Don't ask why. Don't ask how. Shit just happens.
All I can say is that one day I realize my account has less than $50 and I have more than a month before my next allowance is deposited or my flight back home, whichever comes first. And in this one month, things only got worse: we lost a 20 lb sack of rice (God knows how that could have happened), standing orders conveniently withdrew money earlier than expected (before I could even cancel), for the first time ever we forgot to put the chicken and fish in the freezer, lots of people came to visit. So it was that I spent my last Sophomore month being a bum doing close to nothing productive. At the end of my exams, I went to Texas--San Antonio and Austin--and had a wonderful time. I spent $450 for everything--airfare, lodging, food, souvenirs. That wasn't shooting myself in the foot. I still had enough for another trip to Rochester to see my cousin graduate, which I did.
Towards the end of May I was left with less than $80 in my bank and exactly $120 in my wallet. Hardly a sad amount, but nowhere near comfortable. By early June, the screwovers had left me with $5.97 in my bank--it is now late June and the amount is unchanged. But I held on tight to the $120. I only used it for laundry and for buying necessities like onion and garlic and rice and meat. Seemed fine. But then we had concerts. A friend forwarded the money for Coldplay. Zee Avi's was free. And Gokun paid for my ticket to see No Doubt since it was only $10. But I can't go on living off the charity of others. So I emptied my tabungs--two years' worth of coins--and put them in that coin machine thing where they give you notes instead. I would have been glad if I had got even $10--if spent wisely, that could be three or four meals. Instead, I got $17 and change! ...which was actually bad since it made me cocky. I brought Gokun and his friends to Primanti Bros. and a diner. I can't let them visit Pittsburgh and eat nasi kosong, can I? Besides, you've never been to Pittsburgh if you haven't eaten one of their sandwiches. So that's where two years of savings went: a Primanti Bros. cajun chicken sandwich and a Dr. Pepper, a meatloaf sandwich and decaf.
I continued the next few days (if not weeks) living off whatever rice we had. How bad were times? Well, we rationed onion--that bad. We ran out of sugar with two weeks to go, but the girls were kind enough to give us a pack. We ate bread so cautiously that it expired before we even finished one loaf. But we were, however, helped out by some smart spending in the past. We still had 30 eggs, two blocks of butter, loads of lasagna and spaghetti, three jars of pasta sauce, three cans of mushroom soup, a can of sardines, one frozen pizza, and a lot of cheese. So we stuck to the one-meal-a-day regime and had rice for two or three days straight, then treat ourselves to spaghetti or sardine/egg sandwiches. We were very liberal with egg. Breakfast was improvised. We had coffee and Earl Grey tea in abundance (and gula wakaf). We still had two boxes of cereal, and a tin of Quaker Oatmeal. But no milk. But we had a tub of 'Death By Chocolate' ice cream, which goes well with oatmeal. I remember some old Pop Tarts.
Nik had a little more cash than me, so he'd buy chicken every once in a while. But even as sempit as we were, we fucked that up too. One morning I realized four chicken thighs were on the kitchen counter. He bought six; we ate two the night before. The remainder has been left overnight and is now starting to smell and dah mula berlendir. I picked up the brown bag to throw away. Beneath it was the packet of trout I left out to thaw before Nik returned with the chicken. Great. Fish and chicken that should last us four or five days--gone, just like that. And then the next time he went to buy chicken, his card had reached its limit.
I spent my days and nights indoors. It was pointless going out when you haven't a penny to spend unnecessarily. I would have liked to go atop Mt. Washington or see Pittsburgh's zoo, to take pictures or draw, but I'm sure if they weren't free, I'd spend enough time there to get hungry or thirsty... So I just watched movies. Since my finals ended on May 13th, I've seen 78 movies. Some on the TV, three in the cinema (San Antonio's RiverCenter Mall AMC charges only $4 per show) and the rest I downloaded. I had a blast seeing the likes of Abba The Movie, A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Catch-22, Music and Lyrics, Marley & Me, all four Indiana Jones movies as well as all three NeverEnding Stories--all in 720p HD and 5.1 surround. I averaged three a day, sometimes went up to six. I also caught up on some reading; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Pearl, The Abolition of Man and Deception Point. My butt and eyes hurt from the hours I spent in front of my monitor. Lying down to read didn't quite help. As far as the Xbox is concerned, I played FIFA09's Be A Pro. I broke into the Arsenal first team using a player I created but got frustrated quickly. I was a left winger but I scored too much so they keep putting me up front as the right striker so I lose points for running down the left flank and crossing. Add to the fact that I'm left-footed. And that Adebayor is rubbish in the game; he can't do squat unless I give him a sitter. And RVP is awesome but is somehow benched in preference to Ade. I stopped playing. Fucking Arsenal.
