Happy X-day (from the front lines of the war on Christmas)

Imagine you're at work, and you're given a project. It is difficult, but achievable, and has a very strict deadline. After 15 weeks, you have a final presentation or report or some other deliverable. And then after you turn this in, so long as your work was better than "really awful", you will never need to do anything else with this project again, and it won't even be spoken of. Of course, its hard to imagine this in a work context, because at work things never work that way. Deadlines always get stretched, jobs that should take 2 weeks lead into months, and after you thought you were done and turned in the final part of the project, 3 months later someone comes back with something new. But in this case, you really are done. Now imagine instead that you are given 4-7 projects, all exactly like this, and all completing at the same time within one week. *That* is PFE.

Its been 5 years since I've experienced it, and it really is lovely. Especially because I have relatively little time here: This represents 25% completion of the program for me. I did well enough, but not as well as I'd have liked. I don't know that I'll ever really break my obsessive tendencies on that score, but I'm getting better at letting go, anyway. I should have better than 3.5 which is all I really need.

So, I'm hanging out here for one more week. Which will actually be nice, I'll be able to relax, work a couple more days at 7'f'n'11, and get lots of shoreside sea days on the training ship. I'll need 24 days in total before I leave here, I have 4 right now. Of course, this actually puts me ahead of several of the seniors here, so I'm in decent shape. If I can keep up this pace (and I should be able to accelerate it actually, since I'm not going to be working nearly as much next term) I'll be in good shape in time for my license exam.

About work and money, I've come to some decisions recently. I've looked into my financial situation over the next 6 months, and I've determined that I can't make it in decent financial health. So I'm officially engaging Plan B, which involves:
1) putting the house on the market over the break;
2) paying off my Traverse City rent through summer (at which point I'll be sailing);
3) finding a source of income to provide the $100 / month I need to eat (meagerly);
4)Choosing one creditor (I think it will be Capital One) to pay off as much as possible and keep happy, so I'll have access to credit for emergencies;
5) continue making mortgage payments for as long as I can;
6) Pay everyone else whatever is left, which isn't much.

Of course, this isn't the preferred method of doing things, but it *is* where I am. No one will approve me for a consolidation of any sort, and I can't possibly find a job working part-time (or even full-time that I could get while in school) that would allow me to keep up with the payments, and doing so would jeopardize my ability to maintain a good school record. So, "Fook It", as they say in the Old Country. It means two more years of meagerness and enforced simplicity (which isn't altogether a bad thing), two more years of not answering the phone when I don't know who it is, since its almost certainly collections, two more years of giving really shitty X-day presents. But if I can sell the house then once I get out and am sailing it should be very simple to pay off *all* of my debts, within the first year even, and start to build up a serious cash cushion. And once you've got zero debt, a large amount of cash in savings, and a high income, I'll bet creditors are willing to look past some improprieties in your credit history.

So I'm quitting my job. Its been a source of lots of stress, has taken up every weekend I've been up here except for the 3 I got out for weddings, and is the difference between owing $1800/month in payments or owing $2500/month without working. And since I'm out of savings to make up the difference, fuck it, I might as well enjoy myself a little.

One more week of selling beer and cigarettes and coffee to the rudest people on Earth. There's nothing that can teach you to hate humanity quite so well as a job working with "people" (using the term loosely). And of course, to make the experience perfect, I get to have my last night working be X-day eve. You are all aware of the Michigan law that forbids alcohol sales after 9 PM on X-day eve, all the way to Boxing day? If you were not, then consider this your warning, and if you plan to be drinking X-day or X-eve, then please stock up ahead of time, and please don't take out your frustration on the poor clerk at your local convenience store. He didn't make the stupid Christ-centric moralistic law, and probably hates it even more than you do, but he has to enforce it, or else he'll get fined more than he makes in 6 months.

And is this "War on Christmas" bullshit pissing you off as much as it is for me? These people are like spoiled children, and they need to be spanked, starting with O'Reilly (though he'd enjoy it, especially with a loofah). I'm so goddamned tired of rich white dudes complaining about how difficult life is now that they don't get special treatment, and its the same damn sentiment that allows Christians (using the term loosely, and 80% of the US population by the way) to demand that everyone must bow to their wishes, and assume that all people are Christians, too. If Happy Holidays is too secular or inclusive, then create your own Afghanistan and stop lviing in a nation founded on tolerance. I hear Jonestown, Guyana is available.

For the rest of you, Happy Holidays, whether it be Solstice, Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza, Festivus, Ramadan, Chaka Khan, or Obiwan you happen to be celebrating. Enjoy, just remember to buy your libations before 9 PM.

Note:
Next term should find me with a little more time to write, though its still uncertain how long it will be before I have a computer. Hopefully I'll see some of you over the break, and sorry to anyone I haven't gotten back to.