(no subject)
I have a lot to say today on three different topics.
1) Sometimes I feel as though I have so many different interests that I can't keep up with them all, and I end up feeling that I'm halfway good at a lot of things but not really good at anything. But I realized that one way to make myself feel better is to make a list of the things I care about being good at and deciding whether I am better or worse at them than I was last year. That way, for everything I feel like I'm losing a grip on, I can point to something I am getting better at.
-Hebrew: I am better at it than I have ever been in my life, except for maybe when I was taking the three-week Neta course last summer, when I felt as though I were practically living in Israel. I realized the difference today because it was the first day of the ulpan I am taking.
-Singing: I can sight-sing reasonably well now, or at any rate better than I have ever been able to do before, which was not at all.
-Israeli dance: An area I need to spend some time in. I have to learn a bunch of new dances to teach next year.
-Art: another area I need to work on. I have been doing a little sketching, and I'm doing Debbie's ketubah, but I am not actively improving my skills, and I am sure they have deteriorated. Of all the things I enjoy doing, this one requires the most time to keep it up and has the least connection to my work. It makes me sad.
-Being in shape (not exactly a skill, but something that requires time to attain): I'm okay right now on this one, but I am worried about the start of the school year. I dance at school and am on my feet all day, so I'm not a total couch potato during the year, but I need to do more in this area. Jeff and I think I should work less in 2009-2010 so we could finally take ballroom dance lessons together or join some kind of athletic club. I don't like exercising for the sake of exercising (like in a gym), and I'm not so keen on competitive sports unless I'm competing against myself, but I love doing outdoor sports like rock climbing, caving, hiking, and kayaking. It would also be a great way to meet people. Right now it's a dream though.
2) This weekend was definitely one of the better trips Jeff and I took together. We had an extremely romantic dinner at an expensive French restaurant. It was so incredibly worth it. That's all I have to say about that because really, no one cares about the details of our relationship except us.
The next day we went whitewater rafting, which was extremely intense and also so incredibly worth it even though I am still sore (my biceps, and surprisingly my legs, from trying to keep myself in the boat). We had a five-person boat, which meant four paddlers across from each other and one captain/steerer at the rear. I got to be captain for part of the time, and it was absolutely fantastic. I steered us pretty well for my first time, I think. It helped that Jeff could practically read my mind! We're a good team.
I fell out of the boat once, and it was incredibly exciting. I went flying with so much force that I tackled the guy sitting in front of me, and we both ended up in the water. Of course, when two out of five people are in the water, and it takes the other three to pull them both back in...well, let's just say nobody was paddling through that part of the rapids!
The next day went down to the river near one of the rapids, watched all the rafters and kayakers go by, and analyzed what they were doing. It was partly to reassure me that other people sucked at rafting worse than we did--we saw one raft lose two people and three oars--but it was partly to watch it done right. The kayakers we saw were amazingly skilled. We struck up a conversation, and it turned out they were all from Cleveland! They told us about their group and where they took kayak lessons. We may do that someday.
3) As just about everyone knows, the real estate industry is seriously in trouble and is bringing down other parts of the economy. The bank who owns our mortgage, IndyMac, was about to fail, so the government seized its assets on Friday and reopened it on Monday under a new name, IndyMac Federal. Apparently this kind of thing happens a few times a year--that's what FDIC insurance is for--but it's happening more frequently this year and to bigger banks. This bailout cost the FDIC billions of dollars. It's basically business as usual for everyone unless they stupidly had more than $100,000 in the bank ($200,000 for a couple with a joint account). We applied for refinancing through National City last week (the timing is coincidental), and in theory that will be business as usual too, although I'm sure it will take longer than we expected.
I've been reading a lot about it, and there are some things I want to share. First of all, we have one of those loans that everyone is complaining about: a pay option ARM (adjustable rate mortgage). This is what it sounds like: basically, you have optional payments. The lowest option is kind of like the minimum payment on a credit card, which causes your balance owed to increase. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this option should only be used in serious emergencies. We never used the minimum payment option; we took the loan because we wanted to do interest-only payments (which neither increase nor decrease your loan balance) and because the interest rate for the first year was incredibly low, which was great for while I was still in college. (Unfortunately, I can't chalk this whole fiasco completely up to stupid people because falling home values have been another contributing factor to people having negative equity in their homes. Cleveland is a fairly stable market compared to, say, California, but we do have less equity than when we bought the house.)
To make a long story short, nobody has any money, including the banks. Now, IndyMac had been in trouble for a while, and the whistleblower was Senator Schumer from New York. People have criticized him by comparing his comments, which caused a run on the bank, to yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. The thing is, there was a fire: IndyMac was seriously insolvent.
By the way, the fire analogy is a great one for the argument people have against government bailouts.
Complaint: "Why should they be rewarded for being financially irresponsible, while I lived within my means?"
Response: "The foreclosure crisis is bringing down the entire economy. If there were a fire burning your neighbor's house down, wouldn't you want the firemen to put it out?"
I feel like I can see both sides because we got a non-traditional mortgage but were responsible about it. The thing is, when we got it (in 2004), we didn't even think of it as risky. Nobody thought that way. The only reason we put money down was that we wanted to avoid PMI (which is like insurance you buy from the bank if you put less than a certain % down); we figured borrowing from my parents and paying them interest was better than paying the bank interest. (Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong on this part since it was a while ago, but that's what I remember thinking.) We didn't even consider the possibility that the housing market could tank; it was inconceivable. We are getting an appraisal as part of the refinance process, and it will be interesting to see what it comes back as.
I'm kind of proud of myself for knowing a lot more about finances than I did last year at this time. I should add that to my list.
