the consumerist in me.

I must confess that I have taken to impulsive spending. There's something very comforting — liberating, even — in being able to spend frivolously, just because it is so frivolous. Mind you I have not gone to the stage of where I deplete all my savings and resort to credit card fraud to dress up exquisitely boomz. I still make the effort to set aside some rainy-day cash slash school fund stash.

Okay down to the real point I want to make. I am with the retail-therapy school on this. I like to think that my experience in the army so far has had some sort of a pendulum effect on me: the harder I push myself, the harder I spend. Think "work hard, play hard". Spending money has become a sort of outlet. I get to buy things I like, things that make me happy. Usually to the effect of consoling myself, or compensating for my sufferings past. Sometimes I see it as rewarding myself, which is also something I never really did before. But in more basic terms, it is a convenient form of release. I would prefer it that I channel my thoughts and energy through a more creative medium, though. Not only is it far more satisfying, it would save me the occasional guilt too.