Tuesday, July 12, 2005

sae ong ji ma

Ah, the way fortune turns!

I was anticipating my usual W270,000 for my private class... then I got a call saying the class has been cancelled for the summer as my tutoree, ten-year-old Min-sung, has expressed a desire to actually have a vacation for once in his life. I sympathize with the kid, but there goes my income. W270,000... gone. Poof.

I was hoping to use part of that cash today to rush-order The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) from What the Book, but no such luck. Fortunately, a buddy of mine was able to float me the cash for the exorbitant rush-order sum (FedExing is murder on the wallet), and I'll be paying my buddy back when I get paid by Smoo on Friday. Christ, what a fucking pain it is not to have money. I take back every idealistic thing I said as a youth. Money's important, and I didn't know what the hell I was talking about.

I visited What the Book yesterday and met the owner, who seems like a nice gent. Saw him again today to place my order. He was quite helpful, though he couldn't absolutely guarantee that the book would arrive at the end of this week. If it doesn't, I'm screwed. I spent last weekend trying to find a copy of that book, visiting bookstores and libraries, all to no avail. My friend forked over the cash, the order was placed, and now we wait. Ideally, the book'll be here by Friday. I'll grab the book, pay my friend back, treat him to an "I'm sorry" dinner (probably at Outback or Bennigan's), then start carving the text into a workable script for my group.

Tomorrow is Wednesday, and I'll be curious to see how many people will have dropped out of the drama class. I'm expecting at least 5-10 dropouts, maybe more, because students will have been discouraged by the sheer size of last week's class. There's a chance I'll be wrong: drama class, unlike conversation class, encourages teamwork on a large scale, and few people want to appear on stage alone. A certain "huddling sheep" factor might keep students from dropping out and leaving their comrades twisting in the wind. I doubt that'll be the case, but it's possible.

I may have lost Min-sung's class, but it looks like I've got work coming in: you may be looking at the new copy editor for the Smoo Times (not its real name, obviously). The job supposedly pays a measly W200,000 a month, but I'm going to see if I can't negotiate for W300,000. Maybe I'll start by asking for W500,000 and bargain my way down. If haggling stops at W400,000... I won't complain.

Nature abhors a financial vacuum.


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