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April 2007 - Posts
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As you all know, I talk a lot on my Christian financial blog about the problems that continue to persist for all Americans due to the ever increasing gasoline prices that we all have to endure. I thought that it was really great as I was reading the news this morning to see that the the government is finally starting to think about doing something about it. Oh no, no, no...that doesn't mean that the government is going to impose some kind of intervention where we're going to start seeing the gas prices fall. They are actually looking into some more responsible long-term ideas though. From what I've read in the article, it appears that the government is trying to raise the standards and re-evaluate the policies that automobile and truck manufacturers have to follow when designing the fuel efficiency capabilities of the vehicles they produce. Sure, that isn't going to help that many of us out at the moment, but perhaps in the long run, we will start to see ourselves buying less gasoline, rather than paying less for it. I have to admit that such "far in the future" thinking is really difficult for me to wrap my head around. I would imagine that I'm not the only one who feels this way. Maybe I'm just an impatient American, but when I'm sitting here (like many of you likely are) thinking about what bills and expenses that I have to account for over the next month, I would be far more interested in seeing immediate results at the pump the next time I have to fill up my tank. I'm sure that the way our legislative planners are thinking is that the types of responsible planning that they are attempting will allow us to save more money, both as individuals and as a whole nation. I'll be interested to see what kinds of changes continue to be made as shakeups abound in the state of the government. The debates on both the Republican and Democratic side of the spectrum have now begun, and although the focus thus far has been on the foreign policy agenda of the country, at some point they will have to begin talking about things more in tune with domestic concerns. I suppose that most people would say that the foreign policy agenda is pretty much intimately linked to domestic concerns, due in great part to....surprise...the crazy happenings that our government has gotten us involved in in both Afghanistan and Iraq. We can only pray that God gives our leaders the wisdom to make the right decisions in the next year or so, since they have now freely admitted the bad qualities of their previous decisions. We must also pray that they know well enough to start mending relationships with our allies and other supporters, rather than flying by the proverbial "seat of our pants" in all situations. Finally, we must pray most of all that we don't get involved in another conflict, especially those brewing in Israel, Iran, or even North Korea. I'm sure that a lot of you out there are probably not in agreement with me about what I've been saying about the government lately. I really can't help voicing my opinion about the poor qualities of the government...and in particular the administrative branch of it. Now that the debates have begun, many Americans, myself included, have started to look forward to what might be, as well as back to what could have been if things had turned out differently in the last presidential election. I hope that you all will look at what I'm writing with an open mind, and accept that you can be "not a Republican" or "not a conservative" and still be a good Christian. I assure you that it's a possibility, and I'm living proof of it. I would love to hear any responses to what I've said that you might have. I think that it's important that we can successfully look at things from opposite ends of the spectrum and to gauge what all the options that Americans have really are. Drop me a note and send me a challenge!
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OK, I'm a bit confused by some of the news reports that I've been reading over the past few days. Is it just my imagination, or have I been reading that stock markets, particularly those based in the United States are now experiencing record high volumes once again? This is awfully confusing to me, as you can probably imagine from all the times in the past that I have told you all how much the stock market baffles me. My question is, when are we, as Christian American taxpayers and consumers, going to start feeling some of the role over benefits of this bustling market? For that matter, what kinds of things can typical Americans expect to see in their daily lives when stocks are doing well? I mean, we all know pretty much what happens when stocks crash...well besides everyone acting all crazy and equating the potential for economic failure to the next Armageddon. We know that when stock slump, everything goes a little bit crazy financially around the country, but do we ever see the positive side of things? Do we get any kind of tangible reward when things start to go well? I know that I've only been around on this green Earth for twenty-six years, and for the majority of that twenty-six years, I haven't really given two hoots about finances or the stock market, but now I'm getting pretty curious. Is it that we, as Americans, are just supposed to be happy with what we've grown accustomed to, rather than expect that something "better" will result from a strong showing in the stock market? I think that I'm going to have to search around the internet for some more information on past trends in the stock market...at least past positive trends. Maybe I'll even try to find one of those Yahoo chat rooms that has something to do with business, stocks, and the economy. Surely there are other amateur investors or even curious taxpayers who have the same types of questions that I do about this subject. Heaven forbid that I end up stopping by Wall Street the next time I head to New York City to see how