Generation Y's Student Loans

Today I got a letter in the main stating that my student loans were being altered. Not in a bad way though! My interest rate was reduced! I am so pumped that I'll be paying drastically less for as long as this lasts.

Basically the letter states that I understood my interest rate on my private student loan as well as my federal student loan were variable but had a ceiling. I've been seeing my interest rates move higher as the years progressed. As the interest rates reached their ceiling, I get this letter stating they were dropping over 2 percentage points.

Thanks President Obama. I owe you one. Also, thanks Graduate Leverage. Not sure why you've done this, but keep it coming, PLEASE!

Persistance Has An Annual Dividend

Everyone's time is worth money. My grandfather taught me this. We need to spend our time, which equals money, at a job that pays us money. We hope that the net gain will be greater than the time and energy we put into our jobs. Often times, especially early in a career, this is not the case.

Where were you a year ago today? I was frantic, miserable in my jobs and felt like I was without options to improve my situation. I had my nose so close to the grindstone that everything else was a blur and indistinguishable.

Where are you now? I met lots of people in 2008 that helped me tremendously. I discovered and learned how to use Twitter. I also because a born-again writer. More importantly, I feel I have options.

The one thing that hasn't changed from last year to this year, or from any point in my life; persistence. If you put the time in and you continually reassess your goals and see what you could be doing better, then you'll get where you're going. If you never set goals, yet you work your ass of for someone, it's your loss.

Living purposefully is too important. You only live once. Figure out what you want to do, start looking into how it's done and how you can do it and get to work and make it happen. Nothing worthwhile happens overnight.

You can write a response to this in one year, exactly ;-)

Convince Me

I am not a salesperson. I have never held, nor desired a career in any type of sales. However, I am a marketer and a bright one at that.

This morning I pondered on why I'm not so good at verbally convincing others of why something might be a good idea. Granted, people who know me and trust me usually always take me seriously when I start a sentence with "seriously, you need to check this out." Otherwise, to a complete stranger it takes a lot of careful studying and analysis to come up with coherent examples of why something is a good idea and then speak those examples eloquently and confidently enough to elicit a positive reaction.

I've felt damned having an overactive brain and a stammering, stu-stuh, stuttering verbal delivery that gets sidetracked by a well-constructed retort.

But, maybe that's not a bad thing? A Futurist friend of mine explained to me how things that are always on the cusp and not yet mainstream are what excite him the most. That is where all of the meaningful action is. Once an idea is commoditized and pimped, it loses it's real value for thinkers and innovators unless they are deconstructing it to create something better and different.

Standing on the sidelines, I may miss out on some things, but I am also able to observe the status quo and think and build un-obstructedly. Without having to worry too much about how my ideas are percieved by others (at first, at least), I can use free-flowing thought, objective criticism and continually build and innovate, rather than mold my creative process to what is currently popular.

All it takes is that spark. The person obsessed with an idea who focuses and develops it regardless of criticism and disbelief. He or she wanders through the myriad of disheartening comments, but one day an open ear leads to widen eyes and a faster pulse and great interest.

That's the spark, baby.

Are eBooks Just Essays in PDF Format?

This is by no means a post where I try to downplay prolific eBook authors. I personally want to write one and feel it is a good project of lesser scale than a novel to take on during busy times. I look some eBooks, and see a lot of cool designs in the actual file, which grab my attention and make me save it to my desktop for later reading.

But, I usually don't wind up going back to my desk to read an eBook on my desktop. Although I hate newspapers because of their cumbersom handling and small print, I am an old fashioned dude when it comes to books. They're easy to hold for long periods of time and you don't neccesarily need to be in any one place to read them.

Maybe this is an idea shift I have yet to make? eBooks are becoming more popular. I feel I could easily publish more of my shorter fiction and non-fiction in this medium, which actually gives me more mental incentive to write them. As for financial incentive, that's a whole other post I need to write.

I don't want to be a hypocrit. If I'm going to start reading eBooks, how should I start? Should I set asside time to sit down at my home office and read a few pages every day? I already do that on my Google reader! The only difference is there is no refreshing of the page... OR, I could get an Amazon eBook reader The Kindle.

