Steampunk Book Review #3: El Fin

This was the bestest book evahs.

Do you really think so, #2?

Well, not as good as Frederica, which is soothing my overworn soul.  This book is about a red bird that looks like a dragon and eats daggers.  Just kidding.  Set during The Three Musketeers… it looks to me like this book is trying to do for the swashbuckling literature what His Majesty’s Dragon did for the high seas and Napoleon literature.  The difference, of course, being, that books about swashbuckling are inherently interesting, whereas the books about Napoleonic times and ships need dragons to perk them up.

A slightly longer report from #1:

For once, #2’s report is pretty close to reality — not hard with the cover and the title.  Pretty, isn’t it?  This book is sort of like The Three Musketeers plus dragons, except that it’s really more like The Ten or So Musketeers and Oh Yeah One’s an Awesome Chick and One’s a Dragon but You Know How Richelieu Is, and Also Things are Very French.  I read the best books.  There is a little clunky info-dumping, but only a little.

Ok, so I cheated; this isn’t steampunk at all.  I’m sorry.  I felt contrary.  I have like 5 excellent steampunk books sitting around waiting to be read, but I just got all contrary.   Mea culpa.  I decided that you, the readers, would have to either take a review of this book or else wait potentially forever for me to review another steampunk book.

This book is high fantasy, swords-and-sorcery.  It’s swashbuckling, full of action and intrigue and adventure and double-crosses and international conspiracy, oh my.  Here’s a brief (non-spoilery) flavor of what it’s like:

Agnes took stock of the situation. […] The ground was fifty metres below.  They did not have time to force the hatch.
They were trapped.
Agnes and Laincourt placed themselves en garde, back to back… and waited.
[…]
A circle of blades closed in on the fugitives, who were resolved to die rather than allow themselves to be captured.
“Usually,” Agnes muttered to herself, “they show up about now…”
Laincourt heard her.
“What did you say?” he asked over his wounded shoulder.
“Nothing.  Delighted to have met you.”
“Same here.”
And then rescue came from the sky.

Isn’t that fun?  My advice: don’t even try to keep track of who’s scheming what with whom.  Just read it and enjoy the time.  And there is a big!  twist!  right!  at!  the!  END!  So, ya know: ooooooh.\

#2 adds it to her Amazon wish list

The mommy boards are making me sad again

They’re all fighting with their husbands.

They tell each other it’s normal. All marriages go through these kinds of issues.

I really like being abnormal. I like having a husband who doesn’t take his stress out on me. I like having a partner who eases a burden rather than adding to it. If my partner purposefully caused me stress, I think I would probably be happier being single. Not 100% sure, but I like to think that I have high standards and wouldn’t be too uncomfortable in my own skin even if it meant I had to clean out the cat litter every night.

Of course, I can’t comfort these ladies. I can’t make up problems. I can’t give advice (or rather I could, but I’m fairly sure my head would be bitten off… the other woman on the board who actually gets along with her husband and has a well-behaved kid has tried in the past, and it wasn’t pretty). I don’t like fighting. I like problem-solving. I like using “I” words and “we” words. I like appreciating my husband and having him appreciate me. I like feeling like we’re on the same side.

I wish everybody had as good a relationship as we have. Maybe it was the years of having roommates that forced good roommate skills. Maybe we’re just romantics and totally believe in love and trust. Maybe it’s because #2 schooled me in communication without confrontation in high school (even though she often chose not to use it herself!) Maybe we got all our fights out the first 4 years of our relationship when we were teenagers.

Anyhow, I just wanted to share that it makes me sad. And I hope I’m not the only person who rarely fights with her spouse and likes not doing so. (I know of some folks who never fought and divorced because the marriage was too boring. But we prefer positive excitement in ours– mostly food related.)

#2 wonders why #1 continues to read angst-ridden fora.  Perhaps it’s hard to find non-angsty ones?  Has #1 tried Offbeat Mama? Perhaps she can’t look away?

