My Sugarlumps and Life in Poverty

So if you have any good taste at all in this world, and judging by how many people still watch 'American Idol', many of you don't, then I'm sure by now you've joined the cult following that has surrounded the HBO series "Flight of the Conchords". I first watched this guys when I was a senior in college when a friend of mine showed me some Youtube clips of them from a stand-up show they had done a few years prior. Absolutely hilarious bunch. Their humor doesn't always reach everyone. Their show's success is based dry, very ironic sense of humor. One of those quirky, awkward kind of shows which is guaranteed to make some laugh their asses off and others turn away to find solace in token sitcoms like "Will and Grace". If you've never watched, the show is about two New Zealanders named Bret and Jemaine as they try to make it big in the music industry in New York City, along with their manager Murray who works for the New Zealand consulate, which in the show is a one-floor office in a small, cramped building.

The latest episode deals with the band being dirt poor. They have no money, and are late on paying their bills, so they turn to prostitution to try and make a buck. Jemaine explains to Bret that women dig him because of his 'Sugarlumps' and what follows is a fucking funny song that is classic FOTC.



Watching that episode made me think about my post-college life in (relative) poverty. No, I haven't turned to prostitution just yet I do already have a gigolo name lined up: "Tommy Magnum". So if a guy in Berlin named Tommy asks you if you like what you see, just know that I expended all of my options before that moment and that I more than likely will give you some sort of discounted rate.

No, my life, while it has been an amazing experience this past year or two, has albeit been one in which I have lived with little or no money at all. Now, there's nothing to say that being poor will not allow you to have fun, because as I stand here today 3,500 miles from where I previously lived, I am a bit of a contradiction to that notion. But suffice to say, having money definitely makes living a helluva lot easier.

Now, from a 24 year old's perspective, let's clear up what exactly it means to be poor. Obviously my level or poorness cannot even begin to match what many Americans face or what many people around the world face on an everyday basis. I am fortunate enough to have a roof over my head and for the most part, eat. The type of poor we'll talk about is how young people view poverty. Now, when you grow up, and this is especially in the case in high school, other kids would look at 'wealthy' kids and often say "oh, that kid is rich" or "that kid has a lot of money" Bullshit. They aren't rich. Their parents are rich. They are simply living off their parents wealth, or as I like to say "sucking on the golden teet". Those were the kids who, with a few notable exceptions, were born with silver spoons in their mouths and never worked a day in their lives. Never was this more true than when I attended high school in Boca Raton, FL, where kids drove to school in BMWs and Lexus IS 300s. (I would have taken my 1996 Jeep Cherokee over any of those cars anyday) When you get to college, this perception of wealth starts to change a little bit.

College begins, and you immediately realize that to an extent, you aren't living with your parents anymore and you're somewhat on your own. When I was in college, obviously, I didn't have a lot of money, but technically, I wasn't exactly "poor". I won the a scholarship from the state of Florida which paid 75% of my college tuition, so that was never a huge problem. My parents were kind enough to pay for my rent, food, and books while I was there, so those were never worries as well. I was what you called "College Poor". Not exactly worrying about eating, but not exactly "making it rain" as the kids call it nowadays. You had money for the bare essentials, which in no particular order, were as follows:

a) beer

b) beer

c) beer

d) beer

e) beer

Now occasionally, you have to throw in a road trip or two into those experiences, such as my two trips to Panama City for Spring Break or my memorable trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras in 07'., but even in those cases, my limited funds were going towards beer purchases. What other money I had went to paying all the f'ing towing tickets I accumulated over my 4 years in Tally. (5 in all, burn in hell tow-truck services!) How my car and liver survived Florida State is to this day, a mystery.

No, my first experience with life on my own and what it meant to have little money at all came right after I graduated from college. At the time, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I mean, I did..to an extent. I knew I wanted to work for the U.S. State Department at some point. I knew I wanted to attend graduate school at some point. But those were things that weren't going to happen immediately. No one just waltzes into a govt. job right out of college. So, looking over my options, I chose a job as a Career Adviser with the University of Michigan.

The job was a one year gig, so it was great in that it gave me enough time to figure out what I wanted to do in the next couple of years and how I wanted to get there (i.e. come to Europe) But the job was also one of the most low-paying jobs I probably could have taken. Every two weeks, I pulled in 820 dollars a paycheck. Not incredibly bad, yes. $1620 a month. But if Ann Arbor is anything, cheap it isn't. Subtract from that $850 in rent, a cell phone bill, a utilities bill, TV bill, car insurance, and other things and that money disappears pretty quickly. So for most of my year with U-M, I probably didn't have any more than $400 in the bank account to last through the month. This meant that I was covering my bare essentials, but was doing very little else besides staying home or finding free activities on U-M campus.

It sucked. A great deal. But it wasn't completely bad. I learned a thing or two about budgeting, and more importantly, that if I didn't need something, I really didn't need to buy it (something a lot of people seem to have trouble with).

Over the following summer, I was able to recoup my money a bit, working two jobs over the summer and pulling in over $6000 to bring to Europe.

That money has lasted me a good 4 1/2 months now, and through food, travelling, and other expenses, it is finally starting to dry up. As of this moment, I currently have about 300 Euro in the bank left. So after enjoying the freedom of travelling with relative ease, I am back to being frugal and back to budgeting. Right now, I'm working a teaching job that pays me 980 Euro a month, and chances are, I will end up taking a second job at some point to make some more money. It seems kind of ironic that I have repeatedly worked two jobs at a time since college, and probably will so again. But now, I understand that sometimes, for some people, you have to work twice as hard just to get by. You also have to work twice as hard to get what you want out of life.

I, like many people our age, was sometimes guilty of looking at people with little to no money through a jaded lens. Obviously, they didn't work hard enough or fucked up their lives somehow, many of us thought.. But now I realize that so many of these people do in fact work harder than most. Many are working 70 hours a week, or two jobs, or sometimes even 3 jobs just to earn a living, provide for their family, or work their way to their dream jobs. It makes you appreciate the sort of self-sacrifice and determination many have, even if deep down, you know some of them might never get out of that position again.

I didn't necessarily have to be in the position I'm in. I could have taken safe jobs right out of college, and I could have easily worked in positions that would have put me in a stable financial situation. But coming to Europe and teaching was my choice, and one I knew I made with the understanding that the next couple of years weren't going to be incredibly fulfilling financially. To get to where you want in life, you need to be willing to go through an incredible amount of shit to get to it. That time for me is now, and, considering the experiences I have had so far, I wouldn't have it any other way.