Journal 10/3: First Week in Saint-Quentin

When I decided to start a blog of my TAPIF journey, I told myself that I would maintain up-to-date journal entries, maybe missing a day or two here and there but mostly posting about events within 48 hours.

That did not happen.

I make no promises about being more consistent going forward, but I also refuse to abandon the journal altogether, so for now I'm just going to list the highlights of each day instead of detailed chronicles like I intended. 

9/28
One of the other English assistants placed in Saint-Quentin reached out to me on WhatsApp and asked if I wanted to meet up and explore the town together. I invited my school's Chinese assistant (whom I will refer to as "Y" out of respect for her privacy) to accompany us, and we met up in front of La Basilique, since it's a huge building that's impossible to miss. We walked right past the girl (who I'll call "J") at first, and did a full loop all the way around the basilica before approaching her and asking if she was who we thought she was. We stopped into a pharmacy to look for hand soap for my and Y's apartment (we were unsuccessful in this endeavor), and then J asked if we could check out Sephora. I only wear makeup maybe twice a year, so there was nothing in that store for me, but who was I to tell her no? There was an adorable pop-up candy shop (and a carousel!) in the town center, and I couldn't decide between a waffle or a churro, so I bought both. (Which I instantly regretted, because the whipped cream-stuffed churro, pictured on the left, was insanely messy to eat and honestly didn't even taste that good, plus I was too full to also eat the waffle so I had to walk around the town carrying it. I suppose there are worse things to be stuck with than a waffle, though.)

After parting ways with J and Y, I embarked on a solo grocery trip. I've gone grocery shopping alone countless times back in the US, but doing it in a foreign country for the first time felt like an important milestone. I bought some essentials such as milk (side note: French milk bottles bear an uncanny resemblance to American bottles of bleach), salt, pepper, flour, cereal, juice, yogurt, ketchup, etc. My total came to exactly 30.10 €, if anyone cares to know. 

While browsing the yogurt section, an old woman approached me and asked me to do some math for her, because she didn't know if she had enough money for her groceries, she can't do math in her head, and she left her phone at home. Numbers are my weakness in all languages, so you can imagine how difficult this was for me, especially with the woman chatting in between giving me numbers. Instead of asking if I was American, she told me I was, which I thought was kind of funny because my Uber driver yesterday asked if I was from Germany when I told him French wasn't my first language. Maybe my Stockton University hoodie gave me away; other than that, I'm not sure what made this lady peg me so confidently as an American. She rambled about how brave I am to be an American living in France, and told me that she knows another American in Saint-Quentin named Andréa Renée, and asked if she could give her my phone number, I guess because Americans need to stick together or something like that. In retrospect, I definitely should not have given my phone number to a strange old lady in a Carrefour City, but she pushed a receipt and a pen into my hand and I was too startled to even consider writing down a fake number. My mom is convinced that she was a human trafficker and now my life is in danger, but I think she was just a friendly old lady trying to match-make some American friendships. Hopefully. I guess we'll see. Oh, and in the end, she did have enough money for her groceries, so that's good.

My school's Spanish assistant arrived from Mexico later that night; I'll call her "F" here. Also, I broke the apartment's washing machine. I have NO idea how I did it: it was tiny and old, yes, but I really didn't think I had over-stuffed it. Whatever I did, though, it would not open. All three of us language assistants tried to pry it open, to no avail. I even reached out to a German assistant who lived here previously, and the advice she gave me didn't work so she said it must just be stuck. I called the teacher that had picked me up from the train station, and she gave me the phone number of the maintenance guy. I still didn't have a French phone number, so F texted him for me, and he said he would come out the next day.

9/29
I reheated yesterday's waffle in the microwave for breakfast, and the results were... less than desirable. But I paid for it, so I ate it. My school's Spanish assistant asked me to accompany her grocery shopping, so I went with her to Carrefour City. Later that afternoon, all three of us met up with our school's Human Resources Secretary and signed some papers. She also gave us all attestations du logement and said she made us appointments to open bank accounts at Caisse D'Epargne bank for next week. I'm a little nervous that this is cutting it too close, since the date of the appointment is October 7th and the deadline to open a bank account is October 10th, but hopefully we get our RIB the same day. Afterwards, she took us on a tour of the town. I had already seen most of the places she took us during my explorations of the past couple of days, but her commentaries were super helpful, especially when she told us that there's a morning market in the square by the temporary carousel and candy shop every Saturday and Wednesday.

