Linux.conf.au 2007 kicks off on monday, but even now, I'm not exactly sure whether I'll be attending or not. Initially, I'd written off the conference as out of my grasp. But some recent events have convinced me that life's just too short to say maybe next year and give up.
But having decided I was going, my economic woes remained - I just couldn't afford to do the trip, not on my salary. The flight ticket and conference fee together would eatup this entire quarter's take home pay and then there's that simple need of mortality - food (whether I travelled or not).
No Homers Club: So, I vacated my house in Bangalore. The house advance refund and a bit more would pay for my tickets to Sydney and back. For a couple of weeks, I slept in office. For the first couple of days, crashed on the sofas - I'm used to doing that. There is an air-conditioned room with two beds upstairs and pretty soon, I was a resident Yahoo!. Except for the early mornings, the office had everything I needed - hot water showers, coffee, bandwidth and a pool table. And most of December was spent in Kerala. And recently, thanks to some very good friends, I've been sleeping in real beds.
Credit where 'tis due: Credit might be the axle grease of the economy, but it feels really bad to borrow from friends. But I owe about 40k INR to my friends - which is what is really keeping me afloat right now. In the past, I'd have borrowed from my parents - but now, I cannot bring myself to ask. The long and short of it is that, I'm running on empty.
And then visas. I got my visas without any hassles and they're with me right now. But, tickets - that's another story altogether. My Bangalore to Sydney tickets are waitlisted for the last nine days and there is about 48 hours left before I've got to report for the flight.
Last year's trip also went down to the wire - with that visa arriving around 4+ hours before the check-in. But I wasn't truly in control last time and I'd have dismissed it as fate, if I'd missed that flight.
But this time, if I don't end up going ... I'm not going to sit around.
--Lack of money is the root of all evil.
-- George Bernard Shaw
posted at: 18:42 | path: /conferences | permalink |