If I make…

Just some fun thing that I thought of… these are the things I would buy, according to how much I make this summer. I’ll find out in the next 2-3 weeks how well this job actually pays (base pay – or should I say, the minimum I expect to receive – is just over $5000… but I expect tips as well, of course). Anyway, here we go…

$5000 (as in, these are the things I’m going to buy over the summer for sure)

• Grey’s Anatomy Season 2 – $52.95
• The Unit Season 2 (if it’s available in the summer) – Probably $50
• Windows VISTA ** I forgot, my bro can get it for me for free
• Canon PowershotSD750 – $399

$7500

• Everything below plus…
• External Hard Drive (250-500 GB) – $189-249
• Monitor for downstairs Computer (HP 19″ – I can’t stand any bigger) - $279

$10,000 – $12,500 *** MY SUMMER GOAL

• Everything below plus…
• LCD Flatscreen TV, 20″-24″, with built in DVD – Probably around $750

$15,ooo

• Everything below plus (except for, new monitor for downstairs computer, and external hard drive)…
• New Desktop – can’t say specifically what I’m gonna get, but most likely Dell. What model, and specs depends on the specials they have at the time – max, $2,000 (before taxes)

$20,000

• Not a purchase but… I’m taking the semester off work… I’m gonna quit all my jobs (except teaching piano, cause that’s more of a ministry too, than just a job) and not work until January 2008).
• Possibly also a new laptop to go with the desktop – this time I’m going for seriously small, even if the specs are horrible – max, $1,500 (everything, including taxes)

Here’s the rundown of how I’m going to make this money… First of all, I’m going to condense my work schedule to 16 weeks, to make it easier to average out. They said that there’s a possiblity to work until October. So that means if I start working next week, I actually can have up to 24 weeks of work. But the beginning and the end will most likely be like a shift or two a week only.

So, working 16 weeks, and let’s just call it 37.5 hours a week – which is an 8 hour shift with an unpaid “lunch” (more like supper, cause shifts are most likely going to be 4PM-12AM). At my wage (dun wanna say it, because they might not want me to), I can make around $5500 over the 16 weeks. That’s what I’m counting as my minimum made. Which is already pretty good. If I stayed with the city this summer, and stayed as a Camp Coordinator at let’s say $10.50 per hour, and 40 hours a week, I’d be making more money per hour, but less over all because I’d only be working max 10 weeks of the summer. Plus of course the whole deal about working hours that I don’t get paid for and all that stuff.

So $5,500 is base, and anything over that, made in tips, is just extra. This is where I hope to really cash in. Let’s say on average, I make/serve 5 drinks per hour my entire summer, and each drink costs 5 bucks. That’s $25 per hour, meaning $2.50 in tip per hour. If you add that to my wage, that’s already higher than my wage with the city and more work per week, etc etc. If I only make $2.50 per hour in tips, I can look forward to around $7,500 over the summer. We make it to the next level already…

That’s absolute minimal though. Imagine a banquet where only like 50 drinks are serve the entire night. Pretty dry party. Anyway, let’s say I serve, on average, 15 drinks an hour (more realistic… and by the way, when I say on average, of course I’m counting on there to be working horus where I’m not serving any drinks at all – like my set up and clean up before and after a cruise – and that there are going to be hours where there’s tons of drinks served, while other times where I won’t be serving as many). Again, at $5 per drink, that gives me about $7.50 per hour in tips. Now we’re talking. That would make me between $10,000 – $12,500 in the summer.

This is my most likely scenario, from what I can think of. Which is why that is my Target Amount for the summer. Anything over this is just blessing (well everything is a blessing, so let’s say… dreaming, lol). Let’s Now consider an average of 25 drinks per hour. I dunno, I think it can happen… depends on how may people are on the cruise, etc etc. This would net me tips of about $12.5 per hour, which will put me into that $15,000 range. Averaging 40 drinks per hour will put me into that $20,000 range.

Of course how many drinks I serve isn’t the only way I make money. I can make tips outside of the standard gratuity give (10%). I can try to impress my guest with my knowledge of different drinks, or try to upsell drinks all the time (instead of Regular priced drinks – Screwdriver, Cape Cod, etc, try to upsell to Premium – Green Widdow, Purple Haze, or even to Deluxe/Special Deluxe Premiums – Long Island Iced Tea, etc).

