Financial surprise

I've not been a very productive boy today (at least, not in the ways I'd hoped). I did, however, discover an $800 cheque sitting around the apartment. Well, really what happened is that I realized that for one of my earlier pay periods this month, instead of directly depositing the money like they do every other time, the university sent me a real, honest-to-goodness cheque, which really looks almost identical to the little slips they print out to tell me they've deposited the money. Of course, once I found the first one, I went searching through all my earlier pay stubs to make sure no other money was hiding out (no luck, though). Actually, it's not as if I have more money than I thought, because I tend to think of my long-term finances in terms of how much I've been paid and am going to be paid, rather than just looking at the bank account. This habit comes from the erratic ways in which graduate students are paid, which forces you to organize your finances and budget much more carefully, but also gives you lots more flexibility. It was especially cool when I used to receive $8000 cheques twice a year, even when, as a poor graduate student, that was my entire yearly income.

Otherwise, well, you can read Curtana's journal to find out all the stuff I bought today. I have about 40 books on my shelf of books to read, which is just getting bigger and bigger. Ack! And this huge Amber book isn't getting any more read while I'm sitting here doing this entry. So, off I go!