Almost fall

I finished the AFAA study guide and practice test and used my guest passes at Shapes. Without any memberships, though, I've been falling into old habits. Not that my old habits are bad – they still consist of stretching daily, going for walks / jogs, and doing stuff in my living room. They just don't consist of actual aerobic or strength training classes or structured time periods to “work out.” I think it's enough to stay healthy...I just need to make sure that I can pick things up quickly if the demands of work in my industry require it. Which they might.

On a sort of related note, I was thinking about how circumstances in life / mental state can determine whether or not you exercise. Of course we know that exercising can also determine how you feel in life, so it's sort of a chicken or egg thing to me. Do you jump up and down because you're happy or are you happy because you jump up and down? It can go both ways. But I'm still fascinated by how emotions can affect what our bodies do. The reverse is sort of interesting, but it's a saturated field of study (that I happen to be in). I wonder if I'll ever get to explore more.

What else? I got a couple of job offers. One was for the campus bookstore and one was for tutor-a-bull which is a program in the education dept. where we go tutor kids in middle schools and high schools around the area. The tutoring would only be 1 day a week for 4 hours but would last the whole semester. The bookstore would be 15-ish hours a week but wouldn't be guaranteed to last the semester. Temporary employees are just needed for the fall rush (through Sept 13) and then it's uncertain after that. So I could do both. I signed up for a training session Wed. of this week, in fact. But I also applied to a grad assistantship in the financial aid office which I haven't heard from yet. That would pay way more and be pretty cool, but I don't know what will happen. The timing of knowing these things is a little frustrating, but what can you do?

Other things I have to do that are coming up: check to see if new tuition rates are posted yet. That will have an effect on how much of the loan money I decide to accept. (But so will the job situation because assistantships pay some of the tuition). I also might have to call unemployment for millionth time because I'm still not getting anything even though I've been submitting my job searches. And it's all because I reported that research study I did as income one week. That was stupid. I wouldn't have done that if I'd known it would screw everything up. Ugh. But despite money issues, I'm still managing to make purchases where needed (dentist, oil change, car registration, parking decal for new school year) and where wanted (plane ticket to see boyfriend once more before school starts, maybe an e-reader / tablet which I've been wanting for a while and which I might shop for this weekend when they're tax-free and possibly on sale for the back-to-school season). Oh, and then I'll need to get textbooks for my classes, but I've been getting those with award money that's been attached to my financial aid, so that shouldn't be too big a deal (plus if I stay an employee of the bookstore I get an employee discount).

Sometimes it seems unfathomable that I'd be affording everything with as little income as I've had lately, but for one thing, I shouldn't question it. And for another, I still need to be careful because luck is not everlasting. I'm gonna have loans to pay after this year, I won't have the safety net of school anymore, and I'll need to succeed in acquiring what I'm working toward – a 'real job' that will engage me on a daily basis and that will pay decently. It's such a simple concept but one that's taken a long time to carve a path for. Because when you're young, you sometimes make a wrong guess about what it is you should do / pursue. And then you have to start over. But there are worse things than having to start over. And it's never too late to do it. And now I sound like a hallmark card, so maybe that means I should end the post here, lol.