Whine whine whine

AKA Three weeks in  AKA  Spending out of control.

I didn't succeed at taking a selfie that showed both my kayak and my house
partly because my boat was spinning randomly and the sun was totally in
the wrong dirction, however, I do really really like my little house, and the
fact that I can launch my kayak from the beach (not pictured) and, more than
anything else, the view out over the water from inside. It is so open that I can
always breathe, even when looking at my bank statement, and, sometimes,
almost pretend that I am free, as in on a sail boat, as opposed to being here,
in this prison of my own making.

So. My computer tells me it is the 20^th. Which means I have been here less than 3 weeks. Here being Arnprior. Where I moved. To teach Art. It feels longer. It feels endless.

(I am happy enough with my grade 9 and 10’s btw but feel overwhelmed by my 11 and 12’s. The course outlines are so full of alien jargon that I just cannot make sense, at all, of what I might possibly do to meet the curriculum expectations. Given that I know nothing.)

I’d quit my job now and head back to the South Pacific next week if I hadn’t already spent all the money that I am going to earn in this whole year this month. Seriously. I wrote out a year’s worth of rent checks, bought a new used car, paid two years’ worth of income tax, and paid a year’s worth of car insurance on two vehicles, one of which has my son, too old now to count as ‘equivalent to married’ on my income tax yet so young that he puts my total car insurance bill through the roof since he’s principal driver on one of the vehicles. And each bit of the above is worse than can be imagined: I chose the house I am in (which, to be fair, I absolutely love) with the intention of sharing it, and hence the rent, but have not had a single person reply to my ads on kijiji or padmapper; I didn’t want a used car that was going to fall apart on me so got one with only 30K on it, but, of course, that meant that it was almost as expensive as a new one would have been; my 2012 tax had been reassessed and because I’d made a mistake, an honest mistake but a mistake nonetheless, it had a huge fine to go with it; my 2013 tax, well, let me just say that being underemployed, is not, as one might have intuitively assumed, related to not having to pay huge amounts of income tax; and, then, well, there were a couple of other huge bills this months that I might choose not to itemize here. And, on top of all that, being in a new place, even though I intended to buy nothing, I have found that my shopping list is also endless. There are so many many little things, like shower curtains, and a rod, and a bath mat, and a broom and mop and cleaning fluids and a bucket, etc. etc. etc. that I really want to have, and so buy, that the total cost of all of them is not insignificant. (And I don’t even have a table and chairs, or shelving, or many things that people in our society would consider essential.) I also, I forget why, bought a few new clothes to teach in, probably before I‘d realized how much money I’d be spending on other things. Already I am so far in the red I can’t see digging my way out of the hole I am in even by the end of the year. And the only reason I am working is for money. (On our PD day yesterday we did an exercise all about our pride in our school and how this reflects on everything and I found myself thinking, ‘Sorry. No personal attachment here.’) And if I’m not going to make enough to even keep my head above water…

I’d sort of thought I could work alternate years and make enough to finance my years off with my years on. To do that I’d have to make a lot of different lifestyle choices than the ones I have made for this year. And few of them seem reversible. At least for this year. 

One thinks of travelling as being a luxury, and hence expensive, but for the first eight months of this year I was living on someone else’s boat, or bumming around camping or staying in hostels, so I had no fixed rent or associated utility expenses, no vehicle or associated insurance expenses, no space to keep ‘things’ and therefore few expenses associated with the purchasing of ‘stuff’ so my total expenditures were low, very low. (I also, when travelling, was so fixated on being in frugal tourist mode that I always chose not to stay in the over-the-water bungalows, while as here, I note, I have chosen to rent an on-the-water house, as if somehow, because I am working I can afford to do so. What was I thinking? But I do love it.) I think I have spent, literally, twice as much, this one month, as I spent in the first eight months of the year altogether! To be fair I ought, for example, have paid my income tax in the spring, but I honestly thought I’d be getting money back not the other way round, so I put off filling out the paperwork until after I got home, and I certainly had no idea at all at how shockingly large the number on line 485 would be, and so things have piled up deep and thick for a variety of reasons. But. Nonetheless. Just the cumulative total of expenses this month is enough to make me ready to throw my arms in the air in despair and declare bankruptcy. Especially when compared to my take-home pay. Hmm. Do you still have to pay overdue income tax if you’re officially bankrupt? It’s an idea. (Just kidding.)

And, also, my plans of becoming an involved member of the community; signing up to do the last month of dragon boating, becoming a volunteer at the library, finding a new cycling group, etc., have not happened. Yes, I’ve been unpacking boxes at home and cleaning out the supply closets at school any trying to get a grip on what I’m supposed to be teaching, but that does not excuse my hiding, literally, from the various ramifications of my decision to move here. 

So. It’s not all good.

But it’s only been three weeks. Less than three weeks.

There is definitely room for improvement.

So. I will have to start doing better.

And, of course, remember to be happy.