May ~ August 2009

It's a little unconventional to divide a year into 3 periods of 4 months.  But for 2009, it would make perfect sense to divide mine into 3 periods: beginning, middle, and end.  I am writing this as I am about to complete the middle part and go into the 3rd period, the end.

First 4 months were quiet.  I officially started dating with josephine at the end of December 2008, so the first 4 months of 2009 can be also noted as first 4 months with josephine.  Life was going smooth and without any big issues, except working at the law office got more difficult as the USCIS got increasingly stupid + anal, and some issues arose between me and my boss.  At the end of April, I began considering Wedding Videography as my new career path, and spent many hours researching other wedding videographers and their works.  I don't remember any huge incident or event happened until April.

And the month of May came.  Literally my whole life changed, at least in the short-run.  I quit my work very abruptly in the middle of May, because I got disgusted working with the 2 people I was working for.  When I decided to quit, I had some plans.  First was to take a couple thousand in cash advances, and prepare for the full-time wedding videography business while living off the cash advance.  I also thought about finding a new job in some place I would enjoy working, hopefully a CPA firm.  However, nothing went as I had planned.  When I called to get the cash advances, (because I HAD enough available credit) they checked my credit score, denied my request, and lowered available credit.  Now, that I needed to bring in some cash to cover all the payments, I had to get a job asap.  And, more than a month passed by rather quickly, and I could not afford to be selective in searching for a job.  And after 7 weeks of unemployment, I landed in another immigration law firm.  This was what I feared the most, and exactly why I wanted to leave law firm as early as possible: my experiences from law firms will do me no good except for getting a job at another law firm.

My financial hardship did not end when I was hired again, because my new monthly wage was $1,000 less.  I had to make a choice, and I decided to go for the "Debt Settlement."  After using (or mostly depending on) credit cards for over 8 years, I had to put away all my 10 credit cards and the 3-year debt repayment period began.

Now, September is here.  My monthly budget is more challenging than ever before.  And I am working at an immigration firm, not knowing when and how I should move onto the real career I want to pursue.  Next 4 months will be a time of adjustment into the the low budget lifestyle, and also a time of praying for my future.