Sometimes, when I'm really wrapped up in studying and stuff, I get hit in the head with this incredibly intense melencholy. Out of nowhere, I suddenly get all sad about being so boring, so unsatified with my un-rock-star-ness.
I get all nostalgic for nights spent up all night talking music and philosophy, ending up at a crepe shop for breakfast, our makeup all smeared, exhausted and intelectually sated. Or working the door at crazy shows. Or rolling at parties, being all talkative and one with the universe.
I start getting this thought like I wish I had some musical talent, so then I could be in a band, then I'd *really* be a rock star. But I know tons of people in bands, and I know the whole rock star thing, doesn't really happen. And even when people give it a go, it's not really all that much fun.
Well, then maybe I need a glamorous, exciting, interesting hobby. Then I smack myself upside the head. I have the single most beutiful belly dance dress ever made hanging in my closet as we speak, and I'll be dancing in it in a week and a half in front of a giant theater full of people. I *do* have a glamorous hobby.
I guess I'm mostly just lamenting getting too old for those up-all-night talking music, art, and the nature of the universe things.
I must say, even though I am not usually the kind of person who waxes poetic about commercial services... I could have the turbotax people's babies this morning.
I've been using Turbotax for the web for the past 5 years (Which is cool on its own, since they have PDFs of my last 5 tax returns available right there online.) It's a great tool, I've been really happy with it when I didn't have very complicated taxes. Since I don't own a house, I usually take the standard deduction, super easy.
When I first moved to California, though, That first year I had to file state taxes in both California and Kentucky. At that point in time, Turbotax only let you do one state tax return. It was a total headache. States don't make it easy, at all.
Anyway, this year, I have to file taxes in both California and Missouri. I was looking forward to the messy process of trying to figure out if I should file resident or non resident in each state, and figuring out how to deduct one state's taxes in the calculation for the other and all that stupid crap, when, lo and behold, Turbotax for the web tells me it can do up to 3 state income taxes and make them all work amongst themselves correctly. Dude, how awesome is that? I have to pay a whole new fee for each state's return, but I know that that extra $30 is saving me hours of confusion, and I sure as hell know that my time is worth it.
I did all of my taxes in an hour this morning. I think this deserves a trip to Starbucks.
Just 18 hours to go!
So anxious. I think I'm pretty ready, but I won't know for sure until tommorrow morning. Ooof. Unfortunately, there is a lot more on these exams than can be tested in 35 questions, so the tests are *very* different from sitting to sitting. There is a certain element of chance about whether or not the material on the exam overlaps well enough with the stuff I've studied. I could get blindsided.
Anyway, thanks for all of your well wishes!
So I took the exam about 3 weeks ago...
It took me this long to recover enough to be willing to blog about it!
Anyway, The test was 4 hours and 35 questions. All calculation/numerical questions, but multiple choice, so no opportunity for partial credit if you make arithmetic mistakes.
Although it's against the rules, a lot of people take their MC letter answers out of the test. The evening of the test (after the sittings are done in all time zones) one person will usually volunteer to run the PAK (popular answer key), and everybody sends them their answers. They then create a key based on the idea that usually wrong answers are fairly evenly distributed between the different wrong answer choices (with the exception of tricky questions that trick people into one specific wrong answer) so that the right answers are usually the plurality of answers for each question. The PAK is usually right to within a question or 2.
According to the PAK, I got 24/35. The pass mark is usually 21-22. (The pass mark is set each sitting after the tests are all scored. Although the societies say that the exams are not "curved", it's pretty clear that the pass mark is usually set to keep the passing percentage pretty steady)
I'm not going to tempt fate by claiming I passed, but the odds are pretty decent I may have pulled it off. I won't know officially until July 14.
My tomato is getting so heavy, it's actually hanging crooked:
One cluster of ripening tomatoes:
Another cluster of ripening tomatoes:
Look at all of these peppers!
Here's the experimental tomato, it has really perked up amazingly since being re-potted. In this picture, you can see the support I'm using. It's designed to hold a flowerpot, but it makes a pretty tomato support.
Remember that little morning glory bud I posted last weekend? (Scroll down, I'll wait ) This is what it looked like tonight:
I'm pretty sure this one has got to be a moonflower bud, since it looks so different from the other one:
I watched "Say Anything" again tonight. (for like the 1000th time)
I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.
I'm a brain. Unfortunately, *not* trapped in the body of a game show hostess.
