I think you guys should check out this blog:

http://aregularcupofjo.wordpress.com/

He left some very nice comments on some of my posts so I went to have a look at his blog, and he writes well and his posts are interesting. If you would like something new to read, check it out.

Luckily I’m only having the average level of stress about work right now. I’ve done all that anyone expected from me for monthly goals, and I’m getting a pretty good start on June, even if it isn’t quite as much as I had hoped. The commute is still awful. It just takes too long, and therefore cuts into either my sleep or my morning routine time.

What I’m really stressed about is (surprise!) money. When the Press hired me full time, and I calculated how much money I would make every month, I completely forgot that I would be taking home far less because now they would actually take taxes out. Which means I won’t be able to catch up on my debt sources nearly as fast as I thought I would.

In addition, I got one of those “you own us taxes” notices, which, DUH. The IRS, I swear, is a collective idiot. But the problem, really, is that I set up an automatic debit to pay in installments at the same time as filing my taxes, and it said that it was accepted, and I got a mailing a bit later that said to wait to contact them about it because sometimes it doesn’t process the first month. The first month it was set to pay was this month, around the twentieth or so, I think. As far as I can tell it didn’t come out. Obviously they want their money. But they should have a damn system that shows them who already was responsible enough to set up payments and therefore shouldn’t be bothered with extra stupid things in the mail.

This reminds me of trying to figure out the financial side of studying abroad. When they didn’t have a payment by a certain date, they don’t send you a first notice saying “send this payment immediately” or anything like that. No, they sent something called a “Termination Notice” (meaning from the study abroad program). Of course, I panicked and called my mom, and it got sorted out and I went abroad. But then I was pissed off, because I thought their method was horrible. College students tend to be pretty stressed out, often depressed, and even more often lacking in money. And you think it’s a good idea to send them a letter saying their plans for next semester are just about to fall apart? Honestly, it seems pretty sick to me.

Even though it’s not something I really want to do, I’m kind of feeling an urge to go live on a hippie commune where everything is done on the barter system and I can trade spontaneous poetry for a backrub (or, something).