Obama again

It's no secret that I've been critical and harsh on Obama many times. But in this article, I see nothing but positives. Obama owned up to his responsibility regarding the economy, acknowledging that it stinks right now. He didn't attempt to act like he knew what the Michigan residents were going through, which he couldn't know. He admitted that many auto jobs are gone forever. He didn't sugarcoat it. And he emphasized education. Instead of artificially creating jobs at huge government expense, increase the human capital of everyone. Sounds like a plan to me.

What am I doing while unemployed?

I'm doing anything to increase my human capital, both in very job specific ways, and in more general ways.

Of course, I spend most of my time on my job search, continually tweaking and improving my resume and cover letter, contacting people I know, maintaining professional relationships, educating myself on how companies and recruiters think,

I read articles from my RSS feeder, Google Reader, as well as from people I follow on Twitter. These articles hail from Morningstar, BBC, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Reuters, ESPN, New York Times, Financial Times, Investors Business Daily, and many more. I want to know what's going on in the business world, the United States, the entire world, and my local community. I read many opinion articles which shape my views on issues that matter, such as the financial crisis, the stimulus, the Iraq war, climate change, political scandals, education reform, green technology, bailouts, government regulation, and more. I'm learning how green technology and government regulation will shape the jobs I'm going to have. I'm learning how the US deals with foreign nations via trade and diplomatic relations affects my life in the US. I'm learning how businesses and businessmen think, what they want, what they need, and how I can help them.

I read books for the same reasons: they make me think, they show me great writing, which make me a better writer, and they expand my imagination. I've read over 15 books in the last two months, ranging from "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole, a fictional book about a socially inept, but intellectually brilliant man, still living at home with his mom. I read "Savage Inequalities" by Jonathan Kozol, a discourse about the poor state of our public education. I read "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell, which showed the interplay between true brilliance and genius and unique opportunity. I read "Three Cups Of Tea" by Greg Mortenson, which showed the power of education, and how the dedication of one man can change an entire region. "How We Decide" by Jonah Lehrer, "On Writing Well" by Bill Zinsser, and "Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut were a few of the others. A diverse collection to be sure, I'm continually expanding my mind.

I keep track of vocabulary words I don't know, write them on flash cards, and then learn them. Sclerotic, pleurisy, obviate, scofflaw, polemic, dystopia, cabal, and greenhorn are some of the most recent ones.

I run and do situps and pushups, making sure my health is solid.

I watch movies. Movies are a part of everyone's lives, perhaps taking us into a different world, making us laugh or cry, giving us a different perspective on something, or simply capturing our attention for a few hours. I watch all kinds of movies: drama/thrillers like Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, Chinatown, Serpico, Unbreakable, Casino and Donnie Brasco, comedies like A Mighty Wind, Idiocracy, and Intolerable Cruelty, and others like Elegy, Before Sunset, Super Size Me, Son of Rambow, and Speed & Angels. These movies keep expanding my mind and give me more ways to relate to people.

I write. I write to express myself, as many people do. I write about things I find interesting, things I find important. I write because it forces me to think. I write because it forces other people to think. Writing is the conveyance of my abstract thoughts into a concrete form. I write about the economy, about books I read and movies I watch, about fantasy baseball and real baseball, and about my life.

I do this because some company will hire me, and will be getting a critically thinking, well-read, culturally literate, current events literate, business world literate, imaginative, eloquent, and succinct writer, diverse thinker, analytic problem solver. And every company that turned me down will be kicking themselves in the future. I can promise you that!

Unbelievable

Recently I've been observing a lot of powerpoint presentations, chat conversations, e-mails, and even online journalism littered with grammatical mistakes. The constant confusion of it's/its, your/you're, effect/affect, principal/principle and more coupled with incorrect pronunciations and misspellings are simply appalling. This isn't an indictment of any individual but simply the level of education we currently enjoy (or lack thereof). Add to that the fact that people do not read as much as they did before, and you see what happens. It probably isn't that big of a deal, but after seeing a misspelling in a published book, seeing pearl spelled peral, seeing its interchanged with it's incorrectly about ten times, and seeing someone substitute perused for persued, it pushed me over the edge.