Another of those words that ought to exist, but, I fear, probably doesn't. No, we have to make do with the cumbersome 'impecuniousness' instead.
I had been hoping this morning's recording gig (the one and only session of its kind I have scheduled this week) would realise around 1,000 kuai for me. In fact, it came in well short, at only 900 kuai. Oh well, not too bad; I should be grateful, since the original time estimate indicated only about 800 kuai. I was guilty of being somewhat over-optimistic, and of counting my chickens prematurely. Soon after I finished up at the studio, I learned that a 'needs assessment' I was supposed to be doing in the CBD this evening for a teaching buddy had been cancelled. That was to have been another 300 kuai for just an hour or so's work. And then when I got back to my apartment complex I was ambushed by the building manager hitting me up for the annual cleaning fee (gosh, yes, it is a swish place: we actually have an ayi to mop the stairwells twice a week!): it's only 120 kuai, but it still bites when your wallet is a slim as mine is just at the moment. Ah yes, and last night ended up being a bit of an expensive night out: I was hanging with some of my girlie chums, so found myself in a much more expensive bar than I would usually go to, and being rather stupidly generous in buying other people drinks.
Yes, in the space of just 18 hours, I have found myself some 700 or 800 kuai worse off than I was expecting to be.
This month - for, I think, the first time ever in my 6-and-a-bit years in China - I have NO WORK lined up. None at all. This morning's recording gig was an unexpected, last-minute kind of thing. There's nothing else of the like on the horizon. A number of the studios last month were saying that this month would be "really busy" - but I haven't heard a peep from any of them yet.
It is rather worrying.
I will soon have to relax my usually stringent rule against dipping into my meagre savings - or else starve.
3 comments:
It does seem the universe of language is a little off-balance if it won't even give us a matching "pecuniousness." Or, why not?, "pecunity."
I don't know and am not seeking the story of the "escape" implied by the phrase "escaped lawyer." But just wondering: given the rather desperate-sounding situation you describe here, do you regret having left that life behind?
I may go into this in a post or several at some point, JES, but no, I am mightily relieved to have dodged that bullet. It was not the life for me.
In an ideal world, I might perhaps have become an academic lawyer - but you really have to pursue that path from an early stage. Being a working trial lawyer is deadly dull: you have to travel all over the Greater London area, sometimes all over the whole bloody country, you spend hours on trains, in train stations, hanging around outside courtrooms..... just to go on and say your piece before the judge for a few minutes.
Well-paid, yes. Emotionally and spiritually satisfying, usually no.
In a way, I'm relieved to hear you say so.
All this about abysses is alarming to watch, though. Maybe you should start running ads on your blogs. Heh.
Post a Comment