Waiting

I have realized that the vast majority of my time this past week has been spent waiting on one thing or another to happen, all things out of my control, but all things that are like puzzle pieces -- they need to fall into place before I can continue my life as normal. While I am typically a proactive guy, there are certain things that I just cannot control, will into existence, or physically make happen on my own -- and those things tend to be the most important things.

As I've said many times before, I am not a control freak in the slightest, but I will also say that most other people have more control over their lives and well-being than I do. This isn't necessarily my fault or anyone else's, but it's more of the situation I've been in for the past three years or so since I've been in grad school. I've written before that being a professional student is much like locking oneself inside a very insular bubble, a bubble that isn't easily penetrated and doesn't let a lot of light or information in from the outside. Unless one is independently wealthy (or, conversely, has rich parents and/or isn't a full-time student), being a graduate student basically guarantees that you will be very, very poor a lot of the time. In fact, it pretty much guarantees that you will be poor for as long as you are in whatever graduate program you're enrolled in. It is not unheard of (and is quite common, actually) to hear stories of fellow grad students selling plasma as much as the local donation centers will allow them to do so in order to pay rent and eat. Unless one has received special clearance involving mounds of paperwork and approvals from higher-ups, GTAs cannot work a second job during the same timeframe that they're teaching. The only exception to this is if said GTA has acquired a second job during a timeframe that they were not teaching, which in most cases they're grandfathered in and can keep it -- usually if they somehow prove that they need the income for survival purposes.

This was my problem this past summer when I was teaching the ten-week normal 102 course -- because I was teaching that course, I was an active GTA for the entire summer. Nobody else was teaching the ten-week course; I was the only one who had been assigned a course of that length. All other GTAs who taught in the summer taught on a four-week or eight-week schedule. Me? I started teaching about two weeks after the spring semester ended in May (I believe the first class day was May 24th or something like that) and didn't finish until after the 4th of July. My pay cycle was also altered because I was teaching that special ten-week course, as well -- I was supposed to start getting paid the first week of June, but I didn't get my first check until the end of the month, and I only got checks until the end of July -- checks that were a little more than my normal paycheck during the semesters, but still not enough to cover all of my expenses. My rent alone is over $100 more than one of those paychecks were, to put that into perspective. And I only got four of them over the course of the entire summer. As you know, if you've been reading this blog for a while, I was broke. Really, totally broke, as in nothing left at all in my bank account or in emergency money.  Friends told me to get a second job, that I had enough free time to do so when I wasn't teaching that one-night-a-week class. While I did have enough free time to do so, of course, aha, there's the rub -- I was an active GTA. To be allowed that second job, I would have to get clearance from all of the higher ups that required it, both in the graduate school itself as well as in the department. Guess who leaves campus in the summer along with most other people who don't have to be there for daily operations? Yeah, almost all of those people, making said clearance -- already hard enough to procure as is -- almost impossibly difficult to procure.

I had friends tell me "just get another job anyway and don't tell anyone." Um, no, that's not exactly possible. Aside from the fact that people in the department, friends and enemies and those in higher positions than myself read this blog, only bad things could have come from me going out and getting a second job on my own -- for one, if an active GTA is found out to be "moonlighting," so to speak, with another job, they can be deemed ineligible for a graduate assistantship and can be dropped from being a GTA entirely -- that's one of those grievous no-nos that isn't really negotiable (unless one goes through the proper channels, which as mentioned, I couldn't do in the summer). Secondly, as you folks know, I survive on student loans for a large chunk of the year, because I cannot survive on GTA pay alone. When those loans are assessed, they look into your pay history for the year, as they are need-based. They look up your tax info and the like. Any outside-the-university deviation from the norm on that would not only raise flags that I'd been working somewhere else when I wasn't technically allowed to do so, but it had the possibility that it would completely screw the need-based totals for my fall/spring loan amounts. This is, as they say, common sense for anyone who was in the situation I was.

What it boiled down to, in essence, was the fact that if I got a second job on my own either during or after I finished teaching this past summer, while it would've given me about a month of relative comfort financially, at the same time it would be risking everything -- my GTAship, my loans, and the basic guarantee of financial stability at all over the course of the full year or more ahead of me. Really, what it boiled down to was that a simple fast-food or grocery store job, either of which I could've gotten easily, could've ended my entire graduate school career, and that's not an exaggeration -- were I to be dismissed from being a GTA, I would lose my tuition waiver, which would mean that I wouldn't be able to afford to go to school for the final year of my degree unless I paid for all of it with student loans. Those loans would be applied to my account first before giving me the remainder of them in my bank account, which -- again, without the GTA paycheck every two weeks -- would be nowhere near enough to live on for more than two or three months. Was I willing to risk that and put everything about what I do and what I am on the line just to get a $300 paycheck maybe twice before classes started back up in the fall, I got my loans, and began being paid normally again? No. I would assume that if you were in my position, you wouldn't either. As you know, I am a planner -- I look forward to the future and try to prepare for what's coming as much as possible. Risking everything for a month would not only have been extremely stupid, but terribly shortsighted of me.

