Mutter banned from losthorizons; situation deteriorating

[LPC]

About the title of this thread:

If mutter has been banned from Losthorizons, then the situation is improving and not deteriorating.

[grixit]

Webhick:

1. The web is a good place to further your education. For instance, MIT has put most of their classes online for virtual auditing.

2. I think you could make it has a columnist.

[Gregg]

I thought this picture was Webhick

[grixit]

Yeah but since we know she couldn't afford the lingerie, she wouldn't be wearing it.

[Demosthenes]

Yeah but since we know she couldn't afford the lingerie, she wouldn't be wearing it.

Don't you guys have any idea how cold it is in New Hampshire?

Yeesh.

[Joe Dirt]

I am not sure what to say other than you sound to me like exactly the sort of person that deserves some help.

As SteveSy has pointed out to me, no one deserves help and if I can't cut it without help, then I'm just a drain on the system.

No one can survive without help. This would be a dim world indeed were it not for those like you who give their time and talents for the need and benefit of others.

[Mr. Mephistopheles]

Actually, I was thinking she might be able to secure a similar position with Goodwill, or Salvation Army. Pay might be a bit better and they might be a bit more professionally run.

Does Salvation Army hire atheists?

Goodwill is a crock. They charge more for their used, stained clothes than Walmart does for brand new ones.

Goodwill is a wonderful place to buy dog blankets though. My wife gets yard clothes there on occasion. I tease her about being snotty and cosmopolitan whilst out scooping horse manure in her DKNY jeans ($2 at Goodwill).

Back to the serious: I think you're selling yourself short. You're very well thought of here by a large number of very well educated people which is an appropriately positive reflection of how well you've educated yourself informally. Formal education isn't everything but as you know it certainly helps in the job market. If you're interested in furthering your education this might be a good place to start: Virtual Learning Academy Charter School. You can get your high school diploma plus take college course for a $100, which is damned cheap (though $100 is still a lot of money). I'm sure many employers would be impressed with someone who went back and finished her degree. ( It would also give you a good reason to bump your current boss about a raise. ) Maybe your boss will help? In years past our business paid employee's tuition to take continuing education courses and paid during the time they were in class. In paid off for us because it enhanced their skills. There may be some state grants available that could help your employer implement something of that nature.

[Duke2Earl]

Yeah but since we know she couldn't afford the lingerie, she wouldn't be wearing it.

Don't you guys have any idea how cold it is in New Hampshire?

Yeesh.

Having spent the first 18 years of my life there... I do have a clue.


To Webhick....

Don't run your life in accordance with anyone's expectations but your own. You don't sound like you are happy with your current situation and even worse you seem to have convinced yourself you don't deserve any better. You are wrong. But until you are able to convince yourself, I fear little will change for the better. I believe that everyone has worth and is able to change both themselves and their lives. But you have to believe in yourself and want to change. Even from the little one can see of you here, it is obvious that you are bright and creative. I think you need to apply your skills and create a better life for yourself and I think if you feel you deserve it and work toward it, you will find others will gladly help.

[Prof]

Webhick: All this virtual community can do is offer moral and emotional support but you should be encouraged by the level and amount of support and concern. All I can do is wish you the best and suggest that almost all of the advice offered is pretty good and very well-intentioned.

[ASITStands]

Webhick: All this virtual community can do is offer moral and emotional support but you should be encouraged by the level and amount of support and concern. All I can do is wish you the best and suggest that almost all of the advice offered is pretty good and very well-intentioned.

Yes.

'webhick' is so very creative, and everyone here can see how she's bright and resourceful.

Is there any chance of becoming a writer? Short stories, science fiction, fantasy, etc. I'd imagine it's hard to break out in a career field such as that, but it's obvious she can write.

[Mr. Mephistopheles]

Webhick: All this virtual community can do is offer moral and emotional support but you should be encouraged by the level and amount of support and concern. All I can do is wish you the best and suggest that almost all of the advice offered is pretty good and very well-intentioned.

Yes.

'webhick' is so very creative, and everyone here can see how she's bright and resourceful.

Is there any chance of becoming a writer? Short stories, science fiction, fantasy, etc. I'd imagine it's hard to break out in a career field such as that, but it's obvious she can write.

