OK, it's 2am and I'm so bloody awake. It doesn't help that I have a 6am train to catch tommorrow, err, today, you know what I mean.

So I thought let's have some fun, while learning something along the way (learning is fun).

So if this isn't too personal a question - what do you all do for a living?

I'm doing a research degree (doctorate) in history (duh) which is funded. Not long left and I shall hopefully join a university (London, I hope) as a lecturer while writing academically when time allows (my subject is British India in the nineteenth century). That is the plan, anyway.

And you?

Industrial Automation for about the last 19 years...and still very busy even in this slumping american economy. The worse our work pool gets the more automation I add...do more with LESS! yea.

Delivering mail for the past 23 years, and before that was working out of the Psychology Department at the state prison running a treatment program (and filling in assisting with the Control Data computer assisted GED program called Fairbreaks). Anyone old enough to remember Plato and/or Tutor?

FYI, while working at a prison may be one of the few jobs still offering some guarantee of longevity, the cynicism it breeds and the walls it forces you to erect around yourself are a terrible price to pay to stay at the job for any length of time.


And, Halo, isn't she supposed to be tiring you out so you can sleep through the night?

Own a remodeling company and do sales for almost 8 years now.
Sold computers for Dell for 7 years prior. Currently trying to find some good land to become a rancher farmer.
No one wants to sell water rights anymore. Wonder why

AHA! so your one those people who plan on bieng a life long academecian bieng to scared to ever actually leave college and contribute something worthwhile to society? other than be-spoiling the minds of our youth with libro-communistics ideals that is!

After spending 16 years or so in communications I.E. cable TV starting as a warehouse monkey moved to installation" Ello, can I drill holes in your walls please Ma'a?" advanced to line/repair technician construction specialist with serious guru power in Alpha uninterupptible power supplies(those big grey boxes you'll see on poles in the USA). I didnt dig the stuff in your front yard. I was the guy who spliced in the electronics, powered it up, and made yer internet and 4,392 channels of crap work.
took me about 5 years realize that industry turned into pile of shit!

Last October I went to work for a company i worked for right out of high school. A meat company. we are a USDA inspected HRI facility. (hotel, restaurant, institiutional) we focus mainly on 4-5 star kitchens and high end hotels. we also have a very high-end grocerery chain we service. we do alot of seafood as well. we pick up around 5 to 7 am every morning from the airport with fresh Alaska shipments. my company is also Washingtons exclusive distributor Snake River Farms Kobe Beef and Kurobota pork products.

I havent been this happy with my life for soooooooo long! I now love what I'm doing. and thats big people. If your hating your job/career fuck it quit tomorrow! happiness > than money any day!

On an even more personal note I'm about to recieve a big promotion at work. basically my managers getting fired, i'm gonna go from lackey to running the place in 6 months. includes a company car and gas card. question is ? should i really be feeling this whole guilt thing when every time i see this incompetent, lazy, worthless moron.
I think "Dead man walking!"

I am an E-6 in the Navy, although I have never been on board a ship. I am a Seabee, which mainly do facilities construction as well as contingency construction for disaster relief and humanitarian causes. We tend to get whored out to all the other branches and pride ourselves as "the working class of the navy". I have been doing this for about 5 years, and have been to quite a few places and seen alot of stuff. Some good. Some bad. Some that has been seen and can't be unseen. Before that I was working myself through a bachelors degree in architecture with a minor in structural engineering and running a small construction company.

It looks like the Navy owns me for another 3 years now but why not? The economy is in the toilet and the construction sector has taken some of the hardest blows. Eventually I will get this damn degree finished, probably with a major in structural engineering and minor in architecture, and go to work for an international firm.

Snake River Farms Kobe Beef and Kurobota pork

Will PM you address for shipment...KKThnx



I started a website design and Internet marketing business back in 1995, had a 7 month or so period back in 2001 when I went to work for a "competitor".

Left that and went back into my own again, this time co-owned by Squish and have seen it grow quite large over the past 7 years.