#1 reminds #2 of her addictions.  This is the legacy forum.  I’m always trying not to start another!  (Though I may have to get off the forum… one woman on there is totally passive aggressive and I don’t think she has ever said anything to me… a bunch of people wish her luck for something, she thanks them one by one and deliberately excludes me… a number of folks say their kids are sick, every one gets a hope you feel better except me… everyone who says something gets a reply, except me.  This is the woman I blogged about earlier so I’m pretty sure it is deliberate.  And I just don’t care enough about drama to confront her, so much easier to leave.)

Do you think couples have to fight? If someone actually asked for advice (they never do… they just want to complain), what would you suggest?

Is paying your mortgage a waste of money?

Money Reasons has been inspiring a lot of posts recently.  He’s starting to get a bit testy about it too.  No more Mr. Nice Reasons.  #2 suggested that we use some of this direct opposition (and his fundamental hatred of experts, as indicated in our comments section in this post) to do a few deliberately controversial posts.  (You know, like how we used Evan’s whininess inability to get a joke sensitivity to attract the entire Yakiezie back when we only had 30 regular readers.)

Go ahead and check out his post.  We’ll wait.

Anyhow, in this post, he talks about how awesome it is to have finished paying his mortgage (and yes, that is an accomplishment).  His mortgage (not including escrow) was 1200/month.  Therefore, he says, paying off his mortgage is like having a part-time job that pays 1200/month.

Is it?

I argue no.

The part of the monthly mortgage payment going to INTEREST is like having a part-time job (so that point stands, and it’s a nice part-time job where you don’t even have to show up).  New fresh money that is no longer being thrown away on essentially renting your house from the bank.*  For us, that’s about $600/month these days.  Not too shabby, but also a bit less than half of what we’re paying on the mortgage (not including escrow which has to be paid anyway).

HOWEVER,

The part going towards PRINCIPAL is not.  The part going to principal is savings.  It isn’t new money.  It’s money you had targeted for savings and is hopefully now being saved in some other form.  (Or heck, if you are hitting your savings happily, then re-purposed in other ways.)

When Money Reasons says that not having mortgage payments is like getting a part-time job that pays 1200/month, that’s like me saying that not funding an IRA is like getting a part-time job that pays $5K/year.  In both cases, the money wasn’t evaporating– it was being put towards savings.  Not putting it into an IRA doesn’t make me richer!  Not putting money into real estate doesn’t create new money like a part-time job would, it just means the old money is finding new purposes.

Debt is negative savings.  Paying down debt is savings.  To understand that concept, imagine you have 0% interest debt and access to a 0% savings account.  You can direct your income into that debt or into the savings account.  Whichever you choose, you end up with the same amount of money in the end.  (In a real life example you might put the money in low interest savings and pay off the entire debt once the interest rate jumps past the 0%… but you’d rather have the emergency fund while you wait.  This would be like subsidized student loan debt in graduate school.)  It’s when you add different interest rates (and risk, if you want to get complicated) to the debt and the savings that one or the other may become more attractive.

Cash flow is not the same as income or wealth.  You can have a high cash flow and still have no wealth.  You can have a low cash flow and be very wealthy.  You can increase your cash flow by stopping your retirement saving, not pre-paying your mortgage, and any number of other things.  None of these actually increase your income.  (Well, technically pre-paying debt increases your income from an economics sense in that you no longer have to pay interest on that, but the *interest* is the new income, not the principal.  If you’re pre-paying 0% student debt, for example, that doesn’t change your income at all, just increases your savings.)

But what do I know?  I’m just an expert and as we know, experts can’t be trusted.  They still think the world is flat.  (NB:  I don’t.)

Also, cats rule.

Have we explained this concept?  Did you enjoy this deliberately controversial post?

*disclaimer:  You do get value from renting from the bank– that money is freed up for other things, and there’s discount rates and time preferences and a bunch of complicated stuff.  Not saying that renting is throwing money away!  It does buy things of value.  But in terms of savings, the bank is getting that money, not you.

p.s.  Our last MR-inspired post is an editor’s pick in this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance.  Sponsored by Fabulously broke in the city.

