I’m extremely proud of my apartment. It might not be much just being a studio with an attached bathroom and kitchenette, but it took several years of hard work and diligent saving to get here. A major thing they often don’t teach you in school is how upward mobility works—how you can get from an entry level position to a well-paid intermediate to expert level career. The sad truth is that the cost of living is increasing at a faster rate than that of job promotions and raises in most normal industries and career positions. What that means is that the cost of food, rent, gas, and everything else you need to live will increase in price so fast that most companies won’t be able to keep up, or will simply choose not to as so many undoubtedly do. This has fueled many people’s’ desire to keep finding newer and better jobs and in my case is the main reason I’m proudly living in my studio apartment while I continue to save for bigger and better things down the road. But for now, I think I need to upgrade my window air conditioner. It’s just not cooling my studio at the rate that it originally did when I first bought the machine three years ago. Although I have the option to get a better window ac this time around, I’m considering buying a portable air conditioner instead. They are like the size of large dehumidifiers and they roll on wheels with a large exhaust hose out that back that snakes to a window. They’re extremely powerful and can be place anywhere in a room to work around whatever furniture setup you have going on.