I was supposed to go to sleep maybe an hour ago, but I’ve just been watching video after video of this guy.
Daily chart: this Chinese new year could bring good fortune to stockmarket investors. Between 1900 and 2011, the nine previous dragon years have seen America’s Dow Jones Industrial Average price index increase by an average of 7.7% in real terms.
“A man who assisted in autopsies in a big urban hospital, starting in the mid-1950s, describes the many deaths from botched abortions that he saw. ‘The deaths stopped overnight in 1973.’ He never saw another in the 18 years before he retired. ‘That,’ he says, ‘ought to tell people something about keeping abortion legal.’”
Sunday was the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade (via motherjones)
(Name droppy brag - I’m sorry: I’ve actually met Sarah Weddington, who became at 26 one of the youngest people to ever win a court case before the Supreme Court for Roe v. Wade. Besides being awesome, she was also super friendly).
“
When Ellie Cachette started pitching her tech start-up to West Coast investors two years ago, she expected to raise big bucks. Instead, all she got from the roughly 25 all-male investors she met with were dismissive looks and patronizing advice.
“I wouldn’t even finish my sentence, and they’d say I should be a nonprofit,” said Cachette, now 26, who was building a startup designed to help companies manage product recalls. “I found it impossible to raise money.”
So Cachette made a bold decision: She headed to New York to test the waters of the city’s burgeoning tech scene. The gamble paid off handsomely. Within seven months, Cachette had raised $200,000 from eight investors, garnered features in two top business magazines and was selected to ring the NASDAQ’s opening bell.
“The tech scene in New York is just a lot more female friendly,” said Cachette, CEO of ConsumerBell. “You actually have a fair chance here. Investors are willing to look past your gender.” New York is quickly establishing itself as the place to be for women seeking to launch tech startups, experts say.
”The New York Daily News, “Female Entrepreneurs Find Funding, Community In New York” (via inothernews)
Huh. Food for thought should I ever go back to the States to pursue some sort of tech thingy.
Goals for 2012!
I’m not really one to make New Year’s resolutions – for some reason, it irks me to think that I NEED to set goals because of some arbitrary date – but lately, I can’t really stop going over and over what I want to do with the rest of the school year. Like, actually over and over – obsessively repeating a list of things I want to accomplish and mentally wondering how to fit it in – to the point of not being able to keep tabs on where I’m headed when I walk or get to sleep at night.
I hate it when that happens!
So, I figure I might as well commit it to paper…er, blog… and hope that by doing something about it, my brain will get from “Elaine, you lazy piece of crap, figure your shit out!” to “Hey, that sounds good, now let’s think about something more fun.”
CONGRATULATORY GOALS
First off, I might as well give myself a pat on the back for doing things last semester that I had pumped myself up for doing. Start this off on a good note and wot wot.
- Participated in class - One of my biggest regrets about my college years was that I never got over being too shy to speak up during classes. Maybe I would’ve paid more attention if I was actually engaged in the conversations… and I wouldn’t have scrambled to find professors that actually remembered me. It took five years, but I somehow found the confidence to put my hand up. A lot.
- Participate in student groups – My second regret about my college years was that I signed up to be included in everything from Habitat for Humanity to the student newspaper… and then didn’t do any of it. That was really dumb of me. I didn’t make the same mistake this time… in fact, I might have overcommitted myself a little too much. But whatever, balancing a hectic schedule is so much more fun than getting fuzzy and depressed at home and needing to take those stupid pills that make me feel nauseous all day long.
- Exercise! – I got a gym membership and actually used it! This is pretty spectacular for me! I am so going to keep this up for the rest of the year. Especially since, while I didn’t seem to lose any weight scale-wise, everything I wear has gotten less tight. It feels awesome.
Yay me. Moving on…
PRETTY ACHIEVABLE AS LONG AS I REMEMBER THEM GOALS
- Keep on Exercising! – Detailed above, but generally, I just want to get down to what I was in sophomore year of college, this time without the drug use.
- Cook More – Since I don’t have a kitchen really, this mostly means being organized enough to arrange going over to other people’s houses to cook. I’ve already done it once, and I was lucky enough to be placed in a study group of someone who has an apartment I’ve cooked in last semester, so there’s really no reason I can’t do this.
- Get More Organized About My Student Activities – I admit I got overwhelmed last semester and maybe didn’t do some things I really ought to have (like scout out venues around Cambridge to host pretty important events). If I’ve been assigned to do something, I WILL do it within the week this year.
- Blog More – I already mentioned this a couple months ago, but I think I need to set a specific post count: like, at least one of these long ones a week.