Do any of you like to read eBooks? What about writing them? What are the pro's and cons?

Budgets All Around

I told you all I wasn't going to get too heavy into this resolution stuff in the new year because I don't want to take focus on my day to day operations that are already getting me somewhere. If I need to stop and re-assess, I shall do so as needed, not on January 1st ever year.

Well, I may be breaking my promise a little too early. I'm doing a budget. I've lived on budgets before and they've gotten me out of credit card debt and allowed me to live in Boston on $10.00 an hour as a temp (worst/best days of my life). Since getting and maintaining a full time job for the past 2 years or so, I've stopped budgeting myself and spending/saving off the cuff.

My improv financial life hasn't worked well. I spend too much and save way too little. I have some automatic accounts that collect money each paycheck, but I don't count my 401k as a true reflection of how smart I am financially at age 24.

I want to buy a house or a condo this year. I actually am planning on doing so by the end of the summer barring any life altering events. So, in order to prepare myself and make this happen, I am going to do a budget for myself like I did when I was below the poverty line. We'll see how this works. It may completely warp my view of what kind of life I am leading and how I should live and spend. It may convince me not to buy a home (I sure hope not). But, no matter what happens and what my conclusions are, I need to be honest with myself in 2009 and moving forward. I let the comfort of a steady paycheck make me lazy and sloppy.

Does anyone have any advice for budgeting? I'm going to try and sit down and do it for a couple hours tonight.

3 Blogs That Make Me Laugh Obnoxiously

I'm serious about my career and my life. Too serious at times. Below is a list of blogs that get a solid, snarky laugh out of me every single time I visit them.

Hipster Runoff: http://www.hipsterrunoff.com

• My favorite social commentary on the young, hip and completely fucking clueless. A true ode to ALT-Culture. I've laughed out loud to every post so far. Beware: some nudity and pretty much everything will offend some segment of society.
  

Queen B Mommy: http://www.queenbmommy.com/

• Picture what one of the pea-brained women from the hills would blog about if suddenly knocked up and married to a wealthy man. This blog doesn't come off as satire at first, which is why it's so good... and scary!
  

The Economy Isn't Happening: http://www.theeconomyisnthappening.com/blog/

• If you come to this page, realize the author has a book and he wants you to buy it. You will be reminded repeatedly. Thank god almost everything he writes is witty, on point and warped. The free download is cool, but if you get a chance, pick up the book with the pooch on the cover, it's worth the $15 bucks.
  

Please let me know in the comments what low-brow or high-brow humor gets you giggling on a regular basis.

Co-Working, Tweet-Ups and Team-Blogging

Excuse all of the hyphens, but I'm quite interested in what people's opinions of co-working, tweet-ups and team-blogging are. They are all relatively unique concepts, but they also all have similar traits which make them relevant to each other.

• In any given urban region, I suspect there is a need and desire for co-working spaces where freelancing professionals can go and work will full office anemities without having to pay the crippling overhead costs of their own exclusive office space. A myriad of other positive side-effects would arise from having groups of creative and driven people working independently, but in close social proximity to one another.
  
• I am a slave to Twitter, and a glad one at that. I want to host a Tweet-Up in January. I'd love for some input on organizing a Tweet-Up with themes, ideal locations, techniques of promoting it and being a good overall host.
  
• I've applied to several websites for blogging jobs recently and haven't gotten offers yet. I'm not sure in what way I've hit the wall, but I feel as a writer I need to work on my packaging, concepts and sense of relevance. I'd like to co-Author a blog with someone. Team-blogging is my idea of coercing myself into a loosely bonded agreement that I'll contribute and push ideas to their limit with another like minded person. I currently don't have any idea who I'd ask, or what the blog topic would be, but I'm quite open to ideas on that as well.
  

This is my passive-aggressive (or loveable) way of saying that I want to be down. All of these things interest me greatly.

"Community" will be 2009's new "Green." "Smart-Grid" is going to be bit too, but even the damn scientists don't know what the hell it means yet!