Zip disks and assorted overflow boxes and setting me up in the new, marble-tiled lobby. It shouldn't be too bad. That is if I can manage to find a long Ethernet patch cable and an extension cord tomorrow. I still feel as if I'm too young to know so much about term life insurance, but nonetheless, Jen and I put in our applications today to set ourselves up with policies. Even if we don't qualify (unlikely), or suddenly decide not to sign up, it's been an interesting process. I suspect the industry as a whole stirs up feelings of bad karma simply because it's their job to make people think about the things they spend the first 98 percent of their lives trying to ignore. Since I know our accounts are pretty puny, I'm going to be a dork and assuage my guilt for taking so much of this guy's time by plopping his name on the net. Dean Georgiev He's a really nice guy — and that's saying a lot for an insurance salesman. I had a random epiphany today, jotted down on half a Post-It™ note: "People who start debates with 'I'm as open-minded as the next guy' probably have skinheads for neighbors." |
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