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Post by cyanea on Jun 11, 2011 10:28:20 GMT -5
Minimum wage is 7.25.
7.25 * 40 hours/week * 52 weeks/year = 15,080.
You can't live on 15k/year.
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Post by KatjevanLoon on Jun 11, 2011 17:57:11 GMT -5
Minimum wage is 7.25. 7.25 * 40 hours/week * 52 weeks/year = 15,080. You can't live on 15k/year. Well, you can. It just sucks a lot. I get 10K a year in student loans. That's my only income, unless I take summer courses, in which case I get an extra 4k. I'm still not entirely sure how I survive each year. But it's getting harder now that my rent has spiked from 400 (the highest it was when I lived with roommates, who sucked and made my life miserable) to 750 a month (the price I pay for living alone and actually getting good grades and a good night's sleep). Right now my car needs to get its transmission fixed, my cell phone is broken and should be replaced sooner rather than later, and my laptop is most likely on its deathbed. My credit card is beyond maxed and I'm living off canned goods. Oh, and I have to pay 200 dollars to my school by Wednesday to hold my place in Fall semester. I'm still doing better than if I was working for minimum wage, because in my town if you can get a job it's very unlikely you'll get enough hours to make ends meet. |
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Post by Silva on Jun 11, 2011 18:08:59 GMT -5
I'm not offended. I'm irritated. Privileged people who think they're hot shit but don't know how the world works always irritate me. I'd like to point out that you know virtually nothing about his personal life or what could be going on. Not all of us are 'privileged'. |
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Post by Fuck Yeah Dion on Jun 12, 2011 4:33:06 GMT -5
I'm not offended. I'm irritated. Privileged people who think they're hot shit but don't know how the world works always irritate me. I'd like to point out that you know virtually nothing about his personal life or what could be going on. Not all of us are 'privileged'. I was able to pick up on the fact that he was privileged based on his post, an assumption he confirmed in his post. I said "I wonder if he's privileged," and then he said he was. |
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Post by Silva on Jun 12, 2011 14:18:51 GMT -5
I'd like to point out that you know virtually nothing about his personal life or what could be going on. Not all of us are 'privileged'. I was able to pick up on the fact that he was privileged based on his post, an assumption he confirmed in his post. I said "I wonder if he's privileged," and then he said he was. My bad. I didn't see that. That's funny, because I did read the posts. |
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andy
Young Armadillo
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Post by andy on Jun 12, 2011 15:44:12 GMT -5
Minimum wage is 7.25. 7.25 * 40 hours/week * 52 weeks/year = 15,080. You can't live on 15k/year. Ha, I live on half as much and I don't think it's that challenging or horrible. Though, to be fair, I'm home two months a year and my family pays for my plane tickets to and from uni. I spend around £400 a month - most of it goes on rent and bills and although I share my flat with two other people, it's a really nice flat with big rooms and it's position is pretty central. But I'm a vegan and prepare 99% of my food, don't own a car and walk/cycle almost everywhere, recycle everything (which means I never buy new clothes/shoes/cutlery/anything) and generally try not to amass any kind of material possessions pointlessly. If you lead an environment and humanity friendly life, you can make do with surprisingly little money. |
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Post by andreaisabbbw on Jun 12, 2011 22:26:02 GMT -5
My career plan is to become a fake socialite and marry a Rockefeller or someone equally as wealthy. Maybe even Prince Charles. My whole English major thing is just a cover.
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Post by Fuck Yeah Dion on Jun 13, 2011 8:25:29 GMT -5
Minimum wage is 7.25. 7.25 * 40 hours/week * 52 weeks/year = 15,080. You can't live on 15k/year. Ha, I live on half as much and I don't think it's that challenging or horrible. Though, to be fair, I'm home two months a year and my family pays for my plane tickets to and from uni. I spend around £400 a month - most of it goes on rent and bills and although I share my flat with two other people, it's a really nice flat with big rooms and it's position is pretty central. But I'm a vegan and prepare 99% of my food, don't own a car and walk/cycle almost everywhere, recycle everything (which means I never buy new clothes/shoes/cutlery/anything) and generally try not to amass any kind of material possessions pointlessly. If you lead an environment and humanity friendly life, you can make do with surprisingly little money. I adore this kind of lifestyle and I wish everyone had the opportunity to live like that. I feel like it'd be a much more sustainable situation. |
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Post by meggieinluckey on Jun 13, 2011 15:39:57 GMT -5
This is a very typical attitude of a seventeen year old kid: however, I am not quite in complete disagreement. I have my own issues with Creative Writing departments as a whole, simply because writing workshops exist and thrive outside of academia, and it is possible to cultivate one's craft in this environment.
