We've wined, we've waited, now it's time to celebrate 2016

[nka93]

Random and off topic but I'm pretty proud of the Mother's Day gift I picked out this year. I got her a subscription to Birchbox. She is addicted to makeup and skin care so I thought it would be a fun thing she'd never think to get herself. I teased her about it and now she is trying to get me to tell her. I love giving gifts! 

[Pink Fuzzy Bunny]

29 minutes ago, nka93 said:

Random and off topic but I'm pretty proud of the Mother's Day gift I picked out this year. I got her a subscription to Birchbox. She is addicted to makeup and skin care so I thought it would be a fun thing she'd never think to get herself. I teased her about it and now she is trying to get me to tell her. I love giving gifts! 

Brilliant idea!!

[rhombusbombus]

Just made an appointment with an accountant to set up my quarterly taxes! I feel like an adult today.

[MarineBluePsy]

On ‎4‎/‎19‎/‎2016 at 3:46 PM, Levon3 said:

I agree. I really notice a difference in view sometimes. I am also frequently struck by the rarity of people from low SES backgrounds in my grad school and in my profession. I know very few people in my current circles whose parents didn't go to college. 

Or maybe there are more of them and they have chosen to "blend in" by just not saying anything.  I do this all the time to avoid becoming the spokesperson for everyone from humble means.  Sometimes the comments and questions are so ignorant I just can't stand it.

19 hours ago, hippyscientist said:

 Relatedly, are you all going in with a set outcome in mind? I have a very clear path I want to be following and I want to use all my connections and time at grad school to ensure I end up where I want to (admittedly that might change, but I have to be super focused).

Yes.  I have a list of skills I expect to develop and milestones I wish to reach and I was very clear about them during my interview.  I straight up said "I intend to accomplish x, y, and z and will need a, b, and c support from you to do so.  Can you do that?"  I'm not moving clear across the country and disrupting my entire personal life to find myself not where I want to be 4 years from now.

[Danger_Zone]

The process is far from over but my visa information was approved so I will be receiving my visa documents soon. I've also looked into housing online and some of the places near my university look beautiful, I'm so excited (and scared and anxious) to move in a few months.      

[Danger_Zone]

3 hours ago, nka93 said:

Random and off topic but I'm pretty proud of the Mother's Day gift I picked out this year. I got her a subscription to Birchbox. She is addicted to makeup and skin care so I thought it would be a fun thing she'd never think to get herself. I teased her about it and now she is trying to get me to tell her. I love giving gifts! 

This sounded like a great idea for my mom! She is really into make up and other beauty products. So I look it up and "We are so sad to let you know that we have made the difficult decision to put our Canada operations on hold. We love our Canadian customers, but with the current exchange rate and high shipping costs, we can't create the Birchbox experience at a price that is fair to you."

[Pink Fuzzy Bunny]

1 hour ago, MarineBluePsy said:

Sometimes the comments and questions are so ignorant I just can't stand it.

YES. People assume that just because my family was "poor" that I had a profoundly unhappy childhood, and they wonder why I'm such a "well-adjusted" adult (emphasis on the quotes there). Do people just assume that because I didn't have a Nintendo or a computer I just sat in the corner all day and cried about being "poor"? 

 

And I also feel bad for saying this, but I can't help but wonder if the reason I got into Berkeley was because they required a "diversity" essay.

Edited April 21, 2016 by Pink Fuzzy Bunny

[hippyscientist]

3 hours ago, MarineBluePsy said:

Or maybe there are more of them and they have chosen to "blend in" by just not saying anything.  I do this all the time to avoid becoming the spokesperson for everyone from humble means.  Sometimes the comments and questions are so ignorant I just can't stand it.

Yes.  I have a list of skills I expect to develop and milestones I wish to reach and I was very clear about them during my interview.  I straight up said "I intend to accomplish x, y, and z and will need a, b, and c support from you to do so.  Can you do that?"  I'm not moving clear across the country and disrupting my entire personal life to find myself not where I want to be 4 years from now.

Awesome - that's the attitude I took. It's really difficult to find goal-oriented people online when talking about grad school. Everyone seems to talk about the drifters, the ones who wait until a week before graduation to start the job hunt etc. There should definitely be more positive things on the internet about grad school. Yes it's challenging, yes it's not easy and yes you're going to have moments when you question why you're there, but the news shouldn't ALL be doom and gloom. I get the sense students/people who didn't find academic jobs take to the internet to vent (which they're more than entitled to) but we rarely see the other side of the coin.