We do Website Design specializing in eCommerce, Search Marketing, Product Photography and also we own two online stores (adult oriented)now are branching into pre-configured online stores with ready to go product catalogs and valid wholesalers and drop shippers along with six months support. We sell them as "Your Own Business" verse just as a website.

Keep it going people, nice to meet you all.

'And, Halo, isn't she supposed to be tiring you out so you can sleep through the night?'

- You'd think so, right? No, no, it's coco at 8 and bed at 9. Ha..just kidding. No, really.

'AHA! so your one those people who plan on bieng a life long academecian bieng to scared to ever actually leave college and contribute something worthwhile to society? other than be-spoiling the minds of our youth with libro-communistics ideals that is!'

- That is *exactly* what I'm doing. I've done pub work to fund my studies for like 8 years, which has imbued me with the spirit of making sure I never really contribute to society in any lively way once I graduate. Sitting in a dusty old archive and teaching students for about 3 hours a week sounds like heaven - especially while people think you're doing something incredibly important and paying you likewise.

'Her indoors' will have to contribute to society - she gets called to the Bar at Middle Temple in july.

Maybe I'll become a 'house husband'. I'm pretty good at hoovering.

Keep it going people!

I am a systems administrator/IT manager for a Law firm.

It looks like the Navy owns me for another 3 years now but why not? The economy is in the toilet and the construction sector has taken some of the hardest blows. Eventually I will get this damn degree finished, probably with a major in structural engineering and minor in architecture, and go to work for an international firm.

I would guess that the experience with the Seabees will go a long way toward finishing that degree, as well as providing some top notch material on the old resume. Well done.

My main job is a father of 2 (boy and girl) and husband (20 years this last fall).

I am also a soccer coach for my daughter's soccer team and an assistant for my son's.

To bring in fundage:

I manage the people that run the WAN, LAN, Servers, Mainframe and Telecom for a 50,000 student school district..oh and I am the email administrator for the 20k on our email system. :eek:

I'm an IT Tech at a company that builds luxury aircraft. I've been in the tech industry for about 10 years now.

Prior to that I was in retail sales; electronics, jewelry ect.

My 1st real job was a Crewchief on UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters for the U.S. Army.

In the past I've worked in a blood bank and harvested tissue from donor cadavers for the Red Cross. I've also done some freelance writing for a company that makes rpg's.

I'd worked for NC's prison system paying the bills for a few years but decided to drop to part time (mostly writing procedural manuals) to go back to school. I have a Bachelor's already but am currently finishing prerequisite classes to get into nursing school. I have an application into UNC-Chapel Hill but won't know for a few more weeks.

I'm working now since 10 years as a computer engineer, for a contractor company. Edit : Oh and 15 days before getting hired I was still in school. :)

When I joined we were 2.500 national-wide, last year, before getting sold, we were 9.000 europe-wide, and now with a new name and new logo, we are around 50.000 world-wide.

Weird when you think about, I never moved but we grew so big.

I work for big Pharma as a telecom/IT analyst. My day to day work deals mainly with Genesys infrastructure, which routes calls, emails, etc. in the call center here, but the nature of things has my fingers into a lot of pies in the IT world.

Wow a lot more diversity than I thought would be here.

I am a programmer by trade (22 yrs programming experience), worked for a small firm grew it to 2 million a year in sales left for greener pastures. Now I am a grunt in a cube farm for a banking services company programming in VB.NET.

I am a web developer specializing in small business websites, federal and private contracting and software solutions (stand-alone).

I started in 1995 and worked for two companies for five years each. I finally bit the layoff bullet in early 2006, took the summer off and then went independant (which I LOVE).

If you need any remote web development done Rover shoot me a line ;).

I have seen the entire realm of web and software development. Over the past five years I have seen a lot of DND type work but I really love doing the small business websites the most, best satisfaction by far.

