Walden, Chapter One: Economy
My California Culture class (HUM450, Tuesdays 6-9) is dull. I am interested in California, and interested in what passes for culture here (oooohhhh), but looking at slide after slide of different architectural styles does nothing for me, especially in a room which has apparently no windows that open beyond a metric hair's breadth. What keeps me going is wireless internet, available all over campus. This is a Good Thing. Except when it means I have access to my online banking. Ah. Yeah. That one.
Here's the situation kids. I have enough money to cover rent and utilities through November. I have an allowance from my mother which covers most of my rent, and bugger all else. However. This being the only year that currently matters, I have been spending a little too freely recently. I have a job, but last sunday was a little anomalous, since technically I can't work until I have a Social Security number. Early night for me tonight, to be in line when the office opens at 9 tomorrow. However, I can still only work 20 hours a week max by the terms of my visa.
Here's where 18 months of experience at Wetherspoons finally comes in handy. I am barely 21, but already have worked in bars for a year and a half. I am hoping some of the bars in the Lower Haight will be amenable to this fact, and the fact that technically I am not allowed to work off campus, at a job that doesn't have any relevance to my major. I am hoping there will be certain bars that will jump at the chance to have some help, off the books, cash in hand, under the table, and that my terribly British charms will help grease the wheels and get the ball rolling and other mixed metaphors.
In the meantime, I am going to Trader Joes to stock up on Top Ramen noodles and Two Buck Chuck, since just because you're poor doesn't mean you can't get drunk. Quite the opposite, in fact. However, I don't quite have the hobo chic going on, and can't quite pull off drinking Miller High Life ("The Champagne of Beers!") 40oz bottles out of a brown paper bag on a regular basis. It's fine to slum it in the park once in a while, darling, it's so, ummmm, colourful there, but I wouldn't want to do it every day, heaven knows why those poor souls put up with it, they're just not like you and me I suppose.
Still, I'm in San Francisco, a student, living in the Haight (the currently more fashionable Lower Haight, I'll have you know, Haight Ashbury is SO 60s, dahhhling), I think I deserve to slum it for a while, in true middle class style. Kind of like Pulp's "Common People", only, like, not in Sheffield.