Jumping in on the low SES thing. To look at my family you would not consider us low SES (my dad drives a Porsche for crying out loud), and I was very lucky growing up to be able to go to good schools. But I got cut off at 16. No financial support or anything. I had to pay rent. I had to buy food. So I have funded myself through my last two years of school, travelling, undergrad and masters. It's nothing new and it's nothing special but I really hate the comments that come "but you're family is rich, just ask them for help." No. I can't and I won't. I am the poor person hiding in plain sight lol. 150% agree with the ignorant comments. So frustrating.

[winterstat]

4 hours ago, Danger_Zone said:

The process is far from over but my visa information was approved so I will be receiving my visa documents soon. I've also looked into housing online and some of the places near my university look beautiful, I'm so excited (and scared and anxious) to move in a few months.      

 

Congratulations!!!

Of course, I get a fever the day before my interview (which is today in just a few hours!)... I've been trying to get myself to at least look as healthy as possible. Hopefully, I won't sneeze and cough my way through the interview. Fingers crossed!

 

@hippyscientist, as for goals, my only real goal so far was to finish in 4 years. I don't want to become one of those people that just keeps putting off writing their thesis and being stuck in grad school for 6+ years. I know you don't have complete control over how quickly you finish (experiments fails, supervisors are slow, etc), but I am planning on at least doing all I can to stay on schedule.Your question has got me thinking about being more organized about this and maybe writing down what I want to achieve for every semester/year.

[hippyscientist]

@winterstat good luck with your interview today

[Neist]

10 hours ago, Pink Fuzzy Bunny said:

YES. People assume that just because my family was "poor" that I had a profoundly unhappy childhood, and they wonder why I'm such a "well-adjusted" adult (emphasis on the quotes there). Do people just assume that because I didn't have a Nintendo or a computer I just sat in the corner all day and cried about being "poor"? 

To be honest, I never knew any better!  I played outside. Had fun. Did kid stuff. Did it bother me that we sometimes didn't have a lot of food? Nope! 

11 hours ago, MarineBluePsy said:

Or maybe there are more of them and they have chosen to "blend in" by just not saying anything.  I do this all the time to avoid becoming the spokesperson for everyone from humble means.  Sometimes the comments and questions are so ignorant I just can't stand it.

I definitely just "blend in." Occasionally, I'll run into someone who grew up a bit poorer, but I find a lot of people have no clue what poor is. You'll meet someone who states their family can't help them much with college because they are poor (brought up in casual conversation), and their next sentence states how their parents only pay for their living expenses, not their tuition. 

I've never really knew how to respond to that, so I just say nothing.  

Edited April 21, 2016 by Neist

[sjoh197]

10 minutes ago, Neist said:

To be honest, I never knew any better!  I played outside. Had fun. Did kid stuff. Did it bother me that we sometimes didn't have a lot of food? Nope! 

I definitely just "blend in." Occasionally, I'll run into someone who grew up a bit poorer, but I find a lot of people have no clue what poor is. You'll meet someone who states their family can't help them much with college because they are poor (brought up in casual conversation), and their next sentence states how their parents only pay for their living expenses, not their tuition. 

I've never really knew how to respond to that, so I just say nothing.  

I grew up in abject poverty outside of detroit. And it always tickles me when I hear that people think they are poor because they can't afford something they "want". Being poor is not being able to afford things you need. 

My mother used to buy the bags of flash frozen chicken, chicken flavored rice and a can of corn or green beens split between 4 people. She would always dry the shit out of that awful chicken when she cooked it... and we ate it like almost every day for 4 years. She would often eat less just so us kids could eat. I remember having holes in my tennis shoes in the winter. 

[Neist]

21 minutes ago, sjoh197 said:

I grew up in abject poverty outside of detroit. And it always tickles me when I hear that people think they are poor because they can't afford something they "want". Being poor is not being able to afford things you need. 

My mother used to buy the bags of flash frozen chicken, chicken flavored rice and a can of corn or green beens split between 4 people. She would always dry the shit out of that awful chicken when she cooked it... and we ate it like almost every day for 4 years. She would often eat less just so us kids could eat. I remember having holes in my tennis shoes in the winter. 

Have you ever tried USDA canned meats? Oh my, those are so bad!  We'd sometimes get those from food pantries. Now that I'm older and know a thing or two about nutrition, I sort of wish my parents just made beans and rice a lot. It would have been tastier, and it costs practically nothing. However, we generally had at least something to eat. I grew up in a very small town, and my parents had a pretty large garden. We had no animals (hence the need for canned beef), but there was always veggies to be had.

I admit, I had a pretty comfortable childhood, considering how poor we were at times.

