All around updates in Going public

I’m not sure if my tutoring business idea is going to pan out. I researched the competition in the area and it seems like they charge clients around $60/hr, and pay tutors $25-40/hr. It started to occur to me.. how much of a $60 fee would I feel comfortable taking? Any more than 20% seems cruel and unfair. But if I take 20% of $60, I would have to book ~10 sessions per week to make about $500 gross a month. Minus taxes.. is it worth it? Also I noticed a lot of the businesses around here have professional and licensed teachers for tutors. I don’t know if they’re moonlighting or what, but I hadn’t envisioned that that would be the competition. I also joined a bunch of neighborhood facebook groups to search for people looking for tutors, and a lot of people are interested in hiring licensed teachers for a few hours everyday for individual or small groups. It seems like people are looking for these tutors to create curriculum, not just support the student through virtual school. So maybe parents are more worried about virtual school being inadequate rather than being worried that their student is not completing work for virtual school.

The main reasons not to just jump into this is 1. Spinning up a website / scheduling system / whatever is not trivial, and 2. How do I business/taxes/etc?

idk. I wish I had some way of estimating how much business I could get.

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I started the process of looking into buying property :0 Mortgage rates are super low right now which is great, but I am kind of afraid the property bubble here is going to burst due to covid. I know for a fact that rental properties are emptying out - pretty much all of my friends have said that people are moving out of their buildings like crazy. It must be the same for my building, because they cold-called me last week asking if I planned to renew my lease (in December!), and that if I stayed they would not raise my rent and would offer two weeks free. That’s extremely unheard of for this area. A handful of my friends have totally abandoned their apartments and are staying with family in other states, and I think they plan to get rid of their apartment when their leases are up. All of us tech workers are working remote for at least the end of the year, probably more. And with some of the tech companies now realizing that remote work is acceptable, I think a lot of people are jumping ship on living in the city entirely. So, the main concern is that this trend will continue and housing prices will fall, and I will have bought at the peak.

Also.. the price of these places are just… a lot. I’m looking at spending a half million dollars for a 2 bedroom condo in somewhat ‘meh’ locations. But around here.. there’s just no great options for my budget. Need that double income.

Covid has definitely made me more willing than ever to move out of the city center. I used to love being able to walk to restaurants, bars, stores, the park, etc. I’d meet my friends or a date and not have to worry about parking or being sober or whatever. Now, the only place I walk is the grocery store sometimes (mostly I get Amazon Fresh delivery) and walk through neighborhoods, which obviously I could do wherever I live. I might as well move somewhere less urban and at least be close to a bike path or something I can actually enjoy. I once had the fantasy that I’d live downtown and have downtown friends and we could all hang out easily and quickly, but it just didn’t pan out that way. Friends move too, and now everyone I hang out with lives like 20+ minutes away anyway. Not that I see people IRL very often.

I’ve been a covid pessimist since this started, and I’ve been right at every turn. I saw Seattle’s second wave coming a mile away, and it ended up being slightly worse than the first peak. I don’t look at the dashboard everyday anymore, but it looks like we’re just going to hover at 80% of the peak for awhile.

I also started catching wind of people distrusting a covid vaccine, saying they wouldn’t even take it if one were available. The Christian mommy blogger types are on board with this idea - that the vaccine is a Bill Gates conspiracy or whatever. Then I heard on NPR that a poll was done and indeed, 30% of Americans say they will not get a covid vaccine. Fucking. Shit. I really hope that when it comes down to it, people’s primary care doctors will be able to talk them into it. Hopefully people will be less confident in their backwards beliefs when they’re sitting face to face with a doctor they trust.

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Surgery recovery is coming along. I definitely had some bad pain days last week, but I do think it’s improving now. I ended up messaging my doctor with a few concerns, and got a satisfactory response. The main thing is that I have “first bite syndrome”, where my salivary glad freaks the fuck out when I start eating. It’s painful to the point where I double over and my eyes water. It lasts for maybe 30 seconds. It’s fine when I’m alone, but will be preeeetty awkward if someone else is around. It’s a pretty rare side-effect it seems, and I think the only treatment might be botox. Besides that, eating is a little difficult, especially dry stuff. It seems like it just doesn’t want to go down. But in general I just have some residual pain in my jaw, chin, ear, and temple. And I still have some pain when swallowing even saliva. The incision from my 2nd surgery is closed up now, but it’s pretty lumpy and concave. I’m guessing I’ll have to have that fixed later.

I got back to personal training on Friday, and got sufficiently sore from that. I booked two more sessions for the upcoming week. I did a real Peloton cycling workout yesterday, too. I got really tuckered out by those activities, but I’m glad to be able to get back to it. My resting HR got so high after not being active for so many weeks! I’m looking forward to seeing it back in the 50’s and 60’s instead of 80’s and 90’s, eesh.

I was also having a lot of GI issues which is super unusual for me, but those seemed to have calmed down.

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Things with Cosmo have been difficult. He was sooo mad when I was away at the hospital. He is SO vocal and will just scream at me when I am not giving him the attention he wants. He is VERY tactile and wants to be aggressively cuddled at all times. I guess I must have conditioned him to scream at me because petting him is the only thing that stops it. I’ve been trying to ignore him when he scream-meows at me to train the behavior away.

When I have work calls he gets extra agitated. The moment he hears me talking he comes out of the woodwork and is like NO! PAY ATTENTION ME! and it’s veeeery loud and obnoxious. Even if I put him in my bedroom and close the door and wear a headset, people on the call can hear him.

If I am on the computer for work or just on my laptop like now, he will throw his 13 lbs on my hands or on the computer itself. I practically have to wrestle him to get any space! He also has always loved being right up in my face, cuddling into my neck or on my chest, but I’ve had to put a stop to that since surgery, so he’s mad and confused why he can’t cuddle like that anymore. For the same reason, I haven’t let him sleep with me.

I was also looking at old photos for some reason, and saw the hundreds of photos I have him cuddling with Sophie, and I feel like that must be part of the problem. She would seek him out for cuddles and groom him constantly. It made me feel so extra sad that she’s gone, because their love was so special. Cosmo didn’t like the foster kittens, so getting another kitten probably wouldn’t work. Getting another adult cat seems like a big risk, and I don’t know that I have the bandwidth for it. It’s probably stupid, but I just feel really bad for him. I wish I could give him every morsel of attention he desires.

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With it being summer, and covid, work has been really chill about me coming back from sick leave. It is kinda awkward when people missed the memo about why I was gone and think I’m coming back refreshed from some fun summer vacation and I have be like noope no vacation, just a three week medical nightmare! Summer at the company is pretty chill in general, and my org instituted ‘Friday hours’, where no meeting on Friday can be scheduled after 2 pm, to give people flexibility to have 3 day weekend plans. Tons of people are out on vacation and the volume of work is just low right now, so that’s been great for me.

Last updated August 16, 2020