things are really done. I suppose that, for now, I'm just going to have to keep myself as educated as I can be on the situation and keep reading what news that I can find on it. After all, that's really the only way that most Americans find out information relevant to the subject on a daily basis, right? Oh wow, what if it's some kind of government conspiracy...not that I would put that past our current government. Hehe...I'm just playing...conspiracy theories don't ever really work out. They just get people worked up for no reason about a situation that they are just ignorant about in the first place. On the other hand, I do think that it is our right as Americans to know what is really going on with the financial standing of the country, whether it's good or it's bad. We are putting our hard-earned money into the companies that are selling their stocks to the investors that we're hearing about in the news...therefore it's all circular, right? We're all connected to one another, at least financially, on account of our citizenship. I'm sure it's not quite like that in other countries around the world, but I sure that some semblance of this type of financial interconnectivity has to at least theoretically exist in the great United States. What do you think? Do you agree with all this? Do you know anything about this financial consequences, etc. that I've been talking about? I'm really interested to know more, but I haven't had the chance to go digging for the answers to my questions. Feel free, as always, to give me a holler with any questions or comments that you might have simply by adding a comment to any of my posts.
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Eureka, I've found a solution to the problem of my pack rat-ed-ness that I wrote about yesterday. It wasn't exactly an easy problem to solve, but it was an interesting one at least. After meandering my way around town to a bunch of different office supply and furniture stores, I ended up returning home slightly discouraged. I hadn't found what I wanted...well at least not at a price that I was willing to pay. I hit up the internet once again and realized that I hadn't thought to look at the popular office supply store Staples for office furniture. I looked up their website, and I was surprised to find that they had listed several file cabinets and even some bookcases on various sales and clearances. An added incentive to buy from them was the fact that they were advertising free shipping on all orders over fifty dollars. Score! I realized that I was feeling a little bit impatient, because when I added a filing cabinet to my cart, just to make sure that the free shipping was for real, I saw that the furniture wouldn't be delivered for a few days. I thought to myself that I might be at work, and I didn't want it to get stored at the leasing office at my apartment complex over the weekend or something...that would just upset me even more. I decided that I would call our local Staples to see if they had the same items in stock. They gentleman who answered the phone had me on hold for quite a while, but then he informed me that they did in fact have just one of the filing cabinets that I was looking for still in stock. I asked if he could hold it for me, and I ran quickly up to find my roommate to borrow his SUV in order to pick up the filing cabinet that I was going to buy. Mission accomplished with getting the car, and fifteen minutes later I was up at Staples. I quickly saw that the filing cabinet that I wanted was not the same price as advertised on the internet, and when I inquired about the discrepancy, the girl at the cash register informed me that some clearance items have a special internet ordering price. Well, paying an additional twenty-five dollars for this filing cabinet was just not going to happen...but I'm sure you could all have guess that since you know me. So, I started glancing around their "furniture show room" to see what other option that were available. As my luck would have it, there were a lot of items on sale at the store show room that were not even listed on their website. I saw some deals on a few things that I thought were just too good to be true, so before getting my hopes up, I decided to ask for someone to help me out to answer my questions. When someone finally came over to help me, I got the information that I needed about availability and pricing on a different file cabinet...which was actually more along the lines of what I was looking for in the first place. The cabinet was marked down from one hundred twenty dollars to just forty-five dollars. Score again! As the guy helping me out was in the back room getting the file cabinet that I was going to buy for forty-five dollars, I happened to see another cabinet that was advertised as a "close out" item for only ten dollars. I never figured that this could be the cabinet that I was actually looking at, since it was a really nice and relatively big cabinet. When the guy came back with my filing cabinet, I asked him about the ten dollar cabinet, and sure enough, the price had been marked correctly. My mind started racing as I was trying to figure out what I could use the cabinet for, and more importantly, where was I going to put it in my room. I realized that at ten dollars, I couldn't possibly pass up such a deal, so I ended up taking the pair of them. So, here I am at home, with two big boxes containing two new cabinets to put into my bedroom staring at me in my living room. I have walked into my bedroom several times, and I end up walking out just shaking my head, because there really isn't anywhere for these cabinets to go. Oh well, one more task to overcome, but I'm sure that it will all turn out for the best in the end. I can't help myself when deals like that come around...which I've been told means that I take after my grandfather, who would go buy cases of random things like pickles or mayonnaise at Sam's club, just because they were on sale...thinking that he and my grandmother would use them eventually.
