posted
After spending three months unable to get anything more than simple poems and research papers out of myself in the area of writing, I sat down today and rolled out a 2500 word story (Took me an hour and a half to write it all, too). It's just a skeleton, like any other first draft, but it came out better than I really expected it to, especially since it was a response to a request a friend of mine made. I was talking to her about my bad dating experiences in the past and told her, in effect, that if I was polytheistic, I would love to desecrate the temple of the dating god. She told me to write a story about it. I was so happy at how well it turned out that I was practically jumping around after I finished it I'm still a little giddy. This is why I want to be a writer.
(Okay, so I know that now is when the REAL work starts, but still)
[ January 20, 2005, 12:11 AM: Message edited by: Boris ]
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Can we make this a general "I'm proud of myself" thread?
This afternoon I did something that I enjoyed immensely. Some of you know that in the last few months, Cor and I nearly lost our house because of mounting bills we could not pay. (#@$! skyrocketing property taxes. ) We refinanced our house, rolling our debts into the equity in our house, yet lowering our payments by cutting our interest rates. All of our credit cards are zeroed out, and our paychecks are now enough to meet our expenses, and even have some money left over for fun. Well, we got a letter today from one of the credit cards that we just paid off . . . informing us that they were (drastically) reducing our credit limit. And I was like, huh? In my experience, they usually want to lower your rates and give you more credit when you pay them off. And it occurred to me that they had waited to do this until we were paid off, because otherwise, when times were tough, we might have decided that it was not worth continuing to make payments on a card we would not be able to use, and ceased paying it down. Seems like a stinky way to do business to me. So I called them and cancelled the account. Suddenly, the guy on the phone wanted to know why we no longer wanted a credit card account with them, and what could they do to change our minds, etc etc. I said, "Well, you know, we have other credit cards, and quite frankly, we don't want to have a lot of credit cards, because that seems to be a risk for going into debt again. So we don't really need all the cards that we have. So when you sent us the letter explaining how you didn't value us as customers, we decided that we didn't really need you as a creditor either. Have a nice day! )
Some of you who are perfect and have never gotten into debt trouble may not sympathize, but it made my day to cancel that card, and have them trying to get me to stay, and totally blowing them off. Not necessarily a proud story, but a happy one nonetheless.
posted
I'd be proud of that. I only have one credit card right now (Though, loads of student loans that will eventually have to be paid off somehow. Oh, and a car loan that's driving me nuts because the bank owns my car and not me), and I get a TON of mail asking me to sign up for new cards. I got three offers yesterday. So yeah, I understand how great it must feel to tell those suckers off.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Congratulations, Icarus. That is a big deal and a huge burden lifted.
I'm going to follow your lead with something less profound but still pretty cool.
I took Criminal Procedure last semester, and the bulk of the work in the class was preparing an indictment, splitting into teams, and doing motion practice on it. I was one of two prosecutors in my group, naturally, and we were responding to motions from 6 defense attorneys. My responses were 45 pages.
The last day of class, we argued the motions in the mock trial room. Yesterday, I got back comments from the professor. There were a couple of places I could have highlighted a particular point better, but generally I got very good comments on the written responses. In at least two instances, he commented that I had done the best possible with a weak argument.
The really cool part was his comments on my presentation: I was "commanding at the podium," with good use of humor, excellent demeanor, and good tactical sense of what to concede and what to push for.
This is particularly good because I never feel like I'm doing well in public speaking, although I generally get good comments on it.
posted
Congrats to all of you. I'm proud that I'm here on Hatrack.
Must get Icarus's money manager, Dag's number for legal advice when he makes partner, and 1st Edition of Boris's writings when in print.
Whom did I leave out?
Oh, I turned down a job today. $75,000 but would have to be away from home all week long. Sorry, don't need money that bad.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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) We refinanced our house, rolling our debts into the equity in our house, yet lowering our payments by cutting our interest rates. All of our credit cards are zeroed out, and our paychecks are now enough to meet our expenses, and even have some money left over for fun. Well, we got a letter today from one of the credit cards that we just paid off . . . informing us that they were (drastically) reducing our credit limit. And I was like, huh? In my experience, they usually want to lower your rates and give you more credit when you pay them off. And it occurred to me that they had waited to do this until we were paid off, because otherwise, when times were tough, we might have decided that it was not worth continuing to make payments on a card we would not be able to use, and ceased paying it down. Seems like a stinky way to do business to me. So I called them and cancelled the account. Suddenly, the guy on the phone wanted to know why we no longer wanted a credit card account with them, and what could they do to change our minds, etc etc. I said, "Well, you know, we have other credit cards, and quite frankly, we don't want to have a lot of credit cards, because that seems to be a risk for going into debt again. So we don't really need all the cards that we have. So when you sent us the letter explaining how you didn't value us as customers, we decided that we didn't really need you as a creditor either. Have a nice day! ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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