In which #1 puts up the links post despite #2 having all the links ideas this week

(aka, in which #1 is totally impatient and doesn’t wait for #2 to do things)
(Hey! the wee hours of Friday night is cutting it really short and I’m not sticking around Sat morning today.)
Let’s start it off with…

A heartwarming roundup from Roxie’s World.

A great post from Micro Dr. O on wouldn’t it be nice if we all had the option to give birth with a certified nurse midwife in a hospital with a doula?  We shouldn’t have to decide between a high chance of unnecessary c-section and an unmonitored home-birth.

Unshelved + Matilda + ebooks = hilarious.

NEW SIMON’S CAT!

Horrific.  This 19th century jackass is trying to force women in Georgia to submit police reports when a woman miscarries.  This goes right up there with Alaska’s push to force rape victims to pay for their own rape kits.  Feministe has the report and a suggestion, since it is absolutely true that the natural miscarriage rate is incredibly high, and higher still if you include fertilized eggs that never implant.

All you academic folks are probably well aware of the current hubbub surrounding the daily show clip on online education.  Here’s a link to Not of General Interest.  There were a ton more though.  But you know, I’m spending all day tomorrow with committee work and won’t have time to update them.  Maybe #2 can hook you all up.
(You mean like this?)

Happy Blogaversary, Everyday Tips!

Dame Eleanor Hull with a tribute to her late cat, the Scot.  RIP.

Politicians should be forced to take statistics and logic courses.  But they’d probably just lie anyway because they’re evil like that.  Also… Bristol Palin.  From Isis the Scientist.

A fascinating short tribute to Dr. Seuss from Philnel.  He did stuff besides children’s books!

Also, failed the writing challenge last Sunday because I was sick and dying.  I sat in this chair for 40 min without doing anything and didn’t realize that much time had passed until I looked at the clock.  Then I went back to sleep.

Thoughts on reading books on giftedness

I have now read too many books on giftedness.  Most of these books say the same stuff without any research backing up.  A lot of them make up little anecdotes to illustrate their points.  Many of them outline the problems we might face without offering any solutions, or if they do offer solutions, you have no idea of knowing what they’re basing those solutions on.  (Ignoring a bully will make him go away?  Reeeeally?  Have you ever succeeded with that strategy?)  I do not want to read any more books on giftedness.  I’m done, thanks.

A few of them do stand out.  I’ve already quoted extensively from this book:  Gifted Children: A Guide for Parents and Professionals ed. Kate Distin (2006).

This one is nice because it is like reading the distilled wisdom from a really really good forum that just happens to have some experts as members who are able to explain the research to the other members.  (Much better than the davidsonsgifted forums, which seem to be a mix of things that aren’t as helpful as I would have hoped, though searching the archives has found some useful things, like what a 3 year old reading at third grade level might be interested in.)  This one does a great job of addressing the emotional concerns that we as parents have.  Like I said before, this book made me feel “normal”… given the right population of comparison.

Another one I found helpful is:  Being Smart about Gifted Education: A Guidebook for Parents and Educators by Dona J. Matthews and Joanne F. Foster (2009).

This one isn’t perfect and is perhaps a little idealistic, but it is trying to sell a way that I wish giftedness were sold.  Far too many of these books completely ignore the nurture part of the giftedness equation.  This one actually integrates the Dweck and other research on mindsets, growing dendrites, etc.  This one talks about educational matches.  It supports a “mastery” model rather than a “mystery” model… which is difficult to explain but has something to do with focusing on the pragmatic needs and outcomes of gifted learners (indeed, all learners) rather than saying all gifted kids are alike and mystical.  It is anti-labeling for the reasons I’m anti-labeling (… or was anti-labeling… now I’m not sure, some of the other books have pretty convincing arguments about the benefits of labels).  It seems to have a healthy skepticism of test-scores, and only suggests using them as a diagnostic when we suspect underachievement.  I like it because it says things are true that I hope are true but don’t actually believe are true deep down.  But I’m an idealist that way… and, as we know (since 3/4 of the books mention it), idealism is correlated with giftedness.

