Funny thing, my business cards definitely say Consultant beneath my name, so kudos to you for being so astute. I think eventually, it'll get easier, but not before getting harder. I know eventually, I'll have to suffer somehow and make it back into college, but while I'm making around thirty so a year, I guess I'll make it back eventually. Forgive me if I slur a bit here or there, strong margarita is kickin' my face in a little bit and my lovely woman is ... kicking me, literally - in the side from behind. She's a lightweight. Can't blame her. And the NES doesn't say much, my dear. I was playing the NES while in a body cast in the second grade while rocking my sister with an exposed big toe... Gawd... I should use that as an ice breaker or story opener. Great first line for a Memoir. Lolol. And the more you type, the more you should have been in my generation and near Nebraska / Kansas. Lol. I've built several computers, and I'll have you know - I brute force hacked my bosses computer today because he was dumb enough to forget his Windows Vista log in. -_- Silly boy. So - what is the next topic on the agenda, my lady friend?
That's very frustrating. Hopefully, the economic crisis may be useful for something: the people who "bought" MBA's are being faulted (in part) for the downturn. They knew academically how to create money, but had no experience or ethics to moderate their behavior. They had the know-how to make it happen, to bend the rules and change the law--but they lacked the basic foresight to keep the system from falling apart. They were children playing with adult toys, and we are all worse off for it. You sound as if you make an excellent consultant. You have the hustle and the drive--all you need now is the connections. I'm sure you are already doing this, but it might serve your long-term goals to try to hook up with another consultant who has a network and can get work for you on established contracts. You might have to start off doing stupid little tasks for him (correcting this or that, small-time design, etc.) but once you build the relationship, he can perhaps help you build a reputation that doesn't depend directly on a degree. And bless you for your kind assessment of my age. But a girl who tells her age will tell anything. Suffice it to say that I'm a bit older than that. I've been gaming since the NES came out. It was my little brother's machine, but I co-opted it to play Zelda, Faxanadu, and Ninja Gaiden. I would say that I'm old school, but I never had an Activision or an Atari. I've built two PCs of my own, pretty much from scratch (once you have to replace a motherboard and you choose to put it in a new case, that counts in my book) but that was back in the day when such things were easy. I don't know as much as I used to, so I'm also here to learn. And I love to chat about anything. I'm pretty easygoing and, like you, I enjoy talking with someone who can rub two brain cells together and get a spark. <3 <3 <3
I completely understand the degree thing - but I think an aptitude test would be much wiser and less time consuming, and then you could also negotiate wage on top of that to gain the BEST employee for the job and then tell them they wont necessarily be making degree wages, but they'll still be paid well. I design web sites on the side. I sell them around 500 a pop for a month of updates, and a total package of what I already know how to do, and what I will learn for them to get them what they need. But without a degree, a certification, or anything else - no one will even look at my portfolio, let alone consider me for a job. It just seems like more of a mockery than a true belief that someone could know something without a f;ckin piece of paper that says what they can and cant do. I get really emotional and irritated on this front, because I know what my self-worth is and it pisses me off to high-hell to have someone question my validity and word because I'm not even twenty-five yet. I've done a lot of dumb sh;t in my life and learned more than most from it. I've been to countries over seas to give me a much larger and more accomplished sense than most who only know their doorsteps and the life around them that they feel superior and arrogant. It's a joke. - Ble. /Rant. How old are you, if you don't mind me asking? Your spunk and understanding of most things 'chat' that are thrown to you, you understand - which, thoughtfully would put you around ... twenty-seven? No... twenty-nine? Unless you graduated early or have gang-banged the life out of college, that's where I'd guess... I enjoy talking to someone with a shred of intelligence who likes to discuss. I'm not much on some literature, so I can barely hold my own in a Book Club. I'm oddly enough - not a reader. I read what interests me and I can't choke down what I don't like... It's like driving nails through the base of my skull and then twisting... ":/
