Once again I went to school with no classes to teach. This week the first year students are doing orientations and trips, and my second and third year classes don’t kick in until midweek.
I took advantage of the quiet to hit the books hard, and after 8 solid hours of studying my brain was a little fried. That’s the perfect time to go home and do taxes!
First things first – I re-heated some taco leftovers from the other night and enjoyed the sound of the light rain outside hitting the bike shelter roof. I did a load of laundry, had a big glass of iced tea, and then I was mentally prepared to jump in.
I’ve been using Turbotax on the web for the last five years or so, and it has been reasonably easy to use, except for last year, because I moved to Japan right in the middle of the tax year. This year it was much more simple, and I was able to wade through it in about an hour.
There were some hitches of course, and I had to iron out some things on the fly. A couple of questions that the program asked me were pretty rough – “If you don’t want to claim a negative tax credit uncheck the box below” and other financial nonsense that would no doubt save me thousands of dollars in taxes if I had to pay any.
In the end I don’t owe anybody anything, that is, except for Turbotax. They have a free option that you can do, but they won’t import your old information. I figured it was worth the money to have some extra time and sanity this evening.
Have I said how crazy I am about Kuniko? After last night’s walk around Akashi it was really tough to send her home to her parents, and tonight I’m listening to some mellow music, drinking hot cocoa, and wishing she was around to chat with. I thought that I’d be savoring these times before we live together as my last pieces of bachelorhood, but instead I’m looking around my big dark apartment and wishing she was here with me studying, watching TV, or joking around.
Tomorrow I have two classes, and that will be my busiest day of the week. I’m looking forward to getting in front of some students and chatting with them again.