So, I didn't. I stayed poor. I sold all of my DS games and my electric guitar just to be able to eat and pay the bills while I waited for the semester to start and for my student loans to come in. I, with no other option, borrowed money from my parents. Between July and mid-August, I maxed out both of my credit cards to purchase groceries, gas for the car, and food for the cats -- I had no other choice. Daisy, even though our relationship was in its infancy at the time, had a good job and offered to loan me as much money as I needed so that I wouldn't have to be so stressed/depressed about everything. When I refused, she (and her mother) cooked/baked for me, shopped for me, and Daisy brought carloads of food down from Omaha when she visited so that at least I wouldn't have to stress about being hungry.

It wasn't pleasant, it wasn't comfortable, but I survived. By the time my student loans finally dropped and deposited into my bank account, I had less than $10 left to my name. But it was a summer of stress, being constantly nervous about what was going to happen next (it was shortly thereafter when my car started running really rough and I had to get it costly repairs), but I made it through. Just barely. Had my car blown a major part over the summer, or had something else happened, it would've ended me.

Fast forwarding back to present day, I'm in much the same situation now -- though putting it into perspective with this summer, not anywhere nearly as bad off. I still find myself somewhat trapped, waiting on the gears to start turning and go into motion. I'm still waiting for my student loans to drop into my account, something that should've happened almost a week ago now. I'm also waiting on the box to arrive from my parents, which should be delivered today -- my mother told me that it does contain most of the food, my rice cooker, and almost all of my clothes I left there over Christmas. This makes me feel somewhat better, at least, as I had to go to Walmart last night and use my credit card -- the one that, thankfully, was paid off earlier this month -- to get gas in my car and purchase the barest of bare essentials to limp along with for another week or so. Mind you, I was expecting to have my loan money by now, so I was also expecting to have already made my huge shopping trip for everything I needed. Therefore, the extra food in the box my parents sent, when it arrives, will be incredibly welcome. While my cats may have food for another two months or more, I don't. I've maybe got food for another three weeks (very liberal estimate there) if I eat like a rabbit -- coincidentally, three weeks from now is probably when I'll get my first paycheck for the spring. I can survive reasonably okay until I get that check, though I do really need that loan money to come to me ASAP not only for my financial stability, but my mental stability. Every day it doesn't drop makes me wonder more and more if something's wrong. And yes, I do recall that it took a while last spring as well, but come on, dammit. This may be a first-world-problem, but in a few weeks I'll be living in a third-world environment if it doesn't come in a little faster.

I received a Discover card application in the mail a few days ago, and I filled it out to see if I can get it. I don't necessarily want another credit card, but if it gives me a little more cushion to live on while I'm poor, or I need it in an emergency (such as if, as mentioned before, the car blows a major part) it would be good to have.

Again, there seems to be nothing in this world that won't somehow cause me stress. That's why I am also waiting on Daisy to come down here this weekend. She has a social gathering today with some of her friends from her old job, otherwise she would've come down last night or this afternoon. Instead, she's coming down tomorrow. Daisy is never a cause of stress to me; in fact, as I've written here before, she basically lifts almost all my stress from me. I'll be able to relax a lot more once she's here; it's only fitting that she'll be here on the last few days before I go back to school and start teaching again. Her presence will center me, will let me -- for once -- relax and not think about much else but her. Now more than most times, I desperately need that. I need her to talk to, to spend time with, to cuddle up to and forget about everything else causing me stress. I don't know how long she'll stay; she may stay but until Tuesday morning, or may stay most of the week. It's up to her, really; if she doesn't mind sleeping in and being here alone with the cats while I go to teach on Tuesday, she could stay until Wednesday night if she wants to. I will be on campus most of the day Thursday and Friday, however, as I teach on Thursday again and have meetings for several hours back-to-back on Friday.

Yesterday, as I was in a creative mood (for once), I went through my thesis again and heavily revised a number of the poems in it, adding to and editing them around a lot. Most of the non-reworked poems in it also got some minor edits, and I added a new one I started work on about a month ago. The thesis itself now stands at 43 pages, about 38-40 of which are the actual poems themselves (with the others being a cover page, table of contents, special thanks, etc). This is far from my last edit of the material, of course; over the semester I will be not only writing more poems which I plan to include, but I'll be taking some out, heavily revising some others, and altogether moving stuff around. I'm a perfectionist, and I go overboard with a lot of my work -- I want my thesis to be the best it can possibly be, not only creatively-speaking but organizationally-speaking. As I plan to shop the manuscript around to different publishing houses after graduation, it needs to be the best piece of work I can possibly make it. Optimistically, I'd like to be done with another volume by the time I graduate, but I know that's not going to happen -- overall, I'm fairly happy right now, and the best poetry I write comes out of traumatic experiences or depression. While I may be stressed about financial stuff right now, I am not traumatized or depressed, and hope said trauma or depression stays as far from me as possible, really.

As for reading and studying for comps, well, a lot of that can't be done until I get my loan money, as I need it to purchase said books to bury myself in. Can't run myself out of money buying books when I still need to eat and pay bills/rent first.