it only works if you talk back.

So, this past week has been hard in regards to money, mostly in the realization that I don’t have much…

I would not consider myself to be a financially irresponsible person, for the most part I think I am pretty good. That being said though, I haven’t been living as though I’m poor, I have gone to movies and eaten out when I probably shouldn’t have, etc.

So, it takes big things like this week for me to finally leave my debit and credit cards at home…

It all started Wednesday when a retarded automobile incident brought me to finally plunking my credit card down for $953.35 on Friday. I was also (for some reason) compelled to do my taxes on the same day… bad idea.

Yes, I am a full-time student, so paying taxes aren’t really an issue… what is an issue is that I was technically “self-employed” for 2 months, making a fair amount of money. This means that I need to claim this amount as self-employment, and pay CPP on the amount, both as the EMPLOYEE and the EMPLOYER. Minus what I have paid in taxes (a minimal amount this year) I will owe approximately $750 in CPP. This amount may go down a bit when I enter expenses, but likely not enough…

That means that by the end of April, I will owe approximately $1700.

Unfortunately, I get paid once a month, and at the worst possible time. Not only that, but all my wages are essentially claimed by my fixed expenses. I won’t be starting my summer job until Apri 24th at the earliest… which will actually also bring added charges of insurance… ugh.

All in all, it has just been a bad week financially. Really bad.

So I am confined to my home, eating the remaining scraps in my fridge and cupboard, and I will collect as many damn cans as I can.

I’ve also applied for another part-time job, at the Telus World of Science which would actually be awesome, and I’m hoping that might work out for some additional income, and a foot in the door there…

I can’t wait for school to be done.

I forgot my extended syllabus at home for Luke-Acts today… that means that I’m pretty lost in terms of what is being said. Greek grammar and sentence structure is lost on me at this point. Next year, maybe not so much.

Monday/Wednesday/Fridays are not the best school days… Counseling is pretty much my least favorite class this semester, I then have a useless spare, followed by Luke-Acts where I can’t really follow anything. The only class which is pretty decent is Pastoral Life Issues, and that’s just a bunch of guest speakers coming in…

Someone asked me today “what’s new?” I said “not much.” That’s not really true. There’s a lot that is new, mainly a new relationship that puts a smile on my face everyday. Sure, a lot is the same: school, work, other things. But a lot has changed in the last few weeks: I’ve been changing my eating habits even more, going grocery shopping more frequently, and cooking up a storm. That’s new for me. I’ve struggled in this last week to get to the gym 3 times, but because my eating habits have changed I’ve actually still lost weight. I’m down almost 10lbs since my first “Fitness Assessment and Body Composition Analysis” and I’m not scared to go do another one, which I need to schedule soon.

March is a jerk, and I have a major project due almost every week, and sometimes even 2 in one week. Right now I’m working on my New Testament Theology paper, which is about the theology of the temple in Paul and Revelation. It’s been a fascinating study and there is so much to say that I hope to do some justice to it in 10-12 pages. I am so deeply indebted to the work of G. K. Beale that I just want to give him a big hug. Once I get this paper done (4:30pm Thursday at the latest) a fairly big load is lifted off, until I start again on a Pastoral Life project, then Counseling… It just keeps going and going.

I’m taking a class at St. Stephen’s College at the U of A this semester called “Just Sex”: Integrating Sexuality and Spirituality. It’s been pretty good in terms of challenging me in my understanding of how they integrate and getting some great conversation going in 3 hour chunks every week. One of the unfortunate things is that there are only 3 people in the class… yesterday I was the only one who showed up… class was cancelled. While I certainly had a lot of work to do on other things, and I was ok with it being cancelled, I felt bad for the professor. This is a class that is barely surviving, it wouldn’t even have run if there had been only 3 people registered from the beginning… I hope that more people show interest in this course, as it has been fantastic for important discussion, exploration, reflection, and self-discovery.

