My girlfriend can't get a job in this town to save her life, but maybe you can:

http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/job-J0F7LX7T92Z;_ylt=Aj3Kh8Qqx8fq8Kw0u7zDdWz6Q6IX?source=SRP&core={%22offset%22%3A%2230%22%2C%22detailed%22%3Afalse%2C%22sort%22%3A{%22type%22%3A%22relevancy%22%2C%22reverse%22%3Afalse}}

hey! Thanks for thinking of me - Im actually on the audition circuit now, traveling here and there for symphonies to make a nice switch from what Im doing now in the field. Principal cello usually means big bucks!

Sorry to hear about your girlfriend. Would moving out of the midwest be out of the question?

Not at all. Are you offering a housing swap? South City Saint Louis for South Philly?

The girl is actually from the northeast and would like to move closer to her family. But we couldn't afford to move anywhere until we're both working and saving money. Right now, it looks like that puts her in Chicago for a year. grrr. stupid economy.

If there were any openings out in the midwest, Id totally swap - but right now the midwest isn't in my range of sight. from what Im hearing, too, a lot of smaller groups are bottoming out. The northeast is still pretty strong in my career at least so I'm here unless i decide to move to overseas.

what kind of work does she do? or want to do in this case?

Yeah, the MUNY is St Louis' outdoor theater, so that's only seasonal work. May still be fun and worth pursuing. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to have on your resume. The symphony in town is pretty highly regarded, I'm told, and funded by an endowment. Which has, I'm sure, lost some of it's worth in the market. No idea if there's cross-over between orchestras.

My girlfriend is a printer by education (vocational high school, art college) but has no work experience with it. That, plus bad economy, plus dying trade, plus old-school union town = no jobs here. By actual work experience, she's a nanny and a retail queen. But you may have heard that the service sector isn't doing too much better.

St Louis has  pretty healthy/diverse economy, but it's really spread out into the "metro area". You can end up making almost nothing or even loosing money driving out to the burbs for low-paying nanny and clerk jobs.

I like Philly. I'd be happy to take care of your house for a few months while yer sweating in the heat here trying to keep a cello in tune on an outdoor stage when the sun goes down and the temp/humidity drops. Let me know if you get an audition. At the very least, i'll p[ick you up at the airport and get you drunk. Maybe oogle you a bit. But no touching, I swear!

What fun is that?

Anyway, with VistaPrint and all the other online printing sweatshops, I wish her luck in getting a job ...

I thought you were borderline leaving her anyway?

The relationship is very strained. But it's not cos we don't get along, or because either of us has done any wrong to the other, it's just this motherfucker of a situation we're in. Being grown up kinda sucks sometimes.

Lucky, your girlfriend went to art school to get a "degree" in printmaking?  What the fuck?  You need to bail on that situation my friend.

Sasha, you're biting the hand that defended you through herpes, heroin and a lot of generally stupid shit. Unwise.

I know 4 people with MFAs in bookarts/printmaking.    Two of them managed to get jobs restoring books with museums, one ended up teaching, and the other manages a restaurant.  I can't imagine the stress of the debt load for getting an MFA (or BFA for that matter) and then trying to get jobs that run on 1-2 year grants -  especially in a down job market like this one.

I didn't even know that was a qualification you went into debt to get, always figured it was an apprenticeship kind of deal.

If she had stayed in rednecktown, CT she could've had a provisional union card out of her high school vocational commercial printing program. Apprenticeship for a year or two, then a lifetime of using one printing machine/technology (they're all very particular, apparently) until it was completely obsolete.  But she wanted to see some of the world and find out what other, more personally satisfying things could be done with printing, so she went to art school in Chicago.

In hindsight, the debt/value of art school is way off, but there's no way she could've known that when she started.

Financial aid information is a little misleading and they're hitting students with it at a time in their life when most people haven't had to do any serious budgeting.  If anything, schools and student loan companies work to make taking tens of thousands of dollars in loans seem more reasonable than it is.

I also think that the value of work in a personal or social sense versus the current economic valuation of work is a distinction that doesn't hit many people until well after they've made big decisions on what career path they're taking.

Sasha, you're biting the hand that defended you through herpes, heroin and a lot of generally stupid shit. Unwise.

I don't need any defense.  I've taken care of myself up to this point.

If anything, schools and student loan companies work to make taking tens of thousands of dollars in loans seem more reasonable than it is.

I'll have $25,000 in debt when I am done with school.  If you want to get a college degree and can't afford to pay for school out of pocket then you have no choice but to take out loans.  If you don't want to take out loans then you don't get to go to school.  They don't give you any other options.

The relationship is very strained. But it's not cos we don't get along, or because either of us has done any wrong to the other, it's just this motherfucker of a situation we're in. Being grown up kinda sucks sometimes.

Stop being grown up. Works for me.

Me too, until this new healthcare goes into effec.....
Well, there goes my childhood ...

Sasha, you're biting the hand that defended you through herpes, heroin and a lot of generally stupid shit. Unwise.

I don't need any defense.  I've taken care of myself up to this point.

If anything, schools and student loan companies work to make taking tens of thousands of dollars in loans seem more reasonable than it is.

I'll have $25,000 in debt when I am done with school.  If you want to get a college degree and can't afford to pay for school out of pocket then you have no choice but to take out loans.  If you don't want to take out loans then you don't get to go to school.  They don't give you any other options.

Or;
a) be smart and/or productive/athletic and get grants
b) get a company to pay it for you like mine did

d) Get a Trade.

I refuse to listen to anybody who says skilling up in a trade is not schooling.

She has a trade, stupid. That's actually where this whole conversation started from. Skilled labor is a fine way to direct your energies, but it doesn't guarantee you work any more than a college degree does.

I would love to spend the rest of my life restoring books for a museum.
I'd like to have a small-requests press as well to print books written by kooks that can't get published and I'd run a series of one-off magazines filled with my illuminating wisdom. So yeah I'd be right in there shoulders deep among the weirdos myself.
Sideline in silk-screening Yum-yum patterns and bring back underground comix.
I realize that that's a financially losing game, but that's why I'd grow and sell my own strain of weed. I'd call it Mellow Ellen.

Man, reality sucks.

Lucky - hells yeah! I'll let you know, and its totally cool. you can stare at the goods. Hell, you saw plenty of buttcrack at the beach house (who hasn't?) Maybe Ill let you drop a penny in this onion.

Side note: Happy about healthcare. Per Diem Musicians around the US Rejoice! Ye shall haveth the health care by 2014! So glad that vote happened on my birthday - and Bach's birthday, too!

I don't know if it's my Jewish heritage or my affection for your booty; but I'm pretty sure that if I dropped a penny into your buttcrack, I'd really want to go after it.

This cuso is officially no fun for me anymore ...

I like a man who pinches pennies while admiring my ass! PS I have a known thing for read heads, do you like the whiny musician type?

Me neither. Let's smash.

Ass pics or GTFO!

Well, my Scottish heritage makes me both thrifty AND red headed!

Sorry Daddy. The best you can do is read about my naked ass in public... if Thrash ever finds the story

Sottish you say? Delicious

No, SCottish, he said ...

Ghetto Onion ...

Maybe it's on the WayBackMachine?

please we all know I typo around this bitch like its going out of style!

Lots of jobs doing flyers and advertising inserts for mail and newspapers.

I mean seriously, they MUST need a lot of people to generate the trillion pounds of that shit that gets generated and dispersed into the nearest circular file cabinet every year.