All the king's horses....

With the economy seeming to be in shambles due to misregulation, idiotic business practices, manipulative marketing, poor consumer education, and enough bad decisions for everyone to take a pint or two I as a university student have to step back and take a look at a system that has placed a rather large burden on people like me.

Namely: Student loans.

One of the large problems with today's ease of going to college is the price of that same ease. Student loans are given out to people fresh out of high school with little or no money management skills. Most of them have very little concept of value or money, let alone how to plan to pay for something that is only getting more expensive with each passing day.

For some, they are told that they are making an investment. That the money they spend now will be paid back before they know once they are out in the real world and have a nice job where the money just rolls in.

Bull shit.

Unless you are getting one of those generic degrees that will always be needed (business, education, hospitality, medicine, ect) then your chances of finding that perfect job waiting for you is just slightly higher than rolling a thirteen in a game of craps.

This leaves a lot (read majority) of students entering the economy in the red with no real understanding of how to fix it except to throw some money at it and eventually it will go away.

Debt is a bad, bad thing for an economy. Especially when its largest consumers (young professionals and families trying to keep things running smoothly) are trying to fill a hole dug just to get them into a position so that they can make a decent go at making a living.

So, time to get down to the point.

Why do we encourage people to go into debt? It makes no long term sense! What the fuck is the point of making a ton of money one day, only to go bankrupt the next?

This current generation of graduates are inheriting what can only be described as a monetary clusterfuck, and are steamrolling along with debt up to their eyeballs ready to make the situation worse.

People, we all need to wake the fuck up and start doing this thing called saving that has fallen out of vouge in the last couple of decades.

Front Row Tickets to Tragedy

It has been suggested that people who watch Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report are not taking this election seriously. Many people I have talked to seem to scoff at the notion that this Presidential Election (tm) can or should be laughed at.

To a point, I agree with them. But that point came and went early on when both parties decided who they would nominate for office.

On the republican side of things, you have Grandpa Simpson and Peggy Hill promising more of the same.

On the democrat side, a Pepsi spokesperson and Richie Rich sixty years after his inception promising "change", what ever the hell that means.

It occurred to me after last Tuesday's debate that what I was watching was a train wreck in slow motion. Each agonizing second was broadcast to homes across the nation where many a drinking game was played in order to deaden the pain caused by each utterance of "my friends" or "change." These caricatures that danced on television screens across this fine country were indistinguishable from their SNL counterparts.

So I say to the comedy naysayers: Whatever granite faced seriousness you approach this with will mean absolutely dick in the end.

But no matter which line you stand on, what principles you stand for, or whether you laugh or cry at these proceedings there is one thing we can all count on.

We all have front row tickets to another American Tragedy.

The Agency Hunt and Letting Go

There are many, many steps on the road to becoming an author. It involves patience, dedication, and a rather thick skin.

I say this because I am about to take the next, most dreaded step.

Agent hunting.

We all done shuddering now? Good.

In all of my time, few things have caused me this much tension and stress, but at the same time few things have left me with such a sense of excitement.

But with a third draft of a manuscript, the first couple chapters of another work, and a compilation of short stories in the pipeline I figured it was time to get off my lazy ass and get something done and take the steps to putting things into print.

It is not the fear of judgment or rejection that has stayed my hand this long. Nay, it is the fact that once it sits in its new shiny dust jacket and its new spot on the shelf, then it is no longer my private joy, but one I must now share with the world.

It is simultaneously heart breaking and beautiful and the only thing I can think to compare it to right now is of a mother letting go of their child's hand on that first day of school, or a father's hug to that same child on the day they graduate and enter into the world.

Once those steps are taken, the baby you have nurtured is off to make its own decisions and in turn have opinions formed about them.

A pure moment for pride and sorrow to grip one's heart and give one pause where action is needed.

Thus I address the envelope and once more read over its contents with a heavy heart. The long weeks of waiting are all that lie ahead as the children of my mind try find their way in this world.