Travel brochures for shady resorts. Or for less than popular cars. Or for military weapons systems. I bet she would do a crackerjack job.

With her humor and imagination, I can see her penning some hilarious short stories.

[webhick]

Been trying the writing thing for about a year now, just taking an hour at about 2am to write a couple pages. Same thing always happens though. I get about ten pages in, and it stops dead because I've backed myself into a corner and can't get out. So I rewrite parts to open things up a bit and it becomes incomprehensible, so I rewrite other bits to fix that, and it just keeps snowballing until I trash it and start over again. I've probably killed a couple dozen trees doing this. I've also tried to do outlines to work around the issue, but I always end up with a product that feels too punch-listy and analytical. And lately, I can barely get further than a paragraph on a blog post before I dry up completely. And I know I have a gold mine with the Slap Chop, but all I keep hitting is lead.

Worst part is that I know that if I manage to write a book, nothing will materialize simply because that's the way everything goes. Every time I've tried to make things better, there's a fucking wrench-wielding gremlin on the wing. Either people don't do what they promised they would, it's "too little, too late," there were additional requirements or deadlines that I could not have known about, or it's just not good enough. In the end, because I took time away from other things to do it, I'm worse off than when I started. But I keep banging my head against that brick wall like a moron, thinking that hard work eventually pays off when it obviously doesn't.

[Prof]

Why don't you try an article about trying to run a food panty in a small N.E. town? That's certainly something you know all about -- and the market is the local paper, Yankee Mag., etc. It really is easier to write about things you know about -- in my case, legal issues -- than it is to write fiction (I always come to dead ends, too). Your piece in this thread about the frustrations you experience was interesting and could also be amusing (e.g., the guy who tries to hide goodies for himself).

And, hard work is neither its own reward nor does it necessarily lead to anyting more than the opportunity for more hard work.

I still wish you luck, though.

[grixit]

As i said earlier, you might try being a columnist. You could start with your local throwaway paper. Write about the charity operation, add a few tips on economizing and some recipes for making canned vegetables more interesting. You can add some details about your life and asperations so the readers can get to know you. Practice your story writing by throwing in some short pieces, in the form of daydreams. The Jolly Green Giant shows up with a load of surplus groceries. Barack Obama phones to ask your opinion on improving local bus service. You have a regular who never takes anything but pays you to let him juggle the potatoes. A mysterious lady in black appears every year on the birthday of Chef Boy R Dee and drops off a crate of pasta.

If you can get some popularity you should be able to work it into a paying gig.

[Gregg]

Actually, I was thinking she might be able to secure a similar position with Goodwill, or Salvation Army. Pay might be a bit better and they might be a bit more professionally run.

Does Salvation Army hire atheists?

Goodwill is a crock. They charge more for their used, stained clothes than Walmart does for brand new ones.

Goodwill is a wonderful place to buy dog blankets though. My wife gets yard clothes there on occasion. I tease her about being snotty and cosmopolitan whilst out scooping horse manure in her DKNY jeans ($2 at Goodwill).

Back to the serious: I think you're selling yourself short. You're very well thought of here by a large number of very well educated people which is an appropriately positive reflection of how well you've educated yourself informally. Formal education isn't everything but as you know it certainly helps in the job market. If you're interested in furthering your education this might be a good place to start: Virtual Learning Academy Charter School. You can get your high school diploma plus take college course for a $100, which is damned cheap (though $100 is still a lot of money). I'm sure many employers would be impressed with someone who went back and finished her degree. ( It would also give you a good reason to bump your current boss about a raise. ) Maybe your boss will help? In years past our business paid employee's tuition to take continuing education courses and paid during the time they were in class. In paid off for us because it enhanced their skills. There may be some state grants available that could help your employer implement something of that nature.

Don't know any of the details about the school he mentioned above, but I'll make you a deal. Sign up for whatever course you want, and I'll pay the $100 fee, my (private, as in I own it) company has a fund set up that pays for people to go to school for certain stuff, I fund a full college scholarship to Xavier University in Cincinnati out of it, I'm sure we can divert $100 from that if you'd do the work. Let me know!

