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Delurkification Tuesday Open Thread

Happy Tuesday night, dear Persephone readers! We had a great day here today, and if you haven’t had a chance to catch up on all the nougat-y goodness we prepared for you, you should totally go back and read.  I’ll wait.

Finished? Fantastic! Then let’s get this open thread started! Lurkers, it’s Tuesday, and that means we’re looking at you.  Come on out and say something, we promise not to bite.  To get you all fired up, here’s a bit of classic awesome to get you in the mood.

It’s always time for Bon Jovi. I know most of you aren’t old enough, but back in the day (by which I mean some time between 1988 and 1991) Jon and Richie (the cute one) performed this song all acoustical and pretty-like on the MTV Movie Awards, and it was just lovely. I tried to find a clip, but no love, Persephoneers.

WAIT! This isn’t the exact performance (which I may actually have on VHS somewhere) but it’s close. This was part of a benefit concert from 1996, and it’s an example of GenX taking ourselves way too seriously, but the music in the middle is pretty.

By [E] Selena MacIntosh*

Selena MacIntosh is the owner and editor of Persephone Magazine. She also fixes it when it breaks. She is fueled by Diet Coke, coffee with a lot of cream in it, and cat hair.

42 replies on “Delurkification Tuesday Open Thread”

*delurkifies*

Hello! I signed up while I was supposed to be taking notes on Locke and Hobbes. I found this site a week or two ago, and I can’t believe that it isn’t more popular.

Also, the Middmarch Madness is the best idea I’ve seen in a while…except for the whole defeat of Team Lyra thing.

Our office dress is usually just one step above a college classroom. Most days involve jeans (not even the trouser leg dark wash, either), sneakers, a sweater or a tee shirt without a logo on it, maybe a polo shirt if I’m feeling fancy. Really, we have a lot of latitude in avoiding “business dress” unless we have a meeting. (Sometimes even then, depending on the meeting. You don’t want to walk into a block club meeting in the poorest neighborhood in the city with a designer dress and clacky clacky heels. We had a staff member who used to do that, and nobody took her seriously when she claimed she understood their problems.)

ANYWAY, today is one of those “unless we have a meeting days.” Some company is interested in relocating to town and is making the rounds of electeds’ offices, which means I actually have to dress like a business professional. And I got a stupid run in my last pair of pantyhose this morning, and my black tights got a hole in them last time I wore them, and it’s snowing outside today and I was already running late and didn’t have time to run to Target, so I ended up digging around and finding a pair of proper stocking stockings that were buried in the back of my sock drawer, but they are so uncomfortable and the lace on my thighs is really itchy and why did I even buy them in the first place arrrgh.

This is the kind of day today is going to be like. I can’t wait until my vacation.

Update: Turns out the meeting was freaking awesome, despite me thinking it was supposed to be at 1 and them thinking it was supposed to be at 11. Also, they are gone so I’ve taken the stupid stockings off. I am now eating apples with honey for lunch, and things are looking up.

Now. let’s see if I can ride this upturn into getting to the bottom of the Giant Pile of Doom.

Ugh, my sleep schedule is all screwed up and I haven’t done a very good job of fixing it. Last night it took me a good 2 hours to fall asleep, so I finally got to sleep a little after 2. Boyfriend had to get up at 6, and even though I was expecting to stay asleep, I woke up….so now I am awake. But the thing is, I will be exhausted all day. I’ll probably end up taking a nap at like 5, just in time to screw up my sleep for tonight! Yay!

Just reading my contract, the union rules that my contract falls under (I’m not a member of a union myself) and jotting the details down that need to be more precise in the contract.

Maybe I can quit already tomorrow? Probably not though…might take some time. But fortunately it’s nothing major.

Dear P’neers with Grownup Jobs: I need some advice.

So I graduate in June with my BA, but am taking 2 classes from late June to mid-August to fill the last gap before I can upgrade my degree to Honours. This will give me a BA in Psyc. I’m hoping to find full-time work for the fall. The game plan, currently, is as follows:

– Exploit every single contact that comes along with having a mother who works in healthcare (thank you sweet Fates)
– Get serious about LinkedIn + Workopolis and the like
– If all else fails, hang on to my part-time job at my university’s bookstore (a 2-hour commute each way, hardly ideal) and temp like a mofo.

