The way I travel?

I say, "I've got $4k (or whatever)". And I make that amount stretch to whatever it is I want to do. I can't imagine trying to use a spreadsheet for something so far into the future. Why not just list the places you really want to see, plan the time you'll need to see them, and save as much as you can every month to put in the bucket for the trip?

Or am I missing something? I traveled all over China for a month, and some days I spent $200 and some days I spent $35. I just made sure I got to see the top things on my list, and scheduled days for absolutely nothing.

I'm sitting on my balcony, enjoying the gorgeous weather, drinking a glass of wine

Sounds nice. I could go up on my roof and enjoy the weather, but no wireless internet and no alcoholic beverages up there.

I'm having so much trouble with this teaching assignment form. I don't want to teach any of these classes! There's one that I will avoid at all costs (Finite Math for the Social and Management Sciences -- about half the semester is spent on how to solve systems of multiple equations in multiple variables, which is long and tedious and completely pointless, and I have no idea why they teach it), and then a bunch of sections of single-variable calculus, which I can teach, no problem, but I've taught it something like four out of the past six semesters. This department has a whole bunch of other classes listed, but none being offered next semester.

Sounds nice. I could go up on my roof and enjoy the weather, but no wireless internet and no alcoholic beverages up there.

come here! :)

Hil - my friend lived in Africa for years and years and years and years, and she loved Botswana to pieces. fwiw.

So, on a lark, I signed up for the Guardian's "Soulmates", an online match service. The Guardian is a liberal UK newspaper that I read occasionnally. I signed up like 6 months ago. I don't know what they did, but in the last few days, I've gotten several nods of interest. (go me!) One of them is even in DC! But, I digress. Of course, sign up is free, but in order to talk or email, you have to pay. They have a series of "one liners" that you can send for free, though. One of them is "I'm not a subcriber, how about a gift subscription?" How tacky is that?

V. tacky. But Guardian readers = for the win, and it's a lovely site. Still, despite the fact that there are gazillions of interesting and attractive people signed up, I'm not willing to pay up cash money in order to communicate with them - thus my wee ad sits there all useless.

...actually, I found Buffistas via the Guardian, now that I remember - so it's a pretty good matchmaker, all in all.

I've been told that I need to be more social. (And my mother has been dropping hints that I ought to be getting married and giving her grandchildren.) Just got an email about a trivia night for young Jewish professionals. This seems like about my level of sociability, plus I'll be meeting a bunch of Jewish lawyers in my age range. Who will probably all be Republicans. (I don't understand this. Jews are one of the most Democratic demographics in the country, and yet, it seems like every Jewish guy I meet is Republican. And while I don't have issues with dating Republicans per se, I've not yet met one who I wanted to date for more than a few weeks.)

I say, "I've got $4k (or whatever)". And I make that amount stretch to whatever it is I want to do. I can't imagine trying to use a spreadsheet for something so far into the future. Why not just list the places you really want to see, plan the time you'll need to see them, and save as much as you can every month to put in the bucket for the trip?

Well, mainly it's that I know all too well that if I don't have a specific target to aim at, there will be too many months where I think, "Oh, 2015 is still forever from now, and I really need/want X." And then before I knew it it'd be, oh, March of 2015, and I'd barely have enough money for a one-week trip, which would be disappointing, given that the boost from this inheritance should put me in a position where at least a 3-week trip is feasible. And since this trip at that time has been a dream of mine ever since I turned into a military history geek, I don't want to blow it for no better reason than sucking at advance planning.

Of course, the danger in the other direction is to plan this thing in such specific and regimented detail that I'm DEVASTATED if some setback alters my plans. But I'm slowly learning to balance my wild swings between under-planning and over-planning.

Because I am mean and cranky and I don't like Hilary Swank, this photo cracked me up: [link]

go to the trivia night. it sounds like fun. and if you meet one or two people that is nice to talk to ...so much the better.

Or am I missing something?

I'm not sure that you are missing anything - that is in the long run the way part of it will go. but, Susan is a planner.She likes plans. And there will be kids , or at least one. So a little more planning can make things easier. Plus - this is fun

Oooh! Amelia Earhart biopic!

You know what I'd be really (irrationally) tempted to do if I had a sum of money I was planning to spend in five years on a trip to a foreign country? Invest just that trip fund in bonds or a savings account or something in that currency. Why is that irrational? Because if you were not planning to do high risk currency speculation anyway, the risk of currency losses potential for currency gains is exactly the same regardless of whether you planned to ultimately make expenditures in that currency. And yet the irrational part of me would saying "you are planning to spend in euros. Invest in euros."