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OK, so if you were to by chance head over to your Webster's dictionary, or perhaps even visit dictionary dot com, and look up the term 'pack rat', chances are that you would find a picture of me. I have never personally considered that being a pack rat is necessarily a bad thing, until I realized that I'm turning into my grandparents...the biggest pair of pack rats on God's green earth. It's been an ongoing joke in my family ever since I can remember that my grandparents have never thrown anything away. They are the kind of people who save old Ziploc bags just in case they might need an extra one at some point in the future. They also save things like twist ties, pens and pencils, and even old pillows and lamps. Ever time that the four cousins happen to all be back home at the same time, we end up venturing into their basement (against their wishes, of course) and just going through piles of stuff and throwing things away. We never really make it past the first room at the bottom of the stairs, but at least we clear out what is there so my grandmother doesn't fall and hurt herself when she scurries down the stairs. So yeah, anyways, back to me. When I moved to Indiana from Florida last August, I made a promise to myself that I would start throwing things away that I was never going to need again. That meant getting rid of a lot of my old notebooks and text books from when I was a biochemist and musician...because seriously, I was really never going to use them again. Some things, like old exams and papers that I had written, I kept a hold of for sentimental reasons. Most things went into the recycling bin or were donated back to my old departments. I've now only been in Indiana for less than a year, and I have once again amassed quite a collection of rigamarole from various places. Most of what I've amassed is academic materials like books, articles, presentation handouts, and other similar things. Since I've been here, I've purchased at least three bookcases in an attempt to keep my room and my life organized. Now that I've officially ended my first academic year, I returned home to glance at my bedroom with new eyes. I decided that it was time to get re-organized...someway...somehow. Having felt a little bit overwhelmed at the prospect of organizing so many different academic materials, I spent a few days just staring at the clutter every time I walked into my room. I finally decided that it was time to look for either another bookcase or filing cabinet. Wanting to make sure I was considering the most cost-effective option, I, of course, did some internet bargain shopping for comparison's sake before I went out to the stores. I quickly learned that bookcases and filing cabinets...and filing cabinets in particular...are not inexpensive items to purchase. I didn't want anything with crazy fire protection and deadbolt locks...just a plain old filing cabinet to put my papers into folders and then file. Simple as that! I decided that it would be best to stick with the filing cabinet idea, because I like the idea of being able to put things in drawers and folders and to categorize and organize them so I know where they are when I need them. My current system is laughable at best, since it consists of an ever-growing pile of papers that are somewhat separated by subfield. That means every time I want to look for something, I have to pull the entire pile of papers off my shelf and dig through probably two hundred or so papers in order to find what I want. Not cute at all. As of yet, I have not found the correct solution to my problem. Once I figure out an affordable option, I'm going to have the added challenge of figuring out precisely how I'm going to find the room in my non-so-big bedroom for another piece of furniture. As much as I love my cozy little apartment, it is just that...a little apartment. It feels like home, but it is severely lacking in storage space of any kind. Even the closets are tiny, and if you're like me, and you have fifty-six pairs of jeans alone, a tiny closet is not a good thing at all. So yes, if you have any suggestions on an inexpenive but effective way to organize my room, I am definitely all ears. I will probably continue to sit here and stare at the piles of papers and books that line my current bookshelves and my floor for while until I have some sort of epiphany about what to do. Your suggestions will likely help that epiphany come a lot faster...so please....help help help! Many thanks in advance!
