arghblargharrrrrrrrr
So much stress right now. Well, let me tell you about the one cute/fun thing first. I'd imagine most of you have seen the pictures, but in case you didn't, Brad and I adopted a kitty. She's two years old, and we're not 100% sure of her breed, but she's definitely got some Maine coon in her. She's very fluffy! Someone had posted to the Toronto LJ community that she needed a home, because her owners were moving to New Zealand and couldn't take her with them. I responded to the post, was given the owners' email address, and we set up a time to go down and meet the kitty. Apparently, because of animal regulations in NZ, if they had taken the cat with them, she would have had to be quarantined for six months! They didn't want to do that to her, so they put her up for adoption here. We thought she was very pretty and seemed sweet, so we agreed to take her and yay, we have a kitty now! It's nice to have an animal around again, although I do still really want a puppy as well, so hopefully we'll be able to find one of those soon, too. Plus we do want the dog and cat to be able to get along well with each other, so the sooner we can get the dog, the better.
Anyway, omg stressssssssssssss. Work has been juuuust shy of overwhelming this week. Last week too, maybe. It's mostly my one school, because they didn't have a psych there for at least a month before I started (and even prior to that, they'd only had scattered fill-in service, not anyone consistent), so there's a lot to catch up on there. I feel like I've pretty much found my groove with assessments, so even though there's a long list of kids waiting for assessments, that's not really bothering me. It's more everything else that's going on on top of the assessments - things like letters from doctors issuing random diagnoses for students that don't fit with our criteria for anything, assessments done by other people that I need to review to determine whether a student should be in a GLD or DD class, and primarily, one ASD student who is having major behavior issues and is therefore taking up a ridiculous amount of my (and the rest of the team's) time. Plus I just finished my first report, and my supervisor will be reading it over on Monday, and I'm still kind of nervous about it even though my mentor peer reviewed it for me and said it was a great first report.
The other thing that's really been stressing me out is, and this should really not be a surprise anymore, money. Of course. I thought that working a real grown up job with a real grown up paycheck would mean that we could finally stop stressing out about money, but no. We probably would be able to if a) we didn't have to make all the money I earn from now till June 30 last us the entire summer, and b) they would stop screwing up my paycheck. Yeah, because this is a school-based job, it ends on June 30 and doesn't start up again till September. Which means that I have no income for July and August, but still need to be able to pay for things like rent and bills and groceries . . . you know, the little things. Anyway, it would probably be a lot easier to stretch my paychecks over those two income-free months if they didn't take out a fucking THIRD of my earnings to taxes. I'm not even kidding - the paycheck I got today, they literally took a third of it for taxes, which is just obscene. I need to call payroll on Monday and find out if there's a way to change how much they take out in taxes because hi, I'd kind of like that other third of my paycheck please. It's even more irritating because the percent of my paycheck that's going to taxes hasn't been consistent from one check to the next, so I can't plan for how much money I should be taking home.
This isn't the first time something's been wrong with my paycheck either. My last one was for the time period during which I went from part time to full time, but apparently my paperwork didn't make it in to the payroll deities before their deadline, and so I got paid for two weeks as if I'd been part time the whole time instead of for only three days of the period. They did make up the difference in this paycheck, but even still, it's getting really old to keep getting paychecks that are way less than what I'm expecting. It's not helping us to be able to get any furniture or any of the little things we need for our new apartment, or to be able to get caught up on our bills, or to pay back the money we've borrowed from friends, etc. Again, things that I really thought would not be an issue once I was making real money. We were going to look into financing options to get some furniture, but when we went to apply at one store today, we found out that Brad apparently has some random unpaid things on his credit that he wasn't even aware of, so we got denied. And I of course, have no Canadian credit yet, and my American credit isn't great right now since I've had to pay a few things late and my credit card went over its limit, blah blah blah. It really seems like there is no option for people who are just starting out or trying to get themselves into a better financial situation. If you don't already have money/credit, good luck trying to get any. Which is dumb. There really should be more financial options designed to actually help people instead of just screw them over for being poor.