F and I took a little trip to FNAC, which I would describe as a combination of Barnes & Noble and Staples. She bought her Free Mobile sim card from a kiosk there. They were having a buy two, get one free sale for posters, so I bought two maps (one of France and one of the world) to hang up in our apartment's common room, and one of Thor: Love and Thunder to hang in my bedroom, mostly because it has Thor's goats on it. I also bought some push pins to hang them up with, and I thought the three of us could put pins on the world map to show where we come from. I'll also try and reach out to previous Henri Martin assistants that used to live here and find out where they came from so I can put pins up for them, too. I was very impressed by FNAC's manga collection; I had to remind myself that everything I buy here needs to fit in a suitcase to go back home, or else I would have bought the entire Haikyuu!! series in French. 

I ended the night by finishing the last couple episodes of an anime I've been keeping up with since it started airing back in April (Love All Play, if you're curious), and that really helped me feel at home.

9/30
I woke up to some absolutely devastating news. A couple of maintenance guys had indeed come to check on the washing machine, and the diagnosis was grave: I had broken it beyond repair, and it would never be opened again. Before I could ask them what they were going to do with it, they had already loaded the machine up and taken it away.... with my clothes still in it. My two favorite dresses and one of my favorite anime hoodies were in there!!! I ran to the Human Resources Secretary's office 30 minutes before she left for the weekend and explained the situation to her. She called the maintenance guys, and thank God she did, because they had no idea my clothes were still in there! I don't know where broken washing machines go in France, but I have a feeling that if I hadn't warned them, I never would have seen my clothes again. They promised to retrieve my clothes and return them to me. I wonder how they planned on getting them out; a power saw, perhaps? 

While I was relieved to learn that my clothes would not longer be held hostage, the stress from the morning's events still weighed on me heavily. Plus, I hadn't slept well and woke up in a foul mood to begin with. Back at home in New Jersey, a surefire way to cheer me up when I'm feeling down is to spend time with my goats, and although they're on the other side of the earth, I knew where I could find some other goats: Le Parc Animalier in Le Parc d'Isle.

Just walking to the park lifted my spirits considerably. The 30-minute walk in the autumn sunshine was absolutely refreshing, and it was awesome to see a little bit more of the town than I'd seen already.

I was so in awe of the beautiful park that I video called my mom to show it to her, completely forgetting that New Jersey is six hours behind and she was still at work. Oops! By the time I made it to Le Parc Sauvage, I was in a perfectly appropriate mood to appreciate the animals. I'd never been to a zoo by myself, but being alone didn't detract at all from how much I enjoyed seeing the lemurs, and otters, and warthogs, and monkeys, and all the other creatures on display. I couldn't believe how nice the zoo was, considering admission is free! I was confused, though, by the lack of goats. Where were they hiding them? Their "Don't feed the animals" sign had a picture of a goat on it, so I knew they had to be somewhere. Coincidentally, J was going for a run past the park while I was there, so she met up with me and I did another lap around the zoo, not by myself this time. I explained to her my goat predicament, and we walked all the way back to the entrance to find a map. As it turns out, I had taken the wrong exit, and the goats were on the opposite side of the park. Fortunately, J likes to exercise and I was willing to do anything to see some goats, so we didn't complain about going back the way we came. 

There are two separate goat enclosures: one with two bucks (whose horns are incredible) and a wether, and one that I think is all does. I made sure to pet every goat that would allow me to. Just hearing their bleats, and even smelling their stink, made me feel at home. I will definitely be taking more trips to Parc d'Isle whenever I need to destress.

While we were at the park, one of the girls ("N") in the Saint-Quentin group chat offered to meet up for dinner and/or drinks. Choosing a place was super hard, but eventually we settled on a creperie that N suggested called La Remise de Tantine. J and I stopped at J's apartment so she could get changed, and I met her roommate, whose name also begins with a Y so she'll be YV. The three of us walked to the creperie together. We arrived at 6:58 PM, but the restaurant didn't open until 7:00 PM on the dot, so we stood awkwardly outside the door for the longest two minutes ever. They took us right to a table upstairs as soon as they opened, though, and N joined us a few minutes later. I am so glad we decided on that place, because it was DELICIOUS. All of their crepes had human names (which we found endearing and a little hilarious), and I ordered "Picarde," which was a savory crepe containing ham, mushrooms, and Emmental cheese, as well as a virgin version of a normally alcoholic drink whose name I can't remember (but I know it had pineapple juice in it). Maybe it tasted better because I was extremely hungry at that point, but it was SO. GOOD. I can't wait to go back. We also got a kick out of the place's eclectic decor: in general, it was very fancy and refined, yet the walls were decorated with shelves of completely random items including a set of Spice Girls Barbie dolls and a huge stuffed Remy from Ratatouille. There was even a little plastic Rubble from Paw Patrol in a basket at the checkout counter, for some reason. 

