The Aftermath

Spring semester: day five

It's done.

When I awoke this morning, I logged into my student account to see that my loan had dropped. My student fees are paid, and my account balance owed to the university is $0.00. A few hours later, this evening, I received an email that said my refund has been processed and deposited to my bank account, and that it may take up to five business days to clear (it usually takes about two, three at the most).

So, it's done. It's over -- the living nightmare that has plagued me with stress and worry for the past two weeks is finally, finally over. In the next few days, not only will I have my loan money in my hands (and thus, will be able to pay off all my credit cards and bills), but I'll be able to relax knowing that I don't have to budget every little cent to be able to eat or to put gas in the car. This is good, as I just received a $200 electric bill in the mail today since it's been so cold this month and I've been forced to run the furnace a lot.

It's 66 degrees outside right now, by the way. At 10PM. No, that's not a joke. It hit 74 today, in one of the most gorgeous days I've seen since August or September. I haven't had the furnace running for the past three days because it's been so nice, with today being the culmination of that nice weather.

Tomorrow starts my first really formal week of doing work on campus. For as much as we've already had a week of classes, for professors and students alike, the first week is basically a dry run of sorts. It's when everything gets sorted out, everything gets settled and scheduled, and everyone slowly settles in to start the semester ahead. It's the second week that all of the action starts, so to speak -- tomorrow, for example, I teach my first real lessons of the semester, my office hours start, and I work my weekly hour in the Writing Center. Tomorrow, therefore, the semester begins to normalize.

But then again, this semester is unlike any other semester I've had during graduate school. I still teach, yes, but I also don't have to worry about crushing responsibilities of work I have to do for my other classes that I'm taking (because I'm done with that), nor do I have to get up at 5AM every morning -- just twice a week. Tuesdays are my long days, where I do everything I can within my normal timeframe, and Thursdays I'm in and out. I'll be spending a lot more time at home and will have a lot more breathing space to take care of my tasks. For example, even though I don't have to do them immediately, I'm setting aside some time next weekend to do my taxes -- I'll have enough to do between now and when they're due, and I really don't want to keep putting them off. As I learned from shuffling aside my plan of study for months and months, putting things off is a bad idea. Several of my friends have already done their taxes, as has Daisy as well. I might as well join the club. As you may recall, my tax refund generally becomes quite useful -- two years ago, I used my last $500 of it to purchase my Monte Carlo. If something happens to that car between now and the end of the semester, having enough cash on hand to fix it or purchase a moderately-priced replacement is very important. Not to mention that I'll need as much cash on hand as possible, stowed away, if I can move out of here over the summer. My combined refunds, federal and state, are usually somewhere in the realm of $1100 or so. Usually is the key term here. They'll probably be a bit lower this year, as I made a bit more money than usual from teaching over the summer, which may unfortunately bump me into a higher tax bracket. I'll have to see when I actually do the taxes.

In other news, Daisy and I are talking about plans for Valentine's Day.

"I want you to know that I don't expect you to get me anything, nor do I want anything," she told me tonight.

It's a trap! A TRAP I TELL YOU!

"Tell me that all you want," I said, "but I already have plans for what I'm getting you."

"Oh, believe me," Daisy replied, "I already know what I'm doing for you. And you'll like it. And if you don't like it, I'll cry."

Hm, strong words there. Pressure.

It's been two years since I had to worry about a Valentine's Day, as it's been two years since I had a significant other on that holiday (if one wants to call it that). The last Valentine's Day gift I bought, putting that into perspective, was flowers and a movie. I'm pretty sure that's the go-to for most guys, really.  I don't even remember what I did last year on Valentine's Day, aside from avoid everyone I know who was currently in a relationship. Last spring, my time was at a premium; I was taking two lit classes and an editing class. I didn't have time to sleep, let alone have time to worry about card-company-created holidays.

I also told Daisy repeatedly that, seriously, she does enough for me and doesn't have to do anything for me at all. Hell, the girl bought me a laptop for Christmas -- something else incredibly extravagant already -- so believe me, no, she doesn't have to do anything. I'd never ask her to do anything for me anyhow; we show our love for one another on a daily basis as it is, to the point where an extra day specifically set aside for that would be sort of pointless. Whether we get to spend Valentine's Day together or not (depending on not only my schedule, but hers as well -- especially if she has a job at that point, which she very well may), it's not like anything we do on that particular day would differ much from any other day.

