Random Ramblings

Today has actually been going quite well, despite spending nearly $300 on textbooks. I wound up getting my student ID card for free (because I had my old one on me, just in case), got a nifty reusable free bag from Concordia's library (the better to carry my textbooks), and even got a free muffin at Tim Horton's (mostly because I was being friendly with the server). Oh, and a free challah roll, but that's because I got it from Marc's place.

I spent an hour or so typing up the notes for my classes yesterday -- more on those in an upcoming post -- and read a bit of my new textbook. And watched 3 episodes of Avatar, putting me almost to the end of the shows that have been released to date. Now I'm at Marc's, chilling and playing on my computer until it's time for Kyn's game, wherein my character has just been put under arrest (yes, again) and we must needs see how it will be resolved.

That's it for now, then. Just a quick update and suchlike. I now return you to your regularly scheduled LJ.

I just came back from a job fair. It seems like the majority of the employers at the fair (say, about 75%) were somehow related to either the financial or the marketing fields. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's a lot of gold-backed money, paper money, numbers on a computer screen representing money... whatever it is, there's a lot of it going around. Trillions of (invisble) dollars of it, in fact. But my question is, what the heck do these companies actually do?

Bear with me. The financial industry seems bent on one of two things: 1. taking money and turning it into more money, touching as few actual products and services as possible, and 2. convincing people to give the financial institution their money, so the financial institution doesn't have to use its own. The marketing industry seems inclined to sell other people's products to people who otherwise wouldn't care be informed about them. In other words, the financial industry relies upon the collected faith of society that the numbers on computer screens actually represent something real (which they may or may not do), and the marketing industry tries to sell you things that may or may not actually exist.

( Today's thought experiment: why no one should actually care about stock prices )

After nearly two months of waiting, I finally got a call today from the Learning Center at Dawson. The situation so far: I'd done an interview there in November, they were really impressed with my attitude and knowledge, but internal candidates had priority over me. Finally, today, I got the call from them saying that two former tutors had unexpectedly signed on again for this semester, using up the bulk of hours they were hoping to give to me. They offered me a 4-hour time slot mid-day Thursdays, from about 11-3.

( The question now is, what to do about it? )

I did some long and hard thinking last night about Pennsic. Based on what I spent last time I was at Pennsic (2004), I figure I'll need about US$650 for two weeks of essentials (gate, food, estminated camp fees, gas, hotel before and after). In Canadian dollars, that's about $740-750. The question the arises, however: how much more money do I take for shopping?

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I will be unemployed after Pennsic for an indeterminate amount of time. Removing the "Pennsic essentials" from my bank account will leave me about two and a half months' worth of money at my current rate of spending. Even if I cut back on the spending and supplement my income with tutoring, I have no idea how long it will take me to find a job.

On the other hand, this might be my last hassle-free Pennsic for a while. If I land myself a 9-5 desk job, I have no guarantees that I'll be able to take the Pennsic weeks off from work. At this time next year, I may be trying to outfit a new apartment or dealing with other large (currently unforeseen) expenses. While there are other shopping events (Birka springs to mind), Pennsic is a unique opportunity and one I don't want to miss. I don't have very many fixed expenses right now, and this might be the last time I can appreciate this sort of situation.

So... the question is "how much money do I take for shopping?" I'm not asking for dollar values (as I haven't given you any to judge by), but for general philosophies. Should I keep to the very basics, with maybe $50-100 of spending money? Should I take some money out of my savings and hope to find a job (or at least cut back my spending) shortly after my return? How much?

Any thoughts are appreciated, especially from veteran Pennsic-goers. Thanks!

It turns out the government owes me about $580. Yay! This means that I will have enough to pay Don for his fiddle, and a small chunk to apply to a new computer when I come home in July. Yay money!