None of us (except for N, who bought a beer) felt like drinking after our meal, but we still moved to a bar so we could sit at a table in the basement (which I promise is not as sketchy as it sounds) and get to know each other more. We were also interested in playing a round of darts (well, I know I was; I can't speak for the other girls), but unfortunately the dartboard was occupied, so we just went directly down to the basement. A fifth assistant, this one from Scotland, met up with us there, and we sat around just talking for at least an hour (probably. I actually never looked at the time). Eventually we went our separate ways and agreed to plan another, bigger meetup with even more of the Saint-Quentin assistants, probably next weekend. I was strongly craving Doritos for some reason, and miraculously I found a corner store that was still open and had Doritos! I ate the whole bag as soon as I got home. It was a little unnerving walking alone in a new city at night, but I just kept reminding myself that this is not America, and my chances of getting stabbed and/or SA'd are much lower. In fact, I barely passed any people at all on my way back.

10/1

I debated whether or not I would go to today's morning marché, but I needed to stop by an ATM to take out some euros anyway (PRO TIP that I learned from F: look up your American bank's European sister branch, because they won't charge you ATM fees to take out money! For Bank of America, it's BNP Paribas), so I decided I might as well check it out. At first I was completely underwhelmed, because it appeared to just be three or four tables selling toys and clothes. But I quickly realized I was just on the outskirts of the market. Once I turned the corner, the whole street was packed with pop-ups selling produce and more clothes. I had found a recipe for a vegetable soup I wanted to try making, so I decided to buy as many fresh ingredients as I could find. 

Now, coming into TAPIF, I was fairly confident in my French skills. I knew I was out of practice with speaking it (you can't have a conversation with the Duolingo owl, after all), but I've been learning it since seventh grade, so surely I must be pretty good, right? My trip to the market proved me wrong. First, I asked for one onion, and was given one kilo of onions. Then, I tried to ask for 1/4 of a kilo of spinach, but the vendor had absolutely no idea what I was saying, even when I typed out "1/4" on my phone. I ended up with 1.25 kilos of spinach. It was very humbling. I was, however, able to successfully purchase one vendor's entire stock of mushrooms (which isn't actually saying much, because they only had, like, 10 left), as well as a kilo of apples (and this time 1 kilo is the quantity that I actually wanted). Not exactly a resounding success, but far from a complete failure, too. I don't know if I'll go back next Saturday, but I certainly will be back. 

I also stopped by the pharmacy to pick up some multivitamins, since I'd only packed a week's worth (I like the gummies and I didn't want them to melt in my suitcase). I was completely unaware that even if you weren't picking up a prescription, you were supposed to take a ticket before going up to the cash register, so I was very embarrassed and slightly confused when the cashier told me "You didn't take a number." I was not expecting the pharmacy to operate like a deli counter. I shared this in one of the TAPIF WhatsApp groups, and everyone was just as confused as I was, because they all said they'd never had to take a ticket at a pharmacy or even heard of that happening. So I guess I was just lucky. (Side note: I was equally surprised to hear Weezer and Papa Roach playing in the pharmacy. It just doesn't seem like the type of facility to play alternative rock. It was a pleasant--and amusing--surprise, though.)

I was delighted to find that my the time I returned to the apartment, my imprisoned clothes had been liberated and returned to me safely. Soaking wet, but safe. My flatmates asked if I wanted to go with them to Aushopping (the biggest shopping center in the area), and although I didn't have anything I particularly needed or wanted to buy, I agreed to go along to see how the bus works. For some reason the Bus Pastel app wasn't available on my phone (it kept saying it was unavailable in my country, which is hilarious because I am in France and it's a French app), and you can't buy tickets on the bus, so I had to borrow Y's phone and purchase my ticket on there. She already bought a bus pass because she'll need it to get to one of her other schools, so we fortunately didn't need to scramble to scan her ticket, log out of her account, and log into my account when we got on the bus. 

