Fall semester: day eighty-two
Three days remaining
I wonder, actually, how many of my readers get the reference in the title of these latest two posts. If you don't, look up the Doors song "The End." It was also used in Apocalypse Now, for those of you who aren't necessarily fans of The Doors. Using that as my title is sort of funny on multiple levels for most of my classmates and colleagues, who spent many weeks this semester reading Heart of Darkness and/or writing about it and/or using it to make some comparison with Apocalypse Now in said writing, as the movie is based on the book (albeit a bit loosely at times).
See? Multiple levels, like I said.
Anyway.
I have been spending my evening creating Christmas presents for friends. The post office is going to love me when I jaunt in there in a few days with a huge sack of packages to mail. I say "in a few days" because not only do I have to mail these things quickly if I want them to get to their destinations (all around the US) by the holidays, but because my need for stamps dictates that I must go to the post office within the next few days, otherwise I won't be able to mail out any of the bills that will be coming due in two weeks, roughly. My car insurance is due two weeks from tomorrow, and right now I am barely scraping by; saving money on gas by not needing to drive the car a lot over the next two weeks helps somewhat, but still, I am hemorrhaging money right now at what is, quite possibly, the worst time of the year to do so, and the car insurance is just part of it (though a large part of it). That's due to poor timing/bad luck on when I chose to purchase the car and insure it, though, and there's nothing I can do about that. My parents still have not deposited my birthday/Christmas money in the bank, at least according to my account, and that is currently a huge problem as all the bills are coming due. Without that money -- which will hopefully be a large amount that arrives soon -- even with my paycheck next week I will be completely and totally broke by the end of the month because of that fucking car insurance I have to pay.
When I say "completely and totally broke" I mean it. As in, zero dollars left in my bank account. Zero.
If it weren't for that, I'd be fine. I will not have enough money in my bank account, even if I purchase nothing else at all (like groceries, for example) between now and the 31st to pay the rent, car insurance, and the internet bill between now and then with what I currently have and what I will have with next week's paycheck. I just won't. I'd be short, and I'd be short by a lot. Like, short by $200 or so. That's taking nothing else into consideration, nothing at all. That car insurance is fucking me up for the entire month's finances, as it's almost an entire paycheck in itself.
My last-ditch saving grace -- the only safety net I would have to buy me the time I desperately need to accrue the Jan. 6 paycheck as well as get the other half of my student loans for the year about a week after that -- would be to put the car insurance on the credit card, if that would be possible. Mind you, I absolutely do not want to do that, as it would basically max out the card in the first month I've had it, but if I have no other options and it's either that or be homeless, well, it's the only other thing I could do.
I've done well so far, but the end of the year is a major snag for my finances, if you couldn't guess. There's about a good two week gap or so (luckily between the semesters) that I will be fairly penniless or close to it, before I get paid again and before the other half of my student loans drop into my account for the spring. My goal was to survive on what I have until then, barely scraping by paycheck-to-paycheck. However, the university has thrown another wrench into those works because of the New Year's pay cycles rebooting/restarting/what-have-you. I mentioned this briefly before, but January 6 is the last paycheck we'll receive for the fall semester. This wouldn't normally be a problem except that because of the new pay cycle starting, we won't be paid our first check of the spring semester until the beginning of February -- almost a month later and a full two weeks after we've once more started classes. They gave us notice that this was going to happen well in advance, but notice does not equal money in our bank accounts, and as GTAs we're already really poor.
That leaves a small window between December 23 (my next paycheck) and the 6th where I will have no money, and another smaller one between the 6th and whenever my loan drops that I'll once more be scraping by, regardless of how much money my parents give me for the holidays. The unfortunate thing is that I can't wait until that check on the 6th for all of the bills and rent; the car insurance is due on the 28th, and the rent is due (as always) by the 1st. The internet bill is usually due the last week of the month as well, meaning all of my monetary obligations must be taken care of with whatever money I have, or will acquire, between now and January 1.
Like I said, without that fucking car insurance being due right now, I'd be fine. I'd be more than fine, actually.
This is, of course, a stressor for me. A big one. And there's not much I can do about it other than hope my parents gift me my birthday/Christmas money soon or run myself into $400 of credit card debt the first month that I've owned a credit card. If all of the bills were due two weeks later than they are, it wouldn't be a problem; it would be a non-issue. But they're not. So it's an issue.
For those of you going tsk-tsk Brandon, you knew your car insurance was going to be due at the end of December... yeah, well, you can shut up. Knowing that doesn't magically make all of my other financial obligations go away, nor does it change the fact that all of us GTAs were basically blindsided by the fact that we're not going to get paid for almost a month in the interim. When one works in academia for low wages in exchange for free MFA degree tuition, one can't save money or hide it away because there's none left to save at the end of the month. If it weren't for the other half of my loan money coming in around this time in January, believe me, I'd be fucked then by not getting a paycheck, and I'm fucked now because of the car insurance. It's a double-fucking on all fronts, financially speaking, and it's not like any of us have a way out of not getting paid for a month. I'm not the only one of us who has been bent over the proverbial desk by the end of the year.
At least I don't have to buy Christmas presents for anyone this year.
Anyway.
My grade for my Grad Studies in Fiction class (the one I wrote the Madame Bovary and Mrs Dalloway papers for) has already been posted, as I expected it would be, and it is indeed an A-. To me, that still counts as an A, and as long as I get A's in my other two classes (as I expect to), my straight-A streak remains unbroken even after what was possibly the most work-intensive, brutal semester of my entire academic career. I am, of course, looking forward to the spring -- when I'll not only have an easier schedule and more money, but I'll be able to actually get some sleep and free time to myself to focus on my life as well as my writing, and anything/everything that entails. It's sort of a freeing thought, to be honest. I try to be optimistic about a lot of things, but whether I'm ultimately successful in that optimism is arguable.
Spring semester will also be the last semester with a lot of my friends and colleagues in the department -- a large chunk of said friends will graduate with one degree or another at the end of it. This includes a few poets, almost all of the fiction MFAs (save for the scant few who started when I did) and all of the MA students who entered in my class or before, as the MA program is only two years, and the MFA three. Suri is one of the MA students who will graduate in the spring, and I've already told her I am going to positively cry my eyes out when she does so and leaves the department/city/etc. She's probably the closest friend I have not only in Wichita, but in the entire state of Kansas. I'll be lost without her daily dose of cynicism and sobering, flat-out realism.
Please note that I haven't cried in many months, and didn't even cry when the former girlfriend and I broke up. It takes a lot to get me to cry these days, due to my low expectations in life. "Losing" a lot of my friends at once, especially Suri, to graduation will get me to do it, trust me. I'm considering elaborate kidnapping plans.
Kidding.
They'll be relatively simple kidnapping plans.
Kidding.
All's quiet on the other remaining fronts; I'll be spending all day tomorrow making my study guide for my Middle Eastern/Asian Lit exam, taking notes in the books, etc etc. It'll take me a few hours at the very least. After I take the exam, this hellish semester can be marked down in the books as completely over. Ironically, Thursday night after the exam would be about the only time this semester where I'd be in the mood to go out with my friends and colleagues in the class and get completely fucking hammered out of my mind on many beers...but, again, I have no money. Oh, sweet irony! Thou art a cruel, cruel mistress!
Anyway. More posts will be coming as more things develop, and as the semester grinds to a long-awaited end this week.
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