My boyfriend basically shares Lloyd's worldview. He's not into the whole buy/sell/process worldview. He doen't have a degree, and although he has a good job in computers, I don't think he's figured out what he wants to do when he grows up.
Plenty of aquaintances have questioned what the hell the two of us are doing together. He makes me laugh. He's sweet to me. He's the kind of guy who would point out glass for me walk around. I spent about 11 or 12 hours studying today. He brought me a warm lunch, and warm dinner. He's been cleaning the apartment. He makes the whole house run while I focus on my studying.
---
I was discussing relationships with other actuaries at a seminar a couple of weeks ago... And we all realized that of the sucessful corporate high-ups we knew, most of them did not have high-powered spouses. Even the female partners at the consulting firm I used to work for, their husbands were artists, caterers, one owned a fly-fishing shop... All good careers, but not corporate. And the men too, their wives didn't work, or also had similar non-corporate careers.
I think there's a lot of value in having both people in the relationship working in fields with very different challenges and very different definitions of success. I think it makes it easier. You get stressed over different things, and not always at the same time, kind of makes it easier to be there for each other.
That, and for people in very time-consuming or high-stress careers, I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to be with someone who is more home-oriented than career oriented. I don't think it's a gender role thing, after all, I'm the one working all the time, and who spent the first couple of years as the primary income in our household. But, you know, *someone* needs to keep the home fires burning.
For those of you that are following the progress of my garden, here are this week's pictures: Please excuse my complete inability to work the autofocus this week.
The enormous tomato: (It's a one-plant jungle) I finally did give in and loosely tie the stems to the hanging hook with old knee-highs, since I was starting to feel concerned that the stems were getting *really* heavy.
Here's a cluster of little tomatoes:
And here's the tomato I showed you guys last week. It's cherry-sized, but instead of being round, it's shaped like a regular tomato!
The experimental tomato, however, is still languishing. Not dead, but not really all that alive either:
The pepper is taking off, it's covered in buds, and I'm really looking forward to having a huge crop of habaneros in a month or two:
The strawberries? The plants look healthy enough, but they are still not growing flowers:
Finally, check out my morning glories/moonflowers: (I've made them a trellis out of jute twine) Despite the look of the picture, they are not speeding acoss my balcony at 60mph!
I'm sure no one noticed that I'm late with my update this week... And to make it worse, some of the pictures are terribly out of focus.
I took these pictures of a bloom on my rose last week - The bloom is about 1.5 inches across: (There are a total of 7 unopened buds on the plants)
This are the plants again on sunday. It's blury, like I said, but you can see a bunch of buds opening:
See my strawberry plants putting out runners:
Although the picture is blury, you can see what a behemoth my tomato plant has become:
Finally, my morning glories/moonflowers have made it as high as the railing... I don't expect blooms for another month or so, but I hope once they grow into a space with more sunlight, they'll grow faster:
I'm going to start with the seriously most spectacular thing in my rarden right now:
The runners on my strawberries are putting out runners!
My tomato is gi-normous!!!
Check out the little green tomatos!
And my peppers are looking petty awesome too:
Finally, my vines have made it well up and over the railing:
Valentina's post on the topic of Karma reminded me of a post I had been meaning to write a few months ago on the exact same topic.
First, as a bit of introduction. The summer between my junior and senior years of college I fucked up. Part of it was being 20 years old and personally stupid, and part of it was being naiive and not realizing I was being sucked into a vortex of other people's problems. I won't go into details because it was stupid, and anyway, it happened 6 years ago. The drama culminated in the woman involved in the drama threatening to drive to Nashville and shoot me.
Fast forward to a couple of months ago, she calls my mother (my parents phone number was on the lease I signed that summer when I rented their house) trying to track me down. My mom won't give her my contact info, but accidentally let slip I was in St Louis. I'm in the phone book, so it was easy to find me. My mom was nice enough to call me and let me know this woman had called. She had told my mom that she needed "closure".
(Let me interject that counselors/therapists/well meaning friends who tell people to dig up people from their past and demand "closure" are jackasses. Seriously, what is the point of trying to stir up 6-year-old shit? To re-open old wounds? Seriously, what is the logic?)
Anyway, due to the beauty of caller ID, I screened her calls and let the machine take them. They weren't mean or anything, she just wanted an apology. Well, to paraphrase House, you either get to ask for an apology, or you get to threaten to shoot me, you don't get both. And to be perfectly honest, I have nothing to apologize for other than having been 20 years old and attractive. I didn't actually do any of the things she still firmly believes I did.
