the cost of taekwondo

i just bought my tickets to collegiate nationals (march 29 - april 1) and portland qualifiers (april 14 - april 16.) total, it cost me $630. Which is about what i expected, and I think i got lucky because as i was filling out my form for the $400 ticket to college station, middle of nowhere, texas, the prices on kayak.com increased, and even the direct price from continental airlines was at least $430. only problem is i'll have to take extra vacation because nothing else would get me there on time for weighins.

hotels will be thanking me, too, since i have that extra night (thurs night) in texas and the extra night (sunday night, april 15) in portland. i have to get to the airport for a 6:15 flight monday morning so i can kill myself at the office for a whole new week. maybe there's some way to sleep in the airport instead? with all the recent delays and such, no one will bother me if i sleep on a bench.

this got me to thinking about how much taekwondo is worth. aside from the intangible and priceless experiences that you get out of competition, being part of a team, seeing your friends and girlfriend, the way it's been so far has put the value of each match to about $500. that's $500 for six minutes of kicking and getting kicked by somebody. this includes, of course, the airfare, hotel fees, competition registration fees. this doesn't necessarily include other things that are "good", such as disneyworld tickets and binge eating the night after competition. and this is also based on the worst case and very pessimistic scenario that one would only last a single round in each competition.

but then again you look at the BIGGER picture. say you go to 10 major taekwondo competitions a year, which is a pretty large number of major competitions. That only costs $5000, over the course of a year. many other things easily cost more than that, such as gas (a $30 refill every 2 days), alcohol and drugs (140 750ml bottles of grey goose or 83 ounces of cannibis, without bulk discount), FOOD (one $96 restaurant meal per week.) and although that has just made me very depressed on what alternative lavish lifestyles i could be enjoying, i think that in the end when you graduate from college and have a nice cushy job it isn't worth your time to cry over a ticket.

i still wish there was some sort of rewards program that combines ALL of your airline miles, because i don't think i get the recognition i deserve from all the evil airlines that are sucking up my money.