Stepping Up: A Wager

My health plan this year provided us with step tracker bracelets and, should we choose to participate, contributes money into our health savings account if we hit daily step goals. I’ve never had a step tracker before, but it was free and I figured I was already exercising so I might as well get paid for it. (The counter-argument is what these insurance companies might do with all this health data, but I am startlingly unconcerned about it).

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Bookstore Wonderland

I don’t think I’ve ever walked out of BookPeople without spending $100. It’s one of the reasons I had to reinvest in the wonderful library system. BookPeople is Austin’s independent book store. It’s downtown, next to Whole Foods and REI, and a little bit of a wonderland for book lovers. There’s always signed editions, and irreverent feminist knick knacks, and customized staff recommendations lining all the shelves. Their card collection alone is magnificent, as proved by my mother who spent nearly as much on greeting cards as I did on books. It’s all I can do not to throw handfuls of money at them.

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Public Speaking (aka bribing your audience with free lunch and door prizes)

I’ll always remember the time I gave a presentation on blue whales. I was a sophomore in college, studying abroad in the Netherlands (in a legitimate castle of all places), and due to give a speech to my honors class about an animal. Or maybe it was something I had seen a museum? It might have had to do with evolutionary history? I’m not sure – but I chose the blue whale.

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