I renewed my lease last Friday. The rent went up to $940/month for one-year contract for my fordham glen apartment. I inquired about the 4 open garages near my apartment and they want $120 for a single car garage and $220 for a two car garage for the lease term. They expect people to back up the money truck. Hell no. I'd move the hell out of there but it doesn;t make sense to move somewhere else and pay more for less and then move out. All that costs money in transition. I wonder how my friend Becky is doing in Miami. I think she was paying the same amount for a studio in a gated community.

I tell myself that by this time next year I don't care if I relocate to New York state or Indianapolis, I'm going to be the hell out of this apartment and probably the hell out of this state and in some kind of living space that has at least an attached garage and more space. I'm tired of not relalizing my home ownership dreams.I'm tired of seeing everyone else have things that I don't have like houses and six figure incomes. I'd be able to afford a 70's/80's 2 bed townhome in warrenville if I made 75k. Otherwise, forget it.

Today I had chinese for lunch because I forgot to bring my lunch to work. Someone in particular caught my attention, I'm not blaming you, but I was distracted! I spent about a good 10 minutes making my lunch, but iIll bring it tomorrow.
Anyways, I grabbed lunch for my busy coworkers too and got a fortune cookie with an ominious message, at least I think it is. The fortune cookie said "This year your first priority will be your family". I'm superstituous when it comes to things. I have had ominous things appear/happen to give signals of personal/spirtual tradegy in the past.

I think someone up somewhere is watching out for me lovingly and guiding me with things. I feel very comfortable and am thankful for being in decent health, nto sick, and not in pain. It is when I am sick or in pain do I truely feel alone and helpless. Not being married and estranged to my dad, it is hard to depend on anybody but myself and to look forward to my future. Yes it is hard to look forward to my future. The only thing that I had to look forward to was the house that I decided I couldn't afford to buy.

Another day another dollar another opprtunity to reduce debt, but not produce wealth. The only wealth that i am really producing for myself is in the form of retirement benefits (good) and company stock (small amount that I bought!)
I came out of college with the standard 20k in debt and it's been close to about 4 1/2 yrs and I think I am down to a little over 10k remaining in student loans. I have about another $12k to pay off on my car too. I'm hoping that by this time next year I will be able to have enough saved up to move, and if some miracle in my job situation, I could move into a house, but odd are I will be moving into another apartment that is better in a different state.

I need to take some business/entrepenur classes. I am studying to take my professional engineer license which will open up a lot more career and salary opportunities for me. I've been getting a lot of contact from recruiters. Some are laughable, some are serious, and some are contract jobs. I am reading that contracts can be like $50-125$ an hour. These don't offer benefits but if you're making $90/hr I think you can afford your own health care premium of like $300 month and to contribute to your own retirement account and still make out like a bandit. The whole concept of contract work seems risky and full of legalse. I'm doing some research on dice.com and in the forums I'm learning a lot about recruiter and staffer companies that don't pay up and how other problems. Say I was offered a 3 month contract in indianapolis for $100/hr. Well there is the expenses occured of breaking my lease, premiumumns on the 3-month lease living arrangements, transportation of my stuff, risks inherent in getting the payments, breach of contract, and potential loss of income. If it were a 6 month contract, that is better, but a 1 yr would probably be better. I'd rather do my research and hopefully land a position in a company that pays great salary (not exorbinant like contractors get is expected) but affordable to meet the general living costs in the area. I'll be looking at the cost of living, cost of houses, crime rates, city data, and other characteristics when looking for a possible new area to move to. I honestly like where I am now but the costs of living and housing are just too high for me right now. I don't want to commute over an hour one-way a day to make it to my job like many people do.

China still has human rights abuses. When I was a freshman at school we had a guest lecturer from a monk who spent time in a prison torture camp in Tibet.

( I wrote a short paper on the lecture. )

yeah me, i took all my medicines and a vitamin.
I'm thinking of going to bed soon and hopefully my work pager doesn't wake me up again like it did at 2am

I've got a lot to do!

School

I've got my final project/exam due on Monday at 6pm.
I am done with the first problem except I need to write up a report/summary/solution
Then I've got one more problem to do.
Got to pay my tuition and inquire on when I'll get my diploma in the mail.
Hopefully Joe will be able to drive with me into the city on Monday afternoon. All we got to do is drop of my exam and maybe will go get some chinese, maybe take the train into downtown, etc..

Work

I've been working like 12-16 hr days and weird hours this past week. It's been interfering with my progress on getting my final done for school but work is my number one priority. I've got to iron my outfits!

IEEE
Got a meeting tuesday
got a meeting wednesday

I want to get drunk something after wednesday night. It will be after finals and I won't be on duty. I need release!!!

Or maybe I should go to casino and blow like $100 and get a release that way too... I only do that like twice a year.