Midterm Hunger
In a world of unemployed/underemployed post-graduates, grades are the currency and extra-curricular activities are the credit line. And midterms season is the time you realise, "Shit, I'm broke."
Then you have to treat your credit line carefully to make sure you won't be overdrawn or else you might foreclose the mortgage and sustain graver damage.
But then sometimes you just gamble on your credit. Just gamble on it, and hope that the inflow of currency gets better. Which means that there should be a careful selection on your credit source, you have to make sure that in choosing extra-curricular activities or co-curricular activities, you learn powerful insights that could improve your (academic) financial position. And, in the end, most employers (which is the end goal of being in a post-graduate school) look into what you have done, more than what your teachers think of the way you think. Sometimes, grades don't even show the versatility of human intelligence. The rest is up to fate.
On a completely different and less cryptic note (although those who are my blockmates who needed consolation wouldn't find the last three paragraphs cryptic at all), I've watched one of the Academy Award contenders for Documentary, and it's called Food, Inc. [trailer here]. All I can say is... WOW. I've never felt so much more insecure about my eating choices. It made me feel more pissed about the agricultural subsidies in America. AGRICULTURAL SUBSIDIES KILL PEOPLE!! Excessive lobbying, severe lack of standards and regulatory agencies malfunction lead to such a terrible demise that affects the lives of so many people! The negative repercussions of industrialising food was just so life-threatening. Literally. I don't even mind that the documentary felt like a propaganda against industrial food and promoted organic food (obviously that was the slant). But it explained so much why unhealthy food was so cheap, but in the end, not-so-cheap, because as per economic parlance, you are actually internalising negative externalities. In layman's terms: you'll pay for the costs in some other way, like through hospital bills or funeral bills.
And, I guess this is another reason why I'm kind of glad that I do not live in America. I'll make my mom watch it, and I'll bet she'll stop shopping at S&R.
In the end, the documentary restored part of my faith in the market. The higher demand for healthier food, the legal and legislative battles, the re-framing of the problem the same way they dealt with the tobacco industry, really made me hopeful that there are corrective mechanisms that the narrative in the documentary could help actualise.
Then you have to treat your credit line carefully to make sure you won't be overdrawn or else you might foreclose the mortgage and sustain graver damage.
But then sometimes you just gamble on your credit. Just gamble on it, and hope that the inflow of currency gets better. Which means that there should be a careful selection on your credit source, you have to make sure that in choosing extra-curricular activities or co-curricular activities, you learn powerful insights that could improve your (academic) financial position. And, in the end, most employers (which is the end goal of being in a post-graduate school) look into what you have done, more than what your teachers think of the way you think. Sometimes, grades don't even show the versatility of human intelligence. The rest is up to fate.
On a completely different and less cryptic note (although those who are my blockmates who needed consolation wouldn't find the last three paragraphs cryptic at all), I've watched one of the Academy Award contenders for Documentary, and it's called Food, Inc. [trailer here]. All I can say is... WOW. I've never felt so much more insecure about my eating choices. It made me feel more pissed about the agricultural subsidies in America. AGRICULTURAL SUBSIDIES KILL PEOPLE!! Excessive lobbying, severe lack of standards and regulatory agencies malfunction lead to such a terrible demise that affects the lives of so many people! The negative repercussions of industrialising food was just so life-threatening. Literally. I don't even mind that the documentary felt like a propaganda against industrial food and promoted organic food (obviously that was the slant). But it explained so much why unhealthy food was so cheap, but in the end, not-so-cheap, because as per economic parlance, you are actually internalising negative externalities. In layman's terms: you'll pay for the costs in some other way, like through hospital bills or funeral bills.
And, I guess this is another reason why I'm kind of glad that I do not live in America. I'll make my mom watch it, and I'll bet she'll stop shopping at S&R.
In the end, the documentary restored part of my faith in the market. The higher demand for healthier food, the legal and legislative battles, the re-framing of the problem the same way they dealt with the tobacco industry, really made me hopeful that there are corrective mechanisms that the narrative in the documentary could help actualise.