I've found myself awash in liquidity these past couple of months after a c.d. matured and the series I Bonds I bought last April reached the one year mark and are now available for emergencies. After careful consideration, I decided to buy more bonds, putting $2,000 in last month and another $3,000 in last week, giving me a grand total of $8,050 in I bonds, plus accrued interest. A year from now when I'll be able to redeem bonds as necessary, that'll be a perfectly acceptable emergency fund.
I know rates are going to be lousy for a while, but I think I can live with 0% interest in the wake of serious deflation. Even though I got pretty spoiled by HSBC back before the economy tanked, I know that the point of an emergency fund is to keep reserves on hand, not to generate more income. I'm more concerned about inflation eating away my savings when we finally get out of the recession but interest rates don't catch up right away. I Bonds should combat that pretty effectively.
Somehow, there's a much bigger psychological barrier to going to a bank and physically signing over the piece of paper than to electronically transferring invisible money from savings to checking so I don't think I'll be tempted to cash in the bonds for non-emergencies. However, if I ever do need money in a pinch, I can redeem up to $1,000 worth of bonds at a time at a bank anywhere in the country and walk out with the cash, which is a darn sight quicker than waiting for money to move from one account to another by way of ACH transfer. It's also pretty nice to be able to make a decision once and forget about it for the next couple of decades instead of fretting over chasing rates.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
It's tax day, but I just don't feel like writing about money.
This is, or at least was, a personal finance blog. It's April 15th. This space should probably contain something tax related, maybe musings about why I waited until today to actually mail in my returns, a review of the free H&R Block TaxCut online program I used to double check my forms, commentary on how ridiculous it is that I'll be getting over $1,400 back between the federal and state returns (a consequence of starting my job in August but withholding like I'd started back in January), a list of ideas for constructive ways to use the refund money, or perhaps some historical perspective on the Sixteenth Amendment. However, I'm just not feeling it.
Instead, I really want to write about my kids. I want to write about the typically disaffected senior who was so into nervous system Jeopardy that he yelled, "F*** yeah!" at the top of his lungs after getting a particularly tricky question right and then looked absolutely mortified when he realized what he'd done. I want to write about the joys of mixing baking soda and vinegar, about the sixth period students who invited me to come to senior skip day with them, about the grumbling that the New York Times article I'd assigned was "like reading Shakespeare", about how those same grumbley students actually got a lot out of said article after I finally hit on a good way to absolutely force them to use active reading strategies, about the miscreant who decided to stuff burning paper under my classroom door today. That's my life right now. Not that money isn't important, but I'm not devoting nearly as much of my mental energy to the topic as I was a year ago.
Instead, I really want to write about my kids. I want to write about the typically disaffected senior who was so into nervous system Jeopardy that he yelled, "F*** yeah!" at the top of his lungs after getting a particularly tricky question right and then looked absolutely mortified when he realized what he'd done. I want to write about the joys of mixing baking soda and vinegar, about the sixth period students who invited me to come to senior skip day with them, about the grumbling that the New York Times article I'd assigned was "like reading Shakespeare", about how those same grumbley students actually got a lot out of said article after I finally hit on a good way to absolutely force them to use active reading strategies, about the miscreant who decided to stuff burning paper under my classroom door today. That's my life right now. Not that money isn't important, but I'm not devoting nearly as much of my mental energy to the topic as I was a year ago.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
It's all been said.
I'm reaching recession overload. Everywhere I turn there are more stories about the causes, impact, and how to adapt. I'm getting utterly sick of the human interest features about how everyone is coping or not coping with the changes. Yet, a lot of my thoughts are along the same lines so I haven't been posting a lot.
I've discovered while home for Easter weekend that my parents are canceling Netflix and shopping at Aldi's. The boy keeps getting sent home early because there just isn't enough work to keep everyone busy. I've quit checking my Vanguard account. It's not a super fun time, but life goes on.
It's the more subtle effects that are keeping me up at night. The physics graduate program at my old university had an upsurge in applications this year as more people tried to wait out the recession and the competition for slots at top-tier programs became all the more fierce. One of the best physics students I know got rejected by his top choice despite being offered large scholarships to other programs. His university of choice dealt with budget cuts by reducing the number of graduate stipends they offer.
