The Happy News thread

[JadziaKathryn]

I am home for break! And Borders has a 40% of any DVD set coupon so I bought myself series 2 of Torchwood for Christmas. My aunt and cousin plus my cousin's cat are here, and it's organized chaos and all that good family holiday stuff happening.

[honeybee]

Grades are submitted. Comments are given. All is done!

Whew. Now I need a long winter's nap.

[Alelou]

I just have to staple all the Excel worksheets and photocopy and submit the official records and I'm done too. Hoorah!

I'm not touching the next semester until Christmas is over.

[honeybee]

Darn right! (And I've got only two preps next semester! Yippeee!)

[WarpGirl]

I''m finally home. The cat spent almost all the time under the bed I slept in at my parents. Two feet of snow they weren't about to let my stay alone. Now we're home and kitty is parked under my bed. I don't get it, she should be comfortble here.

[Aquarius]

Honeybee and Alelou, I am so envious of your lives!

Still waiting on my grades.

I know I got an A in history--I got As on my first three tests, so I didn't have to show up to take the last one per the professor's grading policy.

I got an A in computers. In fact, before the last test, she gave us a sheet showing us how many points we had so far so we knew how much was at state on the test. I had so many points, I could've walked out without taking the test and I still would've had an A-. I only needed something like 7 points for a solid A. I got 92.

I took my Linguistics exam on the last day of classes. The final was optional, and the prof was going to email us the grades on the last exam in order to help us decide if taking another test would help or not. Unfortunately the file was so big it didn't work and only a few people got the email, and I wasn't one of them. I gambled and didn't take the final, since I got As on the prior tests...but it's still killing me not knowing how I did.

[WarpGirl]

I'm sure it will be great congradulations.

[Aquarius]

Thanks!

[Bether6074]

I am going to try this going back to school thing myself, but it's going to be a very slow process. I really wish my old credits were still of some use, but oh well. I'm going to be doing this online a little bit at a time to try to keep up with the expense. It feels weird being exciting about school, but this is a calling. I can't seem to put it down, so I'm going to go for it. Might take 10 years, but at least I'll be moving toward my goal of becoming a therapist.

[Linda]

Good for you, Bether!

And paraphrasing Harry Kim at the end of Voyager: it's the journey that matters, not the destination. And in my view, it is not how long it takes but the enjoyment of the process.

[Alelou]

Grades are done and posted and handed in and filed and that's all she wrote for this semester! Woo hoo!

[justTripn]

Wow Bether!!! I love it!!

My happy news is not quite so complete, but I just sent my last edited paper for typesetting. All the authors are in contact with me, friendly, and cooperating to get in their proof corrections before Christmas. I'm cutting it close as always, and I will sadly have to come in after Christmas for the second step in this STUPID NEVERENDING PROCESS *grumble, grumble* but there WILL be a WINTER ISSUE of the Journal of Economic Perspectives published in a timely fashion. *WHEW!!*

And right after New Years I take off to Atlanta for a big CON!!!!!

(The Annual meetings of the American Economic Association) Ha, ha! Gotcha, didn't I?

[WarpGirl]

Is there any official Economic mojo to tell my dad he's playin the stock market the wrong way. Seriously you'd think he was addicted to gambling the way he messes around!

[Alelou]

Okay, all of this is just opinion because I have no formal training in the matter.

But, frankly, WG, I wouldn't ever try to succeed in this stock market as an independent player unless I was somehow hooked in to the big boys and their inside information and their speed-trading software (and some of that is illegal, at least theoretically). You just can't compete against them. Studies have shown that most regular people do better with indexed funds offered by companies with good reputations and low costs, like Vanguard.

I have a friend who was a day trader and doing fairly well with it in the last decade. The last crash wiped her out. Nowadays she sells homemade hand cream at farmer's markets to make a living. (She's also an incredibly talented published author of novels and short stories, but that REALLY doesn't pay.)

I also have a friend who is a stock broker for Smith Barney, and if you have a good and honest broker (and good luck with that) I think you can do very well. But she'd be the first to tell you that unless you have a good chunk of money to invest (like more than $250,000) the ongoing fees at a place like that will eat up a lot of your earnings.

We still don't have any meaningful reform in the financial markets. The same bad practices that got us into this mess are being transferred into new creations, like bundled life insurance policies. So it could all blow up again. I think that going in there right now as a single player is madness.

[WarpGirl]

Hey trust me I KNOW! Mama and I have pleaded with him to see reason but the man is as bullheaded as they come! Seriously I know people think I'm stubborn, and I don't deny it, but my father is on a completely different level. He honestly believes he is going to get rich off of this, it's madness. I was just hoping a professional might back me up.