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More spam —the dangers of writing LJ posts at work
I like this new idea of composing my LJ posts at work and then sending them to myself. Mind you, I may not be able to do this in two weeks' time, but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. In the meantime, all you lucky folk in LJ land get Phnee!Spam. Don't you feel special now?
Anyhow, this post is nothing terribly special. I'm simply trying to put down some of my priorities for the near future, because, well, I'm tired of my life always being in the toilet due to one thing or another. So this is just some noodling on my part in order to get my life straightened out.
This got long, be warned.
1- Finances
Okay, so my finances are an absolute mess. They're even more of a mess than I originally suspected. Like I said before, this doesn't necessarily mean it's the end of the world. However, if I wish to avoid having my meagre possessions repossessed, I need to do something about this.
I'm going to the bank tomorrow to see if I can consolidate all my HDFA's into one HDFA. Then I'm going to pay it off as quickly as humanly possible. I am not taking The Car into consideration right now, because my lease won't be up until August. I shall try to figure out what to do about the car come September. I want to keep it, having paid for it up until now, but it may prove to be an unreasonable hope in light of recent developments.
2- Housekeeping
I keep meaning to do a serious spring cleaning of my apartment, and hopefully this weekend will afford me that opportunity. Sunday will be spent mostly in the Godforsaken Howling Wilderness, but that still leaves me all day Saturday and all day Monday to get a significant amount of work done.
It will come as no surprise to any of you when I say that I am a lousy housekeeper. I lack the motivation and the discipline to keep the damn apartment clean and tidy. The place has not been properly scrubbed since November, and has received only the most cursory attention, I am embarrassed to say.
It's time to put an end to that. Seriously, part of being a grown-up is cleaning up after yourself, and so it's time I grew up. I keep telling myself that the reason I don't tidy up is because I'm never at home and don't have time and I'm too tired when I get home and blah blah blah. Can anyone hear the whining and the excuses in there? I can. There is no reason that my place shouldn't be clean, once I do the massive overhaul that needs doing. In no particular order, here's what needs doing:
a) Cleaning. Sinks, floors (especially floors), the kitchen. All of it. Soap, water, scrubbing. Lather, rinse, repeat, until everything is clean.
b) Decluttering. Oh my God, is there a lot of stuff. I am one person. I don't need that much stuff. Papers I haven't touched in bloody years but keep "just in case." Clutter. Massive amounts of clutter. Two entire pieces of furniture that I don't use or need.
c) Reorganising of what's left. I live in a perpetual state of pseudo-chaos. I know where most things are, but it still takes a lot of time to find them. This goes hand-in-hand with the decluttering. I mentioned in a previous post that I have misplaced three books. In a three-room apartment. That's just ridiculous.
d) Setting up a routine. Yes, the dreaded "R" word. I suck at routines. Or, more to the point, I suck at changing my established routine in order to incorporate better habits. I am very much a creature of habit, and so making that kind of change for me is very, very hard. I am not good with change, even when it's for the better. Go figure.
3- Work
Part of my new routine needs to be pursuing work outside my current job. This also ties in with my shaky finances (to put it politely). Thus far I've been taking a look at job offers on the net, but none have been in my area at all. Most are in Québec City or even further away. Now, I don't mind commuting, but three and a half hours in each direction is a bit much, even for me. That being said, I shall endeavour to pursue leads in a more active fashion. There must be something on the island of Montreal or somewhere in the outskirts that I can find.
Also,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fearsclave's wife once suggested that I ought to think of waiting tables as an extra source of income. While this is not the most appealing idea, it's not a bad one either. Tourist season is coming up in Montreal, and this year the city will be hosting the 2006 Outgames, which means even more tourists (hordes and hordes of gay tourists –whee!). I also recently read an article in La Presse (one of our local rags) reporting an unprecedented shortage of staff in Montreal restaurants. Apparently local restaurateurs are desperate to find help, even going so far as to poach waiters from other nearby restaurants. I'm willing to bet that someone would be willing to put up with my lack of experience in return for an able pair of hands. I know that waiting tables is damned hard work, but that's never frightened me before.
Picking up more work on the side would mean sacrificing pretty much any social life and parallel activities I have right now. I don't particularly relish the idea, but at this point I'm looking at having Serious Financial Problems if I don't find some way of not having to spend more money than I earn. It's a very simple equation: rent + car + HDFA + food + utilities = a significantly larger sum of money than I earn per month. I can't get rid of the car until August, and I don't think I can reasonably survive without food for the next four months. :P
Anyway, I shall see. It's possible (though not likely) that the Bank will go ahead and hire me (thus effectively giving me a raise, since the minimum salary for my current job is actually a bit higher than what my agency pays me. Not to mention the insurance and the vacation time. But that's neither here nor there. If I do get a permanent job, then the financial problems should get slightly less pressing. In theory.
Famous last words…
4- Writing Projects
A girl's gotta have some means of having fun, right? Bearing in mind the above, I'm going to have to do some rethinking and some restructuring of my writing plans so that I don't have to go cold turkey without writing.
Most of the novels will have to go on hiatus, or at least have their production considerably slowed down. Since I work on them only sporadically, this won't change too much. I'm reasonably certain that I can maintain both serials. One only updates every two weeks anyway (or will as soon as I've caught up), and each instalment only takes about an hour to an hour and a half to write. Remember, I don't revise my serials all that much before posting, kind of like a mini-NaNoWriMo: no revision, no retreat, no regrets.
Okay, well, that's it for that. Obviously there are lots of activities and things that are going to get affected by any and all decisions I make regarding work and finances and whatever, but I'll cross those bridges when I get to them.
At this point, something's gotta give, and since it can't be me, well, then I have to make sure something else gives.
