Ireland is great. I am eating good, sleeping. I am enjoying being with Mary Branley, a good friend of my mom's and very accomplished Irish poet. Playing a lot of music as well. Just being. That is all I can do. I head to Barcelona around the end of March to start school. I am doing an exchange with a family there who are good old friends of Xavier Fane's. They have a son who is a year younger than me, and is going to come out to C.B. this summer. So, as you can imagine I am looking forward to that! The turbulence is behind me. I'm not saying things won't come up, challenges present themselves, but I am sure nothing to the extent of Israel.
Also, today I checked my ATM balance, and was surprised to see that I have 1,000 dollars less in my account than I have suspected. Now, I will be fair in saying I haven't written down every penny I spent, but I was keeping track of the withdrawals I made, and I should have another 1,000 dollars in my account. I don't know if I wrote about this earlier, but someone at the house I was staying at when volunteering in Bethlehem somehow managed to find my credit card (which I had put under my mattress) and tried to buy a thousand dollar airline ticket. Luckily the credit card cancelled. I didn't check my debit card, which would have been with my credit card. I am kind of in a state of shock as I write all this- it just happened like 15 minutes ago. Ya, this is not good. This really is not good.
And "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" just came on in the internet cafe. Sometimes depressive music can be- depressing.
And I'll have to get through this one too. I'm comin back down to earth, I'm gaining clarity on some other things in my life, and being pieced back together.
Ouch! Expensive lesson. It makes Traveler's Cheques and a money belt - which would be the solution - seem way less nerdy than they initially appear. Practice makes perfect. And here I have a perfectly good money belt that I use for my trips to Amsterdam that I failed to share!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your adventures. Rest assured that your life experience and report from Israel is already worth more than $1000 - tho I'm aware it's pitiful consolation for you in the short term.
stay strong, jackson! maybe it's not as bad as you think at this moment. and if it, as kevin says, ten years from now you will remember your adventure, not the $1,000. although I would love to be around to hear how you pass these life lessons on to your own kids in the future! i'm on my way home to cb, but the bad weather slowed my drive. home tomorrow (tuesday)! love, emily c xo
ReplyDeleteRemember when we talked about organization? That is always my tool for money management. Having an organized system for calculating and knowing where I keep my things. The more organized I am, the better. It is the tool that lives below me and not above. I also agree that in the long term, you will remember the lessons of Israel and not the money.
ReplyDeleteCorina