a thought regarding gender

The other day, a stranger was greeting my dog. 

"Oh, aren't you such a good -- " she gushed, pausing mid-sentence to look up at me.  "Is it a boy or a girl?"

"He's a boy"

"Ah!  Then -- good boy!" she finally finished.

In that moment, I felt rather strange.  This person was so concerned about correctly gendering and addressing a creature that (a) has no real gender expression, culturally speaking, and (b) doesn't really understand language anyway.  My dog wouldn't care if you called him a girl.  He wouldn't care if you called him a monkey, or a pineapple.  He doesn't know words.  Honestly, if he didn't actually identify as a boy dog I wouldn't know, because he can't tell me.  And I could have said anything; it's not like she demanded to inspect his genitals to make sure I wasn't "lying" to her.  She just moved on with appreciating a cute animal.

But the fact that the situation caused her enough concern that she needed to check in with me in order to not accidentally mis-gender was interesting.  Here was a culturally sanctioned interchange, designed to efficiently clear up an issue of gendered address. It was a pretty cool dynamic, really, just applied to a not terribly culturally significant situation.  It was simple, brief, and effective.

And then people freak out when they can't immediately gender another person, or when someone asks to be gendered in the way that is correct for them, which might conflict with others' perceptions or assumptions.  Somehow the mandate to simply check in on the situation, request information, and then respect that information, totally evaporates with humans. 

It would be nice if we afforded our fellow humans the same respect for gender that that lady showed to my dog.

today I love...

...this beautiful video* about being alone.

I've never lived alone, and generally have had issues with being alone in general.  I dislike coming home to a dark, empty house, and prefer to have people around. 

I think that finding peace in just being with myself would be a good thing to work on. 

Every Wednesday, I write about something I love that day.  It doesn't necessarily have to be remotely related to anything; it just has to be fabulous!

* via The Simple Dollar

out of sight

I've recently observed an interesting phenomenon when it comes to my own perspective on stuff:

• Is it out where I can see it, on a shelf/hanger/pile on the floor/hook where it usually lives?  Then I'll probably pass over it when decluttering, and will come up with all sorts of rationalizations as to why it should stay. 

• Has it been moved into a go-away box or pile?  Then I cease thinking about it entirely and can easily let it go.  

Let's call it Mindless Clutter Effect.  MCE means that simply walking into a room and declaring a decluttering mission by looking around (at least for me) is probably doomed.  But if I physically touch an object, and maybe move it to a different place?  Whole new ballgame.  Let's look at an example. 

For the past few months, I've been continually pulling things out of my closet and depositing them in an ongoing 'donate' box.  Every once in a while the box got dropped off at a thrift store.  The selection process was fairly random, and just happened whenever I'd think of something that could go.  I had to work up the motivation to actually remove the thing from the closet, while leaving everything else behind.  I even tried the backwards-hanger trick, but I tended to wear everything eventually if it's there for the wearing, so that was somewhat self-defeating.  Every thing gotten rid of this way required effort to move it. 

I managed to purge maybe 20 items in several months.  

A couple of weeks ago, some friends came over to help me in my closet-cleaning mission.  We physically removed every single thing from the closet (in batches by category) and laid it all in big piles on the bed.  Then every item was held up, maybe tried on, and voted upon.  Anything with any doubts about it (poor fit, unflattering, not something I've actually worn in a while, a generic 'blah' feeling) went into the go-away pile.  The rest was looked through again briefly to see how many were left, the less-awesome pieces were revisited, and then the stuff to keep was put back into the closet.  Each thing to be kept required the effort of putting it back in the closet.

The clothing was removed from its natural habitat and backdrop (the closet), and put into a new context (on the bed).  Such a simple change, but it (along with the support of having people there to help, of course), allowed me to remove at least a third of my entire wardrobe.  The pile above is what'll go into my yard sale when I get around to having one.

What's interesting is that even though the pile has been sitting in my bedroom, totally accessible and visible, I've felt no urge to pull anything out of it.  Things in the pile that I'd previously been unable to imagine getting rid of have become irrelevant.  MCE defeated.  

The moral of the story?  Try pulling clutter out of its original context.  You might be surprised at how much easier it is to part with unnecessary stuff.  Also, have fabulous friends who think going through someone else's closet is fun!

5 things I've learned about student loans

I'm not going to talk about prohibitive college expenses, interest rates, or loan marketing.  Nope, I'm just going to talk about my own experience with student loans, and what I wish I'd done differently.

Some background: I attended a ridiculously inexpensive university, and managed to escape with only a small (under five figures) amount of loan debt.  I know that many, if not most students, have a much more difficult time and wind up with truly unmanageable mountains of debt.  My rambling in no way is meant to belittle that abysmal situation or to put my burden on the same scale as those who've had to work much harder to scrape by.  

Some of these might seem obvious, but they are all lessons that I had to learn the hard way.  

1) If you can possibly get by without loans and not actually starve, do it.  

For the first few years of my undergraduate career, I got by on scholarships, my part-time job in a laboratory and some support from my parents.  In my fourth year or so, I scored a much better paying student internship.  However, after five years (yeah, I know, it's only supposed to take four), my scholarships dried up.  Suddenly the school actually wanted me to pay them to go to school!  Can you imagine.  

I hadn't had the foresight to save up tuition money over the prior years, despite the surplus from my scholarships (yep, they literally cut me a check each semester, which I promptly spent on... I have no idea what).  The school wanted what seemed to be a large lump sum of money that I didn't have, so I figured I'd need a loan.  

