Ok, so here is my quandary: If I stay out of the country for 4 more months I can transfer a substantial portion of my pretax IRA to a post tax Roth IRA. The problem is, I have no idea what I’d do for work for those 4 months and I need to be making money to support myself. If I’m not making money, I’ll have to be withdrawing from the account in order to live. Even in a cheaper country to live I’d probably end up spending enough that it would make more sense just to go back and find a job in the US and not transfer the money. There has to be a way out of this situation. I’m going to ask around and see if anyone has any suggestions on what I could do. I know I could try to start doing freelance work online and I could then try to find somewhere cheap to live while I get that started. That was my goal when I got to Istanbul, though, and I made no progress on doing that. Hmm. Tomorrow I’ll do some internet research and see what I can find out. I might be able to qualify for a working holiday visa of some kind. Then I could go to New Zealand, Australia or somewhere else and try to find a job. It could be pretty cool to work in one of those areas for a while. Hmm.

I’m really glad that I finished my long day today. I’m excited to be done soon. I wish I could have made staying in Istanbul work, but continuing this teaching job is not something I feel I could do. Even today it was a struggle to get through. Continuing for any period of time more would simply be unbearable.

I’ve been messaging a guy in NJ I’ve now known for quite a while. The messages haven’t gone to sexting, but they’ve gotten more romantic in nature. I’d really like to be dating again…. I’m currently a very, very lonely bird.

Yay for not having class in the morning! I’m going to sleep in tomorrow and it’s going to be amazing. I hope I don’t sleep excessively because that’s never good for me, but I’m very excited I don’t have to get up and teach in the morning.