The regular bus stop was closed due to the marché, but the bus stop they use on market days was very close by. I honestly didn't really pay attention to the ride, but apparently it lasted about 10 minutes. Aushopping is... BIG. And this is coming from an American. Auchan, which is the grocery store you see as soon as you walk into the mall, is sort of like a combination of BJ's and Walmart. It was certainly bigger than any grocery store I've ever been to in the US, and it was inside the shopping mall, so you can imagine how huge the mall itself was. I picked out some croissants at the bakery and very seriously considered some strawberry cakes, but refrained. I soon got separated from my flatmates, and one look around the store told me I was never going to find them. I was starting to get super hungry (and I have this fun little habit of fainting if I don't eat), so I decided to just buy the croissants and head to one of the mall's restaurants, then meet up with my flatmates when they were done with their grocery extravaganza. I chose a pizza place and had a very hard time picking something, because they had a ton of super delicious and unique options. In yet another bout of proving that my French is not as good as I thought, I pointed at one pizza and asked what was on it, but I guess it sounded like I was asking for that one, because she put it in the oven and rang me up. Fortunately it turned out to be very yummy, even though I still don't know exactly what was on it (pepperoni and mushrooms were at least two of the ingredients that I could identify, and there were no anchovies, which was my fear). I also got a Lipton Peach Tea, which was much less sweet than the Lipton Sweet Tea I was once addicted to at home. The two guys at the table next to me were speaking American English, and I considered starting a conversation with them, but ultimately decided I didn't have the energy.

While waiting for Y to finish up, F told me that she'd gotten a message from the Bursar asking her to ask me to meet with her (the Bursar) on Monday to discuss whether or not I would have to pay to replace the broken washing machine. My heart dropped down to my stomach when she told me that. She reassured me that she'd looked at washing machines in Auchan just now and we could get one for 200 euros, but that would still be 200 euros out of my pocket. I really, REALLY hoped it wouldn't come to that, especially after paying off my phone (I'll explain that in tomorrow's entry).

In better news, I also received a text from Sarah (it's too much effort to keep saying "the professor who picked me up from the train station," so yeah, her name is Sarah) saying that she and her daughter were going to see Don't Worry Darling at 4:30 that evening and I was welcome to join them if I was available. I had actually planned on watching that with one of my best friends for her birthday, but I ended up canceling because it right before my flight and I still had too much to do, so I was excited to have the opportunity to see it. I extended the invitation to my flatmates when I reunited with them, and while Y turned down the offer F said sure. Before we left, F asked if we could go to a sporting goods store called Decathlon, which looked a lot closer than it actually was. That walk sucked. I have even less interest in sports than I do in makeup, so while she shopped I called my mom to let her know I was going to the movies and tell her about my day. F couldn't find what she was looking for--roller skates, I think?--and ended up leaving with just a yoga mat (at least I'm pretty that's what it is). We made it back to the dorm at 4:00 PM, and it was a 15-minute walk to the movie theater, so the timing was perfect. F had thought I said 6:30 and not 4:30, so in the end she decided not to go. I handed my croissants to Y for safekeeping and walked to the theater myself. 

I got there before Sarah and her daughter, so I bought my ticket at the kiosk (just touchscreens, no box office) and ordered a small popcorn and an Apple Raspberry Oasis. Back when Regal Cinemas still sold Gold Peak iced tea, I would buy a raspberry iced tea every time I went to the movies, so apple raspberry juice was as close as I'd gotten in a while. This transaction went much more smoothly than my marché interactions, thankfully. When I told Sarah (who is from the United Kingdom) that I absolutely must have popcorn every time I go to the movies, she said that's very American of me, which, okay, fair. 

The movie was INCREDIBLE; 10x better than I expected it to be, honestly. Sarah offered to drive me home, and I got back to the apartment around 8:00 PM. I FaceTimed my mom to give her a video tour of the apartment, and she inspired me to hang up the Halloween LED lights I'd brought from home in the kitchen, to cover up the tinsel Christmas tree that the previous assistants had put on the wall. (I didn't want to dismantle the art of my predecessors, but I simply cannot abide by any Christmas displays in my home during spooky season.) 