His second choice, Cornell University (with an R.P. Feynman award), is hardly a bad option for an aspiring physicist, but not such a great option for someone who also hopes to spend the rest of his life with my friend S. She got a major fellowship to attend graduate school in English at the school that rejected him, and they wound up with zero overlap in their acceptances. It was, to put it mildly, bloody depressing. Fortunately, yesterday at the eleventh hour the National Science Foundation offered him a graduate fellowship, and the top choice offered him a slot since he'll be bringing federal funding with him.
So all that worked out nicely, but it leaves me a bit concerned about my prospects next year. I'll never be the physicist my friend will be. I fancy that I'm reasonably bright and hardworking, but I wasn't the sort of student who could work through enough E&M on my own to take graduate-level general relativity as a sophomore. Throw in that I've done hardly any real physics this year, instead opting to stand back and watch my brains slowly turn to mush as I spend my days trying to teach teenagers how to add fractions so they have a prayer of learning the material I'm actually supposed to be teaching, and I don't feel so secure in my chances of getting in to a respected graduate program.
Yeah, it's nothing compared to the folks who're losing their savings, their jobs, their health insurance, and their homes. Yeah, it's mostly my own darn fault for going into TFA instead of directly into grad school back when the economic outlook was a touch rosier. Yeah, it really is entirely my fault that I didn't keep up with studying every day instead of letting myself get washed away by a sea of grief and then struggling to keep up with the demands of teaching. Like so many others, I'm nervous about the fallout from a variety of factors, some that were totally within my locus of control and others that are far outside it.
I've discovered while home for Easter weekend that my parents are canceling Netflix and shopping at Aldi's. The boy keeps getting sent home early because there just isn't enough work to keep everyone busy. I've quit checking my Vanguard account. It's not a super fun time, but life goes on.
It's the more subtle effects that are keeping me up at night. The physics graduate program at my old university had an upsurge in applications this year as more people tried to wait out the recession and the competition for slots at top-tier programs became all the more fierce. One of the best physics students I know got rejected by his top choice despite being offered large scholarships to other programs. His university of choice dealt with budget cuts by reducing the number of graduate stipends they offer.
His second choice, Cornell University (with an R.P. Feynman award), is hardly a bad option for an aspiring physicist, but not such a great option for someone who also hopes to spend the rest of his life with my friend S. She got a major fellowship to attend graduate school in English at the school that rejected him, and they wound up with zero overlap in their acceptances. It was, to put it mildly, bloody depressing. Fortunately, yesterday at the eleventh hour the National Science Foundation offered him a graduate fellowship, and the top choice offered him a slot since he'll be bringing federal funding with him.
So all that worked out nicely, but it leaves me a bit concerned about my prospects next year. I'll never be the physicist my friend will be. I fancy that I'm reasonably bright and hardworking, but I wasn't the sort of student who could work through enough E&M on my own to take graduate-level general relativity as a sophomore. Throw in that I've done hardly any real physics this year, instead opting to stand back and watch my brains slowly turn to mush as I spend my days trying to teach teenagers how to add fractions so they have a prayer of learning the material I'm actually supposed to be teaching, and I don't feel so secure in my chances of getting in to a respected graduate program.
Yeah, it's nothing compared to the folks who're losing their savings, their jobs, their health insurance, and their homes. Yeah, it's mostly my own darn fault for going into TFA instead of directly into grad school back when the economic outlook was a touch rosier. Yeah, it really is entirely my fault that I didn't keep up with studying every day instead of letting myself get washed away by a sea of grief and then struggling to keep up with the demands of teaching. Like so many others, I'm nervous about the fallout from a variety of factors, some that were totally within my locus of control and others that are far outside it.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Things I learned this weekend
I was off at a conference this weekend where I learned a lot of things you might find mildly interesting if you teach high school freshmen. Odds are, you don't fall into that category so here are a few other things I learned:
Renting a van from a rent-to-own furniture store to save a few bucks probably isn't worth it. The initial plan of renting a giant SUV from a reputable national car rental chain got vetoed, and we ended up in a minivan the district hired from a furniture store. It was filthy inside, and after we got up to fifty miles per hour, the handling became alarming. We took it back and the guy at the store offered us another minivan that wouldn't even start. After a bit of fussing, the store guy took the first van to get it checked out and discovered that the treads were separating from one of the tires. The van was more or less okay after that, and by more or less okay I mean it didn't start making horrible noises until we were back within our own city limits.
