Happy New Year!!!

I want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year! This year I get to spend it at home with family, unlike spending it at school last year. Even my sister is coming back to be with the family this weekend. I, of course have to go pick her up from Scarborough Town Center. That's where the bus drops her off from Queens. So I decided to stay at work and try to get a little homework done (Mathematical Physics II). I bought some food at a chinese bakery to tide me over until I get home. Did I ever mention how much I liked chinese baked goods? Mmmm, soo good. And to think that in Waterloo, there is no bakery nearby! Maybe I should open one....it'll definitely get a lot of business. So as you can probably tell, I'm not getting much work done here at work, since I'm blogging instead.

Whenever I go to Markham for work, I usually go over to First Markham Place for lunch. It's really close by and the food is good and cheap. The total opposite of the office's lunch diner. A meal there will be $7 for stuff that doesn't taste that good. I went there on my first day and decided to never go back there again. (well maybe for soup or breakfast, but never for lunch). So that has got me thinking about how much money I spend for lunches. Ever since the summer after high school, I've been practically buying my lunch everyday (unless I'm already at home). That means I'm approaching 3 years of going out for lunch everyday, which represents a lot of cash. Let's do some simple calculations. Let's say that Lunch costs on average around $5. I usually try to buy lunch cheaply (w/ coupons if possible :) )and some days I'm at home, so I'm not buying anything. And other days, I go out to nice restaurants for lunch, or some pricey place. So for the sake of argument let's say $5, even though I'm sure you've all noticed how hard it is to get a decent meal for $5. And let's say there are 250 work/school days in a year. That's equal to $1250 a year! Over three years, that's $3750!

Wow, that's a lot of money. That's what happens when you're too lazy to pack your lunch. You lose almost $4000 bucks. That's one terms' worth of tuition! So the lesson here is pack your own lunch. But I won't be listening to my own advice....I happen to enjoy going out for lunch greatly and the convenience is fantastic. At least I know where all my money went. One of my goals of getting a PDA was recording expenses....but I never found a convenient expense program, so I never got around to it....maybe it's time I start looking into that.

One last thing, just wanted to thank Mike for blogging with me over the summer. It was fun and entertaining (remember our first posts and how we looked at each other's work...haha). He also made a very excellent suggestion that I have guest bloggers on every so often. If I can't find a regular blogging partner, then that's going to be my plan. So anyone want to be a guest blogger every now and then? It would mean much less commitment, but allow you to post your thoughts and events in your life. ICQ me if you're interested!

P.S. Still would prefer a regular blogging partner though and get some new blood in here...

--Nelson