One of the highlights so far in my IT career was going down the the Command Center in New Orleans in November 2005 (2 months after the hurricane). The command center was in the ballroom of the Hyatt and I had never seen an operation that big before. I was able to view first hand the degree to which the hurricane affected the city and the dubious actions of some of the factions involved in the whole mess that most Americans only learned of many, many months later.

The table I was working at was right beside the Army Core of Engineers. So if I ever needed a quick break I would look over their shoulders at the reems and reems of pictures they were going through, all of which depicted the destruction around the city.

One set of pictures will be etched in my mind forever. It was of a barge that got washed up and pretty much bulldozed part of a neighbourhood. On one side of the barge was nothing, on the other was about 20 houses piled up into a heap of rubble. It took plasma torches a couple of months to slice the barge up and truck it out of that neighbourhood.

I wish I had more of an opportunity in my career to make a difference like I know I did that week down in NO.

Cheers,

Registered Nurse. Supervision now but I have done many different things over the years in the nursing field.

Overall I'm sick of patients and would love to retire (I'm 40 now).

I also manage several LLC's that my wife and I own... not much to do but it makes more money than I bring in as a nurse.

I run a small television production company.

Halo your career path echoes on something I got to experience yesterday. I went to the National Archives for the first time and spent the day looking up Martin Luther King, Jr footage for a documentary to be aired on the anniversary of his assassination. It was pretty unbelievable all the reels of film they have lying around in College Park of some unbelievably historic events like the news from the day after Pearl Harbor, footage of the first nuclear blast, footage of the JFK assassination, the challenger explosion, the Berlin wall tumbling down, bombing of London during WW2, Nazi propaganda films ... some crazy stuff (well, duplicates of that crazy stuff) all just sitting on the walls for any citizen of the US to go look at if they ever wanted to. It was so much fun, I'd like to one day spend some time getting really good at researching and hire myself out as a researcher for documentary films and stuff like that.

Lots of IT/military careers floating around here, seems to be the most common on this forum.

Aye Kelraz, it's all there for any tom, dick or harry. But despite the enormity of archival deposits in the Western World, only actually 5% of all documentation is preserved. Think of the information we have lost through the ages. Very saddening.

If your National Archive has it, seek out the Audio deposits. The British Library in London has a fantastic audio archive, perhaps the best in the world. Its earliest recording which I got to listen to a while back, is of Florence Nightingale, I kid you not. Her voice is very refined, and very posh, but intense and pointed. Was fantastic. Other great recordings were George V's first radio broadcast to the Empire, and a budget speech by David Loyd George, wartime Prime Minister during the Great War.

Lots of IT/military careers floating around here

We are geeks that have proven our man and womanhood!

I'm about to finish my undergrad with a degree in Political Science/Justice. After that I'll probably delay entry into the work force by picking up my masters. I'm hoping for University of Washington.

42 year old USAF vet currently working as an Avionics mechanic (civilian) for the USAF.

Great job , no two days are alike and I get to enjoy troubleshooting complex systems.

My official title is Sr. Technical Specialist, that could mean just about anything though and most days I feel like I do just that :p I've worked for a large healthcare provider for almost 6 years now and in that time I have been a Unix Sys. Admin (which my core job is still supposed to be) however in recent years my responsibility and scope has grown so much I feel like more of a Jack of all trades than anything. I designed, developed, and implemented our backup/recovery system for then 250 servers now 400+. Everything from ground up to a fully automated beast covering multiple sites and multiple tape libraries.

My most recent project is helping with design and implementation of our main clinical info system's DR plan. I've helped purchase and decide hardware, implement it, install the OS's, configure the storage, etc. In every project I'm involved in my scope and knowledge changes and grows. Now I feel more like a storage adminstrator than anything with my most recent exposures to zoning 256 port directors and the IBM SVC (San volume controller)...

I am playing with some really cool shit! I just migrated with UPTIME and a decent load on the system about 1.6TB of data from one storage array to another one with no blips or corruption. We're about to do this for prod next week and once that is done we will start our replication process to the DR site and test true activations. When done we will be able to literally flip a switch and be back up within 15min with 0 data loss. I get excited about this stuff...

