(no subject)

I am continuing to watch Life for no justifiable reason. In season two, the get rid of the strong female lieutenant, played by Robin Weigert, who played Calamity Jane on Deadwood and is an actress of the first order. Her character on Life was mostly an antagonist, but nuanced, and not stereotypically feminine in any way. She was a pleasure to watch.

They replaced her with an unapologetically sexist asshole whose entire characterization seems to be comparing women to venereal disease and going "hubba hubba" at Sarah Shahi. And because he gets humanizing moments from time to time we're supposed to be sympathetic to him, and see him as a potential love interest, despite the continuous harassment of her in her place of work. Cause it's a man's world.

I can think of no possible reason why this change was mind, or what the hell they were thinking with the "new direction." I thought this show couldn't get more sexist. I was wrong. Oh, and did I mention the appearance in a few episodes of Christina Hendricks, as the woman marrying the main character's father, who exists, seemingly to be an unavoidable object of womanhood who casts her spell over all men in her vicinity. Oh! And that the main character asks his ex-wife's husband for permission to sleep with her? You know, instead of asking her? Yeah. (And yet, still not as sexist as The Mentalist.)

(no subject)

More scenes from my classes:

- I was trying to get a carpool together for the New York trips (solely out of my desire not to take the bus). One of the other New York candidates told me, oh, she'd much rather take the bus. I was like, okay. I mean, I hate it--I've had some seven plus hour trips, I've had some stinky trips, I've had some excruciating seats, and for going to a recruiting event, I just think I'd show up late, hot, and wrinkled. A little bit into this conversation it turns out...she's not taking the bus. She has a car. She just doesn't want anyone else to ride in it. And I was like oh! Dude! I wasn't trying to volunteer anybody's car, I was just seeing if there was interest. I have turned down giving rides to people I don't know very well, it's fine. She kept popping out with excuses, too. Man, what a bullshit way to say no thanks to the carpool idea.

- During this conversation, I brought up that one of my main concerns with the Bolt is that I've ridden it several times where there haven't been seatbelts. I know most people on the bus don't use them, but they're very important to me. At this point, the Russian kid breaks in: "You don't need seatbelts on a bus." Me: "...I'm pretty sure physics still works on buses. Buses have accidents--I've even seen a Megabus that had run off the road on the Boston-New York route. So I'm gonna stick with the seatbelt."

At this point he launches into a story about how he never ever wore a seatbelt, but the one time he did, he was in a terrible accident and it saved his life. So he knows God exists, cause he was wearing a seatbelt that day. We all pause listening, digesting that. And then I ask: "Do you wear a seatbelt now?" Him: "No." Me: "WTF? Oh, wait, are you waiting for god to tell you when you should wear it again?" Him: "Exactly!" Me: *headdesk*

- Later in the week, Russian kid (and he is such a kid) made some comments about how global warming wasn't real, and I was like, I'm not even gonna argue with you on that, because I don't think you really care. I think you just want to argue. Him: "Ooo, controversy!" Me: "No, you're just wrong. It's not controversial--you're wrong." And then I left.

- My econ professor has moved our test from Monday (our next class) to Wednesday on the small technicality that he has not taught us at all what the test is going to be on yet. This guy is just... I've taken econ before. Yes, it can be a little mind bending, but not really. It's not actually that difficult, if you're not dealing with equations (which we aren't). But he teaches it in an incomprehensible way. I only have a clue what's going on cause I've learned all of this before and listen to quite a lot of economic news (thank you, Planet Money).

Today was teaching us his system of predicting changes to interest rates, GDP, inflation, and the price of the dollar using a series of 11 interrelated graphs. Now, laying aside the fact that he explained this so quickly, and so poorly, that people were audibly going "WHAT???", and that he's explaining everything strictly mechanically without any conceptual underpinning, THIS IS ALL BULLSHIT ANYWAY. I mean, I can tell you what your rules say will happen to inflation if a wave of immigrants increases our labor force (actual class example), but I think the real world shows pretty well that none of this works this at all. I mean, why do you think we have the word stagflation? Cause this economics model said you couldn't have stagnation and inflation at the same time and yet, surprise! The seventies happened.

That and we're doing this business strategy game without him telling us anything about business strategy, so that is an excellent use of everyone's time.

I did really well my first semester and the second semester grades won't be out before the firms decide on whether to offer me an internship, so I kind of--don't care? I don't think I'm in danger of failing, but for real, there are only so many hoops I'm going to jump through. And if you don't think every single one of his factual misstatements isn't going to end up on the course evaluation, it's like you don't know me at all.

- My accounting professor is growing on me. We had our first test. After reassuring us repeatedly that he's not trying to trick us, I got the test and realized he is a LYING LIAR WHO LIES. There were trick questions all over that thing! Either that or I did a lot worse on it than I think...

- Yesterday I went to the first firm visit, a Boston firm that has a New York office, but is not recruiting from our program in New York. I thought, I might as well get information about the company. But it turns out the Boston office is a special snowflake, since it used to be a regional firm and kept its culture when it was bought, so the New York office is nothing like it anyway. This means I, and fifty of my classmates, dressed up in suits and nice shoes, then took the subway to North Station, then walked twenty minutes over locks in direct sunlight to show up at the firm wilted and sweaty. And I had a coughing fit during the presentation and had to duck out to get water. I was THAT GIRL. Hey, at least, since I'm going to New York, I don't really have to worry about making a good impression there?