However, to get an agent, you need to have an in with these people, and like (I think it was Fuck Yeah Dion, I may be miscrediting) said, an agent is going to check your credentials, see that there are none, and well, your manuscript is going in the recycle bin. Sorry. It's reality. It's obvious that you come from privilege, so maybe your parents know an agent where you can get your foot in the door. Also, no, you do not know everything about analyzing literature or most anything about literary theory at seventeen years old, so check your arrogance at the door. Hopefully you mature by the time you graduate high school and realize that you are not hot shit.
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invision
Armadillo Pup
Random Axe of Kindness
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Post by invision on Jun 13, 2011 16:48:24 GMT -5
This is a very typical attitude of a seventeen year old kid: however, I am not quite in complete disagreement. I have my own issues with Creative Writing departments as a whole, simply because writing workshops exist and thrive outside of academia, and it is possible to cultivate one's craft in this environment. However, to get an agent, you need to have an in with these people, and like (I think it was Fuck Yeah Dion, I may be miscrediting) said, an agent is going to check your credentials, see that there are none, and well, your manuscript is going in the recycle bin. Sorry. It's reality. It's obvious that you come from privilege, so maybe your parents know an agent where you can get your foot in the door. Also, no, you do not know everything about analyzing literature or most anything about literary theory at seventeen years old, so check your arrogance at the door. Hopefully you mature by the time you graduate high school and realize that you are not hot shit. I'm very interested in how you can magically tell that I 'come from privilege'. How in God's name does citing 80-100 hour workweeks imply 'privilege'? Also, how do you know that I'm not 'hot shit'? I do not come from privilege. My parents do not know a literary agent. However, the research I've done so far hasn't said a single thing about credentials being necessary. I never said I knew everything about analyzing literature - I said that I didn't have to take a class to learn how to analyze it. Writing workshops and such do exist, as far as critique, and I can (gasp) learn things about literary analysis on my own, too. Maybe not everything, but enough? Probably. I said I might not go to college (...I have three years to decide yes or no on this, mind). I did not say that I wasn't going to attend writing workshops or actively work on my writing during that time. James |
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Post by embonpoint on Jun 13, 2011 17:31:11 GMT -5
I'm very interested in how you can magically tell that I 'come from privilege'. ... I do not come from privilege. Quoting you from the last page: "considering that I had a bit of a privileged childhood (both of my parents are lawyers)". So you did kind of say it yourself and are definitely contradicting yourself here. |
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invision
Armadillo Pup
Random Axe of Kindness
Posts: 47
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Post by invision on Jun 13, 2011 17:33:35 GMT -5
I'm very interested in how you can magically tell that I 'come from privilege'. ... I do not come from privilege. Quoting you from the last page: "considering that I had a bit of a privileged childhood (both of my parents are lawyers)". So you did kind of say it yourself and are definitely contradicting yourself here. Fine, I come from privilege. What I mean is, I'm not exactly spoiled (or... at all privileged, at least in the past 5-8 years). James |
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Post by embonpoint on Jun 13, 2011 17:49:51 GMT -5
Quoting you from the last page: "considering that I had a bit of a privileged childhood (both of my parents are lawyers)". So you did kind of say it yourself and are definitely contradicting yourself here. Fine, I come from privilege. What I mean is, I'm not exactly spoiled (or... at all privileged, at least in the past 5-8 years). James Yeah, I get what you're saying; I mean, I grew up in a... 