- Try Harder to Look Good – A part of me wants to stick to the old philosophy that fashion is superficial and it’s of anti-feminist of me to think about it. But while I really believe thinking that helped ground me as a teenager (“If a guy doesn’t like my face without makeup, he’s probably not worth my time”), using it as an excuse to not brush my hair or paint on some mascara in the morning is just me being lazy. Sure, Einstein didn’t care much for dressing up, but let’s face it - I’m not going to discover a new theory of relativity even if my closet consists of only one jumpsuit. In the meantime, I’m 27. It’s about time I took some effort to at least look professional. And figure out how to wear heels and not die.
GOALS I KNOW I WON’T ACHIEVE BUT WOULDN’T IT BE GREAT IF I DID?
- Do All My Readings – HAHAHAHAHA. Yeah right.
- Practice Japanese enough so that I can once again say I speak it somewhat conversationally - It’s amazing how much vocab you forget when you don’t use a language for years
- Learn Spanish – Hola. Que pasa. Puedo tener empleo?
- Baby, It's Cold Outside
Never Not Christmas: A Holiday E.P.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
It’s a little late for Christmas songs, I guess, but I just turned this one on again and listened to it like three times in a row. It’s so silly but I love it so so much.
Maybe because, despite how much haters like to groan that it’s a song about date rape, I really do like “Baby, it’s Cold Outside.”
By Jimmy Pardo & Scott Aukerman. BTW, if you’re interested in listening to the most hilarious podcast this side of the internet, get Never Not Funny. Bought Season 10 for the boyfriend as a holiday present.
![youngmanhattanite:
joshsternberg:
imwithkanye:
The ‘Today’ Show Producer on Keeping Matt Lauer Happy | New York Magazine
“Matt has, sort of, I don’t want to describe it as highbrow, but sensitivity about his journalistic credentials. He only wants to go after what he perceives as really important stories. Did he want to do Kim Kardashian filing for divorce? Absolutely not. He hates the seedy, gossipy stuff—but he has to do it.”
[Workplace Confidential]
Things journalists do for money…
There is no god.
;_; Who will rescue you, Matt?!](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxjyvzKznx1qanm80o1_500.jpg)
The ‘Today’ Show Producer on Keeping Matt Lauer Happy | New York Magazine
“Matt has, sort of, I don’t want to describe it as highbrow, but sensitivity about his journalistic credentials. He only wants to go after what he perceives as really important stories. Did he want to do Kim Kardashian filing for divorce? Absolutely not. He hates the seedy, gossipy stuff—but he has to do it.”
Things journalists do for money…
There is no god.
;_; Who will rescue you, Matt?!
How Not to Write About Africa - Binyavanga Wainaina - narrated by Djimon Hounsou
I was really liking this until the (RED) campaign thing at the end popped up, which made me feel like this had all been a ploy to be like “avoid every stereotype about Africa - poverty analyses, terrible dictators, starving children, majestic animals and its ilk… EXCEPT AIDS. NEVER STOP CORRELATING AFRICA WITH AIDS. ALSO, BUY STUFF TO STOP AIDS.”
Still, I’ll pretend I blinked that last second and pass this on, because it’s always good to call out writing cliches.
"I'll bet you $10,000." →
Blah blah, the back story is that Romney said something and then totally pretended he didn’t say it when called out on it. That’s standard political maneuvering by this point in time for just about everyone out there so there’s not that much point in going into exactly what he said… but this reply for when a politician, or any person that engages you in some sort of infuriating conversation where their answer is “I just KNOW!” is so simple that it’s kind of awesome.
Chances are they would NEVER take you up on the bet, since they obviously know what’s in their own campaign speeches and have made a concerted effort to spin it, but wouldn’t it just be satisfying to be the person yelling “WHAT? WHAT? YOU DON’T WANT THAT BET? WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? WE’LL JUST PLAY THE TAPES! C’MON DUUUUDEEEEE!” as the tormentee walked away?
“Do you believe,” I asked, “that there is more poverty in Europe than the United States?”
Is that before or after government payments, he responded.
You can define it any way you want, I said.
“Well, I’ll have to think about that,” he said, and started to shuffle away.
But, I said (quickly), you just stated that European-style welfare creates poverty.
“No, I didn’t,” Romney replied. “I said, look at Cuba, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union.”
(Source: ihatetonyy)
Woah. Granted, I haven’t finished Julie Klausner’s book yet or anything, but did she really just compare going on a date with a shitty indie guy to genital mutilation? Sucks that a lame website with an incompetent writer didn’t like your book, but c’mon now.
(Source: julieklausner)