Posh hotels can be fun. Fancy suites, cooked to order breakfasts, seriously comfortable beds, guitar players each evening, and indoor pools and hot tubs are nice amenities. I can understand why people like to vacation this way instead of spending a few hours in a Motel 6 and/or driving straight through on the way to a relative's house where they'll end up sleeping on the floor.
A sex on the beach is yummy. The hotel where we were staying had a free reception every night, and I decided to partake after my head principal, assistant principal, the woman from the central admin office, and the mentor teacher assigned to me by the district all ordered drinks. It turns out that mentor teacher gives good advice about drinks as well as students. I consumed half a drink Friday night and one and a half drinks Saturday night, putting my total alcohol consumption this calendar year at two drinks. This is on the heels of my unprecedented five drink December! Thus, I'll probably lay off the booze for at least the next couple of months.
It's possible to turn a profit on a nice weekend away for work. I can turn in receipts to get reimbursed by the district for Friday's dinner and today's gas station snacks. However, Saturday is a different story: because we were away on school business all day, we will be receiving a per diem of $42. It doesn't matter that breakfast was provided by the hotel and lunch was offered at the workshop. I spent $1.50 on a cash tip at a buffet Friday night, $9 on a touristy activity that everyone else wanted to do Saturday evening, $1 on tipping the bartender, and $5 on dinner and tip on Saturday (Hurray for cheap and filling cups of soup!). My assistant principal isn't sure whether this will be the case on this trip, but she said people have gotten paid for working on Saturday while off attending these sorts of things in the past.
All in all, it was a pleasant and productive trip.
Renting a van from a rent-to-own furniture store to save a few bucks probably isn't worth it. The initial plan of renting a giant SUV from a reputable national car rental chain got vetoed, and we ended up in a minivan the district hired from a furniture store. It was filthy inside, and after we got up to fifty miles per hour, the handling became alarming. We took it back and the guy at the store offered us another minivan that wouldn't even start. After a bit of fussing, the store guy took the first van to get it checked out and discovered that the treads were separating from one of the tires. The van was more or less okay after that, and by more or less okay I mean it didn't start making horrible noises until we were back within our own city limits.
Posh hotels can be fun. Fancy suites, cooked to order breakfasts, seriously comfortable beds, guitar players each evening, and indoor pools and hot tubs are nice amenities. I can understand why people like to vacation this way instead of spending a few hours in a Motel 6 and/or driving straight through on the way to a relative's house where they'll end up sleeping on the floor.
A sex on the beach is yummy. The hotel where we were staying had a free reception every night, and I decided to partake after my head principal, assistant principal, the woman from the central admin office, and the mentor teacher assigned to me by the district all ordered drinks. It turns out that mentor teacher gives good advice about drinks as well as students. I consumed half a drink Friday night and one and a half drinks Saturday night, putting my total alcohol consumption this calendar year at two drinks. This is on the heels of my unprecedented five drink December! Thus, I'll probably lay off the booze for at least the next couple of months.
It's possible to turn a profit on a nice weekend away for work. I can turn in receipts to get reimbursed by the district for Friday's dinner and today's gas station snacks. However, Saturday is a different story: because we were away on school business all day, we will be receiving a per diem of $42. It doesn't matter that breakfast was provided by the hotel and lunch was offered at the workshop. I spent $1.50 on a cash tip at a buffet Friday night, $9 on a touristy activity that everyone else wanted to do Saturday evening, $1 on tipping the bartender, and $5 on dinner and tip on Saturday (Hurray for cheap and filling cups of soup!). My assistant principal isn't sure whether this will be the case on this trip, but she said people have gotten paid for working on Saturday while off attending these sorts of things in the past.
All in all, it was a pleasant and productive trip.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Evaluation
I still haven't been officially observed for my annual evaluation. There was a food fight on Friday immediately before I was scheduled to be observed, and they couldn't spare the assistant principal. I think today he just forgot about me.