She left three messages, the last one ending with, "I'm not going to call you again, but you know, I believe in Karma"
Snort. You know what, me too. I made mistakes, I learned from them. I apologized when appropriate, and grew the hell up. Got less naive and less stupid. And the more I learn from my mistakes, the smoother my life seems to go. Everyone makes mistakes. Karma isn't just about cosmic retribution, it's about learning. It's about getting smacked upside the head with the clue stick if you can't figure it out for yourself. Well, I figured out what I was doing that was stupid, and I fixed it. No need for the clue-by-four.
Her, on the other hand... Well, her life has not been so smooth. Some things beyond her control, but by no means all. Seriously, if she wants to dig up 6 year old shit, she can wallow in it all by her lonesome. And honesly, has no right to complain about the stink, since she's the one who dug it up. I wonder why, if she believes so much in Karma, she can't see that the universe might be trying to tell her that her own hunger for drama is stupid.
So, yeah. i don't really know where I was going with this, I just wanted to get off my chest how funny I thought it all was...
So Rusty had to go back in to work today. He left at 6, and I was expecting him at home around 8-ish.
Just before 8, I heard an indistinct scratching rattle noise outside. I thought it was Rusty digging through his pockets for his keys. To be nice, I opened the front door. Immediately, something furry ran in, and I squealed and ran out.
Anyway, I hung out in the breezeway, nearly hyperventilating, for about 10-15 minutes until he got home, and met him out in the parking lot, then explained quite panickedly about the situation and why I couldn't go back inside until he took care of the unidentified creature.
Please note we have the worlds two most useless cats. Carmen is old and very blase about such things, she would not wake up from her beauty sleep for some random woodland creature. Pushkin just gets bewildered.
Anyway, Pushkin was some use, he was able to lead Rusty to where the creature was cowering. Rusty ended up putting a box over it, and sliding another piece of cardboard underneath. We took the box out to the nearest stand of trees (our apartment complex is kind-of built around existing clumps of trees. It looks beautiful, but sometimes I feel like we're a little *too* close to nature)
It turns out the unexpected houseguest was a very cute, but completely terrified squirrel. Poor guy. I wonder what convinced him to scratch on my door to get in.
I've signed up to fund two different loans so far (I'm sure I'll add more over time) I love the concept, and I'm enjoying being involved in the whole micro-loan thing.
Araceli Romero Herrera
Walter Siavichay
I am looking forward to watching these business prosper. And I can't wait to see how far they expand into more countries.
So I was lame and skipped last weeks garden pics, but honestly, the summer has already peaked, and the garden isn't changing much.
The big tomato is still lush and huge. We picked a huge bowl of tomatoes for a salad this afternoon.
The experimental tomato has also turned into a jungle. tomato production has slowed down since the weather cooled off, so I'm hoping at least some of those flowers become tomatoes before the frost comes. I'll be happy to make a big pile of fried green cherry tomatoes when the time comes, but I want more tomatoes!
Still trying to figure out what to do with all the habaneros
The Christmas cactus leaf isn't showing any sprouts, but it isn't whithering either. (I guess it's been 3 weeks since I planted it)
The jade leaves, however, shrivelled up to nothing. Pout. I need to pick something else for that pot.
Oh. My. God.
My boss called me in to her office this morning to tell me she just put in her two weeks notice. I'm happy for her, she's going to a larger insurance company where there's more upward potential for her (she's already the senior actuary in our little division) But dude, again?
I first came on board with this company last September. I was brought on to work for a guy who was crazy smart. Unfortunately, his work style did not mesh super-well with the rest of the office. He ended up jumping ship this past spring to go be the chief actuary at another small company. I wasn't too bummed out, since I ended up wotking for *his* boss, who was also a super-actuary She's the one who quit today.
This is even more familiar, because when I first got hired out of school at the big consulting firm I worked for in San Francisco, I got hired by seriously one of the most brilliant actuaries I have ever met, and worked directly under him for the coolest 6 months ever. Then he got headhunted away to be chief actuary at a big insurance company. After that, I ended up working for a couple of mediocre-by-comparison managers who totally didn't inspire me, but at least they didn't quit (Well, one of them did, almost right after I did - that would explain why he was so happy for me!)
Part of me has gotten into the habit of thinking (is it me? Do they hate having me work for them so much? But you know, that's really just not it. Somehow, thanks to good interview skills, good luck, whatever, I have managed to maneuver myself into these great positions. Even 6 months working under a mega-egg-brain is so much more educational than 3 yars working for someone who's just average. Unfortunately, having a mega-egg-brain opens a lot of doors, and those are the kind of people getting chief-actuary-type jobs thrown at them. And until i get to management-level, I won't be reporting directly to chief-actuary-level people.