Bah, there’s so much possibility. I don’t even want to think about it. I just want to do my best in this job this summer, and really earn some cash.

Just recently as I checked the POL208 Portal for like the 50th time since the exams finished, I noticed something that may give me a clue to my final POL208 mark. Under the marks column (the marks that I got), the marks that are showing (for the 2 papers and the 1st midterm) don’t add up to the final mark shown at the bottom… There’s a 67 mark difference… Which tells me that that 67 is what I got on the for my final exam, and the participation marks. A little sad, cause it’s so low (the final exam and participation are worth about 35% of my mark), but if this is so, I can stop worrying and finally figure that I got 70% as my final mark. This means 2.7 GPA, which doesn’t do me any good, really, but it doesn’t do any harm either.

Anyway, I’m just happy to stay in the B’s for that class.

However, what this means is that if I want to improve my CGPA even a little, I need to seriously hardcore my American History exam, especially considering what I think I got on my Canadian History exam, and Colonial Americas exam… That is, not good. Oh I’ll stay in the B’s for sure, but most likely I’ll get a B- in both classes. Phew… We’ll see how things go.

Hmm. Right now I’m sitting in my grungy (yet comfortable) house clothes in the middle of Yorkdale Mall. I’m here to pick up my brother, but because I finished my exam 1.5 hours early, I’m also 1.5 hours early to pick him up. No biggie, except the mall is getting busy now. I’m wearing my City of Toronto sweat pants, a t-shirt, and a GAP hoodie. LOL. I’m unshaven, I haven’t showered yet today, and I just finished a plate of onion rings so most likely my breath stinks.

Haha. Whatever. James will be done soon. I will speed my way home. Take a long hot shower. Then take a long hot nap. Before I gotta do this whole thing over again. But whatever, I only have to do it one last time.

Tomorrow I have rehearsal at church for Sunday, then, depending on how long rehearsal takes, I’m gonna make my way downtown for my friend, Vera’s birthday thing. Then, Thursday, as I’ve been mentioning over and over again, I’ve got my orientation at my summer work. Friday, I think I’ll actually spend some time studying, cause Saturday, I’ve got some more training for work. Sunday’s gonna be a crazy day with 2 services, and rehearsal, and Trec afterward. I mention all this now because most likely I won’t have time over the next few days to post anything. Bleh. Phew. I’m gonna go get my bro.

UPDATE: I grossly miscalculated, and I’m actually getting a C+ in the class :S Aparently that total that I saw wasn’t weighted. On top of that, my final exam, and my participation marks were horrible – 62, and 50 respectively. This gives me a final average in the course of 69. Sad. I miss getting the B- by a percentage point, and now I really need to that 3.0 in US History. Gah…

What a lovely start to a gorgeous day. The sky is purple, which is really nice. Now I would normally take a picture of it, except… our camera is lost. haha. I think I’ve mentioned that like 3 times already. But nonetheless, it’s nice, but a little chilly. And I’m lockedo out of Sid Smith… My first time coming here *this* early, and I didn’t realize it didn’t open this early. Well hopefully I’ll be inside soon enough. I need to get some serious studying done. At least I skipped all the traffic coming here (yes, even leaving my house at 6AM, I get some serious traffic. Today was still pretty heavy in fact, and I left at 5:15).

Well back to my Timmy’s breakfast. Then I’ll probably do some reading before I need to take 6:30 check in calls.

UPDATE: 10 Minutes Later…

Ok so I’m in my car now. It’s really cold. LOL. I just realized that when I come here early, I don’t normally make it until 6:45AM or so, so I think I’ve got a long wait in here. Well gonna do some reading then…

UPDATE: 5 Hours, 30 Minutes Later…

The gorgeous day turned sour… Mainly physically – it’s raining now. Well nto really rain, but “ambon” as we say in Tagalog… Just a light drizzle. But yes, after that exam, I’m not feeling very comfortable, and unlike last Thursday, with the surprises of good marks from my POL203 class, I don’t really have any good news to compensate for the grim outlook of this exam. Gahh.. I finished in about 1 hour, 20 Minutes… Which is significant when you consider that it’s supposed to be a 3-hour long exam. Although I don’t really think time has anything to do with it. Honestly, 3 hours is way too long for that exam anyways – it was just 4 IDs, and 2 Essays. What I’m concerned about is the whole third section of the exam (the 2nd essay) which dealt with modern Canadian history. Yeah, I pretty much BSd my whole way through it. I’ll be lucky to get 10/33 in that part…

Oh whatever. At least I’m free for a little while, plus I do have my orientation on Thursday to look forward too (although I plan to write an exam right before – my Bartending School of Ontario exam). Whoppeee.. we’ll see how thigns go.