Still, I'm a sys admin and I have to manage the other unix nodes in our env. and must suffer an every other week on-call rotation. I've gone to monthly downtime for 10 straight months, we're short handed here and hiring soon! ;) I'm in line to move into a supervisory type role in my group if all goes well. I'm the only woman in the "tech group"; it would be interesting that's for sure! :D

It was neat reading what you all do. If it weren't too personal I'd like to know pay ranges and locations. I often feel like with my knowledge and experience I am underpaid plus the whole not having a penis thing. I started here 6 years ago at almost 50k, I'm now close to 90k, I feel like I should be making over 100k. But I haven't wholeheartedly checked. Not sure that I would leave either but 12hr+ days is wearing on me :(

My base pay for nursing in Louisiana is $35.91 That is pretty good for nursing in Louisiana.

I'm hoping for University of Washington

Good choice. and i'm not just bieng a homer here. people tend to forget or dismiss this lil'corner of the country but the UW offers an extremly high level of education.
Medicine and Poli/Si bieng 2 of the best programs they offer.

One word of warning for you though. poeple who move to Seattle, however temporary thier plans. tend stay here for a lifetime.

As for pay I feel I am severely underpaid for what I do but I knew that coming to this job. Being home @ 5:00 and being there for my kids now is what I get in return.

$45k yr. suspect It should be near $65k for what I know and do.
This is Central Kentucky where IT jobs are thin.

I moved to this area as a Systems Administrator for $65k, company folded 3yrs after I moved here.

Southeast GA here, making about 32K a year. Cost of living isn't so bad, but I'm having to move back home to help out my mom, as my stepfather's health seems to be failing. That will help somewhat with the finances, and I'll get to see my son on a more regular basis.

I moved to this area as a Systems Administrator for $65k, company folded 3yrs after I moved here.Heh, I moved to NC for a job -- in order to get it they gave me 10 days to move down. I'd just been in an accident and had no car and a broken leg, but I made it. Within 2 weeks the head office deleted the position.

Heh, I moved to NC for a job -- in order to get it they gave me 10 days to move down. I'd just been in an accident and had no car and a broken leg, but I made it. Within 2 weeks the head office deleted the position.

OMG.
How did you survive after that? holy shit.

Heh, I moved to NC for a job -- in order to get it they gave me 10 days to move down. I'd just been in an accident and had no car and a broken leg, but I made it. Within 2 weeks the head office deleted the position.

I would hope you have a legal case against them.

Christ Thor, that's a bit of bad luck.

Keep it going guys, it's very interesting finding out what you all do.

Good choice. and i'm not just bieng a homer here. people tend to forget or dismiss this lil'corner of the country but the UW offers an extremly high level of education.
Medicine and Poli/Si bieng 2 of the best programs they offer.

One word of warning for you though. poeple who move to Seattle, however temporary thier plans. tend stay here for a lifetime.My mother's entire side of the family is from the Redmond/Bellvue area. I love Seattle, and most definitely intend to live there for at least a couple of years. (Ivars anyone?)

And yeah, UW is really intense - I'm worried about getting accepted. The only polisci program they offer is phd (No thanks), so I'm going to have to do a MA in international studies or something.

I currently own a design firm which deals in bathroom and kitchen design, as well as retail sales of High end bathroom and kitchen fixtures, and tile.

I am a registered nurse....but do not ask me to be a expert in hearts or something...lol If you have a question about giving birth, postpartum, or breastfeeding....I feel I can answer those darn well! :)

I believe our life is meant to spent learning or teaching in some form or another either that in relationships or actual school. GROW, GROW, GROW, I say! hehehe I would be in school more but the decision of being a mother was made instead for the time being.

I plan to go back to school after my kids do not need me on a daily basis. I would say I look forward to that but all that means is that I will be older and I dont want to be older! :D

I believe our life is meant to spent learning



An idea I always tried to instill in my kids, as well as those I was counseling years ago, was to learn something new every day. At the very least, before going to bed at night open the dictionary and learn a new word to enlarge your vocabulary.