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This past March, I left the chilly days in Indiana to head down to central Florida to attend an amazing conference. Since I had just driven down to Florida to visit some friends during for my Spring break, I really wasn't up for driving again. As a result, I thought that it would be a great idea to look up some air fares on one of the various low fare airline websites available on the internet. I ended up finding a really great price on a round trip ticket from Indianapolis, Indiana, to Gainesville, Florida. Now that the Summer has come around, I need to start thinking ahead when it comes to air fare. This Summer, I'm going to have to head home twice...more than I've gone home in the past, but for good reasons. Both my best friend and my brother are getting married within a few weeks of one another in July and August. I'm not really interested in making the twelve hour drive home and back twice to central New York this summer, so I was thinking that I would try and find some cheap air fare so that I wouldn't have to put the miles on my car or waste my time driving and potentially contend with the weather when driving home. I looked back on those same cheap travel sites that I had referenced when I was going to get ready to travel to Florida this Spring, and I was amazed to find that the prices were far far higher than they were just a few months ago. I later learned, after reading some great articles on the internet, that the airlines have jacked up the prices for the summer months. Why...I don't really know...and neither do they as it appears. All I know, and all that we need to know as the travel consumers of America, is that we're going to have to shell out far more money this year for our air travel. This is really reminiscent of back several years ago after the tragedies of September eleventh when air travel became very difficult and extremely expensive. Since those events over six years ago, the prices associated with air travel have fluctuated, but most have remained on the reasonable side of our wallets. It has been only recently that the prices have started to skyrocket to near where the prices were back then. As it turns out, I might have to think about driving home after all this summer for at least one of the weddings. Who even knows what will end up being the more expensive venture...air travel or travel by automobile. Now that gasoline prices have begun to jump sky high once again, it might even be a question as to which method of travel is going to be cheaper...and less time consuming. Anyways, it is not, of course, a matter of whether or not I will be going up to New York for these two very important weddings this Summer, but it's a matter of how I'm going to be getting there for the least amount of money for the least hassle. I read in an article recently on one of the news agency websites that I frequent that the average airfare for domestic travel in America comes out to awfully close to four hundred dollars. Sometimes it's even the shorter flights that end up being most expensive. I recall vividly that it used to be far more expensive to travel from Tallahassee to the hub airport in Atlanta, than it was from Atlanta to travel home to central New York. That's a difference of hundreds of miles! It all comes down to the size of and the traffic through any given airport. I thought that travel from a bigger airport where I currently live would be cheaper. Of course it was back in March when I bought my tickets, but it's a definitely different story now...just two months later. Even those usual tricks of trying to schedule your flight early don't seem to work. I was debating on whether or not to go ahead and bite the bullet and schedule my plans and get my itinerary for at least one of my trips. I thought that things might calm down a bit over the next few weeks and those "calmings" will be reflected in the air fare prices. I'm sure that I'm just being the optimist that I usually try to be when I'm thinking about my Summer travel plans, but I've got to put on a happy face when it comes to these ideas, right?
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One of the first charitable activities that I took part in back when I was in junior high school was helping to build a house in an underprivileged neighborhood in East Saint Louis, Illinois. I was helping to build the house as a part of one of the now famous Habitat for Humanity projects that are found all over the country. Before this time, I didn't know much about Habitat for Humanity, and I didn't really even know much about doing charity work. I had done some volunteer-type of work at my church back home, but I didn't realize the difference between volunteering at a Lenten fish fry and doing real work. I was lucky enough to be able to go to learn more about these real volunteer opportunities when I left the Catholic church and became a confirmed Lutheran. It seemed that with the Lutheran church, the youth at the church were taught a lot more about serving the underprivileged, disadvantaged, and needy across America. We ended up going to a youth gathering in Saint Louis, Missouri, and then traveled across the Mississippi River to Illinois and East Saint Louis to take part in the Habitat project. It was really a rewarding experience, and one that I don't think I'll ever forget. It's really amazing to get out there in the real world and see what some hard work and cooperation can really do to help people. As a result of the great experience that I had out in Illinois, I ended up participating in several other Habitat for Humanity projects over the years since then. I've done projects in Florida and back home in New York as well, all of which I've enjoyed as much, if not more than my first project. Now comes the sad part of my story. A few years ago, a very good friend of mine's father passed away after a difficult battle with cancer. He had also been extremely active with Habitat for Humanity projects around the town where he lived. His daughter, the friend who I spoke about above, also enjoyed participating in such projects along with her father. When he passed away, the family, knowing how much he enjoyed doing charitable work with Habitat, decided to raise the money to build a house in his name and his honor. They just recently finished raising the money, and the house was built quickly. I was really very sad that I wasn't able to head back down to Florida to help out on the project. I think it would have been another very rewarding experience, especially one that was so personalized as building on a project for someone who I knew well. I heard all about the happenings and progress of the project from my friend as things moved along. So I guess I can now get to the point of my writing this particular post. I really think that it is a wonderful idea to participate and sponsor such types of charitable events and projects in the name of someone special. I think that it really gives honor to their name and lets the memory of their lives carry on into the future. In a project like Habitat, someone will always benefit from the shelter and protection of the house that is being built. Whoever it is who is living there at any given time will be able to remember their life as well and to be thankful for those who organized the project as well. So, with all this said...the next time that you would really like to do something special...whether for someone who has passed or is still with us, consider doing something charitable that will last for lifetimes to come.