My private e-mail is gregg at factorytech dot net

and seriously, let me know, I'd be glad to help

[webhick]

I appreciate the offer Gregg, but I already received a High School "diploma" from a correspondence school years ago.

[Nikki]

You could use the $100 to buy an on-line PhD in something interesting.

For an extra $4.95, they'll even frame it.

[Mr. Mephistopheles]

webhick, glad to hear you have your high school degree finished. That sets the stage for higher education. As I said earlier, I think you sell yourself short. No one here doubts that you make the decision to move forward. Take Gregg up on his offer. They offer an Intro to Business course that I'll bet you could sail right through. If you're increasing your skills available for your current boss he would be a fool to not help you along as well.

Gregg, it sounds like you have a very progressive attitude towards education. Kudos! Prof has mentioned earlier that he funds a scholarship at Clemson (?) in the name of his father. (My personal philosophy is that education can cure most of societies ills. The conversion of mutter through his own education is just one example.) The virtual high school is the first virtual high school in NH and is set up as a charter school. It actually sounds like a decent program. The $100 fee mentioned was the tuition for college classes that can be taken online through the virtual high school. That figure is for the entire course, not per hour. I don't know what community colleges charge per credit hour in NH but it sounds like a bargain.

BTW Nikki, I don't think Patriot U. would be a good fit for webhick.

[webhick]

webhick, glad to hear you have your high school degree finished. That sets the stage for higher education. As I said earlier, I think you sell yourself short. No one here doubts that you make the decision to move forward. Take Gregg up on his offer. They offer an Intro to Business course that I'll bet you could sail right through. If you're increasing your skills available for your current boss he would be a fool to not help you along as well.

That school is only open to people who have not earned a high school diploma and who are under the age of 21. Besides, I believe I did Intro to Business my freshman year at a brick-and-mortar high school. Because I had great difficulty in getting my transcripts from my old high school, I also did it through correspondence roughly five years back along with a couple other courses.

[Joe Dirt]

Been trying the writing thing for about a year now, just taking an hour at about 2am to write a couple pages. Same thing always happens though. I get about ten pages in, and it stops dead because I've backed myself into a corner and can't get out. So I rewrite parts to open things up a bit and it becomes incomprehensible, so I rewrite other bits to fix that, and it just keeps snowballing until I trash it and start over again. I've probably killed a couple dozen trees doing this. I've also tried to do outlines to work around the issue, but I always end up with a product that feels too punch-listy and analytical. And lately, I can barely get further than a paragraph on a blog post before I dry up completely. And I know I have a gold mine with the Slap Chop, but all I keep hitting is lead.

Worst part is that I know that if I manage to write a book, nothing will materialize simply because that's the way everything goes. Every time I've tried to make things better, there's a fucking wrench-wielding gremlin on the wing. Either people don't do what they promised they would, it's "too little, too late," there were additional requirements or deadlines that I could not have known about, or it's just not good enough. In the end, because I took time away from other things to do it, I'm worse off than when I started. But I keep banging my head against that brick wall like a moron, thinking that hard work eventually pays off when it obviously doesn't.

To make my long story palatably short, I became involved in a film production company in September 2007. Your gremlin has been traveling to California and North Carolina and doing a great job of wrenching up my machinery. I have been through no less than eight "deals" where all is golden and we are ready to go but only to find that last minute changes and new conditions send the production back to square one. It seems like everyone in this business is a "powerhouse", an "eminent veteran producer", a mover and shaker as it were... all heroes in their own minds and all absorbed in the glow of their own prestige until its time to sign a contract and take out a checkbook.

Although film histories, you may find some "inspiration" in reading up on the making of the 1999 Horror Film, "Blair Witch Project", fundamentally a student film on a miniscule budget that brought in stratospheric sales. Another "bio" which may be of interest to you is on the collaboration of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and their script for "Good Will Hunting".

As for me, the next six months will either see me credited as the executive producer for the work of a bright young writer making his directorial debut or you will find me on PACER under BANKRUPT...

My thoughts going out to you are to keep writing and keep thinking. Doing nothing is the assurance of disappointment. Try to make the rejections learning experiences.

Kind regards.