As promised, I'm back to ask the same question. However, this time, I'm offering you more information about each job and location. All amounts listed are biweekly. All incomes are post taxation, with both federal and state allotments having been considered. (No doubt all those systems will change next year, but not by much. I think the numbers are very close to reality for a few years to come.) All payments are estimated based on copious research. (Thank you, Lea.) Let me know what you think. (Woodberry Forest's income is estimated at $36,000.00 per annum. This is low, I know, but all the hints I've gotten have pointed toward a low-ball offer. I'll let you know more when I do.)
One thing I should mention up front is that the Maryland tax formula was impossible to find. This is because, in Maryland, each county assesses taxes at a different rate and those rates are included in your overall formula. Thus, since I don't know which county I'll be living in just yet, I've assumed an overall state tax rate of 4%, which exceeds every county so far as I can tell.
NSA
Location: Fort Meade, MD
Salary: $2428.34
House: $700.00
Food: $150.00
Utilities: $300.00
Tuition (Lea): $500.00
Excess: $778.34
Metron
Location: Reston, VA
Salary: $2254.30
House: $700.00
Food: $150.00
Utilities: $300.00
Tuition (Lea): $500.00
Excess: $554.30
University of Findlay
Location: Findlay, OH
Salary: $1536.60
House: $400.00
Food: $150.00
Utilities: $250.00
Tuition (Lea): $0.00
Excess: $736.60
Woodberry Forest School
Location: Orange, VA
Salary: $1109.18
House: $0.00
Food: $0.00
Utilities: $60.00
Tuition (Lea): $500.00
Excess: $549.18
Bear in mind that tuition is an average cost over a four-year track. If Lea went at a slower or faster pace, you'd have to adjust in accordingly. Also, food and utilities are admittedly estimate with very little supporting evidence. Feel free to pick at those numbers if you know enough to do so.
Also, Metron has a number of ways in which I could earn more money, such as profit-sharing and project leadership. But, at least initially, I thought you should see the jobs stacked up without add-ons. Thanks.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Recent Reading
For those of you who don't know, I read a lot. As a standard, I read three books at a time, and nearly always one is a classic. This has been the rule for the last eight years or so, and in that time I've learn much more than I would have thought possible...a point recently brought to my attention at a dinner party I attended.
At all events, I recently finished a book I found particularly moving and out of the ordinary for its author. Above all, I find that the Author's Note that follows the book to be the most powerful part of it, and I thought I'd share that with you all here.
This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed---run over, maimed, destroyed---but they continued to play anyhow. We really all were very happy for a while, sitting around not toiling but just bullshitting and playing, but it was for such a terrible brief time, and then the punishment was beyond belief: even when we could see it, we could not believe it. For example, while I was writing this I learned that the person on whom the character Jerry Fabin is based killed himself. My friend on whom I based the character Ernie Luckman died before I began the novel. For a while I myself was one of these children playing in the street; I was, like the rest of them, trying to play instead of being grown up, and I was punished. I am on the list below, which is a list of those to whom this novel is dedicated, and what became of each.
Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error in judgment. When a bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error, a life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is, "Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying," but the dying begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory. It is, then, only a speeding up, an intensifying, of the ordinary human existence. It is not different from your life-style, it is only faster. It all takes place in days or weeks or months instead of years. "Take the cash and let the credit go," as Villon said in 1460. But that is a mistake if the cash is a penny and the credit a whole lifetime.
There is no moral in this novel; it is not bourgeois; it does not say they were wrong to play when they should have toiled; it just tells what the consequences were. In Greek drama they were beginning, as a society, to discover science, which means causal law. Here in this novel there is Nemesis; not fate, because any one of us could have chosen to stop playing in the street, but, as I narrate from the deepest part of my life and heart, a dreadful Nemesis for those who kept on playing. I myself, I am not a character in this novel; I am the novel. So, though, was our entire nation at this time. This novel is about more people than I knew personally. Some we all read about in newspapers. It was, this sitting around with our buddies and bullshitting while making tape recordings, the bad decision of the decade, the sixties, both in and out of the establishment. And nature cracked down on us. We were forced to stop by things dreadful.
If there was any "sin," it was that these people wanted to keep on having a good time forever, and were punished for that, but, as I say, I feel that, if so, the punishment was far too great, and I prefer to think of it only in a Greek or morally neutral way, as mere science, as deterministic impartial cause-and-effect. I loved them all. Here is the list, to whom I dedicate my love:
In Memoriam. These were comrades whom I had; there are no better. They remain in my mind, and the enemy will never be forgiven. The "enemy" was their mistake in playing. Let them all play again, in some other way, and let them be happy.
I was so taken with these words that I felt compelled to read them to Lea. She listen patiently and found them less moving than I did, but moving nonetheless. That is why I felt compelled to share them with you.
At all events, I recently finished a book I found particularly moving and out of the ordinary for its author. Above all, I find that the Author's Note that follows the book to be the most powerful part of it, and I thought I'd share that with you all here.
This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed---run over, maimed, destroyed---but they continued to play anyhow. We really all were very happy for a while, sitting around not toiling but just bullshitting and playing, but it was for such a terrible brief time, and then the punishment was beyond belief: even when we could see it, we could not believe it. For example, while I was writing this I learned that the person on whom the character Jerry Fabin is based killed himself. My friend on whom I based the character Ernie Luckman died before I began the novel. For a while I myself was one of these children playing in the street; I was, like the rest of them, trying to play instead of being grown up, and I was punished. I am on the list below, which is a list of those to whom this novel is dedicated, and what became of each.
Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error in judgment. When a bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error, a life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is, "Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying," but the dying begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory. It is, then, only a speeding up, an intensifying, of the ordinary human existence. It is not different from your life-style, it is only faster. It all takes place in days or weeks or months instead of years. "Take the cash and let the credit go," as Villon said in 1460. But that is a mistake if the cash is a penny and the credit a whole lifetime.
There is no moral in this novel; it is not bourgeois; it does not say they were wrong to play when they should have toiled; it just tells what the consequences were. In Greek drama they were beginning, as a society, to discover science, which means causal law. Here in this novel there is Nemesis; not fate, because any one of us could have chosen to stop playing in the street, but, as I narrate from the deepest part of my life and heart, a dreadful Nemesis for those who kept on playing. I myself, I am not a character in this novel; I am the novel. So, though, was our entire nation at this time. This novel is about more people than I knew personally. Some we all read about in newspapers. It was, this sitting around with our buddies and bullshitting while making tape recordings, the bad decision of the decade, the sixties, both in and out of the establishment. And nature cracked down on us. We were forced to stop by things dreadful.
If there was any "sin," it was that these people wanted to keep on having a good time forever, and were punished for that, but, as I say, I feel that, if so, the punishment was far too great, and I prefer to think of it only in a Greek or morally neutral way, as mere science, as deterministic impartial cause-and-effect. I loved them all. Here is the list, to whom I dedicate my love:
- To Gaylene, deceased
- To Ray, deceased
- To Francy, permanent psychosis
- To Kathy, permanent brain damage
- To Jim, deceased
- To Val, massive permanent brain damage
- To Nancy, permanent psychosis
- To Joanne, permanent brain damage
- To Maren, deceased
- To Nick, deceased
- To Terry, deceased
- To Dennis, deceased
- To Phil, permanent pancreatic damage
- To Sue, permanent vascular damage
- To Jerri, permanent psychosis and vascular damage
In Memoriam. These were comrades whom I had; there are no better. They remain in my mind, and the enemy will never be forgiven. The "enemy" was their mistake in playing. Let them all play again, in some other way, and let them be happy.
I was so taken with these words that I felt compelled to read them to Lea. She listen patiently and found them less moving than I did, but moving nonetheless. That is why I felt compelled to share them with you.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
A question for the masses (all 5 of them.)
Hey all. I know it's been a while since I've posted, but my reason for not doing so is both pervasive and perpetual---almost nothing I say or think is worth your time. And, for the record, I will not attempt to contradict that notion with this post. This one is entirely self-serving...well...more so than usual.
As many of you know, I am in the midst of interviews. Tomorrow I have my fourth in a rather short span of time (about 3 weeks, give or take a day.) And, as I sit here preparing for the latest round, so to speak, I am wondering about a great many things. About the paths that lay before me. No doubt we all come to forks in the road we walk along more often than we know, but I think we rarely anticipate the forks. I think the general trend is to see them only in hindsight.
I, however, am faced with a quandary. Unlike most of the other graduate students I know, I am interviewing for pretty much every class of job. There are essentially four classes in my area: Government, Industry, Academic (University), Academic (Other). All of these could be split further save possibly for the first, but that's not my point. My point is that I have had an interview with the NSA (it's ongoing, but I've got a provisional offer complete with a salary quote); Metron, INC (a think tank of sorts that solves high-end problems for both government and private institutions); and Woodberry Forest (a boarding school about 90 minutes out of DC with a large endowment and a lot of history.) And tomorrow, I have an interview with the University of Findlay, Ohio (a private university with undergraduate and graduate programs and the expectation that I will do a lot of teaching and a shade of research, but some nonetheless.)
My question to you folks is this: knowing me as each of you do, where do you believe I would best fit? A poll is to the right...I'd appreciate a response from as many of you as possible. Thanks :)
As many of you know, I am in the midst of interviews. Tomorrow I have my fourth in a rather short span of time (about 3 weeks, give or take a day.) And, as I sit here preparing for the latest round, so to speak, I am wondering about a great many things. About the paths that lay before me. No doubt we all come to forks in the road we walk along more often than we know, but I think we rarely anticipate the forks. I think the general trend is to see them only in hindsight.
I, however, am faced with a quandary. Unlike most of the other graduate students I know, I am interviewing for pretty much every class of job. There are essentially four classes in my area: Government, Industry, Academic (University), Academic (Other). All of these could be split further save possibly for the first, but that's not my point. My point is that I have had an interview with the NSA (it's ongoing, but I've got a provisional offer complete with a salary quote); Metron, INC (a think tank of sorts that solves high-end problems for both government and private institutions); and Woodberry Forest (a boarding school about 90 minutes out of DC with a large endowment and a lot of history.) And tomorrow, I have an interview with the University of Findlay, Ohio (a private university with undergraduate and graduate programs and the expectation that I will do a lot of teaching and a shade of research, but some nonetheless.)
My question to you folks is this: knowing me as each of you do, where do you believe I would best fit? A poll is to the right...I'd appreciate a response from as many of you as possible. Thanks :)
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