T-minus one week to our flight back. Still no sign of the money despite the "mid-June deposit" rumors. We have enough rice left, but no onion. Our garlic has gone bad. We've baked the last pizza. We still had two cans of soup, though. For almost a week now we'd been drinking nothing else but iced Earl Grey tea. Or plain water. I tried to buy milk once, but the shop's stock was due to expire in three days. Hell, no! I won't let it go to waste. Takde susu pun biar la. Bertahan! But then... we couldn't ignore it no more. We had five more days but we only had rice to eat. I had only $10 in my wallet. We decided to sell off all the old books we had in this apartment. Easily there were forty. I stacked half on a dolly, Nik packed the remainder in a suitcase, and we dragged 'em both across Oakland to the other side of Pitt. Schoolkids on the sidewalk would say "damn, I ain't goin' to college!" or something to that effect. But after a hefty pull, we entered the bookstore and the guy rejected probably ⅔ of whatever we gave him. It hurt every time he put one on the reject pile. But still we were rich! Not filthy rich to the point we'd rip our Greyhound tickets and and buy plane tickets to Newark for the flight home. But any decent amount of money is a lot when given to someone with only $10 in his pocket. On the way back, CMU had this survey where they'd give free bottles of water. So we went and each got candy and a drink. The questionnaire asked us to rate happiness before and after. We each put 7 out of 7 for both.
I wasn't going to be cocky with this money. A lot of shit can happen. We'll be on a 12-hour journey by bus to Newark. Then a 5-hour wait at Newark Liberty. Then a 24-hour flight back to Kuala Lumpur. Or Sepang. Whatever. Anyway, what if in the fine print somewhere it says we're only allowed 10 oz of baggage. I know MAS isn't one to screw people (especially students) over luggage, but you never know. So we were extremely frugal and bought one (1) onion, a gallon of milk and 3 lbs of ground beef. With all that and whatever I had at home, I made a 9-layer lasagna with a bit of beef left over for today's pie. Tonight I leave for Newark.
Three days ago, my PC stopped giving out any sound, and I can't be bothered to reinstall Windows before going back. So I stopped watching movies and went on to start drawing. Just because. Once, around 4:00AM, I asked Nik if he had crayons. He just laughed pretty hard. But I stopped the urge to be 'creative' and used pencil instead and now I have portraits of myself and Shahmi on my bedroom wall.
This is my story of the time I was so hard pressed I used up all my safeties. Just a few hours ago, I found a birthday card from last two years and there was a dollar bill inside which I didn't bother to take back then. I surprised myself at how swiftly that single found its way into my wallet. I now have $11 in there. The money from the books were given in the form a debit card. Money changes the way you act, the way you live, your mentality--whether it's a case of too little or too much is immaterial. I'm sure everyone has their stories of digging around couches for loose change to buy a sandwich. Savor these moments. It makes you appreciate what you have when you have something to be had.
All I can say is that one day I realize my account has less than $50 and I have more than a month before my next allowance is deposited or my flight back home, whichever comes first. And in this one month, things only got worse: we lost a 20 lb sack of rice (God knows how that could have happened), standing orders conveniently withdrew money earlier than expected (before I could even cancel), for the first time ever we forgot to put the chicken and fish in the freezer, lots of people came to visit. So it was that I spent my last Sophomore month being a bum doing close to nothing productive. At the end of my exams, I went to Texas--San Antonio and Austin--and had a wonderful time. I spent $450 for everything--airfare, lodging, food, souvenirs. That wasn't shooting myself in the foot. I still had enough for another trip to Rochester to see my cousin graduate, which I did.
Towards the end of May I was left with less than $80 in my bank and exactly $120 in my wallet. Hardly a sad amount, but nowhere near comfortable. By early June, the screwovers had left me with $5.97 in my bank--it is now late June and the amount is unchanged. But I held on tight to the $120. I only used it for laundry and for buying necessities like onion and garlic and rice and meat. Seemed fine. But then we had concerts. A friend forwarded the money for Coldplay. Zee Avi's was free. And Gokun paid for my ticket to see No Doubt since it was only $10. But I can't go on living off the charity of others. So I emptied my tabungs--two years' worth of coins--and put them in that coin machine thing where they give you notes instead. I would have been glad if I had got even $10--if spent wisely, that could be three or four meals. Instead, I got $17 and change! ...which was actually bad since it made me cocky. I brought Gokun and his friends to Primanti Bros. and a diner. I can't let them visit Pittsburgh and eat nasi kosong, can I? Besides, you've never been to Pittsburgh if you haven't eaten one of their sandwiches. So that's where two years of savings went: a Primanti Bros. cajun chicken sandwich and a Dr. Pepper, a meatloaf sandwich and decaf.
I continued the next few days (if not weeks) living off whatever rice we had. How bad were times? Well, we rationed onion--that bad. We ran out of sugar with two weeks to go, but the girls were kind enough to give us a pack. We ate bread so cautiously that it expired before we even finished one loaf. But we were, however, helped out by some smart spending in the past. We still had 30 eggs, two blocks of butter, loads of lasagna and spaghetti, three jars of pasta sauce, three cans of mushroom soup, a can of sardines, one frozen pizza, and a lot of cheese. So we stuck to the one-meal-a-day regime and had rice for two or three days straight, then treat ourselves to spaghetti or sardine/egg sandwiches. We were very liberal with egg. Breakfast was improvised. We had coffee and Earl Grey tea in abundance (and gula wakaf). We still had two boxes of cereal, and a tin of Quaker Oatmeal. But no milk. But we had a tub of 'Death By Chocolate' ice cream, which goes well with oatmeal. I remember some old Pop Tarts.