I guess the only thing to do is keep doing what I'm doing now, maneuvering myself to work for managers who are right on that susp, to learn as much as I can right now.
Between 3 and 3:30 eastern time today, exam results come out!!!!
I am completely useless today. There's a message board for actuaries (I guess there's one for everything!) and I keep reloading, looking to see if results are out early. I mean, I'm working and all, but not very efficiently.
Oof.
I had too many pictures for one post...
Here are my mini roses, I have 5 buds that will be opening in the next week or two. As prissy as they are, the roses are pretty rewarding.
I got more indoor plants this week too, I ordered an African Violet from Bluebird Greenhouse - By the way, they are *awesome* - The plants came in beautiful condition, and they sent me a free gift plant! I decided to go with a fancy greenhouse because I didn't want to risk getting a buggy plant from Lowes or Home Depot.
This is the one I ordered, Newton Quiet Resolve. I have seen picture's of other people's plants on the web, and this one often has very variagated leaves. Mine aren't showing much in the way of variagation yet, but the plant will be in my office under my flourescent desk lamp 9 hours a day, so the variagation will hopefully become more pronounced. (Check out the one about 1/3 of the way down on this page)
This is the free gift, Aca's Passionate. This one is going to live in my bedroom.
Evanesce wrote:
I think right now, most people's blogs consist mostly of "this is my first post" and a few exploratory entries, trying to figure out what they want to say. I'm hoping that once people realy figure out what they want their blogs to say, and settle into their voices, there will be a lot more to comment on.
I've always wondered how people on the forum built personal friendships. I don't think of myself as shy, but I've also never just out of the blue PM'ed people, and it's been on only very seldom that people have out of the blue PM'ed me. maybe I just don't sound interesting or inviting when I type. But I do certainly wonder.
As for the chat, I've ducked in a few times and it was empty, but I guess I should stay in so when someone else comes by, then it *won't* be empty. I hope it takes off... I really enjoyed the #bpal IRC chats we used to get going. I'd love to see that become a regular thing.
On an unrelated note, I think I'm going to be the first to use the trackback function. I love trackback.
inkdark moon wrote:
I was going to comment in response, but then my comment turned into a novel, and I decided to re-think my response and write it up here instead.
I can say with absolute certainty that I am happy with my life now.
I mean, in a moment-to-moment sense, I am frustrated with the exam process I have to complete for my career, and I'm busy and tired, but in an overall sense,. I'm happy.
But, the thing is, it's the things that are causing all of that busy-ness that make me happy. I have, by grace or luck, stumbled into a career that I enjoy. And the whole exam thing means that every day, when I get up, I know I will spend anywhere from 4 to 8 hours that day, studying, learning new things and intellectually challenging myself. And studying it all on my own makes it way more rewarding than college ever was.
The biggest misery in my life is to be bored. I hate it. Everything around me can be falling to pieces, but If I am setting goals and occationally achieving them, I'm happy. If I'm learning new things, and having to stretch my brain to do it, I'm happy.
So I guess what I'm saying is that my own happiness is both an internal thing *and* the result of my interacting with the world. My happiness comes from knowing I can rise to a challenge. My goals and my challenges are different from everyone elses, and the things that are important to me aren't important to others... But I have found the things that I am passionate about, and the *path* I am taking to get there makes me happy. I've succeeded in the realm of my career to find a job that challenges me intelectually.
And I have been lucky in my love life to find a guy who loves me so much, he gently holds me to my *own* standards instead of his. Seriously, that's love. He wants me to meet my own goals and grow in the direction I chose. It's a daily struggle for me, but I try to do the same for him.
As for why there are so many depressed people... I think the modern world, for all of the supposed choices we have in every part of our lives, is actually very disempowering. We are all constantly overstimulated with exhausting trivia, and by the time we start looking inwards at what we want and need, we're too tired, and our heads are too full of marketing and other people's opinions.
I'm not saying I'm above it. I'm there just as much as anyone, asking myself, "Is this what I want? What my parents want? What my friends think is best for me? What is "socially acceptable"? What I have been conditioned to believe someone of my social/financial/whatever station should do?"
