Wanna See My Aparment?

This is pretty awesome, on the one hand, and sucks that I'm at this place in life, on the other. The title of this post is linked to the Stark realty site, who happen to be the deal-makers on the property I'm currently living in. I got word a week and a half ago that the building I'm living in, along with it's mate next door, were going on the market. These buildings are each four unit buildings, each unit has 2 bedrooms, and a full, unfinished basement with built-in storage units. You can check this fact on the website: both buildings were going for the combined asking price of 550,000. I won't go into some other details quite yet, as there's some dealings going on right now, but you'd either have to be insane or completely ignorant to the state of affairs in Madison to not think that's the best deal ever. Do the math (trust me, I did): each unit rents (currently) for about $700, there's a total of 8 units, and even with a 5.75 APR the 30 year mortgage is only going to require somewhere around 35K a year. That leaves you with enough for maintenance, taxes, and some wiggle room for emergencies/vacant units and still turns quite a useful profit the first year! To be honest, I was actually looking into a couple sources of capital this past week. Someone in my position doesn't have the luxury of being able to scrounge the kind of money necessary for a downpayment in that kind of time (give me 2 years, maybe), but as I doubt I've mentioned it yet, the building I live in is perfectly located and perfectly laid out. In other words, if I could buy any property in Madison right now for realistic and practical purposes, this would be it. Of course, following the advice of a wise old woman (don't tell her I called her old), I've in mind to start a little smaller for my first property. But it is a project I actually have in mind to do while I'm up in Madison. Perhaps an older, split level house which has already been converted for apartment living. I could either live in one unit and rent out the other, or, if a second project I have in mind turns out to be feasible, I might purchase such a place and rent out both units (aka, I would be able to live elsewhere...and no, unfortunately that's not with my future med-school girlfriend). But I'm fairly handy around an old house (thank you, 716 Broadway), and Madison is of the nature to ensure there'll always be renters (not to mention, I'm not in it for the money; check my overhead and a little wiggle room for unforeseens, and you've got yourself a monthly payment plan).

So, while the pipedream of buying this wonderful piece of property is out of my reach, the overall plan is in place to purchase a similarly wonderful piece of property in the near future. I'm currently putting together a down payment (yes, I'm just that "thrifty" with my money) and will be actively looking for a place to buy come next March or April. I'll be talking about both that plan and the consequences of the sale of my current residence as the deals get closed. In the meantime, just thought it was kind of odd that pictures of my apartment are posted on the internet (by the way, they're the latter 3, and you can see the matching buildings which sit on either side of the communal driveway from this page, as well).

Hi, I'm Jeff...

What up, cruel world? It's JBP, back again. Yo.

If I could pin the failure to update on just one thing, I'd say it's the fact that life couldn't rock more hardcore right now. No joke...I have nothing bad to say about Life. Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are falling a little behind -- but Life is really the ring-leader of that show, anyways.

I could attempt to rehash the basic gist of the past month or so, but something tells me my only moral obligation is for the cliff-notes version. So here it is: Classes started up and are going great. I've got a course in Philosophy of Science and one in Metaphysics & Ethics (this one, thankfully, covers my ass on ethics distribution...too much intuition pumping for me). Both classes are going well, as is the course I'm TA'ing for with Prof. Sidelle. I'm in love with the teaching responsibilities this job has. I have so much fun directing class discussions...and I think, just now, I realized why. I make a handful of jokes in class, but I just realized that my enjoyment of the teaching gig is probably, at least in part, due to the fact that my sense of humor -- half dry, half sardonic, half observational -- is perfectly suited for the academic atmosphere. The students laugh and I get plenty of opportunities to be creative with the melding and sculpting of ideas. No, really...the students laugh. I'm funny. Screw you.

As a segway between academia and social life, I should say my classmates are great. I'm quite literally the only single one of them all, but several are in variable-length-distance relationships, so they still come out quite a bit. And that's the problem. I'll explain by way of anecdote: I called up one of the posse a couple days back and, as it turns out, they were all gathered over at someone's house for "a night in from the bars." Fair...but as the night progresses, everyone comes to the understanding that this is, in fact, a pleasant change from the bar scene and we should do it as a regular thing. Thus comes the scheduling conflict. It goes back and forth between, "How about Tuesday nights?"..."No, that's Kareokee."..."Thursdays?"..."That's the night we can actually get everyone from the department out to the bars."..."Wednesdays?"..."No, that's the girls' night/guys' night out"...."Friday?"..."We can't stay in on the weekends."...and it went on from there. Quite literally, since I arrived in Madtown, I've been out at least 4 nights a week. That may sound acceptable, but keep in mind I work three nights a week, two of which I often close past bartime. I almost feel like I'm back at Tulane with the insouciant stops by JMD's room and peaceful nights on the balcony.

How may a man do this, you ask? A PhD program's workload, teaching responsibilities, and a life?!? Simple: give up sleep. You all (unless I've recently acquired new readers up from up here) know my philosophy on sleeping, and how I put that into practice during my Tulane years. Unfortunately, that faded at NIU, where I probably averaged around 7 hours or so a night. Perhaps it was boredom or a general, lackadaisical end-goal, but I just couldn't keep myself occupied enough to motivate less sleep. But up here, I'm back to the 4.5 a night -- and I'm feeling great. So, at least at this point, I'm more than keeping up on all my responsibilities, pulling 9-5's at the office (literally, though they sometimes go to 5:45 or 6 if I'm towards the end of a particularly difficult text), enjoying a couple hours of downtime and general life-upkeep, followed by a healthy dose of social interaction, leading to a well-balanced JBP and a peaceful night's sleep to be repeated ad infinitum.

There are a couple interesting projects on the horizon I'll talk about soon, including updating the whole working situation and (lack of a) love life, but this "update" has already taken up too much of your time. Thanks for all the messages I got berating me in loving kindness to tell tales about my life up here. I know it's the only way I consistently keep up with my friends, outside the occasional, random phone call. I'll try to write again soon and get back into the habit of DW. Till then...

Namaste'.