Freelance or employee...?

Actually all this is very good. Since 2007, I haven't really done massage, and in the last few years, almost none. Before 2007, I was making a decent living doing massages, since I charge $100 per hour, and I was working on a lot of tourists as "medical tourism". But then economy collapsed, and I had to get a day job. So I became a college professor full time and THAT WAS AWFUL, in retrospect. It was OK for a while when I was doing chair massage on Sunday mornings at Haleiwa Farmers' Market, which was SO FUN - such a great community! I had so many friends and it was lovely to hang out there and do massages... amongst a very tightly knit, cooperative community of farmers and artists and free thinkers, all out in fresh air and sunlight, with zillion of interesting tourists passing by to chat.... and then some jelous morons closed the market... and that meant I totally stopped doing massages, lost my social life, and that almost killed me... I escaped into dance to stay sane.... But dance is not it. Dance attracts too many competitive, catty, sharkey egoistical people, as I quickly found out!!!! And dancing was shitty here... And things quickly went downhill even more - my neighbors were party animals and criminals and tried to physically and financially harm me, and police was here all the time, and it was SCARY... and noisy... unsafe... cruel... dangerous... And then my work was awful too... working in a super bad private school... Well. they paid me well and I used the money to travel to study dance... and I did learn it! Then fortunately or unfortunately I lost my full time job... and found lot better places to work energetically but in terms of resources and learning ... no..... Community colleges just do NOT have the brain power. Period... And finally lately I made it back to the big University of Manoa and that was FANTASTIC for my learning... I finally got to teach some nice classes with smart polite hard working kids!!!! Well even they can ran out of check if you lose a beat... that's NOT fun at all!!!!! And I traveled to learn dance and I learned it and now we even have great dance teachers on the island..... And my whole life looked TOTALLY ALL SET TO LIVE HAPPILY AFTER ...

and then the nuclear bomb of 225K special assessment was dropped in, and the nice places hired peeps....

So here I am - totally exausted from the college and other experience. Academia practically killed me, it is SO DRY AND STIFF AND JUST KILLS YOUR SOUL. The moronic board of my building is also killing me, they are like leaches....

And so it's a full circle, back to massage.... and maybe some teaching? Maybe they will call me in the fall, and maybe they won't. There are jobs in Hawaii now so there are less students. Which means I could find a job.

I cannot even imagine myself working in a company 9-5 every day.... I just cannot stand that.

All my life I managed to have some shitty small jobs and DO WHATEVER I WANT and spend a lot of time traveling and learning.. Basically all my life I was studying healing and dance, and managed to get some work to pay for all of it. I spent all my money on classes. It was fun, no doubt. And in retrospect, I always worked and always was relatively wealthy bc I always invested my money into things good for me. Like, good food, good classes, etc. I never had a fancy car or fancy home, or anything fancy, and all my vacations were spent in classes. 

 

SO MY LIFE CAME A FULL CIRCLE AGAIN. TIME FOR CHANGE!!!! WHERE IS THIS GOING NOW? 

Massage is really the only thing that gives me joy but also I do enjoy doing some technical work. like I did today. I is rewarding to see the web site. Also, I have lived a relatively plush life bc I always earned money doing something computer related and technical and it has always provided a solid base which I could count on.  But massage, with 100$ per hour, actually pays more and is a lot less work, and a lot more COMFORTABLE work. If I teach at the university, I have to drive 2 hrs per day, I have to be in the classroom teaching for at least 3 hours per week, I have to be there 2 more hours for office hours, I have to grade, I have to prepare lessons, I have to deal with manipulative students, and the pay, proportional to amount of time,  is $20-25 per hour AT BEST, for super easy classes which I already taught before and don't need to prep nor grade much. Class C lecturer gets 1K per month. Easy class requires 9 hrs per week JUST for driving and physical presence in the classroom and around classroom: 3 hrs in classroom, at least 2 hrs office hours, at least 4 hrs driving.  Then add prep and grading... For a new class with grading, pay is about $10/hr at most... It's just that you are GUARANTEED hours and can count on your paycheck.  

 

With massage business, I can stay close to home, no traveling, no hassle, and I work with nice people who COOPERATE. And I am the boss. 

Well - that's it then :) Massages again! yay.