Bolles, Richard Nelson - What Color Is Your Parachute? (2003 ed)

I finally got around to reading this after hearing it recced about ten different times. And while I can't say how well the advice works in terms of concrete results, given that I just finished it yesterday, it seems like a pretty good career guide book. The thing I liked the most about it was that it's not all about how to tweak your resume or interview successfully, or even how to job hunt successfully, although it has good tips for all but the resume-writing. The most helpful part for me was the section on how to figure out what you want to do and what you might be good at. I haven't done all the exercises yet, but I like how they sound so far.

It's nice that it is focused on that aspect. Obviously, not everyone's going to need that, but I sort of figure there are a good number of people out there with no idea as to what in the world they want to do with themselves (that's me!). I also like that Bolles does focus on the more psychological/emotional aspects of job hunting as well and doesn't dismiss the blows to self-esteem or the desire to do what you enjoy. Er. That does sound rather obvious, except most of the people I've talked to are more focused on the mechanics of getting the job, and not so much about the emotional, which is extremely disheartening, to say the least.

Bolles is a Christian, and while he doesn't let his religion influence most of the book, the epilogue on finding your place in the world is pretty religious, for anyone who doesn't really go for that type of thing. But he warns the readers clearly ahead of time and doesn't try to push his own views; plus, you can skip it if you don't want to read it.

Heh, I just told my sister to go read it too, given that she is graduating this year and pretty much just as lost as me. Though she has an econ degree, so she is probably starting off better.

Vaughan, Brian K., and Pia Guerra - Y: The Last Man - Unmanned

After an unknown plague devastates the planet, Yorick Brown (his father was a Shakespeare fan) and his monkey Ampersand are the last creatures on Earth with a Y chromosome. I was a little wary picking this up at first, despite the good reviews, because of a bias against apocalyptic fiction concerned directly with gender. I'm not quite sure where this dislike comes from, given that I haven't read much of this type of fiction at all. I think it may be from reading Pamela Sargent's The Shore of Women a long time ago.

Anyhow, so far the gender politics are pretty interesting. I liked how Vaughan introduced all the main players so far in the introduction, before the plague, but I did think that tying in various gender issues like women in the military, abortion, and the mistreatment of women in Arabic countries was a little heavy handed. But the final sequence counting down to the second the plague hits, and the panels on the page right after the plague hits, are worth it.

I'm also glad that Yorick so far has not turned out to be the epitome of manliness -- he reads very much like a normal kid who has no idea what's going on or why he is somehow miraculously still alive. And I like how Vaughan has not done something stupid and made all the women peacemakers or the like. Instead, there are militant women, scientist women, political women. All sorts. The world has not been miraculously cured of war because all the men are dead, unlike what some books posit. Also, 355 is really, really cool.

Most of my concern prior to reading was based on the fact that the series is named after Yorick, the last man, and as such, I figured it would probably be centered around Yorick. While his story is intersting, I was also not necessarily all that overjoyed about following the last man on earth going around and repopulating the planet, or some such nonsense. And while the idea does come up, Yorick is not so happy about it, his mother isn't either, and the entire issue is more complicated than having a manly man surrounded by tons of admiring women. Thankfully! I think I've flipped through too many older graphic novels in the store, which all have bare-chested muscular manly men going around killing each other and raping the women. Blech.

I like how Vaughan is attempting to look at all the consequences the plague would have. The government is decimated, thanks to the uneven male to female ratio there. I suspect many other businesses and other necessary units are also decimated because of the power imbalance. The mind really starts to boggle at the thought of it. I am, however, of two minds about the Amazons, a group of extremely militant man-hating women who are out to kill Yorick, the last of their "oppressors." I wonder why I have the impression that most militant women's groups I've read in fiction are of the so-called femi-nazi mindset and go on about righting the wrongs of the past, like PC gone horribly wrong. I mean, why not have them just be power hungry or something? Instead, they spout rhetoric based on the most radical feminist texts -- all sex is rape, etc.

The plot hasn't really gotten started yet -- Unmanned mostly sets up the world for later happenings, I suspect.

I just realized the best part about this scenario. The writer is pretty good so far, and because of the plague, I will be guaranteed of strong female characters! Joy ^_^.