The Brainchild of Miranda Lane

Monday, April 23, 2007

Discrimination? You BET!

For years when I used to have a "real job" I always knew that I was making less money than any of my male counterparts who weren't shouldering nearly as much of the workload. A new study indicates that the pay gap between men and women happens as soon as they enter the workforce right after college graduation and still exists even when you compare male and female employees in the same fields. Women still make less than men despite the fact that they outperform men in college. That's discrimination all right. If they have the same experience, the same job... why are they paying the better student less? Because she's a woman.

Yet another reason I am grateful I exited that particular workforce long ago. I got sick of the game. Or, rather, the game made me sick.

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Friday, April 20, 2007

College is stressful

Amid all the news this week about VT, I heard that one in 10 college students think of suicide and one in 100 actually attempt it. Do you find those statistics alarming? Personally, I'm surprised they aren't higher.

I graduated from college over a decade ago. I've had reason recently to go back to my journals and read entries from that time. They are highly personal and offline, and there is something very tactile about actually having a book and seeing my own handwriting and what color ink I used and how I arranged things on the page itself which I don't get from all my online blogging...

I didn't realize it at the time, but in college, I was extremely depressed. Then again, maybe I did, as nearly every entry includes the phrase "I am depressed."

I didn't do anything about it in terms of seeking help until years later. I didn't have it as bad as some as I was smart and I had a partial scholarship, but I still felt a great deal of pressure and unhappiness. I was under a lot of stress to succeed academically and financially and from some candid conversations with friends my age, I know now I was not alone. Back then, though, it certainally felt like it. My basic hope was that the experience was a necessary means to an end; that after graduation I would no longer have the academic stress and the financial burdens wouldn't be so great once I started a job where I was compensated well. That didn't really work out the way I had planned, which is one of the reasons I fell back on acting. At least my story is happy presently as a result.

However, when I read my own writings from when I was an undergrad, I can see it would not have taken much for me to snap. I doubt I would have gone down in a dramatic blaze of glory harming others physically. But I did contemplate ending it all several times in those years and it would have hurt a lot of people emotionally if I had made an attempt and/or succeeded.

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Thursday, April 12, 2007

Murders at home

On the AC360 blog today, Randy Kaye mentions that there have been 58 murders so far in New Orleans.

As of this morning, there have been 110 homicides in Philadelphia. The latest victim is a woman about my age shot in North Philadelphia, not too far from where I work at Temple University Medical School.

Violence is everywhere.

Today here in Pottstown, they laid a slain FBI agent to rest. Barry Lee Bush was killed in the line of duty during a bank robbery in Readington Township, New Jersey. I remember when the story broke, because I recognize the location as I drive past it on I-78 on my way to NYC in central NJ. I didn't know he was from Pottstown until I heard the radio stories of his funeral today. It was held at the Hill School to accomidate the crowd. There were numerous cop cars from NJ parked on High Street this afternoon as I drove to the Post Office.

Though I believe I first saw the story on CNN when the agent was killed, I doubt I will see a story about it tonight on the national news. It seems they will be live from NOLA tonight on AC360, focusing on the situation there. I'm sure it's bad and at least it's not Anna Nicole (though her death was the top story the last time they were there) or Don Imus. However, things are bad here locally too.

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Friday, April 6, 2007

"Pass the Buck" on YouTube

The movie short which got me into IMDb is now available on YouTube.

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Happy Easter

I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd share this. Enjoy!

Chocolate Easter Bunnies