Queasy on a down day

I have to say, today's dizzying 7% drop in the stock market has me feeling a bit queasy. As a full-time student living on my savings, this hurts.

Some anecdotes:

• A friend who works for a major financial institution told me his boss recently sent the staff an email reminder about the company's "mental health benefits."
• And this one is scary: a friend in the healthcare industry said that people are postponing cardiac bypass surgeries because they are afraid to dip into their savings!

Here's the Dow Jones Industrial Average's performance for the past twelve months: