Money sucks!!

Just thought I would share....grad school is killing me! Someday it will all be worth it, right?

Sorry about the crappy fuzzy picture!

Anyone want to give me cash for my clunker?!

My car died today. I called roadside assistance to get a jump because I was at a house doing a dog walk. The guy apparently has jumped my car previously (like I said...its a clunker) and said "Oh, you again" when he pulled up. What the hell does that mean? I am a very nice person and you get paid for the 5 minutes it takes me to jump my car! Only I didn't say that, I said "Yup, sorry to have you do this." Why did I say sorry to this man doing his job?!

He jumped my car, left, I ran it for 15 minutes and put it into gear...it died. I didn't call back.

My mom's boyfriend came to get me when he was done at the DMV (another fun experience involving cars!). We jumped it. It died again. We went to buy a battery. He put it in.

5 hours later, I got home! I walked dogs for half an hour, made $12, and wasted 5 hours of my life! Who wants to buy a car?!

Ahh, the joys of free money!!

I found a $5 bill at the dog park today!!! I was so excited I screamed a little. I know this doesn't sound like much, but please remember that I am a starving graduate student making very very little money in the very very small amount of time that I can devote to working.

So here is how my emotional states went; I was overly excited (hence the screaming, I am a very quiet person generally, I cant even go through drive throughs because they don't hear me!). Then I realized that I got overly excited about $5 so I felt a little sorry for myself for needing to be so excited over $5. Then I realized that I am so happy to be using this difficult period in my life to fully enjoy the small things in life; going out to eat on the rare rare occasion that I can, buying the bottle of wine that actually has a year and type printed on it (not just "red"), buying a new book that I really really want, seeing a movie in a theatre (with popcorn!), and finding $5. I honestly fully appreciate these things that many people take for granted, that is a awesome thing!

So, I totally overanalyzed this $5 bill (I even thought long and hard about what to spend it on, yikes!) but I am a grad student in psychology and a Pisces; that is a double whammy for overanalyzing everything :) But hey, without the overanalyzing I never would have found my wonderful little silver lining of happiness in my ever so broke existence!

Pet sitting and the other things we put ourselves through to pay rent!

As a 4th year full time grad student, I don't have a lot of time for anything outside of class, practicum (pre-internship), homework, papers, oh and that lovely little dissertation. So, work is almost out of the question unless I find a way to not sleep. I worked as a veterinary assistant through undergrad and freaking loved it, but it was time consuming and not incredibly lucrative. I was a server/bartender at Outback for my first 3 years of grad school and although I hated it, I made good money. Last December though I finally succumbed to the fact that I no longer could work on a regular scheduled basis like a normal person. So I quit, and although it was awesome and liberating and a huge huge relief, I also was (obviously) not making any money.

Solution: I now work for an online business that does pet sitting, dog walking and the like. It is perfect for me because I can take jobs when I have time and basically it is like a work study job. Not to fool anyone though by the term "work study" because boring, it is not! I usually get to stay in pretty nice houses all around Seattle which is fun....but there are the few odd cases. Some examples; a house that seriously reeks of urine, an obsessed to the point of psychopathology dog owner, a cat that needs insulin but hides in boxes in the basement. These are just a few, I could go on and on!

Although I am beyond excited to start my career, I will always have the memories of my various jobs. I have shoveled popcorn, slept in cleaning closets while waiting for my shift to be over, assisted in puppy C-sections, cleaned up some unmentionably nasty stuff in kennels, had to call the cops on gypsies who accused me of trying to kill them with diet soda, and walked over 200lbs of dogs at once! It has been awesome, scary, boring, frustrating, validating, painful, fun, and above all; wonderful incentive for continuing my degree.

So, discussion: What has been your favorite job? worst job? most interesting moment at work? best horror story? let the stories begin......