I've gotten pretty good at making cheap food now that I'm older. Also, while it's on topic, and we're all going to be relatively poor graduate students soon, I thought sharing this might be helpful.

https://8b862ca0073972f0472b704e2c0c21d0480f50d3.googledrive.com/host/0Bxd6wdCBD_2tdUdtM0d4WTJmclU/good-and-cheap.pdf

It's a cook book designed to function on food stamp budgets. I stumbled across it a year or so ago on these forums.

[sjoh197]

3 minutes ago, Neist said:

Have you ever tried USDA canned meats? Oh my, those are so bad!  We'd sometimes get those from food pantries. Now that I'm older and know a thing or two about nutrition, I sort of wish my parents just made beans and rice a lot. It would have been tastier, and it costs practically nothing. However, we generally had at least something to eat. I grew up in a very small town, and my parents had a pretty large garden. We had no animals (hence the need for canned beef), but there was always veggies to be had.

I admit, I had a pretty comfortable childhood, considering how poor we were at times.

I've gotten pretty good at making cheap food now that I'm older. Also, while it's on topic, and we're all going to be relatively poor graduate students soon, I thought sharing this might be helpful.

https://8b862ca0073972f0472b704e2c0c21d0480f50d3.googledrive.com/host/0Bxd6wdCBD_2tdUdtM0d4WTJmclU/good-and-cheap.pdf

It's a cook book designed to function on food stamp budgets. I stumbled across it a year or so ago on these forums.

I have had some canned meats... although to be honest... it was mostly just that god awful flash frozen chicken. If I remember correctly, it was something like 7 dollars for a huge bag. We lived in a tiny little trailer in a trailer park, so no garden for us. In fact, no real yard for us lol. 

I have so many dietary restrictions now that I can hardly eat anything cheap other than rice. But I've learned how to cook very healthy in an affordable manner. Mostly veggies, fruits, rice, yogurt, and chicken and pork. I found a pound pork loin roast on sale for $3.50 yesterday. Score. 

[winterstat]

@Neist, thank you for the book link!!!  I love to cook and was wondering how to still cook flavourful healthy stuff with a lower income than I'm used to (between MA and PhD I've worked for about 3 years).

 

Thank you everyone, for writing about your backgrounds a little bit. I'm one of those middle-class students that has never really seen what poverty within my own country looks like, and I appreciate you all talking about your experience. Hopefully, it will make me a bit less ignorant once I start uni in the US this summer.

[Neist]

6 minutes ago, winterstat said:

@Neist, thank you for the book link!!!  I love to cook and was wondering how to still cook flavourful healthy stuff with a lower income than I'm used to (between MA and PhD I've worked for about 3 years).

Thank you everyone, for writing about your backgrounds a little bit. I'm one of those middle-class students that has never really seen what poverty within my own country looks like, and I appreciate you all talking about your experience. Hopefully, it will make me a bit less ignorant once I start uni in the US this summer.

No problem! I especially liked the section on oatmeal. Oatmeal is super cheap and you can jazz it up for relatively little. Also, I love to share! Sharing improves a sense of diversity, and diversity is something that is always preferable, I think.   

6 minutes ago, sjoh197 said:

I have had some canned meats... although to be honest... it was mostly just that god awful flash frozen chicken. If I remember correctly, it was something like 7 dollars for a huge bag. We lived in a tiny little trailer in a trailer park, so no garden for us. In fact, no real yard for us lol. 

I have so many dietary restrictions now that I can hardly eat anything cheap other than rice. But I've learned how to cook very healthy in an affordable manner. Mostly veggies, fruits, rice, yogurt, and chicken and pork. I found a pound pork loin roast on sale for $3.50 yesterday. Score. 

I've considered calculating the caloric, monetary value of Soylent. It's dropped quite a bit in price. It's hard to find sources of protein that are cheap, and a 500 calorie serving of Soylent has 20g of protein and is less than two dollars a serving. Carbs and good fats are pretty easy to come by, but protein is tricky, or at least protein that isn't incredibly high in saturated fats. I love sausage, and sausage is cheap, but it's not something I should eat daily.

Me and my wife have been roasting chickens once ever week or two and simply stretching the meat. It's tasty, but I need to mix up the variety. I wanted to get into yogurt, but all the brands of yogurt I like are too expensive to purchase regularly.

[sjoh197]

2 minutes ago, Neist said:

No problem! I especially liked the section on oatmeal. Oatmeal is super cheap and you can jazz it up for relatively little. Also, I love to share! Sharing improves a sense of diversity, and diversity is something that is always preferable, I think.   

