The ball is ROLLING!!

With the passage of my state board examinations, another door of opportunity has yet again presented itself. Work is picking up because of the holidays, but every night I get about two hours to myself before the alarm clock makes that high pitched sound to wake me up the next morning. I think a lot, as well as analyze the series of events that have happened and will happen. Blogging also keeps track of my thoughts so don't mind the useless rambling I'm about to go on and detail.. It's not just for my readers to know what's up, but for future reference for me too.

First and foremost, my license guarantees me employment at any salon in South Dakota. I can live in the Black Hills of South Dakota, which is the western half of South Dakota or in Brookings, located on the eastern half of the state where my university is at - and still have a job. It's a lovely stepping stone to everything I want to accomplish in this life. Brookings is a small college town, kind of like the town I'm living in. It's located about 40-50 miles away from a major city - Sioux Falls. I've researched job opportunities regarding my employment during the school year and bingo.. I found a list of salon's IN Brookings and also Sioux Falls. My plan is not to call these places yet as the earliest reasonable time frame to contact them will be in the summer. It's silly to think of calling them now because I won't be able to set up an "interview." I hope to land a part time job in the salon's located by my university as that would be more convenient in regards to transportation. 

I have a lot of questions in mind that I will be asking around the area once I get there; some of the things that are on my mind are: reputation, clientele age range, and price of services. Working in the customer service industry and dealing with people since June, I've gain knowledge that the reputation of a salon matters. For example, my uncle has competition right in front of our salon in front of Walmart. The workers are known to drill into people's nails causing painful, "ring of fires," which can cause tissue and even nail damage. This salon is also known to charge outrageous additional fees to the service, such as an extra five dollar charge for the scrub used in a pedicure and other miscellaneous "hidden fees." Word of mouth can make or break somebody, and this salon is suffering the consequences of their bad service as most clients avoid going there. My uncle has been in business for about 10 years in this town and obviously, if you had to choose from going to my uncle or aunt's salon's after hearing of the scenario I just explained - you would probably go to my uncle or aunt. Reputation is only one of the few things I have to consider when choosing a place to work part time at.

If you haven't caught on, yes I decided to work part time during college. Even if I can only work weekends, that's still extra income. It's better to avoid whatever amount of loans I can to save myself from a not-so-pretty looking loan bill after graduation. There's plenty of college kids who work part time and go to school full time. In fact, some people's situations differ from mine to the point that some student's have to work FULL time and take a full course load. I admire people like that because they know what real hardship is. Sometimes there's even people who are nontraditional students, who chose to go back to school with a full time job AND with the responsibility of being a "mom" or "dad." They make it through just fine, and I will too. Nothing is given on a platter in this life, you have to work hard so that your sense of accomplishments will give lead. 

The thought of paying almost five grand to go to beauty school and obtain this license is useless if I don't put this "license" into use. It's a win-win scenario, so that's why I decided that I'll be taking up a part time job.

Transportation is another point I almost forgot to mention. It doesn't seem reasonable to pay close to 25 grand to get a truck with a 4 wheel drive. The burden of car payments will be greater than that of my "future stress" from school. I do not want to be pillowed under hundreds of dollars of car payments during school, so I decided to just consider a compact car that will work. I thought about getting a used car, but you never know.. Used cars are sketchy because you're basically buying somebody's car that's already used. You don't know if the used car has been in a car accident, or whether or not there's engine problems. If you ask them, sure they will probably say something minor but how do you really know that they are telling the truth? People who sell used cars need the money too. Fixing my car is the last thing I want to worry about so getting a new car is best. I'm currently looking into the Kia Rio right now. It has great gas mileage. 27 city/ 36 highway. Double of that of a 4x4 truck that I was considering to get. 10 year warranty which means up to 100,000 miles insured for any faults that occur during that time frame - the company will fix it at no cost. It's a pretty sexy car, I'd have to say. 

My estimated car payments will be around 150-200 a month so that isn't too big. Insurance will be about 100-150 also, so I'm looking around 250-350 a month. I will need this car to get around to places, so it will be a good investment. I'm probably gonna get this car around next summer.. no reason for me to be paying now since I don't need a car to go anywhere. I just hope I do well in the snow with this car, since it doesn't have 4 wheel drive.. but hey, snow tires or all season tires were invented for a reason; as well as my common sense: it's logical to stay off the roads when appropriate!

Ahh.. and my university.. talked to an admissions counselor today and I can't wait until I start!! It's a 15 minute walk from one end to the other with an enrollment of around 12 thousand (and growing!). SDSU is one of the largest universities here in South Dakota. I'll let ya know what I think of it when I do a campus visit. Buildings are 5 minute walk from one another.. Big gym, lots of recreational stuff, you know typical college life.. with the DORMS! I'm gonna be living having a random roommate assigned to me since I don't know anyone...yet.. ahh! The thought of having someone random to live with for 6 months is kinda.. scary at first, I hope he isn't a psycho killer like the one in that one movie "The Roommate." I've been watching too many scary movies haha. No chicken here. In all honesty, I just hope my roomie and I will click! I have a pretty easy going personality.. I'm thrilled and can't wait to meet people and have a social life again. Starting college in another state, is def. a "reset" button. I'm gonna make college a blast.. I'm just happy that everything is figured out now... the ball is rolling now! Until next time.. It's getting late here, 

hope all of yall are doing good.

Oh and I didn't put pictures up in this blog post.. oops. Wall of text, sorry. Got kind of lazy.. you know it's late and all.

Anthony