Monday, February 4, 2013

So, it's that time of year again.

No, you don't have any reason to know what time of year it is.

It is the time of year when I desperately seek some way to round up four thousand dollars or so very quickly in spite of being:
a) Quite broke.
b) Related to people who are quite broke.
c) Someone that only knows people who are quite broke.
d) Various other things ending in the words "quite broke."

Why?  Because of the people who invented the term "Maymester" or at least brought its existence to my attention.  Now "Maymester" is a horrible term that should be extracted from the English language with undue violence (to the word, not to people) but it's Harvard so it's not like we can expect a lot from them in terms of speaking, writing, spelling or grammar.

(The term "Maymester" has, unfortunately, caught on since last year.  I actually had to specify which one I was talking about for Google to find it this year.)

What we can expect from Harvard is for them to send one of my favorite teachers to Greece for a little over three weeks (two extra days, one to get there, one to get back) and have the class -which will visit Athens, Corinth, Delphi, Dion, Eleusis, Midea, Mycenae, Nafplion, Olympia, Olynthus, Sparta, Thessaloniki, Vergina, and such- offered at more or less cost.

Which is, more or less, $4,000 dollars.

In fact, looking into things, the deadline has already passed, but they're accepting of people post deadline provided it's before they need to pay travel agencies and such.  (Plus I have some association the trip leader, so it's a question of getting money to the program before the program has to pay that money to someone else.)

So, again, mad scramble for $4,000 dollars because if my life is going to shit, which it continually appears to be doing, three weeks in Greece would be a nice change.

Roman Holiday was on TV when I got home.  The princess' life sucks, the reporter and photographer have somewhat better lives but they still don't get any overly happy endings.  The idea, instead, is that if you can get that moment of joy, even if only for a day, it's worth it.

And so I shall try to find some way to make the money in the time available, in spite of it being basically impossible.  The immediate concern is $500 of down payment, the larger concern is all the rest on April 1st. And airfare when the time comes to go and return, which isn't included in that price.

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