On Budgeting

Probably the part of this crazy let's-move-to-London-on-student-visas plan that gives me the most anxiety is just how we're going to pay for it. London is widely acknowledged as one of the most expensive cities in the world. (Even if it did slip from #17 to #18 between 2010 and 2011.) A cursory search of tiny, poorly-appointed flats online has lead me to believe we'll be lucky to get out for under $2000 in rent per month for a shoebox. And while my new job is better-paying than any teaching job I've ever had, I've had to amp up my commuting costs (despite my Prius) and have struggled to meet my savings goals each month. Joe and I both need to get realistic about this one, as it really could be the final say in whether or not we get to have this big adventure: how could we be saving more??

photo from www.dailymoneysaving.com

We cut out some of the obvious expenses from last year - no flights or big trips are planned. But we still eat out more than we should, both separately and together. I still buy clothes and have my eye on not one, but two pairs of $80+ flats at Nordstroms. I fear that we aren't being serious enough about stepping up our frugality, challenging ourselves to save not the minimum to meet our modest savings goals, but instead daring ourselves to put away every possible penny we can. It's something we have to dedicate ourselves to. If we don't, we'll still be living in SoCal next fall, wondering if that extra drink out with friends was really worth it...

Updates

Application Update: On Monday, I finished all 6 versions of my personal statement. Yes, 6 versions.


Work Update: Yesterday was the worst day I've had at my new job yet. Hopefully it is not the start of any sort of pattern.


Master's Program Update: Tonight I followed a link on a friend's facebook page to "Sexting Ice Breakers for English Grad Students" for laughs. Afterwards there was another link titled "An Open Letter to My Abandoned English MA Degree." I clicked it and am relieved to find that there was nothing surprising. I already know that an MA in English Literature is basically useless in the real world, costs more money than it will ever make most of us, and leads to complete dead-ends in the Land of Paying Jobs (adjunct professorships? publishing obscure papers in university journals?). Cool. I know all of this. I also had a little chuckle* when the writer made a crack about inevitably becoming a high school English teacher, because - haHA - that's actually what I want to spend my life doing, not a sad, fall-back option I'll be forced to accept when my dreams of becoming rich and famous for my theories on YA dystopia fail.


BUT, I still feel like I'm ahead of that other schmuck who got sucked into The Debt We Call Grad School because I will be getting something else out of my experience altogether. I - if everything goes according to my plans - will get to live for a year in a foreign country (awesome!) with my boyfriend (awesome!) and travel and see and do things I wouldn't do at home (totally awesome!). Really, isn't grad school just the excuse to do all that other stuff anyway? 


I think it is for me, at least in some capacity, a way to live a different life for a little while. Yes, I want the degree anyway. Yes, I expect that if I ever get sick of teaching high school, I will go on to teach college or university and will need the MA as a step toward those possibilities. But doing it right now is mostly fueled by the idea that if I don't, I won't. I won't take the big step and be adventurous about it. But maybe it's better that I see grad school this way, since everyone who went into it expecting something more seems to be bitterly disappointed. Thus, this awesome Google search:

*I hate the word "chuckle" but there's nothing that works better here.

Resolutions 2012/Keep Your Mouth Shut

I've been thinking a lot in the last several months about goals, public perception, this blog, and motivation. I started this blog three years ago when I first considered moving to England as a way to break out of my routine, shake up my life, and really DO something. I wanted to have a place where I could share the trials and tribulations of moving to a different country and the adventures I'd have there. But I never went.


It's not that I didn't want to go or that I chickened out. I was never offered a job in the UK and so I didn't make the big jump. It just didn't work out that time.


Later in the first year of this blog I wrote about my attempts to write the next big novel in chick lit based on experiences with my friends. Another flop. I started dating someone and suddenly had no interest in writing about dating.


Each time I announce my intentions on this blog, the 4 people who read it congratulate me on my boldness. When I talked to my friends and family about applying to work in the UK back in 2009, they all rallied around to pat me on the back for my courage and gumption. But the thing is, I actually hadn't shown any real courage yet. I never got on a plane.


I want this time to be different. I started thinking about graduate school again this last September because I was terrified of becoming stagnant in my life and I wanted to make sure I had a plan to work towards. Now I want to actually do it, and I'm torn over how much I should write about it. In my research I've found conflicting messages, too. We're told to announce our New Year's resolutions so that our friends will hold us to them. Which is why, I guess, everyone (including me) posts every time they go to the gym on facebook. This article from CNN this morning also claims that declaring your intentions is an essential part of setting realistic goals.  But then there's this TED Talk about how keeping your goals to yourself actually makes it more likely that you'll achieve them...


The problem is, I think they are both right. In his TED talk, Derek Sivers claims that if you announce your goal, people will congratulate you so much on setting a big goal, that you'll feel as if you've already somewhat accomplished it, so you won't have the motivation to do the real work of accomplishing the goal. That makes sense and I can attest to it. I told people that Joe and I want to move to London next year = people were surprised and impressed and excited for us. Wow, good feeling.


But the other side is true, too. If I never told anyone that Joe and I want to move to London next year, it wouldn't feel like a real goal. Since we've declared our intentions, our various friends and family have shared their desires to visit us there, or go with us when we visit various other locales around Europe. It makes me want to go so that we can have those experiences with those people. I want to stroll the streets of London at Christmas with my mom. I want to meet Joe's mom in Italy for a week or two. I want to go and be there and do it for real and not just talk about it.


I am not one to make resolutions on New Year's, so I'm not going to declare my intentions for 2012 in that way here. I'll say that I'm in the application process still and that it's taking longer than I expected since I got my job in November. I still plan to use this blog to chronicle my experience as I try to make this jump, so I haven't let Derek Sivers get to me too much so far. But maybe I won't post until I have something definite to report each time.

Read. Teach. Travel.

I haven't posted in a while, so I figure I'm due for an update. Since this blog in entitled with my three predominant passions, this post will offer a bit of info on each.

Read.
The truth is I haven't really read anything since I finished my re-read of the last three Harry Potter books in October. I honestly haven't had the time or inclination to pick up something new lately. I'm chipping away at my writing sample for grad school and it's been a much more arduous process than I'd expected. Instead, I find myself slipping into the comfort of series I've read before and waiting for their movie adaptations. So instead of an update on what I've read, I'll offer this. Click it. It's a link to the newest installment of Movies in 15 minutes and gives a snarky take on Breaking Dawn: Part 1. If you haven't read them yet, it may be worth your time to first check out the recaps of Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse.

Teach.
In the middle of October I interviewed for two different charter school teaching jobs. One of them informed me in less than two hours that I would not advance in the hiring process - a record for rejection, I think. The other waited two agonizing weeks and then bowled me over in shock when they called to offer me the job. Needless to say, I'm thrilled.

The job itself is a balance of benefits and disadvantages. It's far from home, but the hours are great. It's not classroom teaching, but the pay is exceptional. It's different from other jobs I've had, but this year that may be exactly what I need. I think if a person has never worked in a temporary job situation like substituting, then she can't truly appreciate the luxury of going to the same place every day, knowing the names of coworkers, knowing where the bathrooms and supply closet and microwave are. This job means I don't have to return to a school that rejected me. It means that I feel appreciated and good at what I do again. That, right now, is worth far more than the inconvenience of a long commute.

Travel.
I did take a short trip out to Arizona to see my best friend in November, so I guess that counts as travel. There are a few possibilities on the horizon for the first half of 2012, too, but I'm waiting on some details before I announce any travel. Right now my focus is on earning and saving money so that travel is even an option in the year to come... well, travel and expatriation.

Something to think about.

1000 Places to See Before You Die

     Let me just start by saying that the title of this book by Patricia Schultz is a lie. There are actually 1040 places mentioned. And as I understand it she's revised the book since I bought my copy and it now has 200 more destinations in it. Scary.
     I pulled this book out today just to see how many locations would be within plausible travel distance from London. I ran out of post-it tags. I don't know if this is really exciting or really daunting yet.
    For now, I'll include the places on the list that I've been already. :)

Europe

England

1.          London

France

2.      Biarritz

3.      Paris

4.      Cathedrale Notre Dame de Chartres

5.      Chateau de Versailles

6.      Loire Valley and Domaine des Hauts de Loire

Italy

7.      Capri

8.      Pompeii

9.      The Amalfi Coast

10.      The Best of Sorrento

11.      Rome

12.      Sistine Chapel

13.      Cinqueterre

14.      Portofino

15.      Florence

16.      The Uffizi Galleries

17.      Villa San Michele and Villa La Massa

18.      Montalcino

19.      Pienza

20.      Chianti and San Gimignano

21.      Piazza del Campo and the Palio

22.      Basilica of San Francesco

23.      Venice

Spain

24.      San Sebastian

25.      The Caves of Altamira and Santillana del Mar

26.      Avila

27.      Salamanca's Plaza Mayor (every day in the summer of 2005)

28.      La Catedral de Toledo

29.      La Sagrada Familia

30.      Museu Picasso

31.      The Way of St. James and the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela (not totally sure but I think I've been to the last Cathedral)

32.      Madrid

Africa

(nothing)

The Middle East

(nope)

Asia

(nada... what's an Asian word for nada?)

Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands

33.      Sydney Opera House and the Harbor

34.      The Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea

The United States of America and Canada

Alaska

35.      Mount McKinley and Denali National Park 

Arizona

36.      The Grand Canyon

California

37.      The Golden Door (my mom worked there - does that count?)

38.      Hollywood

39.      Monterey Peninsula

40.      The Pacific Coast Highway

41.      Hotel del Coronado

42.      A Tour of San Francisco's Cable Cars

Hawaii

43.      Kauai

44.      Oahu

Massachusetts

45.      The Freedom Trail

46.      Legal Sea Foods (lots of other seafood in Boston...)

Nevada

47.      Bellagio

48.      The Las Vegas Strip

New York

49.      New York City

50.      Historic Downtown New York

51.      Museum Mile

North Carolina

52.      Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Oregon

53.      The Oregon Coast

Virginia

54.      Monticello

Washington, D.C.

55.      The National Mall and Its Monuments

56.      The Smithsonian and Beyond

Canada

Been to Canada, just no where from the list... :(

Latin America

Mexico

NOTHING - even though the entrance to Mexico is an hour from here. Really should fix this...

Costa Rica

57.      Manuel Antonio National Park

58.      Chachagua Rain Forest Hotel (stayed in a Rain Forest hotel, just not this one)

Argentina

59.      Alvear Palace and Recoleta Cemetery (almost. Been to Recoleta - just not the cemetary)

60.      Las Tanguerias de Buenos Aires

(Spent most of my time in Argentina on a work site in the middle of nowhere, after all. And after Argentina, I've got .... NOTHING from the other FOURTEEN countries in this region.)

The Caribbean, Bahamas and Bermuda

 I got... nothing.

60/1040 = just over 5%. Sad.

Times Tables

I've got London on the brain in a major way. This whole idea of moving abroad, just like before, is intoxicating to me. It makes me feel adventurous and glamorous and smart. And honestly, it gives me an option that feels like it might well fit right now. 


I've posted before about the difference between what a girl expects her life to look like at a certain age and what it actually ends up looking like. I, for example, had hoped Joe and I would be engaged by our two-year anniversary, married by three years, and having a baby when we're both 30, four years into our relationship. In my head that was the natural progression of things, not because we are ready to get married (we're not) or because we actually want a baby that soon (I'm not sure we do), but because that's just how things go. My parents did it that way (or at least similar to that way). But honestly, neither of us is ready to be in the place I thought we'd be right now. My more recent revelation is that that's okay with me.


Lately I've started to feel pressure due to my prescribed time table that is entirely self-inflicted. I've been anxious because there are so many things I still want to do with Joe before we have children, but I read articles about getting pregnant after the age of 30 and they completely panic me. A few months ago I was talking to two of my girlfriends, one married, one not. The other non-married person and I were talking about how long we want to be with our boyfriends until we want to get married and we were both somewhat taken aback when the married friend asked, "But why are you counting?" We were both stunned. What did she mean? She explained that she didn't understand the tradition of celebrating month and year anniversaries before marriage or tying certain events or stages in the relationship to a number of months or years. It made sense. If I didn't think that Joe and I *should* be ready for marriage at two years, would I actually think we are ready? No. So what the hell am I doing to myself?

I still want to see so much of the world. I still want to do something adventurous. I'm such a worry-wort, scaredy-cat, planner-organizer that I don't really give myself the opportunity to be spontaneous. London is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in. Literally. That scares me. And it's probably not the most responsible thing to do in these tough economic times. Neither, honestly, is going back to school and incurring school-loan debt. But there are things in life that are more valuable than money. I have to decide if I'm going to live up to the subtitle of this blog or not.

Subtitle

Several people have asked me since I started this blog where the quote at the top came from. I finally found it again. It was a line in an article by Martha Beck in O Magazine that I used on my vision board in 2009. Here's a link to the whole article for those who want to read it: Stop Regretting Decisions by Martha Beck.