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I think that Thursday is slowly becoming my favorite day of the week. It's not because something really special happens in the world on Thursdays, well not besides a new episode of Grey's Anatomy at nine o'clock. The best part about Thursdays is seeing what is going to be put on sale at the grocery store, which subsequently determines what I'm going to be cooking for the next week or so. Since I shop at the same grocery store where I now work, I've started to get a head's up on what is going to be coming on sale in the next week or next month. That fact makes it all the more difficult to wait for the items to come on sale the following week. Sure, there are certain things that go on sale and I could really care less. There are just some things that I don't ever buy, or maybe that I only buy on a very limited basis. For just a goofy example...mayonnaise...I don't eat the stuff. Every time that I happen to walk down the aisle where the mayonnaise is, I notice that one brand or the other, there is always some kind of mayonnaise on sale. I guess that there are many Americans out there, or at least people in my town who do eat mayonnaise, so that's important. On the other hand, particularly in the meat department, I get very geared up for sales. I happen to know that this coming week, there is a huge sale coming up on family packs of boneless skinless chicken breasts. This is a huge score, and a huge opportunity to save a lot of money for me. I've done my best over the past several years, and even moreso in the past few months, to try and cook and eat in healthy ways. I used to think that I could eat whatever I wanted, prepared however I wanted, as long as I just ate very little of it. Sure, that worked, but I always felt hungry afterwards. Therefore, if I cook and eat healthy foods, then I can eat more for the same result. Let me tell you, it's a totally different world. So anyways, with all that said, one of the most healthy meats that you can really eat is chicken. There are a bunch of great meats out there that I really enjoy eating, but I only do so on a limited basis. I don't eat a lot of beef because of all the concerns over the high fat and cholesterol of the meat. Pork is the "other white meat" of course, but it's really not something that I eat all that often. I like lamb, and on very limited occasions goat or veal. I would say that ninety percent of the time, I eat chicken though. What I like to do to save money is to really stock up on chicken when it's on sale. Normally with the price of chicken being almost six dollars a pound, the fact that next week it's going to be under two dollars a pound is absolutely amazing! The last time there was a sale like this, I ended up making quite a stack of chicken in my cart and headed up to the registers. When I finally had paid, I found out that I had saved nearly forty-five percent of my total amount. Score one for me. Nothing like getting almost sixty dollars worth of something for one third the price. Wow, I can't believe that I've spent all this time talking about something so simple as chicken, but I'm sure that you can probably equate what I've said to whatever your particular favorite grocery product happens to be. These opportunities that we all receive when shopping to save a lot on things we like to buy and/or eat are really important. Why not take advantage, right? Chances are if you have something at the store you like to eat, it corresponds to something that you like to cook for yourself or for your family and friends, so that equals fun too. Fun shopping, fun saving money, fun cooking, and fun enjoying a meal with your loved ones. Who knew you could have all that much fun just by watching the grocery store ads for savings on your favorite foods?!
