Saturday, December 27, 2008

Update

Still upset, still awake...

Can't Sleep

I’ll let the posting time show how late I’m up. Just way too aggravated to sleep right now. The short version is that I’m worked up over what I want to say to my brother the next time he calls. I’m not convinced that he’s willing to drop the issue of me not wanting to go back to school next year. I’d love to do that, but there’s just no way of making it happen. Anyway, I’ve made my choice and I expect it to be respected. I can’t continue to collaborate with someone that I feel will keep questioning my judgement and repeatedly attempt to force a decision on to me.

Monday, December 8, 2008

I think I found a decent hobby I can take up, news satire. I don't expect to displace The Onion or anything, but it seems like a good reason for some chuckles. Anyway, I found myself obsessing again, trying to figure out what to say to my brother. I'll have to admit that it would be nice to go back to school next year, but it'll be even nicer to actually be able to finish school. Obsessing seems to happen a lot to me, I don't think that's healthy. Most of the time, it's about what I want to say to my brother. Maybe it's time to simply declare a break and forbid talking about my future till February or so. Plans look good on paper, though I still have to live through a few years of working there, and even more painfully, watch as a few more years of my life slip by.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Stressed

There's nothing bothering me right now. I'm calm. There's nothing on my immediate horizon. Yet I feel stressed. I don't want to go to sleep, even though I really should. I'd like to know why. Maybe I just don't want to face tomorrow. It's something I hope to fix, but I don't know how to go about it. I think it's depression related though.

New in 2009

There maybe times when it's premature to plan for the future, like I wouldn't start planning for 2050 now, but it's never too early to dream. There's still a lot of unknowns though I'd like to conjure up some vision of what I feel 2009 might be like.
I'm going to make it a goal to record and categorize my spending. Hopefully put together a summary on the last weekend of every month. I don't spend on days that I work, so that should do for the month. Recording and categorizing for my income too.
I'd like to get my brother off my back about going back to school when he things I should and focus on when preparations are going to be ready. There's no real plan for doing this.
Some decision needs to be made about how much contact I want to maintain. Right now, I think what we had earlier with him calling and me deciding not to answer might be the best solution for the time being. I don't really expect to need these decisions finalized till I move away.
I think I'd like to end the year with a net worth of 50K or more. I suppose this means that my goals are rather distant at this point.
Do I see myself getting a new computer? I'm not sure. I've put it off this long already. I think the thing that'll push it for me is when my monitor finally dies. I'm certainly getting my money's worth out of that used laptop I bought so many years ago.
I see myself going to a wedding in the USA around November. That's going to be my big budget thing this year. I'm kind of already preparing for that, I started the first steps in opening a new bank account at citizens bank. They have no fee US debit. Also starting a savings account there. As of the last adjustment that Canadian tire made to their interest rates, they have a better rate. Granted, that might only last a week or so. Part of me is tempted create an array of savings accounts at several different places, but I think I have enough as it is. I wonder if it'll be necessary to link that to everything else and make it a hub as well or if I can keep it as a branch. Now I'm tempted to create a web diagram showing how all my accounts are linked. It'll probably look more complicated than it actually is. When everything is linked to everything else, money can simply move directly instead of hopping through an intermediary.
Not sure what else to say about next year yet. It's simply going to be more of the same for about half a year or so.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Feeling more depressed

It's not the holidays that's depressing me, it's the milestones. Two and a half years into what I've started calling the lost decade. My brother is insisting that I go back to school and telling me that nothing will change if I save up money instead of needing to ask for it every year. He also doesn't remember all the times everyone freaked out about stuff going wrong and kept me from taking care of it. Then there's the invasive probing and circular arguements that we had about money the first time I was going to school. Personally, I think the best thing to do is to avoid those probelms, which he can't seem to recall.
There's no good reason for him to really remember anyway, those were events in my life, not his. I don't know who he was playing in those big out of town hockey tournements he played in or how his team placed, but I wager that he does. His life, not mine.
Right now, waiting two years feels like a great idea. I can be away, I can avoid needing to ask for money, I can sustain myself for a while afterwards if I don't get a job right away. Also, on the external side, investments are cheap right now and the supply of students is high.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Depressed again

It's times like this that I wonder why I'm doing all this. When it starts getting rough, I start questioning things even more. I can't help feeling like I'm hiding from something or that I'm in denial right now. Nothing seems to feel right. I don't know why I'm still there besides the logic of the situation making sense. Anyway, feeling drained and seems like I didn't really miss out on much in the markets. Gone from good deals to wild again in one day. Hard to make decisions with swings like that.