It was neat reading what you all do. If it weren't too personal I'd like to know pay ranges and locations. I often feel like with my knowledge and experience I am underpaid plus the whole not having a penis thing. I started here 6 years ago at almost 50k, I'm now close to 90k, I feel like I should be making over 100k. But I haven't wholeheartedly checked. Not sure that I would leave either but 12hr+ days is wearing on me :(

Funny my wife does similar to what you do in Wisconsin and she is making low 60's, tons of hours and after work hours from home. She loves it though and I am proud to be married to a nerd.

Myself I feel I am way under paid but after 18 years on the job I started interviewing last year testing the market and it was brutal, so I gave it up and conceded that I'll most likely retire from my current company. It is however the third largest printer in the world and with Quebcor going bankrupt, it could move into the number two spot. However they are not union and the pay scale isn't the greatest. I manage to pull down 60K a year programming PLC's, designing Automation networks..Profibus, IPEthernet, ControlNet and so forth to run Robotics, batch type processes, or Printing/Finishing lines. That salary also comes with a really nice profit sharing in the form of company stock, 401K matching, and full medical, in fact we have our own medical facilities that other companies model. Grass could be greener per year via hard-core cash but I think I would miss out on a ton of benefits. They paid for my bachelors in S.E., which I was glad I put the time in to do.

I would hope you have a legal case against them.Heh, you know, the thought never occurred to me. I think I fall well below the curve in the "likely to litigate" profile.

Fildien asked how I survived. I had moved in with a friend from another corner of the internets, so had a place to stay that I wasn't paying through the nose for. I fortuitously received a sort of "here's your retirement, now get outta here" check from the Red Cross for my years of service with them. Then I sold about half my stocks to buy a new car and survive til I could walk and find a new job.

A week later, the market crashed.

A lot of amusing stories came out of the wreck, the move, the 2 week job and the aftermath, but it really was a shitty time in my life, heh.

'I currently own a design firm which deals in bathroom and kitchen design, as well as retail sales of High end bathroom and kitchen fixtures, and tile.'

- My father does granite and marble kitchen tops and units.
He has a lot of subsidiary contracts with kitchen designers, and always finds them a pain to work with! :P

I teach high school English and theater, and probably some computer class next year. It's a good gig, and I chose public schools intentionally, but the constant parental and student whining is really getting to me this year. I may drop the theater side soon so I have more time for myself, and start working on getting paid to play music as a bass player again. I'm also trying to finish my masters degree along with a Career Tech certification.

Currently I'm in Raleigh, NC (Research Triangle Park specifically) working as a team lead of 4 C# developers working for a large investment bank (though we're about to open up another position on my team expanding my empire :devil). Regarding the compensation question, I currently have a base salary of $80k, and a regular annual bonus around 25%, so total compensation is a bit over $100k, not counting other benefits (matching 401k, etc).

Leading up to this job, I've done quite a few other things - enlisted in the Navy at 17 as a submarine nuclear operator (which I did for 2 1/2 years), got an NROTC scholarship (at which time they discharged me from my enlistment contract to go to school) which allowed me to get a Bachelors degree in Materials Science and Engineering and a commission as a naval officer where I again was a submariner. After 6 years of that I got out of the navy, and got a Master's in Computer Science, and started working at the above mentioned programming job 2 weeks after graduating in May 2007.

(BTW Thormir, good luck on UNC-CH! My wife is going to the Veterinarian school at NC State.)

A lot of amusing stories came out of the wreck, the move, the 2 week job and the aftermath, but it really was a shitty time in my life, heh.

Am glad you were able to come through that with a sense of humor. A litany of life experiences like that in such a short time frame would be devastating to many. Ya' know, you could probably have made a good living selling the anti-depressant meds that a host of doctors would most likely have been willing to prescribe after hearing what you went through, at least for about six months.