Yeah, so money is weighing quite heavily on my mind right now, obviously. On top of that and all the work stress, I've been sick all week with a nasty cold that's had my head congested and my throat raw. Now I've got the coughs that hurt my chest. Delightful. And, even better, we're moving next week, so I still need to pack all my shit and take care of all the little details that go along with moving, when all I really want to do is curl up with some blankets and a good book and do nothing for a day or two. *sigh* I am really glad we're moving, and I think I'll be happier once we're there, but I really just wish we could catch a break financially. Just once. Ugh. Okay, well, my throat feels crappy, and I'm tired as hell, so I'm going to head to bed now and hope I can actually sleep in tomorrow so maybe I'll start feeling better. Hopefully I'll have more positive things to report next entry.
Anyway, omg stressssssssssssss. Work has been juuuust shy of overwhelming this week. Last week too, maybe. It's mostly my one school, because they didn't have a psych there for at least a month before I started (and even prior to that, they'd only had scattered fill-in service, not anyone consistent), so there's a lot to catch up on there. I feel like I've pretty much found my groove with assessments, so even though there's a long list of kids waiting for assessments, that's not really bothering me. It's more everything else that's going on on top of the assessments - things like letters from doctors issuing random diagnoses for students that don't fit with our criteria for anything, assessments done by other people that I need to review to determine whether a student should be in a GLD or DD class, and primarily, one ASD student who is having major behavior issues and is therefore taking up a ridiculous amount of my (and the rest of the team's) time. Plus I just finished my first report, and my supervisor will be reading it over on Monday, and I'm still kind of nervous about it even though my mentor peer reviewed it for me and said it was a great first report.
The other thing that's really been stressing me out is, and this should really not be a surprise anymore, money. Of course. I thought that working a real grown up job with a real grown up paycheck would mean that we could finally stop stressing out about money, but no. We probably would be able to if a) we didn't have to make all the money I earn from now till June 30 last us the entire summer, and b) they would stop screwing up my paycheck. Yeah, because this is a school-based job, it ends on June 30 and doesn't start up again till September. Which means that I have no income for July and August, but still need to be able to pay for things like rent and bills and groceries . . . you know, the little things. Anyway, it would probably be a lot easier to stretch my paychecks over those two income-free months if they didn't take out a fucking THIRD of my earnings to taxes. I'm not even kidding - the paycheck I got today, they literally took a third of it for taxes, which is just obscene. I need to call payroll on Monday and find out if there's a way to change how much they take out in taxes because hi, I'd kind of like that other third of my paycheck please. It's even more irritating because the percent of my paycheck that's going to taxes hasn't been consistent from one check to the next, so I can't plan for how much money I should be taking home.
This isn't the first time something's been wrong with my paycheck either. My last one was for the time period during which I went from part time to full time, but apparently my paperwork didn't make it in to the payroll deities before their deadline, and so I got paid for two weeks as if I'd been part time the whole time instead of for only three days of the period. They did make up the difference in this paycheck, but even still, it's getting really old to keep getting paychecks that are way less than what I'm expecting. It's not helping us to be able to get any furniture or any of the little things we need for our new apartment, or to be able to get caught up on our bills, or to pay back the money we've borrowed from friends, etc. Again, things that I really thought would not be an issue once I was making real money. We were going to look into financing options to get some furniture, but when we went to apply at one store today, we found out that Brad apparently has some random unpaid things on his credit that he wasn't even aware of, so we got denied. And I of course, have no Canadian credit yet, and my American credit isn't great right now since I've had to pay a few things late and my credit card went over its limit, blah blah blah. It really seems like there is no option for people who are just starting out or trying to get themselves into a better financial situation. If you don't already have money/credit, good luck trying to get any. Which is dumb. There really should be more financial options designed to actually help people instead of just screw them over for being poor.
Yeah, so money is weighing quite heavily on my mind right now, obviously. On top of that and all the work stress, I've been sick all week with a nasty cold that's had my head congested and my throat raw. Now I've got the coughs that hurt my chest. Delightful. And, even better, we're moving next week, so I still need to pack all my shit and take care of all the little details that go along with moving, when all I really want to do is curl up with some blankets and a good book and do nothing for a day or two. *sigh* I am really glad we're moving, and I think I'll be happier once we're there, but I really just wish we could catch a break financially. Just once. Ugh. Okay, well, my throat feels crappy, and I'm tired as hell, so I'm going to head to bed now and hope I can actually sleep in tomorrow so maybe I'll start feeling better. Hopefully I'll have more positive things to report next entry.