Honestly, my writing was stilted until I started writing on forums. The more you write, the better you get, and writing on forums makes people write more quickly, efficiently, and fluidly. Or it can make you an idiot. I got a paper written entirely in text message acronyms once. I wrote "lol" at the top and handed it back. I love that you are creative. Keep at it--with the print publishing industry crashing and burning the way that it is, online publishing is the new frontier for those of us who can figure out how to tap it. Get your work out there so that we can read it! You might not make a dime off of it at first, but consider the dude who created lileks.com and The Institute of Official Cheer: he assembled a site that made fun of 50's cookbooks and turned it into a book that sold pretty well (especially because he took down the images that he used for the book). The guy who wrote Eunoia worked as a salesman, I think--he wrote the book in his spare time. Don't believe the hype: only a very small minority of writers can make a living through their writing only. You can still publish, even if you have to work a day job. And you are right about degrees. When I started my graduate work a million years ago, my advisor from undergraduate told me two important things: 1) Degrees don't go to the brightest; they go to the most determined. 2) If the people who set the hoops you have to jump through to get your degree had to f*** a goat to get theirs, then by God, you will have to f*** one too. Degrees are ultimately pretty arbitrary. They are less important than the training you receive, and I have incredible discussions about philosophy and art with people who don't have degrees. I like the work I do, but I don't make a lot of money. I will never be rich. I see it as getting paid to talk about books, something I would do for free. Ultimately, I think that whether we can look at our lives and say that we are, for the most part, happy with how we live then we are actually ahead of the game. For me, that's the yardstick that I use to measure my life: Am I happy? For now, the answer is "Ask me in May." <3 <3 <3
AHhahaha, thank you for the compliment, however no - nothing of the sort for an editor. Just a self-proclaimed jackass and a stickler for details. In truth, I'm nearly totally self taught as far as my writing goes. I've been writing stories, thoughts, visions, ideas, and whatever else comes to mind since I was eleven. I've created entire races for books and storylines, full extensive families, abilities of the race, full historical depth to include Earthly phenomena such as Stone henge. Writing has always just been a fancy and hobby of mine. I've love to turn it into a job, but no one would hire someone with a wasted year-and-a-half of Community College that dabbles in everything from Graphic Design to Information Technology. In this world, your ten years for that piece of paper you're soon to acquire means you can do something. Regardless of if you can do it good or not. It makes me laugh to think that you could stack two people side by side, one with a degree and one without, both making the same amount of money. The one with the Bachelor is actually making less and working with print design and proofing, while I work as a Sales Rep. Sadly, with my 'spunk' and being degree-less because of cash flow problems, Sales is all I can do. But my personality sways it and makes me the best candidate for the position. /shrug I can't complain too much. And the points crap is basically - just that, to keep people thinking more = importance, when really it's just like coins for slot machines.
Thanks for the welcome--I didn't lurk as long as I should because you guys sounded like such fun that I had to sign up. I have both, actually, with a certificate in Critical Theory. ^_^ I double-majored in Philosophy and English as an undergrad, so theory is easy for me to read. I do Postcolonial Theory and Lit atm, which is what I will teach when I move to ODU. I used to do Romanticism because I love Byron so much, but I HATE Wordsworth for some reason. That didn't work out very well at all. Are you an editor? You have a fine eye for it--better than mine, actually. I'm good at analysis, but sometimes sloppy at the details, which is why Linux is probably going to catch me noobing it up somehow. I wasn't sure about the GFP--I just see POINTS and think IMPORTANT. I think it stems from my rather intense dislike of numbers. (I cannot math. If someone had a gun to my forehead and told me to math, I would probably just tell them to go ahead and shoot me.)
PS - The GFP are worthless if you don't play in the stupid, impossible-to-win casino or arcade... Welcome to the boards. Do you really have a Bachelors and/or Masters in English Lit?
