Job hunting, buying stuff, etc.

Wow, I didn't realize several days had already gone by since the last time I posted. I've been really busy for a dude who is ostensibly on vacation. My student loans for the semester just came in earlier this week, so I've been taking advantage of this by buying certain things I've been needing for a while. The most notable is a new computer. I have purchased a Toshiba laptop, which should be delivered to my place either tomorrow, Saturday, or Monday. Yes, it's true, after being a dedicated "Mac guy" for over 5 years, I'm making the switch back to PC. If it's any consolation, I'm not happy about it. It was strictly a matter of economics. I could get a decent PC laptop for $500. A good Mac laptop would have cost more than twice that much. So I will temporarily be dealing with the hell that is using Windows, but I'll go straight back to Mac as soon as I can afford to, and I'm going to keep the old computer, both because I think it would have virtually no resale value, and because there are certain things I use it for that I expect will be either a pain in the ass or impossible on the PC. Plus, I can always just break out the Mac and type an article on it strictly for nostalgia's sake. I love this thing. I used it for my entire undergraduate career. I wrote my novel on it. This thing is never leaving my side. When it becomes incapable of doing anything at all, maybe I'll have it bronzed or something.

So it turns out I borrowed a little bit more money than I really needed for the semester. It's hard to say exactly how much, since I have trouble predicting how much I'm going to spend on things like food and gasoline, but I should have a pretty good chunk of change left over. With that in mind, I've started looking for short-term investments. Might as well make that money work for me while I have it. Today single-game tickets went on sale for the Bills. Since I am a member of the Bills Backers, I got a crack at them four hours earlier than the general public. So I bought a total of 4 tickets to 3 different games (one for the Jets, one for the Chargers, two for the Monday night game against Cleveland), and I am going to scalp the hell out of them. Hopefully I'll make a tidy profit on the deal. I figure, worst-case scenario, I sell them for face value and break even on the deal. Or, for some reason, I become unable to sell them at all and I just wind up attending these games myself. As far as worst-case scenarios go, that's not a bad one to have.

While I think ticket dealing could be a lucrative part-time business for me, I am still looking for "real" employment. I still haven't heard back on one of the TA positions I applied for, and I was told today that they would be making their decision either tomorrow or Monday. Which is good, because the semester starts Monday.

If I don't get the TA job-- and at this point I'm not expecting to, although I would still put it firmly within the realm of possibility-- I've got some other things working. I applied to teach test prep for Kaplan. There's a Kaplan center right on the SU campus, so it would be convenient. I hear they pay pretty well, and they have flexible scheduling and don't require a ton of hours, so that would be a great job for me. I'm also probably going to place an ad on Craigslist, and possibly ads in the Syracuse Post-Standard or the SU Daily Orange, letting people know that I'm available for private tutoring, coaching people on their writing, etc. Not sure how much interest there will be in that, but it's worth looking into. And I'm scouring Craigslist and the newspaper classifieds to see if there are any jobs that really appeal to me. So I'll find some sort of employment, and hopefully sooner rather than later.

I've also been spending a lot of time looking for the cheapest place to buy my books for the semester, which has been surprisingly time-consuming. I'm going to wind up saving quite a bit of money by buying stuff on eBay, or by buying used books from Amazon or other web sites, but I'm seriously questioning whether or not the money I save is going to be worth the time and effort I'm putting into it. Not to mention that eBay orders and used books web sites frequently take a long time to process orders and ship them out, so I might get behind on my reading assignments while I wait for the books to arrive.

Last night Cousin Eric stopped in Syracuse on his way across the state, going home to WNY from his current job in New Hampshire. We hung out for a bit, grabbed dinner at this very good Chinese place on campus, it was a cool time, and fun to see somebody from home down here in the 'Cuse. And it won't be long before I repeat the experience. My parents are probably going to stop in either Saturday or Sunday, when they're driving back from Saratoga, because they plan on attending the Travers Stakes on Saturday. Also, Eric will be driving back to New Hampshire on Sunday and he may stop again. Good times.

Anybody out there who used to read Rage Pirates knows that I've done a lot of writing about the NFL in the past, including a big season preview article the past couple of years, as well as weekly columns once the season actually starts. I've been dying to write stuff about the NFL lately, but just haven't had the time. I highly doubt I will be able to write a weekly football column while attending grad school this fall, but maybe I can sporadically write about the NFL a few times over the course of the season. And I will try to write a season preview, since it was always a fairly popular and well-received item on Rage Pirates, but I can't make any promises. I'm juggling a lot of things right now.

Okay, this is a pretty long entry and my eyes are getting tired. Long day. Time to have a cigarette, maybe watch a little Letterman, and be asleep within an hour, hour and a half. Sounds like a solid plan. See ya next time.

-Nick