I've considered calculating the caloric, monetary value of Soylent. It's dropped quite a bit in price. It's hard to find sources of protein that are cheap, and a 500 calorie serving of Soylent has 20g of protein and is less than two dollars a serving. Carbs and good fats are pretty easy to come by, but protein is tricky, or at least protein that isn't incredibly high in saturated fats. I love sausage, and sausage is cheap, but it's not something I should eat daily.

Me and my wife have been roasting chickens once ever week or two and simply stretching the meat. It's tasty, but I need to mix up the variety. I wanted to get into yogurt, but all the brands of yogurt I like are too expensive to purchase regularly.

I've been incorporating more and more non-meat proteins, such as chickpeas, split peas, nuts... etc. I like taking the dannon light and fit vanilla yogurt... the big one, and making chia seed parfaits with them. If you mix in the chia seeds and let it sit for a few hours, or overnight, it completely transforms into awesome deliciousness. 

I'm sure nobody actually cares, but I keep a pretty good recipe list on pinterest. 

https://www.pinterest.com/sjohn19999/dinners/

https://www.pinterest.com/sjohn19999/lunch/

[hippyscientist]

3 minutes ago, sjoh197 said:

I've been incorporating more and more non-meat proteins, such as chickpeas, split peas, nuts... etc. I like taking the dannon light and fit vanilla yogurt... the big one, and making chia seed parfaits with them. If you mix in the chia seeds and let it sit for a few hours, or overnight, it completely transforms into awesome deliciousness. 

I'm sure nobody actually cares, but I keep a pretty good recipe list on pinterest. 

https://www.pinterest.com/sjohn19999/dinners/

https://www.pinterest.com/sjohn19999/lunch/

You have awesome food tastes  might have stolen a few of those

[Pink Fuzzy Bunny]

2 hours ago, Neist said:

To be honest, I never knew any better!  I played outside. Had fun. Did kid stuff. Did it bother me that we sometimes didn't have a lot of food? Nope! 

I definitely just "blend in." Occasionally, I'll run into someone who grew up a bit poorer, but I find a lot of people have no clue what poor is. You'll meet someone who states their family can't help them much with college because they are poor (brought up in casual conversation), and their next sentence states how their parents only pay for their living expenses, not their tuition. 

I've never really knew how to respond to that, so I just say nothing.  

Yeah totally! I definitely remember my childhood fondly. I'm incredibly lucky - we never had to go for a day without food, though sometimes it was a bit scarce, so we had more than most. I always had clothes to wear, never new but my mom had a way with a sewing machine so I never could tell the difference between Bergner's and hand-me-downs. When I was in high school though, my family hit a lucky streak and my dad got a job with a great accounting firm (seriously, some random accountant hired a hard laborer who didn't even graduate high school, imagine that!!), and my mom also got an office job (instead of house painting) and ever since then I've felt kind of spoiled

And honestly I'm kind of glad my parents don't help me out (though they would if I needed)... it means I'm more independent financially. 

 

[Euler]

3 hours ago, sjoh197 said:

I've been incorporating more and more non-meat proteins, such as chickpeas, split peas, nuts... etc. I like taking the dannon light and fit vanilla yogurt... the big one, and making chia seed parfaits with them. If you mix in the chia seeds and let it sit for a few hours, or overnight, it completely transforms into awesome deliciousness. 

I'm sure nobody actually cares, but I keep a pretty good recipe list on pinterest. 

https://www.pinterest.com/sjohn19999/dinners/

https://www.pinterest.com/sjohn19999/lunch/

Wow, I'm not sure I've ever seen a page anywhere that everything looked worth making/eating to me, but that dinner page is definitely one! I'm 100% bookmarking that, thanks

[sjoh197]

Well.... Prince died.

[RCtheSS]

12 minutes ago, sjoh197 said:

Well.... Prince died.

My dad, who is a lifetime Prince fan, called me at work and I started crying. He found Prince's music in a really dark time of his life when he was younger, and he passed his love for Prince onto me. It's like we lost a family member, as silly as that sounds. Music can really affect you emotionally in ways you can't describe.

[MarineBluePsy]

21 hours ago, Pink Fuzzy Bunny said:

And I also feel bad for saying this, but I can't help but wonder if the reason I got into Berkeley was because they required a "diversity" essay.

I am convinced that several of the opportunities that came my way were given to me solely to fill a diversity quota.  I'm not always ok with that either.

