March 5 - Australia: Cairns, Queensland

Another day of running errands, and making sure Jon stays in bed.  He's feeling better, but the cold has moved into his lungs so he has a nasty cough.

The Tax Man Cometh

Jon decided he needed to be productive today, so he took the laptop upstairs to bed and did our taxes.  Before Mike came last week, he met up with my Dad in DC and got all our tax forms and a copy of Turbo Tax (thanks Dad!).  So he delivered it all to us when he arrived, and it's been sitting on the table taunting us ever since.  Seeing how April 15 is fast approaching, Jon took care of installing the software and spent the afternoon sorting out our tax mess.  

So there's good news and there's bad news.  The good news is - because Jon only worked half a year and because I was in school - we're getting a motherlode of a tax return from both Federal and State.  The bad news is - in order to file for it, we need some numbers off last year's tax forms.  And, of course, that's all in storage somewhere in New Jersey.  So we'll have to file an extension and let the government soak up all that interest from our Mac Daddy tax return.

More Bad News

News of the tax return comes at an interesting time.  I just got an email from A.T. Kearney - the company I'm supposed to be working for - saying that they have to push back my start date AGAIN.  For those of you playing along at home, this is the second time the date has moved.  And it's not any easier the second time around.  Originally, I was supposed to start work this past January 2002.  But last June 2001 they sent an email saying I would start in July 2002.  After freaking for an hour or so, Jon and I decided it was a blessing and that we would extend the trip for a while longer.  Thus, our last three months in Australia.

But I've been ready to go back.  I miss New York and my friends and family.  Sad as I was to end our vacation, it's time for us to pay off the credit cards and start making chinks in my monstrous student loan.

No longer.  ATK can't promise me an actual start date, which I'm interpreting as a bad thing.  But I really don't want to go back to NYC and start job hunting.  From the sound of things, there are plenty of highly-qualified MBAs on the market that aren't getting placed.  So I doubt that my "Hi I've been on vacation for a year" resume will be super competitive.

Plus, I liked ATK.  I met a lot of people that I wanted to work with and they were doing some cool stuff.  So I don't want to find another company right now.  But this could mean that Jon and I go to DC and live in my parents' basement for a while.  I'm sure that would make my parents happy - for about a week.

At any rate, I have a call into my ATK mentor and so hopefully she'll give me a ring tomorrow and we'll chat about all this.  For now, I'm going to run a few errands and spend the rest of the day with a good book.