{"id":1601,"date":"2006-12-29T00:21:25","date_gmt":"2006-12-29T00:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2006\/12\/29\/halfoff\/"},"modified":"2024-11-29T13:46:09","modified_gmt":"2024-11-29T18:46:09","slug":"halfoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2006\/12\/29\/halfoff\/","title":{"rendered":"Half-Off"},"content":{"rendered":"

I really like it over here.<\/strong> I mean, I like it a lot<\/i>. Part of it is still the novelty and part of it is how much I like what I\u2019m studying, but there\u2019s also a million little things and big things that have conspired to make these last few months the happiest few in a row I can ever recall having. Life here is good for me \u2014 very good, and better than I\u2019d expected \u2014 and if any of my contingency plans pan out I\u2019ll be able to make a go of staying over here for a while longer.<\/p>\n

The catch, of course, is that is kuh-ray-zay<\/i> expensive here, even when you stop constantly calculating exchange rates in your head. And I say that as someone living in a relatively cheap town in the UK, and who is used to living in an obscenely expensive city in the US. Perhaps this little sample from a \u201cquiz<\/a>\u201d urging British tourists to rape and pillage their way across New York will illustrate this point:<\/p>\n

\"Everything<\/a><\/p>\n

Now when you look at that, please remember that a pound is also worth about 2 dollars. So remember to double all those numbers when you do the exchange in your head, and then when your brain shuts down from the horror of it like mine does every day, just try to relax and breathe deeply until the sensation passes.<\/p>\n

Luckily, my modest day-to-day life in Reading doesn\u2019t really include any of those expenses. I actually spend next to nothing aside from rent a food when I\u2019m here, but any trips into London immediately make up for the monastic simplicity of the rest of my time. I\u2019ve always joked about how New York you pay a twenty-dollar penalty just for going out your front door, but the joke is a lot less funny when it’s in pounds.<\/p>\n

Still, I have so much more to learn before I\u2019m done. And the candy they have here is really, really good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I really like it over here. I mean, I like it a lot. Part of it is still the novelty and part of it is how much I like what I\u2019m studying, but there\u2019s also a million little things and big things that have conspired to make these last few months the happiest few in … Continue reading “Half-Off”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultrapersonal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1601"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71894,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601\/revisions\/71894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}