About two months ago, near the end of school, I wrote a blog about being super stressed out. I’m considerably less stressed out now, it being summer and all, but I wanted to expand on one of the things I was stressed about that I didn’t mention, because it’s become relevant again: monies.
Most of you probably know that over the past two years I’ve traveled to Budapest, Hungary and Rome, Italy with my speech team, really expanding my international travel experiences. What you might not know is that those trips are mostly paid for by my college, since we’re a sanctioned club and we have a decent budget for travel. It doesn’t put me out very much to go on those trips, because of said budget, so I’m really lucky.
But next year, in addition to (hopefully) traveling abroad to an as-yet-undecided location with my speech team, I also would like to travel to Spain with a writing class. Let me explain.
Next spring, one of my favorite professors is teaching a travel writing course that will coalesce into a ten day trip to Spain after finals so we can actually put our learned skills to the test. Writing and travel?! Sign me up!
Unfortunately, this is just a class, not a club, so we don’t have a budget to transport students to Spain. Translation? I have to raise approx $2,480, not including food monies. That’s a lot of dough, the most I’ve ever had to raise for anything. Good thing I have a job, right?
I calculated it, and if I average 30 hours of work a week for the duration of the summer, I’ll just about raise the money I need. Luckily, I have some savings that I can supplement my summer earnings with too. But that’s all assuming that I don’t spend any money between now and next spring, which is, of course, impossible.
I’ll make it work, because of said savings and my ability to budget myself, but still. This is the closest to adulthood I’ve ever reached, and it’s freaking me out. I’m a creative writing major, for frick’s sake. What the hell am I going to do after graduation?!
So after next year I’ll be broke as all hell, but honestly, it will be worth it. I’ve been so lucky to be able to travel so extensively in such a short amount of time, and I don’t intend on wasting these experiences. Spain, here I come!