1) Sometimes I feel as though I have so many different interests that I can't keep up with them all, and I end up feeling that I'm halfway good at a lot of things but not really good at anything. But I realized that one way to make myself feel better is to make a list of the things I care about being good at and deciding whether I am better or worse at them than I was last year. That way, for everything I feel like I'm losing a grip on, I can point to something I am getting better at.
-Hebrew: I am better at it than I have ever been in my life, except for maybe when I was taking the three-week Neta course last summer, when I felt as though I were practically living in Israel. I realized the difference today because it was the first day of the ulpan I am taking.
-Singing: I can sight-sing reasonably well now, or at any rate better than I have ever been able to do before, which was not at all.
-Israeli dance: An area I need to spend some time in. I have to learn a bunch of new dances to teach next year.
-Art: another area I need to work on. I have been doing a little sketching, and I'm doing Debbie's ketubah, but I am not actively improving my skills, and I am sure they have deteriorated. Of all the things I enjoy doing, this one requires the most time to keep it up and has the least connection to my work. It makes me sad.
-Being in shape (not exactly a skill, but something that requires time to attain): I'm okay right now on this one, but I am worried about the start of the school year. I dance at school and am on my feet all day, so I'm not a total couch potato during the year, but I need to do more in this area. Jeff and I think I should work less in 2009-2010 so we could finally take ballroom dance lessons together or join some kind of athletic club. I don't like exercising for the sake of exercising (like in a gym), and I'm not so keen on competitive sports unless I'm competing against myself, but I love doing outdoor sports like rock climbing, caving, hiking, and kayaking. It would also be a great way to meet people. Right now it's a dream though.
2) This weekend was definitely one of the better trips Jeff and I took together. We had an extremely romantic dinner at an expensive French restaurant. It was so incredibly worth it. That's all I have to say about that because really, no one cares about the details of our relationship except us.
The next day we went whitewater rafting, which was extremely intense and also so incredibly worth it even though I am still sore (my biceps, and surprisingly my legs, from trying to keep myself in the boat). We had a five-person boat, which meant four paddlers across from each other and one captain/steerer at the rear. I got to be captain for part of the time, and it was absolutely fantastic. I steered us pretty well for my first time, I think. It helped that Jeff could practically read my mind! We're a good team.
I fell out of the boat once, and it was incredibly exciting. I went flying with so much force that I tackled the guy sitting in front of me, and we both ended up in the water. Of course, when two out of five people are in the water, and it takes the other three to pull them both back in...well, let's just say nobody was paddling through that part of the rapids!
The next day went down to the river near one of the rapids, watched all the rafters and kayakers go by, and analyzed what they were doing. It was partly to reassure me that other people sucked at rafting worse than we did--we saw one raft lose two people and three oars--but it was partly to watch it done right. The kayakers we saw were amazingly skilled. We struck up a conversation, and it turned out they were all from Cleveland! They told us about their group and where they took kayak lessons. We may do that someday.
3) As just about everyone knows, the real estate industry is seriously in trouble and is bringing down other parts of the economy. The bank who owns our mortgage, IndyMac, was about to fail, so the government seized its assets on Friday and reopened it on Monday under a new name, IndyMac Federal. Apparently this kind of thing happens a few times a year--that's what FDIC insurance is for--but it's happening more frequently this year and to bigger banks. This bailout cost the FDIC billions of dollars. It's basically business as usual for everyone unless they stupidly had more than $100,000 in the bank ($200,000 for a couple with a joint account). We applied for refinancing through National City last week (the timing is coincidental), and in theory that will be business as usual too, although I'm sure it will take longer than we expected.
I've been reading a lot about it, and there are some things I want to share. First of all, we have one of those loans that everyone is complaining about: a pay option ARM (adjustable rate mortgage). This is what it sounds like: basically, you have optional payments. The lowest option is kind of like the minimum payment on a credit card, which causes your balance owed to increase. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this option should only be used in serious emergencies. We never used the minimum payment option; we took the loan because we wanted to do interest-only payments (which neither increase nor decrease your loan balance) and because the interest rate for the first year was incredibly low, which was great for while I was still in college. (Unfortunately, I can't chalk this whole fiasco completely up to stupid people because falling home values have been another contributing factor to people having negative equity in their homes. Cleveland is a fairly stable market compared to, say, California, but we do have less equity than when we bought the house.)
To make a long story short, nobody has any money, including the banks. Now, IndyMac had been in trouble for a while, and the whistleblower was Senator Schumer from New York. People have criticized him by comparing his comments, which caused a run on the bank, to yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. The thing is, there was a fire: IndyMac was seriously insolvent.
By the way, the fire analogy is a great one for the argument people have against government bailouts.
Complaint: "Why should they be rewarded for being financially irresponsible, while I lived within my means?"
Response: "The foreclosure crisis is bringing down the entire economy. If there were a fire burning your neighbor's house down, wouldn't you want the firemen to put it out?"
I feel like I can see both sides because we got a non-traditional mortgage but were responsible about it. The thing is, when we got it (in 2004), we didn't even think of it as risky. Nobody thought that way. The only reason we put money down was that we wanted to avoid PMI (which is like insurance you buy from the bank if you put less than a certain % down); we figured borrowing from my parents and paying them interest was better than paying the bank interest. (Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong on this part since it was a while ago, but that's what I remember thinking.) We didn't even consider the possibility that the housing market could tank; it was inconceivable. We are getting an appraisal as part of the refinance process, and it will be interesting to see what it comes back as.
I'm kind of proud of myself for knowing a lot more about finances than I did last year at this time. I should add that to my list.