Tag: income

Here in this place

I am sitting at an all-you-can-eat, extremely varied breakfast in a 230USD+ per night resort in the center of a country where the average family annual income is approximately 5,340 USD.

The people are kind and, at times, almost uncomfortably deferential. They also can be bitchy as all else, and utterly delightful in their fun when with one another.

Toilet paper usually doesn’t go into the toilet, and toilets usually don’t flush.

There usually isn’t any toilet paper in a bathroom, anyway, and it is a gamble as to whether there will be any running water or soap.

It is hot and sticky, though no worse than Houston gets.

There are flies.

The indoor floors aren’t exactly clean, but they aren’t exactly dirty either – and there are indoor shoes provided… to keep your feet clean.

There is a surprising number of Japanese people around us.

I find myself hoarding toilet paper, because even our resort is super stingy about letting us have any – even for our room of three people, they will give us only one and a half rolls max at any given time, and these are tiny rolls – and we have to take some with us anywhere we go outside of the resort…

Fortunately, I found a grocery store today, so I bought a pack of toilet paper and a new little bottle of hand sanitizer.

That was after and right next door to the place where I got my $15 two-hour Thai hot stone and foot reflexology massage.

Massages are cheap here, but their quality is quite reasonably high, especially for the price.

$20 for me and my annual costs for living my life is the equivalent of $8 for them… and I thought I lived rather low-budget already… (.16% for the average person my age back home is around $100-150.)

The breads are delicious, the streets are almost unbearable, and I simultaneously want to spend more time to get comfortable being here, and to get out of here immediately, never to return.

I want to help as best I can, and yet I want to put the entire experience out of my mind, because I feel there is little I will accomplish to help once I leave here…, so, I am supporting local commerce while I am here, and I will share openly and honestly with people about this trip, which will include encouragement to give it a go themselves, despite how this – whatever this is – is weird.

I am hanging in there and working in handling life shelf and making things work, while being more than just a means to get through it all…

Here’s to hoping for the best: Cheers!

Post-a-day 2019

The non-traditional route

Today, someone put words, and therefore solidity and realness, to a thought that has floated nervously in the background of my mind recently.  He said that, since I will be piecing together my work, and arranging my schedule to work with whatever work I do, I will be like an entrepreneur for myself (Hannah entrepreneur, he said), organizing things and my schedule out myself, as opposed to having my schedule and expectations already set out for me (as is typically the case with a job).

I liked and still like that idea – I get to design my life and be creative with it, instead of having to accept whatever some job tells me has to be my daily schedule for at least a year.

He also asked me all about things that interest me for my non-normal-job time (which could end up being close to a year, depending on how positions open up places).  I almost have a sort of game plan already, just from this one conversation, and I have scheduled to sit down and think through things tomorrow, all with today’s conversation and ideas in mind.

A few of the things that stand out most to me as ‘something I want to do,’ but have never pursued, are becoming trained as a yoga instructor, improving my knowledge of massage therapy, teaching dance (for money), and working/volunteering at least once at The Texas Rennaissance Festival (Renfest for short).  I am already added or applied to be added to various substitute lists, and I am on one tutoring list (need to make some decisions on location, and then make calls for that within the next week for more lists).  And I need to check up on lacrosse officiating recertification within the next week, too.

These are my present ideas, and they inspire me.  ðŸ˜€  I am excited about my planning tomorrow.

Post-a-day 2017