Adopting in Ashburn

At what point in the game did rational arguments stop making sense? Pretty much my whole life, I've been a generalist. I study as many subjects as possible, I'm a little good at a lot of things, but not really great at any one thing. This used to bother me, but then I realized it was a gift, and I began to love the diversity of my experience. The thing about being a generalist, is that it can be difficult to find a job or get people to take you seriously. So, you've got to become an expert in something. Which is what I did in graduate school. Now, it is certainly arguable that I am not the smartest or best person in my field. I still do a fairly generalized version of what I was trained to do, and use a broad definition to do it. In fact, most aspects of my life basically demand this of me. However, it is no doubt true that even my minimal expertise - in the grand scheme of things - is still more expertise than other people who have never done it before. Yet for some ...

If you want to read something scary, check out Beloit's Mindset analysis for the class of 2013. It's hard to believe that this year's college freshmen were born in a different decade. I know I'm still young, but those years between us seem to be getting farther and farther apart. My work keeps me pretty up-to-date with how the world is evolving online. I'm on a couple of different social media sites and actively avoiding others. I can track who comes to read this post and basically everything about the computer they visit from (don't worry, it's less of a deal here than it is over on the work blog where we track demographics pretty seriously). And yet, despite my technological savvy and my awareness of things that happened before 1991, it still seems strange that I can be so different than students starting college less than a decade after me and yet, so the same. I wasn't allowed to eat Berry Berry Kix, but I can remember when they were new. Before...

The following things have (really and truly) happened to me in the last week (in no particular order and a little vague to protect everyone involved): The button in the middle of my chest fell off my shirt ten minutes before the first of three in-person interviews with potential new staff at work. My car got towed. While I was parked in a perfectly legal spot. $115 later, my car was NOT returned in the same condition I left it in. I did an amazing job on a project and was even quoted for my quality work in a popular online source and was then belittled for the same work by someone who could have me fired. My cheesecake flavored Jello pudding strangely grew MORE cheesecake flavored in just 48 hours. While next in line at Walgreens, the store alarm went off (for no reason) which prevented the staff from helping me for ten minutes - exactly enough time to make me late for an appointment across the street. To prevent an unfortunate circumstance for a friend, I had to get help from my lan...