'financially-comfortable' family (we weren't rich by any stretch of the imagination, but we certainly didn't qualify for EMA (education maintenance which you don't get if your household income is >£30 000pa)), but for the last ~six years, our income hasn't been above ~£10 000pa. So, my family/household is on the super-low end of privilege that comes from money, BUT I still have some of the privilege sort of 'carried over' from when we had more money, and I have other privileges besides (I'm white, cis-gendered, heterosexual, have no physical/mental disabilities) - even though the financial-privilege is the focus of this discussion, the others still apply. Being privileged doesn't necessarily mean you're an arrogant, insensitive, bigoted, selfish person or anything like that, but denying your privilege kind of does. I don't really like to speak for other people, but I think they are getting more annoyed because you seem to be denying your privilege (well, you HAVE explicitly denied it) and I think you're being quite naive about this whole thing but you have come across as arrogant. Rather than saying "creative writing degrees aren't always necessary and I would rather go to workshops and take classes independently than go to college; I would like to write (and think I could be successful with this) so I would take a minimum wage job just to support it", you sort of came in with this "I've got the world sussed; I am hot shit and don't need help with anything; I can just work minimum wage jobs and be a great writing success, no problemo!" kind of attitude. Do you see what I mean? Like you say, you have years before you finish highschool and things/your opinions may change, which actually makes your first post/attitude the more puzzling because you seemed to be very much determined in your decisions and have then said "but it's not set in stone!". |
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Post by Fuck Yeah Dion on Jun 13, 2011 17:57:10 GMT -5
By privileged, no one's saying you're rich or have a super easy life. Privilege is a state of mind in a lot of ways, and you definitely portray a lot of aspects of privilege. This will probably be the last post I make in this thread, since like most seventeen year olds, you don't listen (sorry if that sounds condescending, but everyone is like that at seventeen, myself included).
1. If you look up how to write a query/proposal, you have to include credentials. If you have no credentials, good luck getting the potential agent to read anything. I don't know what kind of "research" you've been doing, but you've arrived at an incorrect conclusion.
2. Whatever work hours you're doing now will be nothing compared to when you depend on those hours to survive and you have to compete for those hours amongst other people. I don't see why anyone would willingly give themselves up to wage slavery. Without a college education, you will be stuck in whatever minimum wage job you get, and that's if you're lucky enough to get one. And it's the fact that you think it's so easy that shows you have privilege.
3. I'm sorry, but how exactly do you plan to teach yourself literary theory? At my school, you need at least two semesters of it to be counted as competent. I'm guessing you just don't know exactly how complex literary analysis actually is. You should really go to college, because there are ways to read and think about literature that you haven't even thought about yet. The debt you'd pile up is well worth it for the experience and freedom you'd gain afterward.
4. When you're trapped in that minimum wage job, exactly how do you plan to find time to write and attend writing workshops? It just doesn't work that way, man. When you're making $7.15 an hour and have to pay rent, groceries, electricity, gas, and unexpected expenses, you won't be able to take three days off six times a year to attend writing workshops. In college, you'd make connections over years with published authors who can help you hone your craft as well as find success in the publishing industry (and those are two completely different ball games), whereas at a conference, you've got three days to impress someone.
Go to college, dude. That's the most constructive criticism I can give. The plan you've suggested here is terrible.
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Post by cyanea on Jun 13, 2011 18:00:11 GMT -5
I don't really like to speak for other people, but I think they are getting more annoyed because you seem to be denying your privilege (well, you HAVE explicitly denied it) and I think you're being quite naive about this whole thing but you have come across as arrogant. Rather than saying "creative writing degrees aren't always necessary and I would rather go to workshops and take classes independently than go to college; I would like to write (and think I could be successful with this) so I would take a minimum wage job just to support it", you sort of came in with this "I've got the world sussed; I am hot shit and don't need help with anything; I can just work minimum wage jobs and be a great writing success, no problemo!" kind of attitude. Do you see what I mean? Like you say, you have years before you finish highschool and things/your opinions may change, which actually makes your first post/attitude the more puzzling because you seemed to be very much determined in your decisions and have then said "but it's not set in stone!". Pretty much all of this. |
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