“Money is like a sixth sense - and you can't make use of the other five without it”

This quote is from W. Somerset Maugham, an English playwright, novelist, and short story writer who was most popular from about 1915-1940. This quote works with the theme of today's entry, but also the theme of the world today. Reading my daily USA Today has gotten a bit repetitive and bleak in the past days.




I wish I could sit and tell you about all the wonderful and interesting things that have happened since the last post, but not a lot has occurred. At least, not a lot that stands out in my mind. The days blend together in a blur of appointments and suddenly so do the weeks and then I've lost all track of time and I don't know what's going on at all. Welcome to the professional life.

I have a busy month ahead of me, with homecoming festivities and Halloween (always a big deal, no matter what campus you work on) and looking forward to Thanksgiving and winter break. One of the best parts will be getting my first official visitor, the same wonderful friend who helped me move here, who will be returning to hopefully experience a much more calm and relaxed version of myself.

In the meantime, I was reminded in the past week about the wonderful professional development allowance that I am given and all the fun things that I can do with it. I had forgotten that it existed and that I didn't need to worry about paying for some of the things that I'd like to do, since I have the money available to take care of it. So now I'm stuck trying to figure out what exactly I want to use it on.

Some of this is a given....I want to attend ACPA again so I'll be paying my membership fee and conference registration fee, and travel/hotel fees with the money....but if I get to be a part of recruitment at the conference (which I am DYING to do because of my own ACPA experience), then I've heard rumors that I don't have to use my development funds because the college will pay for everything. This means that suddenly there are other conferences that I could attend and books I could buy that I hadn't even thought of before! And being the nerd that I am, I'm already starting to look around and think about what exactly I'd love to see the money used for.

The best part about having this development money is that that means more of my personal money is available for more fun things, like travel! And clothes! :) One of the best parts of having a real paycheck and being an adult is having the ability to decide that I want to take random trips to random places for no real reason. Not only is it exciting to be a tourist and explore, but it's always fun to get out of town and leave the college kids behind. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my residents....but I also love having conversations with people over the ages of 18-22 and getting out of the residence hall.