I can has munny!

I got my Economic Stimulus Payment from the IRS today. This is why it's good to do your taxes early.

The amount was slightly more than what I actually paid for the Absolute DX. At this point I probably will get another bike anyway from a friend of a friend (which one, and how much I pay, depends, since my dear potato boy has lined up several people who could sell, lend, or give me one).

So that means some bastard is riding around town on my economic stimulus payment.

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I was walking along Babcock today with Steve's bike, scanning the bike racks. Then some guy zoomed by on a silver blue hybrid with skinny tires. I chased him halfway up Bascom Hill, hid behind a tree while he parked and went into a building, then went to scout his bike. It turned out not to be - it didn't have a distinctive cosmetic flaw that mine came with, and had much more "honest" wear and tear than anyone could have put on mine in a week. Call me crazy, but that bike really isn't a popular model in Madison. That's the only specimen other than mine I've seen so far, while there are plenty of Fuji road bikes and the "Crosstown" comfort bikes.

Bank rant

WHY IS HSBC MALAYSIA SO MUCH MORE DAMN BLOODY MAFAN TO DEAL WITH THAN HSBC USA?!? MALAYSIAN BANKS SUCK!!!!

Seriously, HSBC is a multinational company...I can understand if their brick-and-mortar banks are run differently but why the toot can't they integrate online banking into the same system with the same type of security procedures?

I have this stupid dongle from HSBC Malaysia that generates a key that's required to log in to the website, and I'm terrified I'll lose it. Not only that, but I didn't use my account for over a year (I was here since December 2006, obviously) and it went inactive...which means that I can't even log in any more.

According to the website I have to go to my local branch to reset my online access...but if I was physically capable of going to the Bentong HSBC branch I wouldn't need to see my account on the internet.

To make matters worse last time I wanted to send some money home so my second sister, who was in junior college in Singapore, could go on a literature trip to the UK. HSBC USA said I couldn't do a wire transfer from my online savings account to my parents' HSBC Malaysia account. So I had to wire it from my Chase account instead...and guess what, the documentation from the wire transfer said it went via...

...HSBC USA.

Stupid banks.

(almost) 3-month update

It's been nearly 3 months and I'm on track for keeping my weird New Year's resolution so far.

Total amount of money spent on clothing, entertainment, stationery and art supplies, bike supplies, and eating out: $377.54.

Total donated to church, Fistula Foundation, Doctors Without Borders, and World Vision: $403.50.

I'm not trying to brag about being a generous person but I'm trying to make the point that even on a relatively small wage like a grad student stipend (my monthly take-home salary is slightly above $1100), you do not need all of that money. It's entirely possible to spend as much on helping other people as you spend on keeping yourself happy.

When I hear people complaining about being "poor college students", I want to give them "a tight slap", as Malaysians say. Except in a very few cases, if you're in college you are by definition not poor. Even if your family is poor, probably you're getting a scholarship equivalent to tens of thousands of dollars per year. Being able to attend university, and especially graduate school, is a huge privilege that's only available to a small fraction of the world, and if I hear you complaining that it makes you "poor" I WILL SMACK YOU.

(hmm...if you look in the sidebar on the World Vision donation page, the pie chart showing expenditures shows that their overhead is 14% of revenue now. It's gone down since the last time I looked. In a world where Christian organizations are often accused of being profiteering and corrupt - sometimes correctly - it's good to see good stewardship.)

I love Microsoft Money because I tend to be disorganized...before I started keeping accounts, the $ would disappear and I'd wonder where it went because I didn't think I spent frivolously often. Turns out the little things add up.

Also, MS Money revealed that I eat A LOT of food...around $160 a month or so in groceries, that's $40 a week. And it's not like I'm some kind of fancy gourmet...I'm just HUNGRY and I like fresh veg.

Lina's upkeep is really cheap so I'm waiting for it to build up before I find an animal welfare wildlife conservation organization to give "her" share to.

Hot tub

Last night we had the Grad Christian Fellowship's women's retreat in New Glarus, which is a cute little fake Swiss town. I'm sure they had real Swiss immigrants back when it started in the 1850s, but now it's a tourist trap.

The two speakers were the Assistant Dean of Diversity and a sociology prof, who'd known each other for about two years professionally, but were each extremely surprised to find out that the other was Christian when we invited them to come and talk. Sociology and Asst. Dean of Diversity...go figure. I think in some fields - surprisingly, not the life sciences - announcing that you belong to an organized religion is like coming out of the closet.

The Chalet Landhaus is really nice but also awfully expensive, which is why the women's retreat is in February (off-season). But it's made of wood, has well-heated rooms, etc., plus a Jacuzzi. Someone commented that "if I had one of these in my house, I would be so relaxed." Well, there's a reason we don't have Jacuzzis in our houses:

Grad students aren't supposed to relax.

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One thing that Dr Turley mentioned was that she'd grown up poor (as had Dr Sanchez) and she'd been taught to hate rich people. (Look at the 5th item on her publication list, by the way.) I definitely didn't grow up poor, but our family was more or less lower-middle-class, and I wasn't taught to hate rich people but to look down on them - not explicitly, obviously, as my dad's a pastor, but you pick up on comments about spoilt kids, corrupt politicians, pampered housewives, nepotism, etc.

It drove me nuts to hear my Bengali friend, whose family in Dhaka had servants and drivers, insist that they weren't rich. It drives me nuts to hear my boyfriend, whose family has 4 cars total and whose parents own their own very nice house, insist that they're not rich. Not by relative neighbourhood or USA standards, maybe, but by the standards I grew up with they look like close to millionaires.

It's becoming very uncomfortable to me to realize that with the level of education I'm going to end up with, and the type of job that I'm probably going to have, I will be joining the ranks of the "rich people". I don't want to have to deal with investments and stocks and all that bullshit, and if there are any children in my future, I have an absolute horror of them growing up to be privileged brats. Maybe I can pull a John Wesley and give most of it away to continue living at the frugal-but-far-from-desperate lower-middle-class level that I'm used to.

Steve won't like it though. He wants his own aeroplane. We'll have to hash something out.

I can has munny bak?

When I'm tired and out of sorts I tend to lack self-control and end up doing stupid things on impulse.

Like, last Friday I had a cold and went home from work early and skipped the GCF fortnightly meeting, which was a pity because my friend Krista was giving a talk. Steve was a sweetheart and came over to make broccoli cheddar soup for me, which was REALLY sweet because he doesn't normally cook.

But then after he left I kind of went crazy and stayed up till 1:30 am doing my taxes. I was very exhausted and felt terrible, but I got my tax returns done! (haha suckers)

(Look at those eyes...that's what I mean when I tell you this cat is sexy.)