The good life?
I remarked to more than one of my summer drawmates that we're all sort of living this spend-happy lifestyle for the summer since "You're indepently wealthy, and I don't believe in savings." (This isn't 100% true, but it'll suffice for the purpose of blogging, eh?)
So, newfound financial freedom (this is the first year of >$10K wages for me - none of it taxable!) has me spending money on things that my parents would sort of frown upon. (Poker, having a positive expectation, is exempted from the list of frivolous expenditures). That list, however, contains items which on their own sound reasonable, but in aggregate make me giddy with... affluenza? The main item on the spending extravaganza du saison is food. Palo Alto has a few restaurants where you can get a meal for under $15 - they are McDonald's, KFC, Taco Bell, and Jack in the Box. For all other purposes, meals are expensive.
And I thought not buying a meal plan would save me a lot of money.
Oh yeah, when did I suddenly care what the little logo on my polo shirts was? A recent trip to Macy's revealed the hierarchy to me. At the top of the financial spectrum is the Lacoste alligator, followed by the Polo... polo player, after which come the Le Tigre tiger, and then some unfortunate company has a rhinocerous as its logo for dirt cheap. (Google search reveals that it's Ecko). Then, at other chains, we've got the Abercrombie moose, whose value is much greater than that of the American Eagle eagle. Did I leave anything out? Probably. The whole thing is ridiculous, of course - but that doesn't stop me from noticing and buying accordingly.
The 19" LCD monitor (my new lover) was purchased, ostensibly, to allow me to view multiple windows at the same time for pecuniary endeavors that may or may not pertain to suited connectors and pocket pairs, which does seem somewhat wasteful. Yet, once you've set your sights on one of these derned things, you can't go back. It's beautiful. Now, emblazoned upon the screen, I have my entire AIM window on the right (I wonder why I can't dock it), iTunes to the left, this IE window in the middle, and peeking out of the corner is the desktop background that features Johnny Depp clad in a black top hat and looking very much like Michael Jackson.
The last of these somewhat suspect expenditures that I'll enumerate herein is the sparkling water. I remember my first run-in with Perrier when I was at my cousin's apartment in Hong Kong when I was 13. I almost spit it out; it was so bitter. Since then, though, I've developed a taste for the sparkling water. (Before this, most of my friends ridiculed me for refusing to drink out of the water fountain and instead imbibing only Safeway or Kirkland bottled water - never Aquafina or Arrowhead). While I'll still happily drink those, I've found the joys of conspicuous consumption in the form of San Pellegrino sparkling natural mineral water (bought in bulk at Costco, of course). Funny - nobody here really cares that much about the clothes or the electronics or whatnot, but the Pellegrino and the Grey Goose draw comments.
Is this all peer pressure? You bet your sweet ass it is. While my immediate circle of friends doesn't give a damn (although all have their own private spending indulgences), being a Stanford student - at least in the humanities - demands some items of necessity to feel adequate... the iPod with the ubiquitous white headphone cord (the in-ear headbuds work amazingly well, by the way), the messenger bag draped over a respectable looking shirt. While this shallowness is probably confined to people with severe insecurity issues, the wealthy, or those with keen powers observation (I'll go ahead and classify myself among the third group), it seems much more prevalent at Stanford than at Berkeley - although we're nothing compared with Harvard. Popped pink collar, anyone?
So, newfound financial freedom (this is the first year of >$10K wages for me - none of it taxable!) has me spending money on things that my parents would sort of frown upon. (Poker, having a positive expectation, is exempted from the list of frivolous expenditures). That list, however, contains items which on their own sound reasonable, but in aggregate make me giddy with... affluenza? The main item on the spending extravaganza du saison is food. Palo Alto has a few restaurants where you can get a meal for under $15 - they are McDonald's, KFC, Taco Bell, and Jack in the Box. For all other purposes, meals are expensive.
And I thought not buying a meal plan would save me a lot of money.
Oh yeah, when did I suddenly care what the little logo on my polo shirts was? A recent trip to Macy's revealed the hierarchy to me. At the top of the financial spectrum is the Lacoste alligator, followed by the Polo... polo player, after which come the Le Tigre tiger, and then some unfortunate company has a rhinocerous as its logo for dirt cheap. (Google search reveals that it's Ecko). Then, at other chains, we've got the Abercrombie moose, whose value is much greater than that of the American Eagle eagle. Did I leave anything out? Probably. The whole thing is ridiculous, of course - but that doesn't stop me from noticing and buying accordingly.
The 19" LCD monitor (my new lover) was purchased, ostensibly, to allow me to view multiple windows at the same time for pecuniary endeavors that may or may not pertain to suited connectors and pocket pairs, which does seem somewhat wasteful. Yet, once you've set your sights on one of these derned things, you can't go back. It's beautiful. Now, emblazoned upon the screen, I have my entire AIM window on the right (I wonder why I can't dock it), iTunes to the left, this IE window in the middle, and peeking out of the corner is the desktop background that features Johnny Depp clad in a black top hat and looking very much like Michael Jackson.
The last of these somewhat suspect expenditures that I'll enumerate herein is the sparkling water. I remember my first run-in with Perrier when I was at my cousin's apartment in Hong Kong when I was 13. I almost spit it out; it was so bitter. Since then, though, I've developed a taste for the sparkling water. (Before this, most of my friends ridiculed me for refusing to drink out of the water fountain and instead imbibing only Safeway or Kirkland bottled water - never Aquafina or Arrowhead). While I'll still happily drink those, I've found the joys of conspicuous consumption in the form of San Pellegrino sparkling natural mineral water (bought in bulk at Costco, of course). Funny - nobody here really cares that much about the clothes or the electronics or whatnot, but the Pellegrino and the Grey Goose draw comments.
Is this all peer pressure? You bet your sweet ass it is. While my immediate circle of friends doesn't give a damn (although all have their own private spending indulgences), being a Stanford student - at least in the humanities - demands some items of necessity to feel adequate... the iPod with the ubiquitous white headphone cord (the in-ear headbuds work amazingly well, by the way), the messenger bag draped over a respectable looking shirt. While this shallowness is probably confined to people with severe insecurity issues, the wealthy, or those with keen powers observation (I'll go ahead and classify myself among the third group), it seems much more prevalent at Stanford than at Berkeley - although we're nothing compared with Harvard. Popped pink collar, anyone?
posted by B-Chizzle at 4:24 PM
1 Comments:
"The in-ear headbuds work amazingly well, by the way"... if you lick them first. :-p
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