My Childhood Understanding of Chemistry

Science is organized knowledge, said Herbert Spence. It really needs to be better organized to teach it to an 8-year-old. I can't remember which grade I was in when I learned about atoms. I loved science at the time; this discovery would create a paranoia that took some time to shake.

"Everything in the world is made up of atoms," explained my teacher. "Atoms are so small that you can't see them. But everything -- your desk, your food, even you -- is made of millions of tiny atoms." She went on to explain that all of these atoms combined to make elements, which made everything else, etc. What we saw all around us were really millions of atoms all pressed together.

I stared at my hands and my desk in amazement, trying to see all the little atoms. A good student, I raised my hand.

"How do we know the atoms are there if we can't see them?" I asked.

I think she told me about the electron microscope, but what really got my attention was her explanation of the power in atoms.

"How many of you have heard of the atomic bomb?"

Half of the class' hands went up.

"Scientists figured out how to split an atom in the 1940s. When you split an atom, it releases a lot of energy. They created a bomb from splitting an atom."

I'm sure she meant this to demonstrate the power of tiny atoms, or something like that. She failed to explain that it was a uranium atom that created the atomic bomb. To be honest, I don't remember the rest of the lesson. I was terrified.

I had seen my dad's old World War II movies, where American planes dropped "the A-bomb" on Japan and my dad telling me how those bombs wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

My tiny mind began piecing this information together. Everything was made of atoms. Splitting an atom causes an explosion, an explosion that could wipe out whole cities like they were made of Tinker Toys.

If everything was made of atoms, what if I accidentally split one while cutting paper snowflakes? What if my mom accidentally split one while cutting carrots for my lunch?! Our whole house would explode just because I wanted carrots! Was air made of atoms? What if I bumped into an errant atom and smashed it?

I could see what would happen:

OH. MY. GOD. WE WERE ALL GOING TO DIE!

I sat very still the rest of the day. I didn't want to accidentally split atoms. I anxiously watched my mother make dinner that night, fearing every time she cut a celery stick or sliced an apple there would be a big KABOOM! and we would all be goners.

This went on for weeks. I walked lightly, chewed slowly, and for God's sake did not cut anything. I figured if I was really careful I could avoid making myself the next Doomsday Device.

I did eventually realize that life could carry on normally without carelessly causing a nuclear holocaust. I can't remember if it was my mother, my father, or perhaps some confused science teacher years later who explained how exactly an atom is split and put to rest an old fear.

But for God's sake, when you have children, don't explain atoms and atom bombs to them in the same lesson, skipping crucial years of chemistry and physics.

Talkin' 'Bout My Generation

People try to put us d-down (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we get around (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I hope I die before I get old (Talkin' 'bout my generation)

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby

-The Who "My Generation"

A friend living abroad and I were talking last week; we talked about our jobs, mostly with how disappointed she is with her job in Argentina. She asked me if the job situation in the United States was looking up. I said no, there were still no more jobs in the United States than when she left. We both came to the same conclusion, a kind of petulant indignation.

This wasn't what we were promised. This wasn't what I expected.

We were told if we worked hard, went to college and got a degree, we would get better-paying jobs. I could pursue a career in something I loved- or hopefully at least enjoyed.

I know. It's childish. Adulthood is never what we expect as teenagers, but I'm not talking about the shock of "the real world"- being responsible for living expenses, planning your future, etc. This is about the job market we were expecting to fall into after our education.

I've talked to other friends of mine, people I knew from high school and from college, many of whom have come to the same conclusion at some point since finishing their undergraduate or their postgraduate. It got me thinking about my generation and what we are facing coming into a recession. Despite the fact that about 69% of students graduating high school in the United States immediately go on to a 2 or 4-year institution, more are going on to graduate school to avoid the work force for a few years. Even those in what I always considered "safe" degree paths like engineering and computer science are choosing higher education over finding a job.

Those who don't go towards even higher education find themselves in a perilous position. I knew when I graduated in 2006 with a BA degree that I was not likely to fall right into a career the way my friends with business or engineering degrees did.

But I didn't expect it would be so hard to find a job of any ilk, and that was before the largest crash in 2008. Studies find that salaries for new graduates have dropped even further, but even the salaries they list for new graduates are higher than what I've found upon graduating. I'm talking the $23,000-24,000 range. In my career, I'll be lucky to see $40,000.

With so many unemployed in the United States, the entry level positions once reserved for those fresh-faced graduates are now taken by those who have been in the workforce longer. With a college degree we can't go back to the jobs we had during college; they tell us we are over-qualified.