I think one lucky thing that happened to me was studying TaeKwon Do as a teenager. Right in the middle of those very formative years, I had a chance to learn a little about setting and achieving goals as I moved up the ranks. As I advanced, I was given more and more responsability, and, cliched as it sounds, I really did learn the satisfaction that comes from a job well done. I learned how good it felt to push myself so far beyond the limits I thought I had.
I know I have more thoughts on the subject, but I'll leave it here for now.
I hit the blog post picture limit again. Damnit.
Earlier this week the first morning glory flower opened. I love it!
Here's the vine as of today, running off to explore my upstairs neighbor's balcony:
I got home from Atlanta yesterday.
I was there for a weeklong exam-prep seminar. I've mentioned on the forum that I am an actuary, midway through the 9 exam process of becoming fully credentialed as a Fellow of the Casualty Actuary Society.
So, this exam covers a number of topics:
Loss Modeling
Survival Models
Credibility Theory
Simulation
Interpolation and fitting
It took 4.5 full days to take a sprint through all of the material, including problem solving techniques. I would guess that the material covered would take about 3 full semester college classes. Unfortunately, outside of a handful of colleges with actuarial science programs (which generally only prepare people for the first 4 exams, anyway), the whole actuarial exam thing is all self-study. I've been studying for two months now, and the seminar I went to was basically an opportunity to fine tune which topics need more study, and to learn useful clues to look for in the wording of problems to simplify solving.
I have 5 weeks left before the exam. I have scheduled for myself 32 hours a week outside of work for studying:
4 hours per day - Mon, Tues, Wed, Fri
Tursday nights off for dance class and sanity
8 Hours per day Saturday and Sunday
Ooof. This is going to be a rough 5 weeks. To get in at least *some* excercise, I am planning morning yoga a couple of mornings a week. I'm home for lunch today, and doing laundry. I will have to fit chores in at odd times, and will be needing all of my boyfriend's support. He's a sweetie though, and very understanding.
I was talking to a number of actuarial students this past week whose spouses/partners didn't get it. Like, "Come on honey, you've been studying for like 2 hours. I'm sure you'll be fine. Put it down and spend time with me!" That's the nasty part, most study guides say that it takes 300-500 hours of study time to pass each of these exams. That takes a lot more than 2 hours each saturday morning. I had a boyfriend like that, and my abject misery at failing exams over and over didn't help the relationship any.
Anyway, I have to go move the laundry to the dryer and head back to work. Oof.
Like a lot of other people, I have some blog-like things elsewhere on the web, but I don't update them much. On the other hand, even if I don't post often, I am lurking here at the forums a lot, so maybe I'll be more inclined to post.
Anyway, I just got back from a week in London, so hopefully soon I'll have a bunch of pictures to post.
Here is my lovely tomato... I picked 7 tomatoes off of it today, we ate them with little buffalo mozerellas, fresh basil, and balsamic vinegar.
I haven't shown the basil lately, take a look!
Here's the other tomato plant, it's turning into a total jungle, it's really taken off since I re-potted it. It's got a bunch of little green tomatoes on it.
The peppers are showing no signs at all of ripening:
The roses are putting out new buds, I'll have more flowers soon:
I think there's as much strawberry foliage outside the pot as inside:
It's been a great week in the garden.
Four Morning glories this morning:
And check out the crazy moonflower bud that will open soon:
Another angle showing of the strawberries' prison break:
The current extent of the tomato jungle:
Clusters of growing tomatoes:
Some of the making of tonight's tomato/basil/mozzerella sald:
I have my first ripening pepper!
Remember what the Experimental tomato looked like just three weeks ago? Look at it now:
Finally, the roses are blooming again! Something like 10 buds all over the plants:
Because the forum limits the number of pictures per post, I had to split it up.
My miniature roses: I had a bad aphid infestation while these buds were forming, so these flowers are a little ratty looking, but there are a ton of new buds that should look beautiful when they open!
My pot of morning glories and moonflowers: I planted 2 of each, I'm planning to grow them up the balcony railing. I planted them kind of in the 4 corners, but I guess some sloppy watering moved them around a bit. The two little sprouts are the morning glories, and the two moonflowers are sprouting as we speak!
My moonflower seeds breaking through the soil: How awesome is that?!? I feel like I'm in 1st grade again! I am planning to take more pictures of them in a few hours to see how far they've come
My moonflower seeds 24 hours later:
In her post, please be upstanding for the mayor of simpleton, Clover asked:
Even though I'm writing this here, I'm going to "ping" her post, so that when she goes to look at it, she'll see that this post is in reference to hers.
Hi, Clover!!!