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I was reading the other day in the newspaper about the most recent winner of the state lottery, and I had to laugh when I read the part about what he wanted to do with the money. He talked about building a house and buying a new car, and then added in some other trivial things that he wanted to purchase. Of course, Heaven forbid he should give some of his earnings to charity...but that's another story. Anyways, as I got back to work after my break of reading the newspaper, I got thinking about what this guy will actually do with his earnings and where he'll be in five or ten years. Remembering the trivial things that he said he wanted to do with the money, I immediately thought that he was probably going to be living much as is right now in five to ten years. I imagine that he'll end up squandering the money on some particularly ridiculous things that he'll purchase just because he can. Did you ever realize that if you do have the good fortune to come into money much like the guy I'm referring to did, that, if you take care of your finances properly, you could live comfortably for the rest of your life. Sure, you'd probably want to still have a job or a career for a while, just to keep yourself occupied, but you could probably pay off the house you have, your car, any outstanding loans you have, and then live a simple unadorned life using that money that you got. I wonder how many people out there end up doing things correctly with their finances. I shudder to think that those who handle their finances with some responsibility are in the minority...which is just terrible to think about. Of course I'm not just thinking about people who come into money doing not-so-great things like gambling or playing the lottery. There are plenty of ways to come into money that don't necessary carry such a negative connotation. You could have a trust fund, an inheritance after losing a loved one, you could invest your money, you could get a raise or bonus at work. Maybe even thinking abstractly, you could invent something innovative that someone buys off of you. The possibilities for ending up with money as a result of responsibility and good ole hard work are pretty endless. I wonder how many of those people who have squandered away their money or savings look back at the positive possibilities they had and just want to kick themselves for doing what they've done. I would hate to think that God offered me an opportunity to do something positive for my life, for my family, or even for a charity, and then I passed it up by just being stupid. Wow, wouldn't that be cool to be able to use the returns on what you invest to be able to give to a charity (or two) on a regular basis? Hehe...listen to me go on and on about this...but seriously it must be the graduate student in me, wanting to get done with my school early so that I can get a job and put some of my prudent financial thinking to good use. Maybe, like these "pretend" people who I've been referring to in this post, I will think differently about things when I final have the financial wherewithall to make some of these big decisions. I'm hoping that I'll continue to mature in my financial thinking as I get older. I mean, at twenty-six, I guess I'm pretty much as "grown up" as I'm going to be (eek!). So enough about me! What about all of you? Do you have any interesting stories that you would like to share about this particular subject (or any subject for that matter)? I've heard from some of you recently who have had some interesting comments and other things to say about my posts. I love when I see a new email saying that someone has sent me a message from Biblekeeper. As always, your comments and questions are what keep me going and thinking about this financial things. I hope that you'll keep reading, and I'll do my best to keep posting fun yet informational material for you to read.
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I was recently offered the opportunity to receive funding for the summer to take some intensive classes at an institute at a university that is about four hours away from where I live. Although this would be a great opportunity, and it would be great to get to list another "recipient of fellowship X" on my curriculum vita, there are some pretty significant logistical difficulties that have just made it an impossibility to accept the award. A lot of the reason that going to this summer program is just going to work out revolves around money. Sure, I can get funding to attend the institute, and I get a pretty decent stipend for my living expenses for the summer, but it's not enough of a stipend to pay for me to have a place to live in two different cities, as well as pay for all my other expenses, like my car payment, auto insurance, credit card payment, cell phone, cable television, ....you get the picture, right? Anyways, had I been at school just a year ago, the story would have been a lot different. The institute had been held at the university that I attend for the last two years before this year, so it would have been a perfect opportunity to attend. I wouldn't have had to worry about finding a place to live elsewhere and paying double for everything. On top of all these living/living expenses issues, I also have a lot of other responsibilities that wouldn't allow me to be able to attend. I run the publications group here, and I work in a lab as well, so I would have to end up skirting my responsibilities in these two areas just to attend this institute for seven weeks. And even on top of that, I would run into problems regarding leaving a few days early in order to attend my brother's wedding at the end of July. All in all, it's just not going to happen. I do know a few people from my school who are finding a way to attend though. When I've heard about the hoops that they are having to jump through in order to attend, it definitely reassured me that I had made the correct decision to hold off. One girl in particular, a colleague of mine, was just recounting the story of her summer preparations to me today. She and her husband just moved to