Books, Work, School, and Trip!

I got paid, our tax money came in, and I added to my growing list of books. I have to save money from my tax money to cover my week absence from work for Emerald City Comic Con at the end of the month, and I have to save some for the trip itself, and I have been thinking about getting a bike. But in the meantime, I picked up some new books at work. First, for free, I found the advanced reader copy of Varina by Charles Frazier, who wrote Cold Mountain. This book is about Jefferson Davis’s wife, so that sounds interesting. I start that once I finished the book club book. Then I picked up Call Me By Your Name and Jesmyn Ward’s Where the Line Bleeds, which I’ll read after Varina. Then I still have the Amy Tan memoir and Michael Twitty’s book waiting on my desk, along with a George Saunders collection I forgot about. Working at a bookstore is just making me get more behind on my reading than I already was!

PSU wanted to charge me a $200 tuition deposit before I could even sign up for my orientation, which nobody told me about and that I couldn’t afford, so after emailing about three different people I managed to get the fee waived and get signed up for orientation. That, and sending in Reed’s 2015 tax return to financial aid, are my next steps. Sounds like I’ll get a lot accomplished during the orientation. That will be on March 9th, a few days after we get back from Seattle. I’m really hoping everything comes together so I can start taking classes for the spring, I have everything lined up to do so.

In the meantime, work has given me a ton of hours this week, which is good since our trip is coming up. I work almost 40 hours, which is amazing considering I’m part-time. The store manager gave me another shift to come in and do zone maintenance, which is good because I haven’t done that before and it will be something else I can add to my growing list of abilities. I think I’ve made it clear I’m committed to my job and willing to put in the work. I’ve also been selling books like crazy. I’ve sold almost 50 copies of A Northern Light in the last month and I consistently meet my goals.

I am looking forward to our trip. It will be nice to get away, be back in Seattle, and not worrying about anything for a week. The EC Comic-Con is going to be way bigger than the Rose City Comic Con we usually go to, and we also plan to see a few more sights in Seattle while we’re there. Reed wants to go back to the EMP Museum, I want to check out the market again, and I’m sure we’ll find some new stuff to check out as well. Reed gets a little overwhelmed at the Rose City Comic Con, so we might have to do this one in small doses. Either way, we plan to have fun.