That's where we sit -- somewhere between over-qualified for the bar-tending and waitress jobs we had, and too little experience for the industries we got our degrees to join.

So I have seen some trends amongst people my age, beyond just retreating to grad school to wait out the recession.

Bring on the debt
If the recession was supposed to teach us anything, it was the dangers of debt. Yet, my generation has been born into debt. I'm not talking about credit cards, racked up by frivolous spending. I'm talking about the tens of thousands of dollars that it costs to get that degree we so highly prized. When we can't find that decent-paying job after graduation, we let those student loans sit, and sit, and sit. And those credit cards become necessary to afford the gas, groceries, things we need until we finally get a job. Don't forget about those extra student loans for those who go back to postgraduate degrees. We expect debt, whether that's from a credit card, a student loan, or bills we just can't quite make this month.

So we expect debt, debt that will take us decades to pay off. We are numb to it. What's $3,000 in credit card bills when you have $70,000 dollars in student loans racking up interest? With $40,000 in debt from undergrad, why not add another degree and another $40,000 in loans?

A job is a job is a job
By joining the work force late, we are not going to be racking up the experience we need for a career we want. Saddled with debt, it becomes harder to think, "I could still get a job in" whatever field you wanted to go into. Take what you can get, pay aside, even benefits aside.


Delaying adulthood
We're staying in school longer. We're joining the workforce later and at lower wages. This means we're also holding out on those big purchases the U.S. economy hopes us to make- homes and cars. Many of us still rely in some way on our parents, at least those with parents still willing and able to help. We move back home, or the parents still help pay bills.

So here we have it, my generation in the job search. It's not that we're lazy. We have a lot to contribute. We just don't know where to go or how to get there.

Citizen B's Favorite News: Pay Your Library Fines or Face Jail Time

A Littleton, CO teenager got quite the shock when he didn't return a DVD to a Littleton library.

A warrant went out for Aaron Henson's arrest after he failed to appear for a court summons to answer the charge. The summons were being sent to an outdated address. Henson was arrested, his car was impounded, and paid $900 in court and jail fees.

Makes that little $1.50 late fine seem cheap in comparison, right? Come to think of it, I wonder if I have old library fines I'd be arrested for...

The Littleton mayor said that the town would be changing its policy as a result of Henson's case.

I return from the Land of Dead Blogs

Dear friends, and Two Followers,

I apologize for my absence. I honestly did not realize I had not posted since September. I wholeheartedly resolve this year to post more frequently.

Since September my life hasn't changed a great deal. Still working in news (thankfully!) We just got word that we should all have jobs through March. These are perilous times for the media, so I still never know when I might be out of this job. This hasn't stopped me from forming Plan Bs in the back of my mind, including graduate school, teaching English abroad, the Peace Corps, or simply hibernating until the recession is over.

And I had a huge, family-filled winter holidays. Back in my home state of Nebraska, we were hit with a very white Christmas indeed, a three-day blizzard. Thankfully, everyone decided to arrive a day early to beat the weather. I was inside with 12 people, two dogs, and two guinea pigs for four days. So with a grand total of two feet of snow on the ground we were then treated to a week of below-freezing temperatures. What's the best thing to do when it's 10 degrees below zero? Have a wedding!

No, I did not get married. In that unlikely event, beware of flying pigs shortly before the apocalypse starts. My little sister got hitched this January. The holiday season was filled with wedding planning and preparations. We sewed trim on both of her veils by hand; each woman in the family taking a painstaking few stitches at a time. If you saw the veil you could tell which stitches were mine, as they were the knotty, bunchy ones. As with all weddings, there were a few mishaps; three days before the wedding, 40 flowers were missing out of the floral order. (After my mother raised a little hell, they managed to pull flowers from other orders to make hers complete.) My family almost forgot me on the morning of the wedding for our hair appointments. The church was heated, but not so well heated that we all weren't shivering. It started snowing in time for the reception to start. I didn't care about it snowing during the reception as much as I cared about driving home afterward in it. Driving through it the first time wasn't nearly as fun as driving back in it to pick up my drunk brother and his friends who had wandered away from the hotel while it was snowing and about 3 degrees Fahrenheit. (Did I mention Omaha has a lot of hills and I don't have a four-wheel drive vehicle?)

The wedding was lovely, even if the weather was not. To prove how much the newlyweds love winter, they honeymooned in Canada. My relatives are insane.

If another member of my family decides to get married in winter in Nebraska, I'm not going to say a word. I'm just not going. Winter weddings are for places like Australia. But in the end I get a new brother-in-law.

Now that I'm back there will be many news updates and thoughtful posts to come.