I cannot wait for this semester to end. I always look forward to working with bugs/reptiles in May and June. I’m not so sure what July and August will hold though, and beyond that into next year… I won’t be in as many classes next year, and I’m planning on doing a course online this summer to further lessen that course load for my fall semester. Hopefully I can get a job in July (or maybe as early as May) that I can maintain through the school year. While I’m sure I could return to Starbucks, it’s not the environment I want… especially not a drive-thru store.

Speaking of driving… That’s something that I don’t know if I will or won’t next year. I need my car for May and June for my bug job, but depending on what I do over the rest of the summer, I may need to keep it around for the whole year. I’ve actually really enjoyed taking public transportation over the last 6 months or so. It certainly has it’s less glamorous moments but overall it has been good. I’m paying for a U-Pass anyways, so I might as well make use of it. It’s also really nice to not pay for insurance, gas, and maintenance. If I’m able to make it another year without using my dumb car over my last year of school, it might be worth it… It’s not that I don’t like driving, I just don’t like the cost :)

Speaking of money… I don’t have a lot of it in my account right now. In fact, I have barely enough to cover my MasterCard bill (which isn’t that big) this month. For the first time in my life I may not actually pay my entire MC bill off this month… at least not completely before the payment due date. I get paid a few days after it’s due, so it’ll probably be covered then. Everything will be gravy once May hits, but I’m scraping by right now… Though, to be fair, I could just call my investment person at IG and get her to transfer some $ into my checking account… It’s probably best to do that rather than incur some unnecessary interest. I should also do my taxes ASAP, I think I have a few $$ coming my way (not all that many though).

Well that’s probably enough useless info for you people…

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this thing… I’m still alive, doing things, but I’ve yet to update this.

First things first, I have been maintaining my commitment to World Health. I’ve been faithful at least 3 times per week, doing the routines that my trainer set out for me. I just started week 5 right now, and I’ll have another 2 weeks before I set up another fitness assesment & body composition analysis. I’m hoping that shows more progress than the scale, as I’ve only lost around 7lbs.

The weird thing is that I actually enjoy going. I wish I had less homework, especially over reading week, if that were the case I probably would have been there everyday…

Over mod-week I went to the PAOC Ministers’ Gathering in Banff. It was actually a lot more fun than I expected. The drive was kinda painful, but my time there was enjoyable. They had the wickedest pool area I’ve ever seen, complete with a eucalyptus steam bath. I was glad to show off my hot bod… Oh wait, nope, not yet…

One thing I am not looking forward to: March. March may very well be the month where I suffocate and die due to homework. I will try to stay on top of things, but I expect many late nights…

Speaking of homework… I should be doing that right now.

Later.

Here’s something that Apple is really good at: making me desire a product that I had no desire or perceived need for prior to its existence.

The Apple iPad, Apple’s revolutionary device at an incredible price is a perfect example and the most recent.

I am a self admitted Apple geek. I love their products, I love their image, I’ve bought into the monster big time. I love my iPhone, my MacBook, and I have owned 6 different iterations of iPods (not including my iPhone). I follow the Mac rumor sites, read the leaks, the patent applications, etc. Needless to say, I had a fairly good idea of what to expect last Wednesday at Apple’s big event.

I knew we were going to see a tablet device. From what I had read it was supposed to be an iPod touch on steroids. That’s exactly what the world saw. Some people hate it, they don’t see the point. They see what is missing: a camera, true multitasking, OS X. These are undoubtedly the same folk who wanted those first two in the last iteration of the iPhone. The complaints are always fairly similar, and they did not surprise me. What did suprise me was a few things: iWork looks pretty good on the iPad, and so does the iBookstore. Everything else works the way we have come to expect. There were no gasps at Jobs’ keynote when interacting with the iPad because for the most part we had seen all this done on a smaller device for the last 2.5 years. We are familiar with how intuitive Apple has designed multitouch to be, and so that is the baseline expectation.

