Learn to control money but do not allow it to control you

savingwannabe

OMG have you seen Little bit dizzy's signature? Accept your flaws. Get over not being perfect. No one else is.

I wish i had seen it sooner, i have made a complete prat of myself already today, I will remember this for the rest of the today!

Firewalker

I just can't believe this! Yesterday I got up and as I usually do in the morning I decided to have a cup of wonderful espresso. As you know we are offering the best cup of coffee in town. But yesterday it was not to be. I pressed the button and no coffee came out; in fact the tray collecting the water was over flowing. And yes, you have guessed it! The espresso machine is the latest victim in our household. After exploring whether it can be mended today I got another machine.

Please people of the cyberspace do me a favour and send the collective wish to the universe so that this month is never repeated; any more of this and my visions of a future straight from a novel by Dickens might become reality.

Apart from that I spent the day puzzling over a paper. And although I didn't get very far at least today I was productive rather than keeping busy. I also realised something interesting with a little help from Tim Ferriss. And it is the following:

I have always said that I want to be a writer. Suddenly I realised that I am a writer; in fact being a writer is the easy part for me because being a writer is part of me. What I have to aspire to be is an author and, if I decide to be ambitious, an author whose books sell.

Simple! - some may think. But for me this was a revelation and for the first time I saw where I have been getting it wrong. So now the dream is much more specific: I want to be an author whose books sell. All that is left is the deadline.

Now I have to get back to my paper, I'm afraid. But a bit later we will go to the cinema.

Firewalker

gilligansyle

Hi FW

you definitely are a writer, and I love your style. You have a unique way of looking at things that makes them seem so clear, and I just loved the description of LB being naughty on his birthday. So many of us could relate to that, but I doubt many could have put it so well.

Enjoy the cinema.

savingwannabe

I reckon you should email Martin Lewis and see if you can write up something about MSE in a broadsheet from a user's point of view. You would be so perfect to promote it in academic circles and widen the popularity of the site. Maybe, have excerpts from your diary. I know he was planning a book on this can you contact him. I would buy it for you alone. I know others would. Please consider it.

NorthernLas

If more things break, you know a shop that sells pre-loved small electricals (ahem, I would have done the same as you and got a new machine immediately )

NL x

williamD1964

Good morning FW. I have sent my desires to the universe for you and all my friends on MSE. Like most, and you I dream of writing a novel, I have done since I was a young man. I even have the basic storyline worked out, the character details and their traits. The only thing that stops me writing is me. One day, I will write, but not this week.

Stay well

MrsMoo2U

I just want to repeat what everybody has said. I love reading your diary. I don't always comment because I do not always have anything intelligent or profound to add but you all make me think more deeply. For that I thank you all but FW I thank you for allowing us all to learn from a master at no extra cost. Very MSE.
I would buy any book from you but I think that to start with you could use some of your posts on here to get started on your blog. Why reinvent the wheel, start your first post with one of the posts from here. Why not the one about LB? Once you get started it will flow and from that will be born your first book. After all, a blog is simply a diary in a different form.

Firewalker

Thanks you all for the wishes - I am sure that the Universe will listen to a formidable force like us and all this breakage will stop.

Cheri, a very good idea about the first post of the blog - thank you for reminding me that this blog is not an academic paper and I can use it to recap on some of the ideas shared here and take forward ones that were just lost because something else took my fancy.

Firewalker

Marru

Just a random thing as I remember you having trouble with your nails. I went today and got a French manicure. I absolutely love it. it keeps my nails natural looking but at the same time smart and well groomed. So I am going tomorrow to B00ts to get the stuff so that I can do it myself in the future.

Firewalker

OK! Today I am feeling really cross; no, I am not cross with any of the male members of my family (not that there are any female members of my immediate family). I am cross with the silliness and short-sightedness of our political representatives, or if you prefer leaders.

Today is the day sandwiched between the two days of strike – academics and non academic members of the UCU in English universities are making a stand. Officially it is about defending our pensions; below the surface it is about so much else. It is about the demise of one of the biggest export industries of the UK – higher education. You think I am exaggerating? Than let me tell you that the situation of higher education in general and the universities more specifically can be expressed like this:

· Universities are expected to be more ‘entrepreneurial’ and operate more as private enterprises.
· During the last decade the Government introduced policies pushing universities into providing vocational training thus damaging our ‘product’. This is the whole ‘employability agenda’ talk.
· Now they are ‘allowing’ us to charge premium fees for second rate product.
· To make matters worse they are messing about with our customers’ access – by changing the visa regulations.

So let me translate this one in the language of business and commerce. Overcharging for a second rate product whilst making it hard for the customer to get to the product to begin with. Do you think a business operating on these principles has a chance of survival? No! And this is why we are on strike – it is not only and simply about our pensions or even our jobs; it is about British higher education and about the future of this country.

At the same time, strikes in this context are futile; even university managers were quick to point out that all that is achieved is to inconvenience our students. And the cuts will go ahead, the proposed ludicrous fees will go ahead, half of the universities will have to close and the other half will have to make large numbers of staff redundant. And generations of our young people without the education to compete on the European labour market.

Firewalker