18 hours ago, hippyscientist said:

Awesome - that's the attitude I took. It's really difficult to find goal-oriented people online when talking about grad school. Everyone seems to talk about the drifters, the ones who wait until a week before graduation to start the job hunt etc. There should definitely be more positive things on the internet about grad school. Yes it's challenging, yes it's not easy and yes you're going to have moments when you question why you're there, but the news shouldn't ALL be doom and gloom. I get the sense students/people who didn't find academic jobs take to the internet to vent (which they're more than entitled to) but we rarely see the other side of the coin.

I think you're on to something with the doom and gloom writers being people who didn't make it into academia right away or ever.  The way I see it no one should be getting a graduate degree without having multiple options ideas of how it can be used.  There's nothing wrong with wanting to get into academia, but not being willing to do something else or insisting on getting a degree that would be extremely difficult to use outside of academia is setting yourself up for potential failure. 

17 hours ago, winterstat said:

@hippyscientist, as for goals, my only real goal so far was to finish in 4 years. I don't want to become one of those people that just keeps putting off writing their thesis and being stuck in grad school for 6+ years. I know you don't have complete control over how quickly you finish (experiments fails, supervisors are slow, etc), but I am planning on at least doing all I can to stay on schedule.Your question has got me thinking about being more organized about this and maybe writing down what I want to achieve for every semester/year.

One thing I've learned from a number of professors is the importance of choosing a thesis/dissertation that can be realistically completed in a fixed time frame.  If your advisor is trying to deter you from your topic then listen to them or you might find yourself at the 6 year mark and still not done.  Grad school is for developing a foundation and getting out.  Once you have your degree  you can spend years on a passion project or something time consuming.

11 hours ago, Neist said:

I definitely just "blend in." Occasionally, I'll run into someone who grew up a bit poorer, but I find a lot of people have no clue what poor is. You'll meet someone who states their family can't help them much with college because they are poor (brought up in casual conversation), and their next sentence states how their parents only pay for their living expenses, not their tuition. 

I've never really knew how to respond to that, so I just say nothing.  

I respond by playing them a song on the worlds smallest violin

10 hours ago, sjoh197 said:

My mother used to buy the bags of flash frozen chicken, chicken flavored rice and a can of corn or green beens split between 4 people. She would always dry the shit out of that awful chicken when she cooked it... and we ate it like almost every day for 4 years. She would often eat less just so us kids could eat. I remember having holes in my tennis shoes in the winter. 

Wow this brings back horrible memories of my mom's cooking that I must have repressed lol.  There are things that I have refused to eat since moving out on my own and likely won't go back to.  Clearly those rough formative years damaged me because having to go back to that style of eating would make me feel like a failure and that is unacceptable.  I know I shouldn't feel that way, but I can't help it. 

9 hours ago, Neist said:

It's hard to find sources of protein that are cheap, and a 500 calorie serving of Soylent has 20g of protein and is less than two dollars a serving. Carbs and good fats are pretty easy to come by, but protein is tricky, or at least protein that isn't incredibly high in saturated fats. I love sausage, and sausage is cheap, but it's not something I should eat daily.

Other cheap proteins are lentils, canned sardines, canned white albacore tuna (chunk light is even cheaper, but it's also nasty if you ask me lol), and ground turkey.  You can also save tons and expand your options by getting your meat directly from a butcher, preferably one that offers bundles with a variety of stuff in them.

[rhombusbombus]

I've been in mourning for Prince all day. I'm currently watching the MTV marathon and crying to the end of Purple Rain. My dad's been listening to Prince since he was 9 in 1978, and I've had Prince in my life for my full 25 years. He has an album for every emotion and I'm going to miss him. My sister has vinyls of his records, tshirts, table books. 

It's just super sad. I'm going to watch his movies while I work on my app for the upcoming year. he's definitely an integral part of my happy place

On a happier note! I went to Ga Tech with the guy who invented Soylent! Some of my friends had class with him. 

AND MY NEW GLASSES WILL BE READY TOMORROW!

[sjoh197]

1 hour ago, MarineBluePsy said:

 

 

 

Wow this brings back horrible memories of my mom's cooking that I must have repressed lol.  There are things that I have refused to eat since moving out on my own and likely won't go back to.  Clearly those rough formative years damaged me because having to go back to that style of eating would make me feel like a failure and that is unacceptable.  I know I shouldn't feel that way, but I can't help it.

The worst part is that my mom is and was a good cook. Those were long, stressful days. And she really did dry the shit out of that chicken. But man is her thanksgiving spread to die for. Last year her turkey was so juicy that we couldn't even move it out of the turkey pan onto the platter because it just disintegrated when we tried to pick it up. It was some delicious turkey.

Does anyone here remember poor people ground beef... You know, the ground turkey in a plastic tube thing. Mix that in with hamburger helper and you were living like a Rockefeller.