A final one that isn’t actually helpful to us, but I wish were required reading for all K-8 teachers is this one: Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom by Susan Winebrenner (2001… though I read an earlier edition).

It talks about some excellent strategies for how to deal with gifted kids in the regular classroom.  It may not be as ideal as segregating all the gifted kids in their own schools (or classes or clusters), but most of us don’t have that option.  Reading through it I realize all my best teachers, the ones whose classrooms I actually *remember* because I spent all year *learning* things instead of being bored out of my skull, used some or many of these strategies.

I really hope the private school wasn’t lying about single-subject acceleration as needed.  We could probably cobble together a great education with single-subject acceleration until they run out and then the community college or university for the rest.

Oh, and in case you weren’t aware of the strong case for acceleration… check out the A Nation Deceived.  Even more confirmatory research on this topic has come out since it was published and there’s some good stuff on how best to facilitate acceleration so that positive rather than negative outcomes occur.  But most of that stuff is covered in the regular gifted books anyhow.

DH has been reading a lot of the books on activities to do, questions to ask, and so on, but he says they’re all things we’ve been doing *anyway*.  I had the same experience with the ones I read as well.  We must be naturally good parents or something.  Laziness wins!

Are professors off during the summer?

Everyday Tips asks:  “Aren’t you off during the summer? I would think you could have a ton of fun!”

Off the payroll– YES.  Not working?  HAHAHAAHAHA

We actually get this question a lot from non-academics.  One of us is often asked why she puts her child in preschool over the summer since neither parent is working.

Contrary to common misconception, the primary part of a university professor’s job is not teaching or doing administration (though many of us do a bang-up job of both)… it’s producing research.  (N.B.:  This is different at some small liberal arts colleges, and at community colleges.  But both of us are at universities.)  Here’s a great explanation of what one professor did all week.

Summer is the time when we can do real work because there aren’t students stopping by every 15 minutes, and there aren’t many committee meetings about service.   We get a little work done during the school year and a lot done during summer.  In the summer we can generally put a full 8 hours in and our brains are full for the day.  During the school year we probably do work more hours, but that’s because we work a lot more than full-time to keep up with classes and service and our professional obligations.  True, we get more choice about when and where to work, but we have to pay for that by working more hours for crappy money.

Being able to do research work in the summer also means that we can do fulfilling work with uninterrupted time for thinking.  During the school year it is hard to not have one’s thoughts scattered.  Neither one of us gets that much fulfillment from teaching, though #1 does more so than #2.*  We got PhDs so that we could research the things that interest us, not so that we could answer a million whiny emails from students who want exceptions to the rules.  Having a break from that is essential to our mental health.  It’s worth pointing out that this “real work” of research and writing is what gets us tenure.  Teaching does not get us tenure.  We are expected to be adequate in teaching and outstanding in research, which is why we have to guard against the time-suck of teaching.

Summer is also for conferences.  One reason one of us is not so big on travel is because there is SO MUCH travel for work.  She even has favorite places she visits in Boston and DC because she goes those places 1-3 times a year, usually in July and August.  Conferences are fun, but they’re definitely not vacation.  (Note:  times vary by discipline and even sub-discipline.  Most of #2’s conferences are in November or April.)

This educational post has been sent to you by Grumpy Rumblings, who remind you that they are still untenured and therefore work all the time.

Do you get your summers off?

*One of #1’s back up careers is to teach either 4th grade or high school math.  She is AWESOME at teaching math

Steampunk Book Review: Book #2

In which #1 reviews her second steampunk book for the challenge.  But first, a bonus review from #2, using only the cover art:

Er hem. Airborn is a book about satellites launched with zeppelin.  I’m not really sure how that would work because after you leave the atmosphere I’m not sure if there is air that is lighter than no air.  Maybe Sandy@FGA knows.  There’s probably magic involved.  Anyway, I do not think I would like to give birth in the air.  That would be really weird.  Also there are pirates.  And a deserted island.  With dead people.  The end.