town less than a year ago and ended up buying a house here. Having gone through their own little set of issues that accompany most house purchases, they had just finally gotten the chance to sit down, relax, and enjoy the house that they had purchased and put so much effort into. Now, in order to stay together for the summer, and for her to attend the summer institute, they have to travel the four hours away to look for a place to rent for seven weeks. That means that, not only will they be paying their mortgage payment for the summer, but they will also be paying rent. Add that to double electricity and whatever else they will need for a few months, and you can see that it is going to be a huge hassle. I have a sneaking suspicion that she and her husband are getting some financial help from the parents on one side of the family or the other in order to make the whole arrangement work. I just can't possibly see how two graduate students could do so otherwise...without some kind of miracle. It must be nice to be able to just pick up the phone and call to ask mom and dad for the money to do something like this. It's not that my parents aren't one hundred percent supportive of me and my schooling, but there is no way that I'm going to call and ask them for money at this point in my life or my education. I'm twenty-six years old after all. So yes, going along with the title of my post, as I've explained it, this is what I won't be doing this summer. I won't be driving myself crazy trying to figure out how to go about picking up my life and moving to a different state for seven weeks out of the summer. I won't be paying double the rent. I won't be leaving all my wordly possessions, and I surely won't be leaving my other responsibilities behind me to go on what would really be a seven week long academic vacation. I think that it's going to be just fine in the long run. It would have been great to go to the institute, but I will be able to accomplish many other great things over the summer months staying put right where I am. I'll even have extra time to devote to writing well-researched posts for all of you to read. That's another responsibility that I'm not comfortable giving up. I've gotten quite used to writing to you all on a regular basis, and I would have to take some time off from doing so if I left. There would be no internet at home after all...because there is just no way that I'm going to pay for double the cable internet costs for a summer!
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No matter where you are around the country, and in some places around the world, you might have possibly heard about a crazy little weekend-long party that takes place in my neck of the woods every year. Have you ever heard about Little 500? It's apparently so famous that sometime a few years back, some goof made a movie about the event called "Breaking Away". When I moved to Bloomington, I heard a lot of people mention "Little 5", as natives and students refer to it. I didn't really pay much attention to what it was all about, because I figured it was just some hippie bike race, and it wouldn't be anything that I would want to participate in or even watch. After all, there isn't time to do stuff like that when you're in graduate school...ya know, to get an education. As time went on, I would hear mention of Little 5 every so often, but I paid it no mind. In retrospect, I wish that I would have paid a little bit more attention, because as the frenzy of anticipation for Little 5 has risen in Bloomington over the past week, I was caught very off guard. All of the sudden, restaurants, stores, and even the newspapers in town and on campus started advertising special events and special sales, all on account of Little 5. I didn't think it could possibly be all that important until I read a short article about the history of the events taking place during Little 5 weekend in our university newspaper. I read how students, alumni, parents, and even faculty flock to Bloomington for this particular weekend just to party way too hard while watching teams of bike riders race for two hundred miles. It's like NASCAR, but without all the noisy engines. Apparently, Little 5 is one of those things that bike teams train for all year. It's supposedly a pretty big deal. The truth behind all of this hype became very apparent to me as I heard of people starting to party and prepare themselves for Little 5 weekend...a week ago! Sure, I was glad to take advantage of Little 5 specials, like a sale price on cases of beer and free cookies at some of the local bakeries. I didn't mind coexisting with the Little 5 crowd very much until this afternoon. Although the official activities for Little 5 technically began yesterday evening with the women's race, the real craziness started today with the events surrounding the men's race. I was on my way home from working from six AM until noon today at the store, and when I got out of work, all I wanted to do was get home quickly, wash up, and relax for a while before getting started on the work I needed to accomplish for the day. As soon as I left the store, I saw that the traffic in town was worse than I had ever seen it, and that a bunch of the roads home were closed for the race. Mind you that the race doesn't take place on the roads through town, but rather at a track on campus. The roads were closed so that drunked pedestrians could walk around and fall into the road if need be. My usual four to five minute drive from work to home ended up taking me over twenty minutes as I had to weave through side streets and back roads in order to find a way home that wasn't blocked off. I had made it to the top of campus to near where I live, and then I had to cut back through to the bottom of campus to find a street to get me to the other side so that I could approach my house from the opposite side. What a hassle! Sure, events are great, but I just can't deal with when such crazy times happen the week before finals when people don't have the extra time to wander around in their cars trying simply to find a way to get home. That was some bad planning on someone's part!