Still, today was one of those days that left me feeling pretty good about being here, even though I had to write two people up for cursing me out. (Seriously, if I have given you the teacher look, silently given you a "shh" gesture, attempted to use proximity, quietly asked two separate times that you face the front and stop talking to the girl behind you, and you are still turned around talking very loudly and distracting your classmates who're supposed to be taking notes, I have every right to ask you to move to a different seat of my choosing. I'm not out to get you, I just need you to stop interfering with the education of your classmates. If you'd been willing to do that instead of refusing to move and telling me, "S***! F*** you, motherf***er!" I would have been delighted to have you in class.)
One of my great seniors came in telling me that she got a scholarship that she insists she wouldn't have gotten if I hadn't helped her put together her resume. (Honestly, she's amazing so I hope she would have gotten it anyway, but it feels good to be appreciated.) My anatomy classes keep demonstrating that, despite occasional appearances to the contrary, most of them really have learned a lot. (Does this mean that my attempt to keep spiraling a set of core biology concepts into every unit is actually yielding results?)
As I walked down the hall at the end of the day, I heard behind me a murmur followed by a loud, impassioned, "Don't say that about her! That's my favorite teacher!" My champion was, to my shock, one of my less enthusiastic students. I wasn't aware that she likes me, and I'm not sure why she does. Last semester I caught her cheating on an exam, and the zero she received ended up dropping her grade significantly. She tends to grumble a lot about how much they have to work in my class, and she frequently insists that I expect way too much of my students. This semester, she's been rising to meet my expectations, even as she complains. Still, she doesn't seem to be overwhelmingly fond of the subject matter or my class.
I don't think I've done anything special for her. She isn't one of the kids for whom I've written letters of recommendation or with whom I've gone through revision after revision of college essays. I've lent her a calculator and an ACT prep book and have spent a few minutes here and there helping her with a bit of remedial algebra, but that's no more than I'd do for anyone. I occasionally ask about her daughter, who is in the terrible twos and is thus the subject of many funny and cute anecdotes. Mostly, I just come in every day and do my best to make sure that little girl's mother walks out of my class knowing more than when she came in. Maybe that's enough.
Still, today was one of those days that left me feeling pretty good about being here, even though I had to write two people up for cursing me out. (Seriously, if I have given you the teacher look, silently given you a "shh" gesture, attempted to use proximity, quietly asked two separate times that you face the front and stop talking to the girl behind you, and you are still turned around talking very loudly and distracting your classmates who're supposed to be taking notes, I have every right to ask you to move to a different seat of my choosing. I'm not out to get you, I just need you to stop interfering with the education of your classmates. If you'd been willing to do that instead of refusing to move and telling me, "S***! F*** you, motherf***er!" I would have been delighted to have you in class.)
One of my great seniors came in telling me that she got a scholarship that she insists she wouldn't have gotten if I hadn't helped her put together her resume. (Honestly, she's amazing so I hope she would have gotten it anyway, but it feels good to be appreciated.) My anatomy classes keep demonstrating that, despite occasional appearances to the contrary, most of them really have learned a lot. (Does this mean that my attempt to keep spiraling a set of core biology concepts into every unit is actually yielding results?)
As I walked down the hall at the end of the day, I heard behind me a murmur followed by a loud, impassioned, "Don't say that about her! That's my favorite teacher!" My champion was, to my shock, one of my less enthusiastic students. I wasn't aware that she likes me, and I'm not sure why she does. Last semester I caught her cheating on an exam, and the zero she received ended up dropping her grade significantly. She tends to grumble a lot about how much they have to work in my class, and she frequently insists that I expect way too much of my students. This semester, she's been rising to meet my expectations, even as she complains. Still, she doesn't seem to be overwhelmingly fond of the subject matter or my class.
I don't think I've done anything special for her. She isn't one of the kids for whom I've written letters of recommendation or with whom I've gone through revision after revision of college essays. I've lent her a calculator and an ACT prep book and have spent a few minutes here and there helping her with a bit of remedial algebra, but that's no more than I'd do for anyone. I occasionally ask about her daughter, who is in the terrible twos and is thus the subject of many funny and cute anecdotes. Mostly, I just come in every day and do my best to make sure that little girl's mother walks out of my class knowing more than when she came in. Maybe that's enough.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Worrying about the boy
My boyfriend turned twenty three on Friday so he headed down to his parents' and I headed up for the weekend. It was beyond wonderful to see him, but he was clearly very stressed out. The good news is that he has a new job. The bad news is that his job may vanish in June.