And though I hate to admit it, legal action crossed my mind as well, after you were lured to relocate with the stress of a time frame involved.


And a hero of mine was connected to Chapel Hill some 30 years ago, by the name of Martin Groder. Always wanted to visit that campus. Good luck.

but the constant parental and student whining is really getting to me this year.

My brother is in teaching too and the more he talks the more I believe a teacher has to be almost better at being a councelor than a teacher because folks have so many personal issues in their life that spill over into the school setting that are not going to be able to be fixed by the school, administration or teachers. It is a bummer when all a teacher might want to do was teach their subject.

I have alot of respect for teachers after I volunteered in a classroom and watch a parent rem a teacher at a "back to school night" gathering. That teacher was a cool as a cumcumber too the whole time the parent went off on her. I was horrified that I could not say anything. No teacher deserved that but if I ever do see a parent do that in a public atmosphere again...that parent will get a piece of mind right then and there.

I am glad you teach Kanyli...you have my respect. :)

I started off as a Patriot Missile System Operator in Army back in the early 90's and got out in 95 after 4 years. I broke in to the IT world while working as a customer service rep (read: phone jockey) at a firm that sells service contracts. We built a call center to handle tech support calls. After I realized how unpaid I was, I left to go in to IT purchasing at a defense contractor. I actually really enjoyed it and got to get some good hands on exp with some really big computors!!

From there I went on to be a LAN admin at a management consultant firm and was then eventually sold to another defense contractor. By the end of my stint there, I was a manager responsible for everything from PC support break/fix type stuff, LAN administration, disaster control (effing basement flooded all the damned time) and asset management.

When I started working in the IT field, I was at around $45k with no college degree and no certs to speak of. After being management, I was at $85k, still no degree but a couple certs; CCNA and working on my CISSP.

Now I'm currently unemployed, living off the wife while attending UNC-Charlotte to get my BS in Business Admin and a Minor in MIS. I'll be damned if this semester isnt kicking my ass though, should have never taken 18 creds.

So reading all this makes me think I might already be at the top end of my field unless I do management or something insane like that. Feh.

Keep the stories coming in though, it's neat seeing what you all do :)

So reading all this makes me think I might already be at the top end of my field unless I do management or something insane like that. Feh.



Evil Rita, is saddened by your statement, I'm sure, Fild....

I teach Biology and Microbiology at a community college in San Antonio, TX - it's my first year on the tenure track at a 'real' college after five years in Laredo that would have left me becalmed in hell had I stayed :). Here, my teaching load takes up less time than the various 'other' activities expected of one on the tenure track such as serving on various hiring, scholarship, curriculum, and campus-wide committees, doing community service activities, keeping up with research in my field, sponsoring student clubs/activities, etc - I love both the job and the city, the only fly in the ointment being our dreadful district administration (our new chancellor hails from the automotive industry and is doing his best to try to fit the square peg of education into his round widget-brained hole, with the result being far too much mind-boggling stupidity to mention here) and of course the low pay (42k/year with 5 years in the field (my seniority was counted with I took this job) and 30 hours post-MS). Prior to my returning to graduate school and then into teaching I held a variety of jobs in food bacteriology pre-MS, and a much wider variety of jobs while I was working on my BS, including working as a bail bondsman, shoe salesman, and five years working in Quality and R & D for a plastics plant.

Faervas is finishing up his BFA at the Art Institute of Chicago this semester and graduates in May (his primary media is painting, mostly oil, mostly large scale, which if you're in a wheelchair means paintbrushes duct taped to dowels :) ) - he's applied to UTSA and Texas Tech for his MFA (we're waiting to hear atm), with the eventual goal of doing his work and teaching art at the community college level as well. He's endured two years by himself in the Chicago cold pushing everywhere, has excelled in his classes while managing to keep his sense of humor, and I'm immensely proud of him - I'm looking forward to having him (and his mess) back home for the summer at least, regardless of where he ends up schoolwise in the fall, and he just spent his Spring Break weekend holed up from the snow watching the NCAA tournament, being a rabid college basketball fan (and former wheelchair basketball player).