Anyhow, this post is nothing terribly special. I'm simply trying to put down some of my priorities for the near future, because, well, I'm tired of my life always being in the toilet due to one thing or another. So this is just some noodling on my part in order to get my life straightened out.
This got long, be warned.
1- Finances
Okay, so my finances are an absolute mess. They're even more of a mess than I originally suspected. Like I said before, this doesn't necessarily mean it's the end of the world. However, if I wish to avoid having my meagre possessions repossessed, I need to do something about this.
I'm going to the bank tomorrow to see if I can consolidate all my HDFA's into one HDFA. Then I'm going to pay it off as quickly as humanly possible. I am not taking The Car into consideration right now, because my lease won't be up until August. I shall try to figure out what to do about the car come September. I want to keep it, having paid for it up until now, but it may prove to be an unreasonable hope in light of recent developments.
2- Housekeeping
I keep meaning to do a serious spring cleaning of my apartment, and hopefully this weekend will afford me that opportunity. Sunday will be spent mostly in the Godforsaken Howling Wilderness, but that still leaves me all day Saturday and all day Monday to get a significant amount of work done.
It will come as no surprise to any of you when I say that I am a lousy housekeeper. I lack the motivation and the discipline to keep the damn apartment clean and tidy. The place has not been properly scrubbed since November, and has received only the most cursory attention, I am embarrassed to say.
It's time to put an end to that. Seriously, part of being a grown-up is cleaning up after yourself, and so it's time I grew up. I keep telling myself that the reason I don't tidy up is because I'm never at home and don't have time and I'm too tired when I get home and blah blah blah. Can anyone hear the whining and the excuses in there? I can. There is no reason that my place shouldn't be clean, once I do the massive overhaul that needs doing. In no particular order, here's what needs doing:
a) Cleaning. Sinks, floors (especially floors), the kitchen. All of it. Soap, water, scrubbing. Lather, rinse, repeat, until everything is clean.
b) Decluttering. Oh my God, is there a lot of stuff. I am one person. I don't need that much stuff. Papers I haven't touched in bloody years but keep "just in case." Clutter. Massive amounts of clutter. Two entire pieces of furniture that I don't use or need.
c) Reorganising of what's left. I live in a perpetual state of pseudo-chaos. I know where most things are, but it still takes a lot of time to find them. This goes hand-in-hand with the decluttering. I mentioned in a previous post that I have misplaced three books. In a three-room apartment. That's just ridiculous.
d) Setting up a routine. Yes, the dreaded "R" word. I suck at routines. Or, more to the point, I suck at changing my established routine in order to incorporate better habits. I am very much a creature of habit, and so making that kind of change for me is very, very hard. I am not good with change, even when it's for the better. Go figure.
3- Work
Part of my new routine needs to be pursuing work outside my current job. This also ties in with my shaky finances (to put it politely). Thus far I've been taking a look at job offers on the net, but none have been in my area at all. Most are in Québec City or even further away. Now, I don't mind commuting, but three and a half hours in each direction is a bit much, even for me. That being said, I shall endeavour to pursue leads in a more active fashion. There must be something on the island of Montreal or somewhere in the outskirts that I can find.
Also,
fearsclave's wife once suggested that I ought to think of waiting tables as an extra source of income. While this is not the most appealing idea, it's not a bad one either. Tourist season is coming up in Montreal, and this year the city will be hosting the 2006 Outgames, which means even more tourists (hordes and hordes of gay tourists –whee!). I also recently read an article in La Presse (one of our local rags) reporting an unprecedented shortage of staff in Montreal restaurants. Apparently local restaurateurs are desperate to find help, even going so far as to poach waiters from other nearby restaurants. I'm willing to bet that someone would be willing to put up with my lack of experience in return for an able pair of hands. I know that waiting tables is damned hard work, but that's never frightened me before. Picking up more work on the side would mean sacrificing pretty much any social life and parallel activities I have right now. I don't particularly relish the idea, but at this point I'm looking at having Serious Financial Problems if I don't find some way of not having to spend more money than I earn. It's a very simple equation: rent + car + HDFA + food + utilities = a significantly larger sum of money than I earn per month. I can't get rid of the car until August, and I don't think I can reasonably survive without food for the next four months. :P
Anyway, I shall see. It's possible (though not likely) that the Bank will go ahead and hire me (thus effectively giving me a raise, since the minimum salary for my current job is actually a bit higher than what my agency pays me. Not to mention the insurance and the vacation time. But that's neither here nor there. If I do get a permanent job, then the financial problems should get slightly less pressing. In theory.
Famous last words…
4- Writing Projects
A girl's gotta have some means of having fun, right? Bearing in mind the above, I'm going to have to do some rethinking and some restructuring of my writing plans so that I don't have to go cold turkey without writing.
Most of the novels will have to go on hiatus, or at least have their production considerably slowed down. Since I work on them only sporadically, this won't change too much. I'm reasonably certain that I can maintain both serials. One only updates every two weeks anyway (or will as soon as I've caught up), and each instalment only takes about an hour to an hour and a half to write. Remember, I don't revise my serials all that much before posting, kind of like a mini-NaNoWriMo: no revision, no retreat, no regrets.
Okay, well, that's it for that. Obviously there are lots of activities and things that are going to get affected by any and all decisions I make regarding work and finances and whatever, but I'll cross those bridges when I get to them.
At this point, something's gotta give, and since it can't be me, well, then I have to make sure something else gives.
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Bleah. I seem to have a talent for getting into situations like this.
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I so wish I was in a position similar to the one I was in at the beginning of the year when I offered to help you with the course.
Fingers crossed today for your meeting with the bank! And you're not the only one who gets into these situations. It's really depressing that it takes being screwed by the system that's supposed to help us, to distrust it and add more bitterness to our lives.