Now I wonder about that.  Maybe I could have borrowed from my parents or a friend, and then paid it off over the course of that same year.  Maybe there were deferment options.  Maybe I could have scraped the cash together somehow.  Who knows?

What I do know is that I'd be so much more happy now without that particular, maybe unnecessary debt.  If I had to live a bit leaner in the meantime, so what?  Students are famous for being poor, and yet I suspect I maintained a higher standard of living than was strictly speaking necessary.  I wish I hadn't sacrificed my future self's (that would be now-me, writing this article) income and sanity for my standard of living then.  

2) If you have to go into debt, loans >> credit cards. 

During those same late-undergraduate years, I racked up an embarrassing amount of credit card debt.  I splurged on parties, I bought so many presents for friends, I went to Europe.  Maybe those loans were needed after all, and though I'm potentially contradicting the advice above, maybe I should have taken out more money than I did.  Interest rates are lower on loans than on credit cards in general, and I probably would be paying back a slightly lower total balance now.  

Avoid credit cards like the plague, especially when you feel like you don't have much money.  If you can't afford something, you certainly can't afford to pay even more by financing it.  Don't do it.  

3) Figure out what you actually need. 

When filling out loan paperwork at the financial aid office, I simply guessed at a number and wrote it down.  Okay, so tuition and books are reasonably predictable expenses, but I had no idea at what rate I was otherwise hemorrhaging money.  That information might have been useful.  Maybe I could have taken out a bit less, and accrued less interest.  Or maybe I should have taken more, and thus avoided high-interest credit card debt.  Or maybe I should have done the damn calculations just as a reality shock to myself, to get me to pay better attention to my finances.

4) Shop around.  Know interest rates. 

Ah, yes.  Being in a research field, one might think that I would have found all the reference materials available about loans and educated myself ravenously.  I would have found out who the different lenders were, what their practices looked like, their interest rates, their policies.  

I did none of that.  

When it came to selecting a lender, I quite literally checked a box at random. 

When my husband and I were comparing finances, I learned that the interest rate on his student loan was something like four whole percentage points lower than mine.  That's a huge difference when it comes to the evils of compounding interest. My interest rate looks more like it belongs on a credit card, not a student loan.  

Research.  Educate yourself.  This stuff is important.

5) Think about the options.

At one point in the consultation, the loan officer asked me if I'd like to pay off the accrued interest while still in school.  

Hell no!  Are you crazy?  I don't want to have to pay you now --- I'll be living on that money!  I'll deal with it after I graduate, thanks. 

...oops. 

Fast forward: after two years of paying down the loan, I have the balance almost down to the original borrowed amount.  That's as though these two years of money have only gone to the interest I avoided paying at the beginning.  The amounts would have been relatively tiny, and paying then would have kept the compounding in check, resulting in a much lower total payback amount.  And then I would be where I am now (owing approximately the amount I borrowed) two years ago when I graduated.  And I would be that much closer to debt freedom.  

Know the options.  Actually think about them, and examine your knee-jerk responses.  Second-guess yourself.  Your future self will thank you.  

today I love...

...Gala Darling's list of 100 things to do instead of procrastinating on the internet.

Like most of us, I've found myself wasting away more hours than I'd like to think about on lifehacker, various blogs, and very occasional flash games.  Plus, there's wikipedia effect.

What if we all got off our collective butts and, say, participated in real life occasionally instead of checking facebook?  I suspect the world would be a little bit of a better place.

Also, Gala Darling epitomizes my idea of fabulosity.  She's my hero.



Every Wednesday, I write about something I love that day.  It doesn't necessarily have to be remotely related to anything; it just has to be fabulous!

operation debt freedom: tracking

The other day, Credit Karma sent me my monthly reminder to update my credit score.  Credit Karma is a nifty little free online service that utilizes soft queries on your TransUnion credit report (that's the kind that doesn't impact the score to do) on a monthly basis, to keep you updated on what the credit agencies think about you.  It's not a perfect system, and the other two reporting companies probably have slightly different reports, but it's a nice little tool.

I've been subscribed to the system for quite a while, but hadn't thoroughly investigated its functionality.  I updated my score (up two whole points since last month.  Woo.), and also spent some time poking around a bit.  In addition to showing you a glimpse at your credit score, the system also provides a 'report card' that explains why your score is what it is.  It grades based on on-time payments, utilization, age of credit lines, etc.  I don't agree with all of it (it gives me a D on number of credit lines.  Apparently if I opened a bunch more cards and took out more loans, it would show that I'm a more responsible citizen.  Right.), but it's certainly interesting to know about, as these are the metrics that will be used to judge you when you go to buy a car or get a mortgage or such.

In my investigation of the resources offered, I came across various debt-over-time plots.  I was recently lamenting that I hadn't been tracking my exact debt levels over the course of my repayment mission.  Tracking things is fun, and yields pretty plots.  Sure, I can back-calculate based on my known payments, but this is easier.  Apparently Credit Karma was already tracking that for me!  Above is a plot of my total debt level over time.

As you can see, I had an annoying level of debt to my name already, as of July 2011.  My student loans are part of that, but I'd put far too much on various credit cards during school.  In November, I bought my car, so the car loan explains that huge jump.  In the following October, I got married, so there was a bit of ramped-up spending leading up to that.

Finally, in January of this year, we've got the launch of Operation Debt Freedom!  Just look at that gorgeous negative slope.  Progress is beautiful.