The Five Year Plan

Well, technically it is more like an outline than a plan.

Note: This is locked for LJ Friends only because we don’t want details leaking out to Benjamin’s coworkers just yet — the information is freely available to everyone else. I’ll unlock it after our plans becomes finalized.

Update: Benjamin just blogged about his plans so I’ve unlocked this post. Expect an update from me Real Soon Now.

Benjamin has decided that he wants to complete his Bachelor’s degree by the time he’s 30 (thank goodness it was before he was 30 and not me :). To that end he has decided, after much thought, to get his degree in Event Planning/Management. In our research we discovered that there are only a handful, certainly less than a dozen, colleges that offer 4-year degrees in Event Planning. There are only two of them in cities that we are excited to live in for the duration of obtaining the degree: Denver, CO and San Jose, CA – the schools being Johnson and Wales and San Jose State University respectively.

Benjamin has applied to both universities and the pesky things like transcripts and standardized test scores should be winding their way to the admissions office if they haven’t already arrived. Johnson and Wales (J&W) has a rolling admissions program so we could, in theory, find out any week now if he has been accepted there. J&W doesn’t specify what the cut-off date is for the admissions notification so we don’t know how long we’ll have to wait on that one (presumably before June if he’s applying to start in Fall 2007). San Jose State University (SJSU) won’t start notifying transfer students until March 15, 2007 so we have quite a bit longer to wait for that one. Benjamin is heavily leaning towards J&W and is only considering SJSU as a backup plan.

Price-wise both schools come out close to the same: J&W is a private college and we’d be paying out-of-state tuition for SJSU. The cost of living for Denver vs San Jose would be pretty different so SJSU would end up being the costlier option but probably not by a landslide. [CNNMoney estimates that the cost of living in Denver would be $7k higher than living in Austin. San Jose would be $89k more than Austin. I take that back — it is a landslide.] I find it ironic that we just sent off the last payment for Benjamin’s previous student loan, just in time to start another one in 6 months :)

[Side rave: Benjamin will be applying for financial aid come January. Being 24, he is no longer required to list his parent’s income on the FASFA. Furthermore since he is single, as far as the federal government is concerned, we don’t have to list my income either which is certainly advantageous in our circumstances and something we are more than happy to take advantage of. If the federal government won’t recognize our relationship as a couple (screwing us) at least we get the benefit of Benjamin looking ‘poorer’ than he otherwise would and the government giving him more money or a better loan (screwing them). Ah, sweet justice. Score one for the failure of the Gay Agenda, whatever the hell that is.]

Ideally Benjamin will get accepted at one (or both!) schools and we’ll need to either be in Denver or San Jose no later than July of 2007. In the mean time we have tons going on.

Our plan is still to move to Denver for a 6-month trial run starting just after Easter (in April for 2007). He’ll continue working for Compass Bank up until that point in time. What he does come April is still up in the air and is pending on a few factors, one of which is if he has been accepted somewhere by then. We’ve discussed him transferring to a Compass Bank in Denver, volunteering his time with some Denver event planners that we have some contacts with, or something else altogether. I will be staying with IBM the entire time and come March will transition to be a mobile employee (aka: IBMer without an office).

In the mean time Benjamin has enrolled in a 10-week Wedding Planner Certification course being offered Wednesday nights from 7pm to 10pm at Texas State University in San Marcos starting the end of January and finishing just before Easter. He is super-excited about this possibility. I’ve enrolled in another 8-week pottery course on Wednesday evenings starting mid-January which I am equally excited about.

So come April we pack up a few boxes and ship them to Denver UPS ground, pack up the Fusion, and drive to Denver to invade the personal space of our friend Danny for 6 months. If B gets accepted to J&W we’ll look into getting a place of our own (renting a downtown loft?) and become Denverites for ~4 years. If B gets accepted to SJSU (and not J&W) we’ll pack the car back up and head to San Jose and get a cardboard box of our own for ~4 years.

That brings us back to the house in Austin. The current plan is for Evelyn (B’s sister who currently lives with us) to stay in the house until mid next year. At that time we should know what our longer-term plans are and can decide if we want to rent the house (preferably to one of our friends — you know who you are) or try to sell it. The problem is that B and I love our house. Sure it isn’t perfect but its our cozy abode and it keeps appreciating thanks to the NW Austin area booming around it.

All that to say we have a pretty good feeling where we’ll be in 6 months (June – Denver). Beyond that it gets noticeably fuzzier for the next 4 years: 9 months (Sept – Denver? San Jose? Austin?). After the ‘which school?’ question is answered we can start solidifying plans. Up until then we’re just plowing ahead and saving our pennies.

This concludes our Five Year Plan Six Month Outline.