(no subject)

[vicarz]

My god I'm turning horrid in my achieved age. I listened to the alternative jazz lineup on the way to work this AM, and heard a version of que sera sera. How many gay points do I lose for saying fuck that passive bullshit? Sure it's a cute gay anthem, and it absolutely applies to your sexuality. Great. But that shit has no role in anything outside of gay, height, skin color, and hair color...no, you can change your hair color at whim, so not even that. So I'm driving in to work while arguing out loud with the radio...
will I be pretty...
Fuck pretty - if you're not pretty, go to the muthafuggin gym and make yourself hot.
will I be rich
Will I be? Bitch, go to school, choose a career that is garaunteed to be lucrative, work, sacrifice, and do what it takes to get up there. Damn you stupid fucking twat, don't you dare fucking act as though your fate is some shit you can't form or avoid - you make what you are. Shit doesn't happen to you, there is no "will I be..." You are what you make yourself.

I know I'm too tense when I'm arguing with a gay ballad.

I'm feeling good about school. Last night I quickly realized the professional responsibility class will take far less of my time than I was worried it would. The guy assigns chapters of the book at a time, but isn't really expecting us to do more than skim the stuff. In that class a friend offered me his materials from Bus Assoc - he's not a good student, but he had some helpful insights about what to expect on the exam, and I have a good outline. Wills-trusts looks ok and I'm fairly interested in the class, despite quickly realizing the teacher is a conservative asswipe who blows by "liberal" data about multigenerational wealth with weak arguments and conjecture unsupported by data. He's a good lecturer and I expect the class to be manageable. Plus, I'm taking my fuck-it attitude more literally than I expected. I am really lacking the fear that usually drives me to kill for grades. I can't get honors, so why try...not my usual mantra, but where my head seems to be. Oh I'm sorry, where I put myself or allowed myself to arrive. I control my fate, right?

The nazi T&E prof echoed some of my views on one subject - how stupid it is to aim high in sports. He noted that there is a very steep curve in sports, with the top making money but the 1000th best basketball player being dirt poor, while the 1000th best-looking woman or the 1000th best mathematician still receiving many of the benefits of the top. The curve for that sort of success is far smoother for some professions vs. others. I've always argued that we should stop using athletes, who engage in physical combat, as inspirations for ghetto/trailer kids. Sure it's an easy sell and sexy, but why not try to inspire people to be something that everyone can succeed at? Everyone can be an accountant, everyone can be a lawyer, but if you shoot for rockstar or athlete, you're almost guaranteed failure. I have no respect for failed long-shot takers.

Comments

[shesquint.livejournal.com]

...or the 1000th best mathematician still receiving many of the benefits of the top...

That's kind of reassuring, like maybe we have *some* of our priorities straight.

[shadow27.livejournal.com]

Que Sera Sera = Heathers = Awesome!

[railwaymadness]

I've found that taking a "que sera sera" attitude toward my commute has helped me enjoy it much more. I could spend every morning scouring the internet for reports of accidents, backups, etc. (my route is hardly ever mentioned on the radio regardless of how bad traffic on it may be) and thus take control of the situation. Will this make me happier? No.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I've taken that for driving as well. I do check the forecast and make the best route I can, but when I'm hopelessly stuck I try to accept it as "waht is." I also don't rush to be the first at the next red light - I refuse to drive like a 17 year old boy. I'm not in a hurry, and no one cares how much time I shave off a ten-mile trip down the road.

No one who watches tv daily has any excuse to rush in traffic.

[ex-dasboot.livejournal.com]

He noted that there is a very steep curve in sports, with the top making money but the 1000th best basketball player being dirt poor, while the 1000th best-looking woman or the 1000th best mathematician still receiving many of the benefits of the top.

I don't buy that. Basketball is pretty specific in the field of sports, while Mathematics is pretty broad. If you included all sports, I think the 1000th best athelete would still be pretty damn successful, while the 1000th top mathemetician wouldn't be a blip on the radar in their own field. The scale ratio is quite different, sure, but only because of how astronomically high the high end is on sports. The worst ranking people in the NBA, NFL, and MLB still make 6 figure salaries, which I don't think you can say about a lot of the middle or even top ranking mathemeticians, chemists, or physicists. The worst, yet professional, athelets still get game time, tv air time, trading cards, and can recieve championships if they happen to be on highly successful teams. They don't share the huge endorsements or fame, but they share a lot. What benefits would the 1000th mathematican share with the top of the heap?

I mean, I definitely agree that it's not a good thing to shoot for, because the competition to get to the professional level is way, way more fierce than any other profession.

Just thought of something else. There are 450 players in the NBA (30 teams of 15), but the best under them would be the top of the NCAA, who are not allowed to be paid aside from scholarships.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

So if there are 450 players in the entire NBA, then doesn't the 1000th worst logic hold? I think the mathematician can work in many math fields, from stats to computers, and make a ton. Basketball is a fairly specific sport, which has little crossover to others. Yao.

[ex-dasboot.livejournal.com]

So if there are 450 players in the entire NBA, then doesn't the 1000th worst logic hold?

The structure is too different to compare, since the 1000th player would be a student, and illegal to pay for playing basketball. The 450th player would probably still do far better than the 450th mathematician. Considering a person who works in a career that uses math, as opposed to working in the field of mathematics, also throws it all off. I'm just nitpicking, I know, but those kinds of anecdotal arguements are like purple nurples on my brain.

[tiana67.livejournal.com]

Will I be? Bitch, go to school, choose a career that is garaunteed to be lucrative, work, sacrifice, and do what it takes to get up there

Ah. Yes. I guess someone should tell that to the 3 billion people (about half of the world) that live on less than $2 a day, and the billion that can not read nor sign their names even, oh and the 790 million people in the world who are still chronically undernourished :)

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Yes there are always the starving in Africa, but I was referring to a little white girl in america. Sorry if I was somehow vague grrrrrr

[cweaselle.livejournal.com]

My mom tries that with her students. They all seem to want to be a sports star or a vetrinain. These are kids who hate school. How can you become a vetrinarian if you hate school? I definately agree that people put to much into jobs that are going to make you rich. Everybody wants to be rich. If it was easy to be what makes people rich everyone would be. THat's what kids don't understand. They don't understand the down points.