am I better off this way Every day I check my stocks repeatedly. I don't have a great track record in the stock market - I've lost money on Axia, Nortel, and technically even on MetroNet. I shouldn't complain, actually, because the capital losses incurred on the MetroNet shares on my market transactions didn't take into account the great discount I got because the shares were purchased through a stock option exercise. Yeah, MetroNet was good to me.

One positive thing that I can say about working at my current company is that I have benefitted from the employee share purchase plan. The company will give you a tax-free loan to purchase shares, even matches 10% of your purchase amount, and proceeds to deduct the loan payments off your paycheque for the next year. You can enroll every quarter, so long as your loans don't exceed a certain percentage of your salary. I enrolled immediately upon joining the company in the fall, and again in the first quarter of 2006. I own 113 shares (sorta). So by the time I leave, I will mostly have those loans paid off (might lose some of my last paycheque finishing the payments), and I will have a nice 2500-ish dollar investment to help me next year when I'm running low on student funds.

And the update on my Carleton plan is this: last week I applied for a student loan. Now I wait.  | ¶ 12:38 p.m.