Thor, best of luck with Nursing school - and I assume you made it through the O-chem in one piece? And glad to hear you're doing so well, Halo, and /salute for being part of the glue that has held this board community together for so long.

Warm regards,
Nydia

She's right, you know. I should charge you all.

/salute back Nydia, glad it's going well for the both of you, and I have much sympathy for Faervas.
I initially dropped out of my original degree, having taken sociology and thought it the worst thing in the world (really, there's just not enough of the subject to teach at degree-level).
After much philandering, I met my fiance and she gave me the support (both emotionally and financially, she's currently training to be a Barrister) to go back to University and do what it had been obvious to everyone around me but me - history.
I got in to a good University (Kent, fantastic research ratings) and had to spend 3 years studying away from home, though I was commuting, it took 2.5hrs each way. I'd leave the house at 5.30am and be home for 7.30pm, while working weekends to wriggle free of Jess' generous help (she had her own obligations, it sure ain't cheap studying at the Bar).

Doing it all as a technically 'mature student' (I was 21, as opposed to 18) made it that much harder as my friends graduated and mostly gained fantastic jobs (my mate Steve works on the stock market, my soon-to-be best man works for the Home Office in immigration) while I was "back" starting all over again amongst a bunch of zit-faced kids who still thought it was cool to sleep in all day and wear their pyjamas to seminar.

Anywho, paid my fees, worked hard, graduated with a 1:1 and completed a Masters at Kings College. Luckily got accepted for a funded-PhD in my chosen field while Jess has since been called to the Bar at the Honourable Middle Temple and is now doing her first year of training (locally, which is even more fantastic). We're getting married next September and though we're currently renting, we're looking to buy before christmas.

You might say it's 'all coming together' - but of course when is life ever that generous? :P
Keep it coming guys, it's an interesting thread.

Pray tell, what does "called to the bar" mean in American? I'm assuming it's referring to the Bar in a legal sense of the word, but hate making assumptions when it comes to turns of phrases in English/American.

Yep, the 'legal sense' of the word, as in the Bar Association. In the UK we have historic 'Inns of Court', very mysterious, very archaic, but a wonderful sense of tradition. When a person practices at the Bar, they must join one of the Four Inns of Court - Middle Temple, Grays Inn, Lincoln's Inn or Inner Temple.

It's very Harry Potterish. You attend functions like Dinners and Honourary Calls about 10 times a year, it's quite surreal. Jess's Inn, Middle Temple, is smack bang in the middle of London, but it's like a secret world. Off Victoria Embankment there's a small, cobbled stone lane, you go through a wonderful arch and in to a rather secret little village of alleys and buildings. There's a Great Hall built out of the timber from Francis Drake's ship, with life-sized paintings of monarchs, rows of tables with food and wine. Honestly - think of Harry Potter, you have to wear gowns as well.

Anywho, once you've completed the Bar Vocational Course you're presented at your particular Inn by a senior Barrister and "called to the Bar" ie receive your qualification to practice.

http://www.middletemple.org.uk/

Hope that helps =)

edit: this is the Great Hall: http://www.sphericalimages.com/middletemple/

Wow that is really interesting stuff! Gratz to her and you!

Leah and I often joke that we'd like to move to London someday though neither of us have ever been. We're currently researching the possibility of a visit in the next 6 months. I've been all over Europe just not the UK, so hopefully it will be worth the trip :)

Bland food, warm beer, and Halo? Sounds like a little slice of Hell to me....

:D

London is the 4th most expensive city in the world. Moving there from the US, especially lately, can be financially crippling. If I was to move anywhere in Europe I'd head back to Prague. While the $.40 pints of beer may be a bit more expensive, it beats the $10.00 pint in London! And the women are freaking gorgeous with better teeth ;-)

Bland food, warm beer, and Halo? Sounds like a little slice of Hell to me....