I have been waiting a while for this comment to pop up. I’ve known since I’ve been posting videos up on YouTube that someone was going to comment about the videos I have in this way, and I have been preparing my response for a while now (now actually I kinda feel bad, like I’m ambushing the guy). But nonetheless, this is a position on alcohol that I have stated on this blog many times…

Anyway, the issue is that on my YouTube channel, I have videos of both my friends and I drinking, as well as the worship and choir songs I play at church. And so the comment I have been anticipating is how I can somehow reconcile the two… It finally came last week (though I only noticed it today).

From: hcog2003

You won’t like this, but I don’t care…having Christian piano solos in church
and movies of you taking tequila shots at the same time is a little bit
hypocritical, don’t ya think? I’m not claiming to be perfect by any means,
because I’m not, but advertising your sin? Come on now!

My Response:

Actually, I have absolutely no problems with it at all. There’s nothing
wrong with alcohol. The sin is in drunkeness. But we drink alcohol to have fun
and celebrate – and we absolutely do not consider being drunk fun nor
celebratory (I think anyone who’s ever been drunk can attest to that… and yes,
I have been drunk before).

All things are lawful, but not all things are
profitable. All things are lawful, but not all thigns edify. 1 Corinthians
10:23.

The wonderful thing about Christ’s salvation is the freedom He
gives us from trying to save ourselves with meaningless and irrelevant action -
or abstinance from action, as this case may be. However, I do accept and respect
that there are Christians who do not consider alcoholic beverages profitable or
edifying. Which is where the next part of the verse comes in…

Let no
one seek his own good, but that of his neighbor. 1 Corinthians 10:24.

So
I apologize if I’ve somehow offended you because of your views on alcohol. We
don’t drink around someone who has genuine issues with drinking, or around
someone who we may cause to stuble by our actions (a former alcoholic for
example). But this is an issue where there is clear black and white principles
that laid out biblically.

Bless.
Chris

I think I pretty much said it all in that response. But as I read the verse again just now – and it’s a verse that I’ve always known I would use in defence of this issue – I do realize some flaws in the logic. But very little. In fact, the issue that Paul’s words here is meant to correct is possibly even worse than drinking. It had to do with eating meat sacrificed to idols. False teaching was arising in the church that eating meat sacrificed to pagan idols was sinful… But this was Paul’s response… All things are lawful, but not all things profitable… All things are lawful, but not all things edify (v. 23).

There was no sin in eating sacrificed meat.. it’s just meat. It’s not like there’s any special meaning to it, because they were worshipers of the one true God.

In the same way, there is this general taboo that surrounds alcohol in Christianity… Somewhat understandable of course. As alcohol, just as meat sacrificed to idols, can and has been used for sinful purposes. But my response the same as that of Paul… All things are lawful… but not all things profitable… not all things edify.

But he add a condition to this… Let no one seek his own but that of his neighbor (v. 24). Which is where the second part of my argument comes from. We do not drink around someone who is genuinely against drinking, nor do we drink around someone who we may cause to stumble because of the drinking… Paul addresses this further in the next verse… “Eat anything that is sold in the meat market without asking for question’s for conscience’ sake;”… I love that by the way. Although it actually is quite controversial if you think about it. There’s no conscience. There’s only what is right and wrong according to God’s truth… “For the earth is the Lord’s an all it contains… If one of the unbelievers invites you and you want to go, eat anything that is set before you without questions for conscience’s sake… But if anyone says to you ‘This is sacrificed to idols,’ do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for conscience’ sake. I mean not your own conscience, but the other man’s; for why is my freedom judged by another’s conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I slandered concerning that for which I give thanks?” Scandalous.. LOL. But it’s God’s word. (1 Corinthians 10:23-30).