Living alone? Are you rich?

I have never felt so financially as I have felt since the beginning of July. I decided to live on my own this year... I now consider this a decent-sized mistake. I knew that my expenses would double but I don't think I ever officially did the math. All I was paying for last year was my half of the rent, the cable/internet bill, and the essential food and gas for my car. Somehow, at the end of each month I had maybe $300-$400 left over from my paycheck. I opened a savings account with a high APY, I was just chucking sums of money in there, trying to "plan for the future" if you will. I felt like a pro.
But NO LONGER! Since July, I've had a calculated budget that I've been doing pretty good at sticking to. After I've calculated all the different items that I'm going to need to pay for in a month, from food to gas to credit card bills, the number I get is pretty close to the amount I get paid every month.
Now, don't get me wrong. I like the fact that i'm living by myself. I like the idea of making my home mine and what not. And now that i'm in this situation and see what it's going to take for me to get through this year, I definitely appreciate the well developed survival skills I'm sure I will have acquired by the end of the year. But feeling like you don't have any money sucks. It just does.
So unless I finally win the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes or some other kind of large sum of free money, I'll almost definitely be living with someone for the next few years.

Required Blog: The first days of school... again.

The first week of school this year was so incredibly different from my first week last year that when i think about it, I still smile. Last year, I was so fretful about the idea of teaching and being a teacher as a whole. I did a relatively good job of masking a lot of that uneasiness, but it was nonetheless there. I had the same focus each day for at least the first couple of weeks: "Just get through the day." I would think this to myself as the bells rang in the halls (since my room didn't have a working bell), and if i was having a particularly bad class period, I'd think "Just get through the period."
This yea? Completely different. First huge difference: I had my syllabus ready for each of my students from day one (something that hadn't happened last year). It really helped me to set the tone for the class. But besides the syllabus, overall I was simply more confident. I didn't feel like a person that was told "You are a teacher" and was then trying to fill that role. I knew I was a teacher. I knew what I liked and didn't like in my classroom. I felt in control of my classrom immediately.
To help you get through your 1st year of teaching, you're told repeatedly that the first year is the worst and the scond is so much easier. I knew it would be true, but experiencing that for myself was something different altogether.