I joked around with the idea of driving to Kagoshima this weekend, rather than taking the classy-world-traveler shinkansen. I mean, it's like a ten hour drive, and ~$125 or so in tolls, plus gas. Plus the rest of my sanity, of course. I'm already plotting a cross-continental USA [andCanada!] tour for when I return to America.. I'm going to have to stock up on snacks, CDs, podcasts, and maybe a new car.
I was only joking about Kagoshima, because honestly I was already kind of annoyed at the way it's going to be a four-hour train ride, which means what with the way I felt the need to come to work this morning, I won't get there til about dinnertime, and I'll have to rush a little even then (BUT, I have no right to complain.. they just finished the Kyushu shinkansen improvements, which are actually shaving more than two hours off my trip!). I came to work on time today because I thought I needed to impress the New Vice Principal (about the loss of the previous one, I am still kind of inconsolable, even though it's great that he went off and became a principal somewhere) but New VP isn't even here yet, and I'm thinking of leaving even earlier than planned. Because getting on my way for longer-distance travel always takes about twice as long as I want it to.
But the joke is on me, because, as I mentioned yesterday, I basically bullied everyone into making their plans for Golden Week (the 29th of April, 3rd, 4th, and 5th of May are all holidays). Which means payment for our airline tickets is due by tomorrow. But two of our companions are currently out of the country. I assured them I could cover their ticket cost until they get back and reimburse me, confident as I am in my nicely padded bank account. It was only after I chatted with a friend about her financial worries that it dawned on me that this might not be true.
I hurried home and managed to scrape together the cash for three plane tickets to Okinawa and train tickets to Kagoshima (the train is quite a bit more expensive, but I'm still unsure how I feel about flying.. or did I never actually finish writing that post?) only by raiding the secret caches of money I have hidden in my life and writing IOUs to the box of PEPY money that's been waiting for the spring fundraiser. And then I had to scrape up a little more for incidentals like the fact that the secretary approached me yesterday to collect on that party we all went to Monday night (was that really a hundred-dollar dinner? I guess..), and any hope I have of, like, eating, this weekend. I'm thanking my luck stars I'm staying with Manderines and not in a hostel, however low-budget!
And I made it, just barely, but I did. And I did not feel smug at all.
So today I logged into my bank account in the US, and then I felt a little better. I don't actually have a lot of money, but I do have a lot more than I ever had on my own before, so that's something. I also suspect that when the world ends in 2012, how much money you have won't matter much.
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