The things we do for money

I'm sure by now you are getting tired of my financial lamentations...I really wish I could say it would be over soon, more for my sake than yours, but except by some miracle it doesn't look likely. A few weeks ago I was "managing" my checking accounts online. By managing, I mean making sure no one had cashed that check covering my share of the pizza we ordered eons ago, putting me and my struggling finances into the red light district. Luckily, no one had. But there were other things to worry about.

By now I had done the math and figured that I might end up spending close to $6000 by February next year on the whole application process. This is not a bad thing though, as that means I would have been invited and had to fly/drive to at least 15 of my 21, for interviews. After doing the math though (you'll be surprised at how much complex mental math you can do when you're facing impending brokedom), I realized that there was no way my 9 to 5, rather my 10ish to 7ish, was going to pay for the process and at the same time solve for the variable "x" (my survival after the process). So guess what I did...I called on one of my life lessons that I had thus far been trying to perfect.

I took INITIATIVE. You see, I did learn something from Miu Corp after all. But in all honesty, when faced with the "right" circumstances, you don't even need to TAKE initiative, it comes JUMPING at you from all corners. Literally and Figuratively. I had to sift through the 1000 ideas sprouting up in my head on how to make an extra dime, and come up with a robust plan B. Should I go back to my roots in customer service? You know, like waitressing, cashier, or maybe even the school library? Nahhh...the thought of sucking up to some Boss figure was not vey appealing. I needed to call my own shots. Determine when I got to work, how much I got paid, how I went to work or if I even went at all. You know, be an "entrepeneur". Ok maybe not exactly but you catch the drift. So what exactly did I eventually decide on?

After ruling out all those options that were ruled by a "boss"-archy and those that could potentially get my black behind deported, I was left with one. I had formally tutored biology in college for 4 years as well as math, physics and organic chem informally. So why not do it again, but this time on my on terms. All I had gotten for it till this point was a measly 7 bucks/hr, an occasional "thank-you", and an even more occasional threat to get beaten up for possessing an accent. So I upped my prices and put a very emotional "love for teaching" ad on craigslist, complete with how it wasn't just for the money but to satisfy my desire to help others...blah blah blah. It really wasn't just for the money though, like I said before, I was getting sick of watching Lifetime's rendition of "My father didn't love me so now I will kill all men that look at me" and I needed something to get me off the couch. And fast. Unfortunately though, no one seemed to be buying my emotional rantings. So I advertised again on another tutor website, and just waited. And waited.

It was during this waiting period that I decided to randomly try an SAT exam online. Seeing as I had boldly advertised I could help with the math section of the test and I had taken the exam almost six years ago, a refresher was very much in order. So there I was clicking on the first "SAT test" link good 'ole Uncle Google gave me about to show them who the math don was...or not. I solved the first problem easily. I hadn't lost my touch. Tried the next one, missed that. Can't win 'em all anyway. Then the next, that threw me off completely. Some random question about how to construct a fence with some rope and sticks. What the....? What happened to the retro style questions, you know, "it takes two men to build a house, how long will it take three...". OK, so the point is I bombed the test. At this point panic set in. I had not only advertised the SAT, but also the GRE and the GMAT, all of which I had not taken to this point, and didn't plan to take anytime soon. What on earth was I thinking? I considered deleting my ads and just forgetting about the whole tutoring thing, but as I remembered the kwashiorkor ridden state of my account, I decided otherwise...maybe no one will answer, it had been two weeks already anyways so why don't I just leave them up.

No such luck, about two days later someone emailed me, wanted help with GRE Math! Ok, be cool. We exchanged some emails and set up a meeting time. I quickly explained that I had never taken the GRE just in case he wanted some expert. He was fine with it, I wanted him to back out so bad, but he didn't. We talked about the good part, the money. My strategy was to find out how much regular tutors ask for (~$40/hr), and go way lower. It worked, I'm sure ol' boy was even beginning to wonder if it was some scam or something, the price was ridiculously low, to him, but to me it was a heck of a lot of money.

We had the first session this Monday and it really hasn't been as bad as I thought, the SAT is actually a bit more fanciful with its questions than the GRE. Some of the questions still throw me off though, but at least I gave the disclaimer that I wasn't a guru, so he doesn't always expect an answer in 2 seconds. Timewise it's harder than I thought, cus now I don't get any free time till 11pm at night(3 days a week) and it's even getting hard to put up posts here, but you know I won't leave you hanging for too long, so be patient with me. But the checks are darn good. Let's just say we're one step closer to solving for "x". I had to do all I could to resist cashing the first check the very next day. We don't want me looking desperately broke now do we?...it's the rule of the game, "The broke always try to look rich, and the rich just try to look normal...(Eric Jerome Dickey).