I don’t know what I’m qualified for with my degree, but I had 2 research assistantships in undergrad and a ton of volunteering in mental health crisis/hospital settings. Still, I don’t know how to get those jobs or when I should begin the hunt. After getting Hons? Before, and just say “Oh btw I can’t start on fulltime til Sept”? Argh.

/novel of a comment

I’m not sure what your degree qualifies you for–I have friends with Psych degrees but then if they wanted to stay in the fields they got master’s and PhDs… you might want to talk with a guidance/career counselor at your school about what kind of jobs, exactly, would fit your current qualifications, where the jobs are and how to get them. You might also invite a few of the psychologists your mom knows, perhaps, for coffee to ask them the same question. One of my friends had trouble counseling with a psych degree until she got her master’s but there could be other things you could do in between.
Apart from that, I think your networking plan makes sense.
Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Oh, I know I could never get a practitioner/counselor kind of job with a BA. That’s just straight-up Not Allowed, haha. Rather, I can see myself in some kind of administrative/screening/referral to mental health services type of capacity right now until I can go back to school for higher ed.

Thanks for the input :)

[Disclaimer: I don’t mean to thread jack here, but for some reason the comment box to create my own thread isn’t there… Since my question is a spin-off of yours, marthamydear, I’m going to kind of slip it in here.]

How does one effectively use LinkedIn for job networking? Honestly, I’ve never given it much consideration and haven’t poked around very much in the site. I do have my basic info (like education, location, etc.) but I’m getting the feeling that I’m not using it to its greatest potential. How do you all best utilize it?

Find people you know and look through the list of who they’re linked to. If any of those people are in a field that’s interesting, ask your 1st-level connection to “introduce” you. You can also have coworkers, former coworkers, former bosses, etc “recommend” you by writing a little thing about how awesome you were at X place where you worked together. That goes above and beyond just the online resume that most people seem to have over at linkedin.

I have a random question. How do you keep eyeliner from making you look like a raccoon by the end of the night? I don’t wear make-up very often, and this is one of the reasons. I’ve tried different brands and powder, but nothing can stop the stuff from running.

Sounds like you need an eye make-up sealant. I’ve used and would recommend she laq from Benefit. You put your make-up on as normal and then paint the solution over the top of the eyeliner and your lashes with a fine brush and wait for it to dry. Nothing moves, it’s amazing.

I went to the gym with my neighbor today. Usually I do the treadmill and some hand weights, but she got me doing all the leg machines and I feel like I am going to die. I have also undone any good I did by scarfing down half a bag of Cheeto Puffs.

I regret nothing.

Is anyone watching “Teen Mom 2”? I feel so conflicted about Jenelle. On the one hand, her mom seems awful so I feel bad for her. On the other hand, she keeps doing stupid shit and kind of, well I don’t want to say deserves what happens to her, but she doesn’t seem to learn from her past mistakes and keeps making bad decisions. Also, Chelsea is so spoiled and I hope she realizes how fortunate she is to have such a great dad that is willing to support her and her daughter.

Seriously! I want to know her thought process where she thinks, “hmmm, I’ll take my mom’s credit card who is letting me live with her and raise my son, go to New Jersey so my dead beat boyfriend can see his family, not tell my boss, rack up $400-$700 on my mom’s credit card, then complain about being broke and not have anywhere to stay after I get fired and my mom kicks me out for stealing her credit card.”

I’m only catching them on weekends so I’m probably not caught up with the newest developments, but yeah, I feel the same way about Jenelle. Her mom can be really awful, but then they’ll have a good talk or Jenelle will go to school and talk about her plans and then… the next thing, she’s deciding to ditch work and drive to New Jersey with her mom’s credit card for money, or getting caught smoking weed or whatever. I just keep wondering how she hasn’t learned yet that these things don’t turn out well. She never actually learns that when she wants things to get better she has to change her behavior, too.

I’m supposed to be working on my Honor’s Thesis Proposal, but all I really wanted to do is re-watch Veronica Mars. I may actually have to be productive.

You can totally finish the last two thirds of a project in a night. Starting is the hardest part, after that it’s just filling in the details and concluding your point. Good luck!

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