:D


But, but, they have fish and chips!!

Seriously though, if I were to consider a move across the Atlantic, I would be doing some research on the best prospect between Ireland, Scotland, Sweden and the Tuscany region of Italy. I have ancestry in the first three, and my gastric system and taste buds dictate the fourth.

London is the 4th most expensive city in the world. Moving there from the US, especially lately, can be financially crippling. If I was to move anywhere in Europe I'd head back to Prague. While the $.40 pints of beer may be a bit more expensive, it beats the $10.00 pint in London! And the women are freaking gorgeous with better teeth ;-)

/shrug if the pay is right :)

Tis true. Actually right before I bought my house I comparison shopped in Prague. Just 30 minutes outside the city (I'm ~30 min outside DC, barring bad traffic) I could have got a 6 bedroom monster with a pool and another 2 bedroom poolhouse for $317,000. Instead I picked the 3 bedroom townhouse, which my family seemed to think was the better deal. Sighs.

Live in Prague and take the $17 45 minute flight from Prague to Heathrow every morning if the money is right! ;)

Aye - London is crippling. It's not too bad in the counties, though. I commute from Sussex which is perhaps, like Surrey, equally as expensive, but then it's a far higher quality of life, I think Sussex was high up as one of the best places to live in a European poll a while back.

Wages in London, though, can be almost double to what they are elsewhere. As a Sussex Barrister Jess will hopefully be on 100k, but if she moved to a Chambers in London, she could get double that.

For holidays it works wonderful, my money doubles when I go to America, or increases by half if I go to Europe. I can't imagine how people get on coming here, seeing their money halve and prices double. I think the UK is still one of the most visited destinations in the world, though, if I'm right in thinking.

London can't be missed, however. You'll have to visit it at least once in your life. I love studying/working there, but it's great to get on the train at the end of the day and get back to the rolling fields of Sussex =)

Ahh, good info Halo, thanks! Interesting history behind the Four Inns, thanks for sharing!!

Looks like a few of you are in my neck of the woods. I'm a sociology PhD student at UNC Chapel Hill right now. I'll probably end up in academia when I'm done, unless some other interesting opportunity comes calling. I study education inequalities and am currently working on a project looking at No Child Left Behind data. It makes me sad that I had a job offer before coming to Chapel Hill using my other bachelor's degree (Management Information Systems) that paid 3x what I make as a graduate student and slightly more than I will make in academia my first year out of school. Clearly I'm not in this for the money, haha.

Woo for UNC! Personally, I cannot wait to get out of school. I am glad that I didnt go to college immediately after graduating from highschool though. I am confident that I would never have completed my studies, waaaayy too many distractions. Now though, I'm the old guy sitting in the class that always finds a way to annoy the professor.

Just don't say stupid things about the "real world" that you've never been in from a corporate point of view, and I won't correct you. :)

Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach.

I always find it interesting where we find ourselves, profrssionally. I mean who woulda thought that after taking Journalism and Printing in High School, I would wind up in the IT industry, with a stop off in the Army and Retail, for good measure.....

Oh, don't get me wrong, I have met some teachers that were wonderful and quite accurate on how they model their classes after "real world" examples. I just take issue with the ones that have been in academia their entire lives and try to teach these kids about how the real world will treat them.

What practical experience could they possibly be drawing from? It's no coincidence that the teachers I prefer or are more inclined to "believe" are the ones that have been out in the rat race with the rest of us for at least 10 years.

A summer interning as a receptionist doesnt count.

Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach.
Them's fightin' words.....

Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach.



This one is for you Sixee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU

That was Good, nice link Ll.

I love Taylor Mali, and that's oddly the third time today his poetry has come up. He has some other great stuff out there too, if you search a bit.

I've actually never heard of that guy, but that link was great.

That was a good link. I was just being snarky with my comment....hopefully I didn't offend any teachers on the board.

Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach.


You never learn anything until you can teach it to someone else, either.