Is the iPad magical? 3 years ago, absolutely! At this point, not so much. What we saw as magical 2.5 years ago, is simply expected now. Apple has placed themselves in a position where they are expected to deliver some real ‘revolution’ to wow people. The iPad is not a revolutionary device, so much as it is evolutionary. It is the natural progression from iPhone to quasi-netbook/tablet.

I never understood why people bought netbooks. Sure, they’re cheap, but generally they are unattractive, have cramped keyboards, and small screens. Netbooks fill a ‘need’ for an ‘in-between’ product between a smartphone and a notebook computer. What Apple did, was see that ‘need’ (read: desire) for that device, and give it to them in a package which is far more attractive, intuitive, and opens the door for great potential. Yes, I know, you can’t run Photoshop on it. Or your other OS X apps, but netbooks were never designed for heavy application use. They are good for web browsing (to an extent), checking email, pictures, maybe music and movies (though they usually have limited storage space), and word processing. The iPad delivers a device that can do all of those things well. It does them better than most netbooks (though one could argue in terms of word processing with an onscreen keyboard) and it delivers it in a package which people find attractive, with an interface that is both accessible and familiar. That is the genius of Apple.

Prior to Wednesday I had no desire for an ‘in-between’ device. But I have caught myself in the last few days thinking of how nice it would be to have one. Usually this occurs when I am looking at a website on my iPhone, wishing I had more screen space. Or, most recently after a dangerous installation of the free “Kindle for iPhone” app, I find myself browsing through free sample chapters of ebooks thinking about how much I like the idea of ebooks and how convenient it would be. Apple has placed a seed of desire in me, and it will be watered for the next 54 days before they even release one into the wild.

I kept telling myself, as I watched the keynote, about how I thought it was wonderful that Apple had designed this product. I thought it would be an even better one in its second iteration, thinking my need/desire is not strong enough at this point.

Now I don’t know if I’ll make it past April without one in my grubby little hands.

School can be stressful, that’s no surprise to anyone. Sometimes I am able to deal with the workload effectively in a manner which allows me to get a good amount of rest, and allowing time for other activities.

Sometimes. But not last night.

So I have had a busy week, small assignments due, meetings to attend, all leading up to yesterday. I knew yesterday was going to be a long day. I had planned to hit the gym a little earlier than usual, since I had a meeting at 8, but that plan was foiled by my alarm. Instead of getting up around 5:30, I slept until 7:30. This probably wasn’t a terrible idea considering I went to bed around midnight reading a book which I had to write a 7-8 page report on. I told myself I’d hit the gym tomorrow (which is now today). No big deal, went to school and about the rest of my day consisted of: a meeting about a video project, an extended chapel, a quick trip to A&W, a meeting with my pastor, choosing songs for Sunday worship, practicing songs for Sunday worship, catching up on emails, starting my paper, going to Vanguad on Ice 1am, returning home to complete my paper around 4am, and finally getting to bed around 4:20.

Needless to say I was tired when I had to get up for my 8am class and hand in my paper. My brain was not really operational until 10 or 11am.

Other than the lack of sleep, it’s been a pretty good day. It’s actually been a pretty good week. I’m also really glad that I did go to the gym today. Chest & back was what I worked… Worked them hard :)

Tonight I’m going to an Oil Kings game with my friend Aaron, to cheer on the Tri-City Americans. It should be fun; I’m going to wear my Carey Price jersey (he used to play for the Americans) and Aaron is going to bring his American flag. We’re going to be obnoxious.

While I don’t feel like I have all that much planned for this weekend, I will be fairly busy. Tomorrow I plan to go to the gym in the morning, spend the majority of my day reading “Jewish Backgrounds on the New Testament” (I have a 4-5 page paper on it due Friday), and I’m hosting Open Stage at The Carrot in the evening. Sunday I’m leading worship in the morning, I have a lunch meeting afterwards, and possibly plans in the evening.

I have 3 decently important assignments due on Friday (along with a couple easy things earlier in the week) I just need to make sure I keep on track this weekend and throughout the week, so I don’t have a repeat of last night.

At least I’ll try.