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You all know how much I love writing in my blog, right? The only problem that I've had doing so lately is that, by the end of the day, when I've finished going to work, going to class, and working on all my final projects for my four classes this semester, I just want to plop down on the couch, flip through the channels on the television, and do just about anything but use my brain. This is a problem when it comes time to write in my blog, because I really do my best to try and engage myself in what I'm writing about, because let's face it, no one wants to read a blog that is just about a bunch of junk with nothing behind it. I'm sure that you've all probably noticed that my blogs have stepped a little bit away from the well-researched topics that I used to report on, and have moved on to things based more around my opinions of things I read and things relating to finances that are happening to me and people who I know. It's time like these when I have a ton of things going on, that I have to rely on what I know in order to find something real and relevant to talk about. Sure, it's not like I don't read the business and money sections of the paper just about every day, but being able to process things in and turn what I've read into something that is really worthwhile to report to all of you is a totally different story. I wonder if I can possibly justify it to myself to spend a little bit of the money that I've been trying to desperately to save in order to indulge in a massage or a few hours of some aromatherapy and relaxation at a spa in town. Each day when I'm heading off to school, I drive by a very well-known spa in town. They always have the most tempting commercials on television in between my shows each night. It makes it all the more difficult to drive by their front doors every day, realizing that I'm always trying to justify spending those extra dollars for skilled help at some relaxation. I never really thought that normal people took the time or the money in order to spend their hard earned money on doing things like going to the spa. Sure, I know that people go and do little mini things to treat themselves right. My mom, for example, goes once every two weeks out to one of those little manicure places and gets her nails done. She works in an emergency room, so it's not like those manicured nails ever last her all that long, but it's her way of treating herself to something she likes after working hard. I think that I need to start adopting a similar ideology. In all honesty, I'm worried that if I do something like start going to a spa for massages that I'm going to get hooked on them and start relying on getting them on a regular basis. This ended up happening to my best friend concerning the chiropractor when he and I were in high school. He was having problems with stress and the stress was manifesting itself in his lower back. He ended up heading to the chiropractor, and then needed to go once a week in order to keep the level of alignment (or whatever) that helped his back to feel better. I wonder if stuff like that happens when you start going to a spa to get massages. That could really get awfully expensive, don't you think? How much are massages supposed to cost anyways? (feel free to respond to any of these question of course...because I really just don't know the answers!) I could probably justify getting a massage each week if it cost something like ten dollars, but I've heard that people end up paying upwards of fifty dollars for a half hour massage. I don't know ANYTHING for that amount of money...that's just a waste! I would have to work for quite a few hours at the store to make the fifty dollars every week to pay for that kind of treatment. On the other hand, I do feel awfully stressed a lot of the time, and I know for a fact that I carry a lot of the stress in my neck and shoulders. Sometimes it just feels like I need to crack my entire spine to get everything back into alignment...but that's probably not such a good idea!
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I thought that since it's been a week since I started my new summer job, I would fill you all in on how things are going. In all honesty, I'm really enjoying myself, besides the part about having to get up so early in the morning, and I think that I'm going to have a fun and stress-free summer working at the store. I've worked four times since I started last Friday, and each day has presented its own unique little mini-challenges...but they're the kind where it's something you learn how to deal with once and then you never have to worry about it again. Each of these little challenges has made me laugh after the fact, because never have I stressed about something so ridiculous as to how to get a pallet of salad in a bag off of the things for my department left in the cooler. Goofy goofy stuff! Today was actually a pretty exciting day because I got to get some feedback from my boss, who had been off on the two days in between my first day at the store and today. I found out that he was really happy with what I had done on my first two days alone, and he thought that I was ready to start learning how to do the ordering for the department. I thought that was pretty good progress for only a week a new job. I've always said that one of my best qualities is that you only have to show me how to do something once and I'll be able to do it just fine the next time. Once again I was really very impressed with the high-tech nature of the store systems, particularly when I learned that the ordering system for | |
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