The move

A friend will help you move, a good friend will help you move a body.

Of course, if you're in the business of moving bodies you're pretty screwed up and should seek professional help. Morticians and funeral directors excluded.

I studied for two weeks straight and finished my exams on a Saturday. Because of time constraints, I was forced to begin packing immediately after my final exam. I moved that afternoon to my new home in the heart of Corydon Village. Mike helped me by way of proving a minivan and muscle power. He also brought a little kid along who proved to be quite handy when it came to holding doors open and closing drawers shut with duct tape. You're such a good friend, I love you Mike. I honestly have no idea what I would have done without you.

So I've moved in to my new place. It's a basement room in a whole house shared by four other guys. They're all Mennonite. I'm a bisexual of British descent. We are getting along swimmingly.

My new room has basically no furniture in it. I am desperately in need of a dresser and a computer desk that has drawers or I'll never get anything unpacked. I am living out of duffel bags at the moment and it's driving me nuts.

But I must admit that overall, I'm quite content in my new home, and slowly recovering from the mental bruising from the past two weeks.

Going gray

I found my first gray hair of my life today. I kind of think it's sexy! Click on the 'hair' link to see the ongoing saga of my hair and I. Now it's back to studying for me! I am looking forward to the summer and regular blogging to commence!

Stir Crazy

Stir Crazy
Originally uploaded by Michael Tyas

I'm in the middle of studying for exams, naked.

And I'm going a little nuts.

Assembly

Assembly
Originally uploaded by Michael Tyas

At work the other day I assembled this patio set for the enjoyment of my clients. I've never attempted such a feat and it wasn't very hard because I put my mind to it. Those are snow banks still melting in the background.

Febrile Hallucinations

I've been battling bug lately. It manifested as a brutal fever which, I'm quite convinced, gave me febrile hallucinations. I've never had such an experience. I was sick in bed trying to sleep when this horrible dream began. I dreamed that I was in a bureaucratic vicious circle, and that I was in charge of 'fixing the phones and making sure the wheelchairs worked.' I would wake up often because of the fever and felt my blankets becoming more and more drenched in sweat. Too weak and chilled to get up for water or a pill, I shut my eyes and tried to slip back to sleep.

Phones. Wheelchairs. Wake up. Sweaty blankets. Repeat. It was exhausting. I felt as though I had been working hard, physically and mentally, when I should have been resting. This made me frustrated on top of everything else. My heart rate was 90 bpm, racing as though I was doing heavy physical labour.




In my dream I began to construct an elaborate structure out of phone cables and wheelchair parts. It looked like junkyard art and was extremely complex. If my brain was a computer, the amount of detail going into this fruitless activity would have maxed out my RAM. I climbed up atop the structure and lay upon it, and then woke up. I couldn't tell where I was. Was I still atop the junk pile? I spread my hands out over my mattress to convince myself that I was awake and only suffering a bad dream. A drip of sweat dropped off my earlobe.

I was suddenly overtaken with an urgency to get back into my dream to continue the futile work I was assigned to. Part of me knew that it was just a dream and that I was not accomplishing anything, but the other was OBSESSING about getting the job done. The line separating reality and fantasy was becoming blurred. I was slipping in and out of consciousness, becoming more and more frustrated in and out of the dream of the exhausting and repetitive nature of what was happening to me, while at the same time becoming more obsessed with completing the task.

I finally had enough at 5 AM. I said out loud 'this is not real.' The psychotic sense of urgency wouldn't go away, so I began to repeat 'no. no. no!' I eventually gathered enough courage to get out of bed and get some water. I wore my housecoat and winter jacket to brave the 20C (68F) temperatures that my body deemed were frigid. After this, the problem was over.

I washed all my linens today and it cost me $6.

Taking a moment

Continuing the in theme of money (a theme I hold so dear that it has it's own label), this evening I sat down and gave a good and hard look at my finances. I made a preliminary budget for the summer and the next 4 years, and have come up with some conclusions.

1. I, based on my current income, cannot graduate without debt. Selah.
2. In order to graduate without debt at my current job, I'll either have to curtail my entertainment fund and cell phone plan, live on the streets, or work 50 hours a week. I could also get promoted, or move to a higher paying job over the $15/hr mark.
   
3. I never again want an entertainment fund of $20/week like I did for 6 months in Orangeville in 2006, despite the fact that if I did so I would be significantly closer to breaking out of debt. This is because people began to think that I was a seclusive drug-addict. I did not buy new clothes for nearly a year. I became a plain, boring, and bitter person.
   
4. I'm going to go back to my cash only lifestyle. This will help me to keep the tightest hold on cash flows.
   
5. My situation is not as bad as it was on this podcast on August 20, 2006, where no matter what I did I was sinking further and further into debt. Hallelujah!
   
   
   
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6. I want to teach English in South Korea after I'm done school. This is kind of random but I happen to know a small group of people from Korea living in Winnipeg. Last night a native Korean told me that I was the best English teacher he has ever heard, and that he actually knew about me before I knew about him. I plan to capitalize on that and becoming a teaching sensation! I'll let you know how it goes.