Mishmash Musings

Well, like most other people, I’m worried about how much longer I’ll have my job. I work for a tutoring service (sort of like Sylvan Learning Centers, if you know what those are). The place I work for is just a small business with 9 branches scattered throughout the area, and is run by one guy. I’ve been with them for 10 years now, and like it because I’m more of a curriculum consultant now than a tutor, which is the way I prefer it.

But we’ve been losing lots of students recently, and are in danger of becoming yet another victim of this crappy economy. Obviously, when people are cutting back on expenses, they’ll let go of the extra stuff first — including tutoring services.

My boss doesn’t talk numbers with me, but the declining enrollment is obvious, and we’ve also made lots of staff reductions recently. It’s kind of sad to see the business slowly dying after 25 years…

I know my boss isn’t giving up, though. He’s doing a new marketing campaign and is thinking about hiring business plan writers to help revise his vision and perhaps get some funding to carry him through these tough times. I hope it works.

My whole family has been laid off recently (mom, dad, brother), my husband works in the auto industry, which is quite risky these days, and now my job is in danger. Wow, when will this stuff end?

I’ve decided that I won’t be playing fantasy football this year. I’ve participated in a number of leagues for the past five years, but will be far too busy with work, family, and school to get involved this season. It was a hard decision because fantasy football is tons of fun, but it also takes up an inordinate amount of time, which is something I cannot afford to waste this fall.

I also decided not to get Sunday Ticket, which means I’ll only be watching Bears games and MNF this year. But this is also a smart move because with Sunday Ticket, I’d feel like I’d have to watch a bunch of games in order to get my money’s worth, and that wouldn’t do much for my study time.

Ugh, this has not been a good day. As a freelance writer, I’m considered self-employed by the U.S. government and have to keep detailed records for tax purposes. I usually keep them in a couple of Excel files that I update on a monthly basis.

Well, I went in to check some numbers and compare receipts today and totally messed up the data! I lost everything from March to July of this year and now will have to comb through PayPal records in order to get all that info back.

I know I should have an online backup or something to get me through accidents like this, but I’ve just been too lazy to do it. Needless to say, I’ve learned my lesson. I’m going to back up everything that’s still left, and then spend the rest of the weekend trying to recover what I’ve lost. Not fun.

Well, that didn’t last long! Just a week and a half ago, I posted about how I ran a mile for the first time in a couple of decades and how I was looking forward to getting in shape and losing weight this way.

But I’m already suffering from runner’s knee because of the pounding my joints take out on the asphalt. This is not from doing too much too quickly, as I’m alternating between a mile, a half-mile, and then a brisk walk. I think my knees are just weak.

Anyway, since I’m enjoying my more active lifestyle and don’t want to just sit around and search the Internet for the best diet pill to help me lose weight, I’m probably going to buy a couple of knee braces for runners. I’m not sure if braces would help with my problem, but I feel like I’ve got to give it a try.

The web is abuzz over something called Facebook Lite after some people received invites to participate in beta testing. A few have speculated that FB Lite will be something akin to Twitter or FriendFeed, but the Washington Post says it’s just going to be a streamlined version of the regular Facebook site for places where broadband connections aren’t available. Apparently, that’s why many of the beta testers are in India and countries like that.

This has not officially been confirmed, however, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what Facebook Lite really is.

Can you get what the top-rated (academically speaking) college in America is? Harvard? Yale? Princeton? MIT? Stanford? Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. According to this article on Forbes, the best American college is the United States Military Academy at West Point.

This surprises me a bit. I’ve always known that the military academies are top-notch schools and are hard to get into, but I thought the Air Force Academy was the best. Guess not.

Anyway, students don’t have to pay tuition in order to go to West Point. In fact, they get a check for $895 each month to help with living expenses!

But of course there are other strings attached. Graduates have to perform 5 years of military service before they’re free to go on to other things. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad in peace time, but when there are a couple of wars raging, I’m not sure how many students would be eager to take that offer.

Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in as the 111th justice of the Supreme Court earlier today. Her confirmation was very fast and uneventful, and though I have reservations about her declarations of being guided by “law” rather than “personal feelings”, she’ll probably end up ruling more moderately than anyone expects. This is usually what happens to justices (with the exception of the ultra-liberal Ginsberg). And let’s face it, it’s not as though she’s replacing a conservative on the bench to begin with.

Well, I truly hope that Sotomayor upholds the Constitution as written. It’s great that she’s the first Hispanic on the bench and all, but she still needs to carry out her duties faithfully.

Photo: J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press

Ok, I usually don’t do these blog quiz things. I think if you look back over my nearly three years of posting, I’ve taken maybe two quizzes prior to this. But tonight I’m bored, and don’t really have anything else to talk about, so I did this quiz from Blogthings called How Snobby Are You. It was quick, just seven questions. Check out the results below and click the link if you want to take the quiz:

You Are A Little Snobby

Being a little snobby every once and a while is totally allowed. If no one was ever snobby, people wouldn’t try to better themselves. While you enjoy the finest things in life (that you can afford), you do tire of superficiality. You know there’s more to life than what’s just on the surface.