Get Rich or Die Crying

If you want a good idea of how bad the job market, picture this situation:

You are graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a BA in Business Management Economics and are planning to go into the accounting field, which is one of the three strongest industries in America right now in terms of job growth. You have a 3.4 cum GPA and a 3.7 major GPA. You were a RA for two years, the Vice President of Sigma Lambda Beta, the Vice President of Alpha Phi Omega, and a coordinator of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Program from the IRS. You have a polished transcript and have had the career center go over your cover letter and drill you on interviewing skills. At the end of the day, you STILL don't have any job offers.

Now replace all the "you" and "your"s with "I" and "my", and thats the story of my life right now.

mistaking planes and satellites for shooting stars

Its a Saturday night, and I am walking along the streets in downtown Santa Cruz. Its at least 20 degrees outside, but the alcohol in my stomach and down my throat are keeping me warm enough. I look up, and the moon is shaped like a perfect circle. Maybe its the alcohol, but I feel like the moon is smiling and winking at me.

Suddenly, I see a red light shoot across the night sky. I have never seen a shooting star in my life, and am suddenly under the pressure of coming up with a perfect wish. In my head, I say "I wish I could honestly say I am happy". Automatically, I feel foolish because of how vague my wishful thinking is. 

It turns out that my shooting star was actually a Boeing 747 headed for the Mineta San Jose Intl. Airport or SFO. If I could, I would make coffee and lay awake all night long until I cross paths with a real shooting star, but a tree blocks my view of the sky from my room. Believe me, I have a lot of wishes I need granted.

"Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief." -C.S. Lewis

Obvious

If you want to know how great America is, try this on for size: today on CNN.com, Jett Travolta, John Travolta's son, is making more news than the Gaza crisis. Jett Travolta's death is the #1 visited news article today, while the Gaza crisis is #7. After all, the son of a B-List celebrity is more important than the deaths of hundreds and an international crisis.