After hanging up the video call, I got to work making the soup I'd bought the ingredients for. I listened to my Halloween playlist while I cooked, and was delighted to find that the kitchen was already stocked with all the tools I needed: a pot, a whisk, a cutting board, a knife. I was pretty certain I had purchased vegetable broth on one of my grocery store trips, but whatever I bought turned out to be... not vegetable broth. I still have no idea what it was. I read the ingredients, and it looked like the ingredients for vegetable broth, except it also had milk in it, which made ALL the difference in both texture and flavor. The good news was I hadn't been able to find half-and-half like the recipe required, so the "broth" having milk in it worked out fine. It tasted okay, but I was displeased to find that the only thing I could taste in the whole soup was that stuff. Next time I make something that asks for vegetable broth, I'll look much more carefully to make sure that's actually what I buy. Do they even have vegetable broth in France? 

10/2
So, the phone fiasco. Yeah, that was far from over. After doing some math (gross), I decided that although paying off my current phone and unlocking it from the carrier was the most expensive option upfront, it would save me money in the long-run. So, being the type of person that is constantly thinking no less than six months ahead, I decided to bite the bullet and drop $800 on the stupid thing. Unfortunately, I jumped the gun and submitted an unlock request before the payment was processed, so I was blocked from submitting another request for 48 hours. That had been at 10:00 PM on Thursday (September 29th--I forgot to mention that part of my day), so I wasn't able to unlock it until last night. With the movie, soup, and Halloween music, though, I had forgotten to submit the new request, so I did it first thing this morning. Thankfully, it was approved right away; FINALLY, something easy! Now I could go online to Free Mobile's website, purchase an eSIM, and be merrily on my way.

But the quickness of the unlock approval had given me a false sense of security, and I immediately ran into another big problem: while physical SIM cards are extremely simple to come by, in order to purchase an eSIM, you need a French bank account number, which I won't have until Friday at the earliest. This meant I would be stuck as a slave to AT&T's expensive international plan for at least another week. There was nothing I could do about it, though. I edited the home tour video I'd made for my students, watched one episode of anime, and took a quick trip to Vival (a smaller grocery store) to buy some Doritos, since my craving for them somehow still hadn't passed. I FaceTimed my mom again on my way there so she could see a little bit of the town. The cashier, an older Arabic guy who seemed to be the store's only employee (he was the cashier the last two times I shopped there, too), asked my name, but when I asked him for his, he said his English isn't that good and he prefers Arabic or French. So I asked him in French, and he still didn't tell me his name. Kinda weird. He also told me I'm his "beautiful English teacher," which would have been sweet except for the fact that the previous time I'd shopped there, he asked if I was free that afternoon. I may have dabbled in fantasizing about a whirlwind European romance, but the middle-aged dude at the slightly sketchy grocery store is definitely not what I had in mind. I'm pretty sure he's harmless, but if he starts getting real creepy, I'll either avoid going to that store or, if none of the other grocery stores are open and I desperately need something like milk, I'll just ask one of my flatmates to come with me. Oh, speaking of this guy: the first time I went to Vival, I told him I was American, and he said "Oh, like Mike Tyson!" which I think is absolutely hilarious. Out of the millions of famous Americans, Mike Tyson is who he associates with the country? Interesting choice. I told him my mom calls my dog Mike Tyson because she's missing a tooth, and he got a kick out of that. God, I hope he really is harmless, because Vival is so darn convenient. Why do men always have to ruin things?

10/3
The phone drama continues. My day started off on a sour note when I was notified that I had used up all of the hotspot data on my phone, and since the school's WiFi blocks everything except for YouTube and Gmail (I'm not kidding), this meant that I wouldn't be able to use my computer. I immediately got dressed and went to the Free Boutique to see if I could buy an eSIM from their kiosk without needing a French bank account. No dice; the eSIM option wasn't even available. So I trudged back to my apartment empty-handed, but first I stopped by the Bursar's office. She wasn't there, which meant I'd climbed the administrative building stairs for nothing. I hate exercising for nothing. On my way from there to my apartment, though, I was hit with a sudden epiphany: I still had the unactivated Airalo eSIM! Now that my phone was unlocked, I could just add that eSIM until I got a French bank account and could get a Free Mobile eSIM instead! I immediately pulled up the Airalo QR code and went to install it... only to receive a message saying my phone was still locked to the carrier. I didn't panic right away: I remembered seeing an email from AT&T with some sort of code I had to enter to unlock my phone. I pulled up that email and read the instructions on how and where to submit that code... Yeah, the only way to access the place where you input that code was to insert a non-AT&T sim card into the physical sim card slot. In my phone that does not have a physical sim card slot. AWESOME.

