The Mental Journey Around The World Begins With A Ride To Rosemont

Today is the day that I set aside as a second New Year's Eve.  It's pretty much the last day that I said I don't even have to think about a job search.  Come tomorrow, February 1, I will be at least tentatively going on job search sites.  It only feels right as tomorrow is the day that I call IDES to certify for the first time.

Thankfully, my worry that this would be a call (and a direct deposit that followed) that saved me from starvation turned out to be unfounded as my severance pay was direct deposited on Friday.

Looking at my balance, which was smaller than I thought it was going to be due to a larger taxing than I anticipated but still bigger than it had been since my college graduation, I tried not to immediately do something rash like buy a car (well, put down a nice down payment at least) with it.  I want a lot of it to just sit there for the uncertain future, but I definitely have a little of it to play around with.

The timing seemed impeccable, therefore, that yesterday was the Chicago Travel & Adventure Show (http://www.adventureexpo.com/Default.aspx?id=a8383584-b8b3-4a9d-8be5-223cd2db9ab2) out at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont.  Were I still employed, and having to save up money to go on a trip, I probably still would have gone to hear Rick Steves speak (yes, I'm one of those obsessed fans).  But with digits in my bank account, it became a different sort of playground.

I picked up brochures for all of the possible destinations that I would possibly want to go to.  Peru (which was supposed to happen two years ago), Nicaragua (which I was told at the booth was actually the safest country in Central America for now, even for a solo traveller), New Zealand (surprisingly, only around $1500 for two weeks), Honduras, and Panama.

Anyhow, thankfully I got through all of the booths quickly enough and sat down to listen to the speakers before Rick Steves.  The Lost Girls (http://www.lostgirlsworld.com/).  They focus on solo female travel, but they did remind me of a lot of work abroad options I hadn't even thought of as that's how they paid for a lot of what they did.

I know this is technically cheating on my no looking for work pledge, but I bookmarked a link that was sent to me as spam on Twitter: Jobs Abroad (http://jobs.goabroad.com/).  I don't want to do the teaching thing.  I don't have the patience for that.  But I would love to do something like administrative work for archeologists or anthropologists or that sort of thing (which according to the presentation is available).

Oh, but back to the fun stuff.  As I woke up this "morning" listening to the radio, the oldies station I listen to here in Chicago was playing a commercial for one a day deals deeply discounted on Funjet Vacations (http://www.funjet.com/).  Half asleep, I checked it out and today's was amazing.  Today's was three days in Cancun for $449 (about $1,000 including taxes and fees).  That doesn't appeal to me, but they've previewed the others (http://www.funjet.com/specials/dailydeal.asp?xmlfile=daily-deal&OAC=&plCode=) and some of them are really exciting.

Maybe I'll reward myself with one once I've actually started the job search.  After the snowstorm we're supposed to get here in Chicago tomorrow, I'm probably going to need it.