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

A ships-on-the-high-seas book, but with airships!  Ok, that’s pretty cool.  Other than that, though, #2 missed it by a lot.  There isn’t any magic, just technology, though there is a fantastical element to it.  There are no satellites.  I’m not sure what that ship’s mast is doing on the cover.  (Sorry.)

I’m happy to report that the ending of this book is beautiful and satisfying, which is good because I already have the sequel out of the library.  I didn’t realize until I was partway through that the book was a Printz Award Honor Book.  I’m not surprised though; it moved well, it had a lightness to it (see what I did there?  it’s about a lighter-than-air ship!).

The pirates are genuinely bad guys and the protagonist doesn’t engage in unrealistic shenanigans.  The female lead was sort of annoying at times, but I think she could even out over time.  If you can deal with Hermione in Harry Potter, you can deal with Kate in this book.  Above all, the book is about flight: loving it, finding new ways to do it, dreaming about it, and discovering more about it.  I don’t want to go into any more detail because it is a little bit spoilery.  You should read this delightful book if you or a young adult in your life want a page-turner with action, direction, plot, and a detailed setting.  I could see how the sequel could turn into an Honor Harrington-type feel, but I don’t think it will.  I will probably look for other books by this author the next time I pass through the library.  I think this book could have broad appeal (adults and older kids of both genders), so try it out and see for yourself.

Mortgage update and a new Challenge

Last month (February):

Balance: $131,455.39
Years left: 11.83333333
P = $688.59 , I =$525.82, Escrow = 591.95

This month (March):

Balance: $129,567.68
Years left: 11.58333333
P = $694.06 , I =$520.34, Escrow = 591.95

Monthly savings (difference between next month’s interest with and without the monthly prepayment)… something like $5.

Threw in quarterly dividends to the regular prepayment (rounded up to the nearest 00) for a mortgage payment of $3000… prepaying $1,193.65. Hopefully I won’t regret that extra $500 in September.

Since we refinanced, we have paid $58,355.32 towards our mortgage principal.  Now, a good chunk of that was from previous savings when I consolidated some accounts and cashed some things out (not income from this year)… but I still find that number pretty stunning.  Too bad we can’t prepay that much every year!  We’d be knocking the ~129K remaining out of the park in a few short years.  (Of course, if we’d known to invest that 54K we prepaid into the stock market before it started its rapid climb instead, we’d have something like 80K to pay in.  If only we were prescient… but that’s why we diversify.)  Ah well.

I don’t really have anything else interesting to say … so here’s some more updates on big spending and the state of our summer saving.

Our trees that were supposed to come in October finally came and were planted… so that $2K expense is out of the way.  We love them already, even without leaves.  The relative with the kids and no money had an unexpected cash influx and said he would fund his daughter’s 529 the minimum for us to match, but he hasn’t done it yet, so that’s another 2K that is waiting to be spent… who knows if it will happen.  We’re also waiting to find out what the girls want to do with their summer. We requested and received 2K of our daycare flexible spending account back.

We’ve got somewhere between 2 and 3 months of spending in savings right now.  Before we stop getting paid for the year, we will need at least 4, and hopefully 5 months + kindergarten tuition. Otherwise we’ll be doing an unplanned “no-spend” challenge of our own. Or selling stocks.  But I like the way my stocks are almost back at pre-recession levels… it would be hard to give that up.

The steampunk challenge is over (watch for completed posts on the remaining books!) The next challenge will be inbox zero at work.  Check out the “Monthly challenges 2011” page up at the top for all my big plans, says #2.  Also some pretty graphs to keep track of how I did each month.

So… nothing deep here.  How’s your saving/spending going?