GAO revisited; Weekend getaway? and Fucktarded compstaff

About that GAO thing…

Well, late monday, after I’d faxed my transcripts, etc, I got an email from one of my interviewers urging me to apply, and telling me that there were two rounds of application. I explained my last minute awareness of the opportunity posting, my unawareness of the second round, and my feelings of excessive haste in composing my application. I asked her for advice. She had hr dump my old app, and said I could reapply in wave 2. She then offered pointers on how to write the essays I glossed over earlier. (turns out I was on the right track, but needed more detail.) Does this sound like a high level of interest on their part? Sure does to me. I’ll take care of it within the next seven days.

Speaking of the next seven days, travelzoo is offering some sweet travel dears. 175 round trip to denver (where I’ve never been and know no one, the former is good, the latter is bad), 202 round trip to washington dc (vice-versa). It’s pretty sweet, and a nice fantasy, but both financially and temporally, not so swell. OTOH, minneapolis has been remarkably temperate the past couple days. After discovering I’d left my laptop on campus, I took the bus back to campus this evening without a coat, hat, or gloves, and never really felt uncomfortably cold. Have I seen the worst that the winter has to offer already? Sure, it sucked at points, but it still seems to have warmed up so quickly. Winter should involve doubt as to whether the sun and moon were eaten by a great wolf. 😉

Oh yeah, and I want to stab compstaff so much. They completely fucked up our departmental webpage in the transition between web publishing systems. I do not want to have to go through inordinate sums of effort just to straighten up this new “more convenient” system that I am at best skeptical of. They should be eaten by rabid weasels.

Dating history

So, none of my 3 relationships to date have started with me being gaga over the good looks of my potential significant other. I always bonded over other things. With Steve there was a geek culture compatability, (star trek, the internet before it was universal, rpg’s, other stuff). With Josh (easily the best looking of the three; hi, josh), there was an incredible intellectual match, plus much similarity in the particulars of our life situations, though we dealt with it differently. And with Mark, I appreciated his style, which he had in abundance, though on substance, we were not so compatible. (I don’t regret breaking up with him when I did, but I do regret being an ass about it. A common theme for all 3, now that I think about it).

Now I’ve had engagements of varying lengths with people of various levels of attractiveness, ranging from “I’m sorry, did you say something? You seem to have taken my speech processing centers offline with your looks” to “that bag over your head makes you look so much sexier”.

So, what matters in a relationship? And how important are looks to the equation? Does it vary by the person? The last one may be the most important question, and I’d say the answer is a definite yes.

Do I shoot myself in the foot when dealing with the hot guys by either drowning them in drool or supressing the reflex so hard that I fail to show any interest? Maybe I just start seeing them as pretty and stop seeing them as people. That seems like a good explanation for how I sometimes feel about it. Ah, to have taken care of this shit when I was a teen, like most people do. Of course at that time I was mostly focused on appearances, as substance was so wildly out of my control. Hrm. Rambling. Done. Share your thoughts if you have ’em.

Iraq Election thoughts

As per usual, I don’t know enough to hold the opinions I do.

I was going to write something almost unabashedly positive. Then I read ‘s post on the matter. Now I’m not so sure. I value democracy, and I value freedom, and those two aren’t always the same thing.

I think it’s great that they got the voting going on, and such high levels of participation (usually a sign of dissatisfaction, maybe here a result of novelty as well), but I think that’s the lesser virtue. Particularly if it turns into a tyrrany of the majority. And I fear that it could end up leading to civil war for them. I hope that a restrained benevolence informs the new Iraqi government. And perhaps it will.

Potential federal employee

GAO App complete! Just under the wire, ‘cuz, well, I’m still me, and old habits die hard. And the fax number was busy, making it difficult to get the transcripts through, but even they made it before 5. Unfortunately, my “why I am perfect for this department” essays were painfully brief, which may work against me, but I’m sure there are other opportunities out there I can apply to which I would like just as much, so I won’t stress over it, and I will apply elsewhere.

Some tips for the nonsingle

I’ve been trying to remember what the “four horsemen of the apocalypse” for relationships were according to some shrink out there who did some intensely voyeuristic watching of couples in arguments, approximately since I left the class in which they were introduced; they seemed like a very useful analytical tool. It was in my social psych course during my last semester at cmu before heading off to chicago, so that’s what, 5 years ago?

The four horsemen (listed at the bottom of the following article) were criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. At the time, I diagnosed the end of my relationship with (a year or 2 prior to that) and decided that we’d split the horsemen down the middle, two apiece. I’ll not get into who got which. =)

But this page has another useful analytical tool. The types of functional marriages. I have friends in both the “volatile” and “avoidant” types of relationships. The former takes some getting used to and can still be quite uncomfortable to be around in the heat of the moment. The latter can seem like denial. Both leave one waiting for the other shoe to fall, and for some it never does. The final type, a “validating” relationship (the only one that actually _sounds_ healthy. They could call the others “energetic” and “mellow” or something), I don’t know that I’ve seen much of. Maybe they just look like mellow marriages?

http://www.bccf.bc.ca/learn/coup_divpred.html

Missing Driver’s License

Sometime after I got back from washington, my driver’s license went AWOL. Now this isn’t life alteringly bad. I drink rarely and drive even less often. But a dl is essential for future car rentals or carshare programs (and there will be a car share program with a lot in uptown before next school year). A complicating factor is that I never got a MN license, or even converted my CA license address to the last location I lived in CA.

Now, unless I’m mistaken, my options are keep cleaning, and hope I run across it, try to get a replacement CA license, somehow, or go through the entire license rigamarole in MN, including on-road driving test, and whatever sort of parallel parking bullshit they require. Laziness bites me in the ass yet again. Joy. When will we start getting the cars that drive themselves, anyway? It’s 20042005, science is lagging. =)