After he got laid off, he almost immediately swung into action and began hunting for a new job. He quickly found a company that offered him a couple of days' work with the prospect of more permanent employment after the trial period. It didn't pan out. He then proceeded to find call the roughly seventy five electrical contractors in the area, and a handful were taking applications for apprentices. He got a few interviews, and then he got offered a job. However, he was warned early on that if the company doesn't get more big projects after the completion of the ones they're working on right now, he'll likely be laid off. Having a job is better than not having a job, especially when you have bills to pay, but the whole situation is disheartening.
If he doesn't have a job at the start of the fall semester, he'll be unable to continue the classes for his apprenticeship. If that happens, he'll likely lose the credit for the two and a half years of coursework he'll have completed by then and basically have to give up on becoming an electrician. It's an utterly lousy situation, and I can see it wearing him down.
I'm powerless to help. There's no way to magically make the economy better and get people building things and hiring electricians again, but being so far away makes me feel especially useless. I can call, email, and be a sympathetic ear and a sounding board, listen as he muses about what to do next if layoffs hit at his new company, futilely try to reassure him that he's a wonderful person and the situation at hand is not a reflection on him, tell him dumb jokes, and remind him that he is so much more than just an electrician. I can't, however, make him dinner, hug him, or hold him down and tickle him when he's had a rough day.
After he got laid off, he almost immediately swung into action and began hunting for a new job. He quickly found a company that offered him a couple of days' work with the prospect of more permanent employment after the trial period. It didn't pan out. He then proceeded to find call the roughly seventy five electrical contractors in the area, and a handful were taking applications for apprentices. He got a few interviews, and then he got offered a job. However, he was warned early on that if the company doesn't get more big projects after the completion of the ones they're working on right now, he'll likely be laid off. Having a job is better than not having a job, especially when you have bills to pay, but the whole situation is disheartening.
If he doesn't have a job at the start of the fall semester, he'll be unable to continue the classes for his apprenticeship. If that happens, he'll likely lose the credit for the two and a half years of coursework he'll have completed by then and basically have to give up on becoming an electrician. It's an utterly lousy situation, and I can see it wearing him down.
I'm powerless to help. There's no way to magically make the economy better and get people building things and hiring electricians again, but being so far away makes me feel especially useless. I can call, email, and be a sympathetic ear and a sounding board, listen as he muses about what to do next if layoffs hit at his new company, futilely try to reassure him that he's a wonderful person and the situation at hand is not a reflection on him, tell him dumb jokes, and remind him that he is so much more than just an electrician. I can't, however, make him dinner, hug him, or hold him down and tickle him when he's had a rough day.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Random school updates.
I started the day with a student informing me that another student probably wouldn't be at school because his father had been shot and killed. I spent five hours at parent teacher conference night and saw eight parents, five of whom belong to kids I don't have for anything besides homeroom. During parent conference night, I got called down to the office and informed that I'll be taking over a different class of physical science kids starting Monday.
There was a mother who was angry about the grade her child received in another teacher's class, and rather than back that teacher the administration decided to give into the mother's demands and have another teacher (me) take over the honors section. Then the angry mother agreed to sleep on it. So Monday I may or may not be taking over the class. If the switch takes place, planning will be interesting because the other teacher started with the chemistry half of physical science and hasn't gotten to any of the physics standards yet even though we have a mere eight weeks of school remaining.
I'm getting officially observed tomorrow for my annual evaluation. (Eep!)
There was a mother who was angry about the grade her child received in another teacher's class, and rather than back that teacher the administration decided to give into the mother's demands and have another teacher (me) take over the honors section. Then the angry mother agreed to sleep on it. So Monday I may or may not be taking over the class. If the switch takes place, planning will be interesting because the other teacher started with the chemistry half of physical science and hasn't gotten to any of the physics standards yet even though we have a mere eight weeks of school remaining.
I'm getting officially observed tomorrow for my annual evaluation. (Eep!)
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