Are Four Jobs too Many?

I've got some breathing space from all but one project this weekend, so it's a good time for relaxation. And reflection on group operations. In order of which came first (all are ongoing):

Job 1: gradschool. It's DIY, so I am teacher, student, administrator, and financier. That's what I've been doing from 2007, mixed up with relevant day jobs, and it looks like I have till 2013 to kick this along. The subject matter ia quantitative, from math, to programming, and finance.

Job 2: housing. I've shuffled residences as frequently as I've shuffled day jobs over the past 6.5 years - on average every 8 months or so. After getting a car to increase my day job opportunities, I started travelling far enough away from the city to hunt for housing which I could afford to buy, for less than what it costs to rent in the city. I found a place sometime in the middle of last year, and it looks like finally, the lawyers have gotten around to preparing the sales and purchase agreement. I'm expecting the whole transaction to drag on for up to another year at the rate they're going. I'm told transferral of titles from state offices to individuals, multiply, can take a while. So much for the leasehold discount. Meanwhile, I am putting up with some of the most annoying people in my universe, the parents, in exchange for tangible savings on rent and utilities.

Job 3: society. To keep things interesting, amidst the many-year morass above, I'm making sure to diversify my time, and hoping to build at least a few decent relationships along the way. This requires all manner of cultural contortion. But people are what they are, and the game is what it is.

Job 4: profession. It delivers predictable cash-flows, sets the stage for future projects through portfolio development, and overall provides broad infrastructural support to Jobs 1, 2, and 3. It changes most frequently, as the markets do, and one can never say much about ongoing projects in public. So that I suppose, is that.

All in all, that's left me "killer busy," and kinda-somewhat spaceless in my mind. So on certain days these years, I do allow myself to wonder, for risk management purposes, if the whole shebang is worth my while. Well so far, I guess, it is.

On Sundays

Sleepy walk around Telawi turned up a couple of surprises! Still sleepy. More walking required. One goes looking for inspiration on a Sunday afternoon, and finds it in a midair collision with an ex. Hunkering down in a quiet Subway to see if I can hack up something before dinner time. I compile my first Erlang file on Windows, and soon figure out how to use the module "inets" to crawl webpages, including Yahoo finance stock prices in CSV format. Goldman, I'm coming to get you now; it might take another decade or so to catch up though. Grazing on orgo to help clear my mind. It's just one of those subjects I haven't touched in a really long time. Full of gibberish syllables. I wish Twitter had a "hide all football Tweets" feature. Groan.

On Operations

Feels like a wasted first 2% of the year. how to fix this? Tad too much uncertainty for gross rationalisation at this point. Waiting. There's only one thing to look forward to in 2012: I'm finally making it back to 1st world standards, in terms of either money or education. I'm such a worrywart today.

On Financial Markets

"Tis the season to be delisting."

On Personal Finances

Whoops. Spreadsheet was missing taxes. Financials for last year just scraped by. Need to be more conservative. Reading accounting before bed. This, I actually do have to remember. Also learnt about single-tier taxation of corporate profits from my regulator extraordinaire ex-flatmate.