More pissed than panicked, I called AT&T customer service, only for it to say that the number cannot be reached. Now I'm even MORE pissed. I couldn't use my computer since I ran out of hotspot, so I had to pull up the AT&T website on my phone to chat with a live agent. But to chat with a live agent, I needed to log into my account, to which I didn't know the password. And the password reset link was sent to my mom's email address, to which I also do not know the password. Fortunately, my mom hadn't left for work just yet, so she was able to get the password reset. I explained the situation to an agent, who told me to type some long string of numbers and symbols into the phone's keypad. I think she just made it up, because nothing happened. She had also told me to turn my phone off and on again, which disconnected our chat. This prompted a call from AT&T to check on why the chat had disconnected abruptly (interesting that they can call me, but I can't call them anymore). I explained the situation to this new guy, who kept trying to explain how to remove my sim card. I kept explaining to him that my phone doesn't HAVE a physical sim card slot, that's why I'm in this position in the first place, and he calmly told me that all current Samsung phones have a physical sim card slot. Wait. WHAT?!?!? Lo and behold, there in the bottom left corner of my phone, was a hole so tiny and inconspicuous that I'd never even noticed it. He told me to get a paper clip (in my impatience I grabbed a push pin instead because those were on my desk while the paper clips were in another room) and pry it open. Yup: it was a bonafide sim card slot. Pardon my French (haha), but, are you fucking KIDDING me?!?!?! The woman that sold me my phone told me it ONLY took eSIMs. None of the agents my mom and I talked to back before I left for France challenged me when I told them my phone only took eSIMs. The lady I had just chatted with online didn't say anything about it either. But you're telling me the saleswoman LIED to me, and I DO have a physical sim card slot, meaning that I could have bought a Free Mobile sim card the second I arrived in France and saved myself  $70 worth of international AT&T fees? My god, I was FURIOUS. I still am! I thanked the guy for his help and practically RAN (and I do not run) back to Free. Within five minutes, I had a French phone number, complete with data and hotspot, for less than $35. I should have had that a WEEK ago!!! Ooh, it makes my blood boil just thinking about it. AT&T is now my sworn mortal enemy.

Oh, and it gets worse! They also neglected to tell me that once I inserted a new sim card, my American eSIM--along with the phone number I've had since I was 12 years old--would be deleted. I went to AT&T's website AGAIN and chatted with ANOTHER agent, who assured me that we could get my eSIM back. But I wasn't comforted for long, because he said in order to do that, I would have to buy a special QR code, and someone back in the US would have to go to an AT&T store and pick it up. After accusing AT&T of being greedy, deceptive liars, the man agreed to waive the fee for the QR code (which shouldn't have existed anyway; why would I have to pay money to get my own phone number back?! AT&T is basically holding my American number for ransom), but he said it still needs to be picked up in person. Even though QR codes are literally digital, it cannot be sent digitally. So now I have to ask my mom to go to an AT&T store and pick up this stupid code just so I can have access to my American phone number. 

To add insult to injury, I decided to be productive and pay the 200 euros to validate my visa, which needs to be done within 90 days of my arrival in France. I planned on paying for it with my new Travel Rewards credit card, since that would waive the international transaction fees and also score me lots of points that I can redeem for things like food and hotel rooms. But since the amount is so high, I needed a security code. Which was sent to my American phone number. Which AT&T is currently holding hostage. I could just wait until my mom gets the QR code and I retrieve my American number, but with how things have been going, there's no guarantee that that'll even work. I'm sure (okay, I hope) that it's something I can resolve within 90 days, but I just wanted to get it over with and checked off my list, so I paid for it with my regular debit card. I am not excited to find out how much the international transaction fees on a 200 euro purchase are. 

So that makes two impatience-driven irresponsible financial decisions in one week. According to my carefully calculated budget, I should be fine as long as I don't spend more than $1200 each month for the rest of TAPIF, but... Fingers crossed, I guess.

In better news, I saw a cat today and it let me pet it! It's the little wins.