Patrick's Diary - 9/23/2015

I just came back from gym, it's already 12:03 am on Friday. Several things happened in Seattle yesterday, but let me wrap up the diary for the day before yesterday first.

Since I need to drive my son to move into his dorm at UW during the designated hours on Thursday, I had worked long hours in the first three days to accumulate more hours to flex my time. I don't want to use my vacations because I had used up almost every hour in July when we went to Sweden and several other countries. I want to accumulate enough hours for our scheduled road trip next August.

It's another busy day both in East Coast and West Coast: Chinese President visited Everett factories in the morning, walked around Microsoft campus in the afternoon and ended up his field trip at Lincoln High School in Tacoma, I don't know if he had a dinner at Gates' residence eventually or not. Pope had another high profile day at White House. 

Sounders beat Whitecaps at Century Link Field the 2nd time in a week to proceed to the next round of Concacaf Champion League. Unfortunately, the match wasn't televised, I learned the result online later. The clip I just posted tells me that Negal scored twice and Barrett added one, another 3-0 win after last weekend. I had planned to go to the field to watch it but didn't make it. 

Checking my son's UW account, I suddenly realized that I hadn't paid for his dorm and dinning account. It was $4,317. Though it won't be due until mid October, I decided to pay it through Credit Card anyway because the billing cycle probably is the same no matter when do I pay it before the due date. Another almost $4,000 will be due the similar date for his tuition in Autumn quarter. According to my estimate, cost for each quarter is approximately $10,000, total cost for 3 quarters in a year is $30,000, if adding additional $10,000 for his total spending including everything during summer, winter and spring breaks, it will cost $120,000 until he is supposed to graduate in May, 2018. Compared to many other parents, I should feel lucky, though it is still a lot of money. 

In addition to tuition, housing and dinning, textbooks also cost a lot. He will take three classes in this quarter: 

• Math 125 - Integral; 
• Econ-300 - Intermediate MicroEcon;
• Drama 251 - Acting.      

Fortunately, he can keep using the same book as he used for Math 124 and Acting class doesn't require a textbook, so he only needs to buy a book for Econ 300, which costs $300 including tax and Webassign Access Code for Math 125, which costs 100 bucks. I'm not sure if he will go to University Store to buy the book himself this weekend or not. 

However, $120,000 in total for the next 3 years doesn't include the cost of a new car I plan to buy for him next July. So, I plan to save extra 1,000 bucks per month from this month, then we will have 10K extra savings then. This saving will come from monthly rent of my rental townhouse.  Of course, if he can get a job on campus or an internship in Junior or Senior year, he can help himself a bit financially. However, I need to prepare whatever a father can do.

Ok, I will go downstairs to make a cup of jasmine tea, then come back to finish the diary for yesterday.