I'm a man. I don't have a "diary." Or a "journal," for that matter.

So I've been back in the US for nearly a month now. I've bought and begun using some prep software for the CPA exam, been sending resumes out to anyone I can think of, and now, after finally just pulling an all-nighter on Saturday and then going to bed at seven PM, I've finally managed to get myself back on a slewing schedule that approximates sanity.

This morning, I woke at nine PM after a very strange dream in which I and The Riddler teamed up to fight an army plastic monsters that were taking over the world. I made breakfast, cleaned myself up, and drove out to my school to pick up a copy of my transcript. You see, you must electronically submit a transcript to apply for government jobs, but UMKC policy explicitly forbids giving electronic copies, because somebody might hack the system and steal one, compromising our precious identities. Given that the copies that they print off are, presumably, also electronically stored, I'm not sure this is an effective deterrent from letting ne'er-do-wells learn my GPA. However, for added security, they won't even mail out an unofficial transcript (all I really needed to apply for a job) so at least there's that. Twits.

The upside to all this is that since I was already here, I headed over to the computer lab to see if I could use their scanner. I learned then that my student account was never deactivated, which means I still have access to the free CPA prep software. It only offers practice multiple choice questions, which (as I learned last year) is insufficient to prepare me for an exam, but the practice questions in my current prep software are somewhat insufficient, so this should balance it out nicely, at least until my access gets changed.

And so now, I am sitting in a coffee shop. Blogging. Figured I'd get a head start on being a yuppie. But while I'm here, something about the blogosphere occurs to me.

The above post contains virtually nothing of interest. I yammer on about government job requirements and some exam software, and give an accounting my last few days, which were fairly uneventful. The only thing in the whole post that anyone is likely to relate to is the bit about schools having retarded policies.

This highlights the obvious counter to the common argument against owning a blog: "why would you want to make your diary/journal public?" The obvious answer being, because in those rare instances in which we do treat our blogs like an actual journal, nobody wastes their time reading it anyway. In reality, they're more like soap boxes than anything. A handful of people eventually peruse teem when they've got nothing better to do, and for that reason we technically have an "audience." This means that we can spend twenty minutes typing up a post in which we bitch about our problems, rant about our political ideals, and proclaim our latest mind-blowing, life-altering epiphany, and feel like people are hanging on our every word. While they still usually exist more for their writers than their audience, journals they are not.

Things I really will actually do once I am a person of means

It will be Andrea’s birthday one week from today. Being penniless and thousands of miles away, I can’t really do much more than wish her a happy birthday. When I am fiscally secure, I will at least visit her on her birthdays.

I will move out of my parents’ home, and into one of my own. This goes without saying, naturally. I love my family, and they really do make every reasonable effort to accommodate, but I hate not providing for myself. As soon as I am able, I will get off of parental welfare and stand on my own.

I will procure a decent wardrobe. As it stands, I no longer fit any of my pants. They’re all too big since I came back from Europe. As I fully intend to keep the weight off (and hopefully lose another ten or twenty pounds over time) I need to replace much of my closet. Frankly, if I do this on my parents’ dime, I’ll remember it every time I open my closet. For the time being: belts.

Save for retirement. My first step once I do have a decent-paying job will be to calculate how much of the paycheck I need to get by, and then determine a percentage of my paychecks to be deducted for a retirement account. This number was in the double-digits when I worked for Charter, and I hope to be able to say that about my next job.

Give to charity. If I was able to afford sending a few dollars to the United Way out of every paycheck when I worked for Convergys, I’ve no excuse not doing it again.

Entertain. What I miss the most about my place in St Louis was that people actually came over. Barbecues, cocktail parties, and even just drunken nights playing some stupid game on the Wii. Living in my parents home, I don’t get much of a chance to play host.

Get a girlfriend. Living with your parents creates a major disadvantage when attempting to woo the opposite sex. Once I have a home, some extra cash, and clothes that fit, I’m going to start dating.