Thanks guys!
Thanks guys for your emails and comments! I'm sorry I messed your life up by bringing up stupid comments and ideas :P I have some idea of what is going on now, and we might probably act accordingly if we want to... though my friends don't seem to want to do anything anymore, because next year our financial situation will ease and even the rising sophomores are lucky enough to not get expensive housing, so there is not much need to fight too hard. Let's just hope that our previous voices made a difference in their budgeting for next year, and all will be good...There is some misunderstanding between GCS and me here. I'll reply to his latest comment here:
> coolgoh:
I think there are some idea mismatches here. If your idea of a private buffet is the uni cafe kind of buffet, that is of course fine - i get the idea that private buffet = buffet in a restaurant/hotel and then justify that price using inflation as a reason.
Your $2400 junior is ridiculous, and i think you agree too. textbook allowances are given to us, and we are not asking for it to be increased - my issue is more with the living allowances, and how you guys actually report your budgets. judging by the way you described it it sounds really dodgy. basically you are asking me to report things i DEFINITELY will NOT need - doesn't sound like proper budgeting to me.
sigh. i have been treasurer for all my life, obviously i know how to do budgeting, and i am teaching people how to do it (i'm not the treasurer anymore - i'm now the VP, and i didn't want to be president)! i have swindled so much money from johns hopkins for our ssa that now we have too much money in our account with the school ready for us to submit for reimbursement anytime, my apartment now is living off food leftover from our events, and we'll be selling/giving out those extra leftover stuff for our next fundraising event. and i encourage people to buy things for events from our university supermarket using their dining dollars so that they can actually cash their dining dollars. though when i do budgeting all i do is overestimate the attendance; i won't submit non-existent expenses and i prohibit people from using the school's money to get things for themselves - i have rejected requests for reimbursements based on that and also stuff bought for a supposedly 'pot-luck' event that i didn't budget for although we have the money for it. after i explained people are always okay with it.
the thing that we wrote is a very detailed breakdown of everything, i even went down to the most ridiculously priced university supermarket and report the most expensive prices of essential items that i can get, and we reported our current rent + meal plan, which is on the verge of being the most ridiculous in the school. we also reported the cost of buying a meal outside, tell them how expensive it is, and we included costs for necessary social events, club fees, etc. i.e. costs that a normal student in the USA will be expecting, and then we did a write-up detailing our current financial situations and i.e. we are partially living off our parents' money so that we can just have a proper life. it didn't even get past HR. that's why we get pissed off - what else can we do? report non-existent spending and mark it up to $2400? it can be very easily done if i want to do it, and i know exactly how to write that kind of letter...! i just didn't want to because it doesn't seem right to me!
probably we can bring it up to a higher level la; i should consider your philip yeo idea - maybe not philip yeo but the director or sth... like i said, next year won't be as bad for us and for the sophomores anymore, so even if they don't raise it we'll still live alright. so yup.
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Anyway, we have our first comm meeting with the new comm this year, and I feel that this new comm is awesome. Next year we can really do something interesting!
And community service! I think I am more or less set into committing some time to do that, and we will try to arrange for something regular for the SSA. Nice! Next year will be an exciting year :) - though it means that I will be busy as usual... but better than being too free right :D
Labels: Life