Nik had a little more cash than me, so he'd buy chicken every once in a while. But even as sempit as we were, we fucked that up too. One morning I realized four chicken thighs were on the kitchen counter. He bought six; we ate two the night before. The remainder has been left overnight and is now starting to smell and dah mula berlendir. I picked up the brown bag to throw away. Beneath it was the packet of trout I left out to thaw before Nik returned with the chicken. Great. Fish and chicken that should last us four or five days--gone, just like that. And then the next time he went to buy chicken, his card had reached its limit.
I spent my days and nights indoors. It was pointless going out when you haven't a penny to spend unnecessarily. I would have liked to go atop Mt. Washington or see Pittsburgh's zoo, to take pictures or draw, but I'm sure if they weren't free, I'd spend enough time there to get hungry or thirsty... So I just watched movies. Since my finals ended on May 13th, I've seen 78 movies. Some on the TV, three in the cinema (San Antonio's RiverCenter Mall AMC charges only $4 per show) and the rest I downloaded. I had a blast seeing the likes of Abba The Movie, A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Catch-22, Music and Lyrics, Marley & Me, all four Indiana Jones movies as well as all three NeverEnding Stories--all in 720p HD and 5.1 surround. I averaged three a day, sometimes went up to six. I also caught up on some reading; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Pearl, The Abolition of Man and Deception Point. My butt and eyes hurt from the hours I spent in front of my monitor. Lying down to read didn't quite help. As far as the Xbox is concerned, I played FIFA09's Be A Pro. I broke into the Arsenal first team using a player I created but got frustrated quickly. I was a left winger but I scored too much so they keep putting me up front as the right striker so I lose points for running down the left flank and crossing. Add to the fact that I'm left-footed. And that Adebayor is rubbish in the game; he can't do squat unless I give him a sitter. And RVP is awesome but is somehow benched in preference to Ade. I stopped playing. Fucking Arsenal.
T-minus one week to our flight back. Still no sign of the money despite the "mid-June deposit" rumors. We have enough rice left, but no onion. Our garlic has gone bad. We've baked the last pizza. We still had two cans of soup, though. For almost a week now we'd been drinking nothing else but iced Earl Grey tea. Or plain water. I tried to buy milk once, but the shop's stock was due to expire in three days. Hell, no! I won't let it go to waste. Takde susu pun biar la. Bertahan! But then... we couldn't ignore it no more. We had five more days but we only had rice to eat. I had only $10 in my wallet. We decided to sell off all the old books we had in this apartment. Easily there were forty. I stacked half on a dolly, Nik packed the remainder in a suitcase, and we dragged 'em both across Oakland to the other side of Pitt. Schoolkids on the sidewalk would say "damn, I ain't goin' to college!" or something to that effect. But after a hefty pull, we entered the bookstore and the guy rejected probably ⅔ of whatever we gave him. It hurt every time he put one on the reject pile. But still we were rich! Not filthy rich to the point we'd rip our Greyhound tickets and and buy plane tickets to Newark for the flight home. But any decent amount of money is a lot when given to someone with only $10 in his pocket. On the way back, CMU had this survey where they'd give free bottles of water. So we went and each got candy and a drink. The questionnaire asked us to rate happiness before and after. We each put 7 out of 7 for both.
I wasn't going to be cocky with this money. A lot of shit can happen. We'll be on a 12-hour journey by bus to Newark. Then a 5-hour wait at Newark Liberty. Then a 24-hour flight back to Kuala Lumpur. Or Sepang. Whatever. Anyway, what if in the fine print somewhere it says we're only allowed 10 oz of baggage. I know MAS isn't one to screw people (especially students) over luggage, but you never know. So we were extremely frugal and bought one (1) onion, a gallon of milk and 3 lbs of ground beef. With all that and whatever I had at home, I made a 9-layer lasagna with a bit of beef left over for today's pie. Tonight I leave for Newark.
Three days ago, my PC stopped giving out any sound, and I can't be bothered to reinstall Windows before going back. So I stopped watching movies and went on to start drawing. Just because. Once, around 4:00AM, I asked Nik if he had crayons. He just laughed pretty hard. But I stopped the urge to be 'creative' and used pencil instead and now I have portraits of myself and Shahmi on my bedroom wall.
*****
This is my story of the time I was so hard pressed I used up all my safeties. Just a few hours ago, I found a birthday card from last two years and there was a dollar bill inside which I didn't bother to take back then. I surprised myself at how swiftly that single found its way into my wallet. I now have $11 in there. The money from the books were given in the form a debit card. Money changes the way you act, the way you live, your mentality--whether it's a case of too little or too much is immaterial. I'm sure everyone has their stories of digging around couches for loose change to buy a sandwich. Savor these moments. It makes you appreciate what you have when you have something to be had.