"Maybe if you come into town for Valentine's Day, we can schedule something with [mutual friend] -- go out dancing like she wanted to, etc. I don't know. But something fun," I mused.

In reality, of course, I have no clue what I'll be forced to be working on over Valentine's Day weekend -- the 14th falls on a Thursday. I'll be making my normal on and off campus trip that day, to teach and then come home, but after that I don't have any clue what the weekend will need to entail. There aren't any graduate school deadlines for the month of February that I'm aware of, but I'll be hip-deep in my students' work as well as reading/studying for comps by that time as well.  Still, I can put aside a day or two for any sort of celebration or festivities we may have or do.

"I just didn't want you to think that you were required to get me something," she said, "or that it was an obligation. I hate that sort of mentality. I see so many women so upset and bawling that they didn't get what they wanted for Valentine's Day."

Again, while she may not totally realize it, that's a trap. If I were to say something along the lines of okay, well, then I won't, and then completely forget about the day in question, she would certainly be upset. And, of course, I do have preliminary plans for something to do for her -- I've had said plans for weeks. You know me. I'm a planner. Always looking to the future, trying to prepare for any and all possible scenarios. Well, I think I've got a plan this time that will work remarkably well.

As for the rest of what's been going on, since my blog has been consumed as of late by lots and lots of financial stress stories? Not a whole hell of a lot, actually. I went to the three meetings on Friday that I was required to attend (well, only one of them was mandatory, but I feel that since it's my last semester, I should at least halfheartedly attempt to show my support of the departmental organizations I'm part of), and participated in the collective discussion. Many of us are going to AWP this year, an event I'd originally planned to attend myself, but do not have the money or time to do so. Plus, as you may be aware, I think I've done enough traveling in the past two months to where staying at home and staying cozy and warm -- and not flying to Boston and back -- sounds like a much better idea to me at this point. While I'm a fan of the AWP and wanted to go, it's so not in my schedule as I prepare for comps and ready my thesis.

That's something else that kicks into high gear a little more every week as the semester goes on -- I must totally finalize, re-edit, and re-evaluate my thesis as the deadline approaches to get it to not only my thesis director, but to my other two readers as well. Last week, to get my mind off of my financial troubles for a while, I spent a few hours doing a drastic edit and clean-up sweep of it, and I plan to do the same thing at least twice more before March 15 (the date the final copy of it has to be given to my director), adding, editing, and re-editing a lot of the works in it. Once my loan money clears the bank, I also have to start ordering books to read like crazy over the coming months, as mentioned before, so that I can adequately prepare to discuss several poets and their works at length in my comprehensive exam -- that's one of many reasons I will be sequestered away being studious for the majority of the semester. It's not a glamourous life, but in a little more than four months it'll be one I emerge from with a second degree in my hand.

For now, though, I must go to bed. It is 11:20 PM, and my alarm goes off at 5AM. I have to spend about ten hours on campus tomorrow, so I need my beauty rest.

Beauty rest being a term I use loosely, as I am a big burly man with a thick beard.

The Battle

When we last left our intrepid hero...

So the battle has been fought, and here's the story. It's a long one, so buckle in.

When I got to campus on Thursday, I didn't have any responses in my email from anyone in financial aid. As it was a Thursday, I had to teach, so it's not like I could just sit around the office all day or go over to their office, even though I was on campus -- as an instructor, I do have a schedule and responsibilities, no matter how much I am preoccupied. Before I went to teach, I updated my friend Parker on the experience up to that point. He told me if I needed to go over there, he'd come with me in the spirit of camaraderie and moral support.

I returned to my office at 12:30 or so to find an email, finally, from the financial aid people. It said, simply, that my loans hadn't dropped because I am enrolled in a class I've taken and passed twice before, and they won't cover/count it as part of my schedule.

There are at least three things wrong with that explanation. Yes, I am enrolled once more in the Visiting Writer class, which I have taken twice before and passed; that much is correct. However, it is that class which is keeping me at full time hours for the English Department, I don't need it to graduate and am taking it for my own desires/edification, and with my GTAship, I am already full-time for the department. My unsubsidized Stafford loan, as mentioned before, is not need-based, which means it shouldn't matter how many classes I'm taking or which ones -- the loan corporation has already bestowed said money to me; it's the university's job to deposit it, apply it to my student fees and the like, and give me the rest back in a direct deposit to my bank account.

Therefore, this email didn't really make a whole lot of sense to me (it would later, but I'll get to that).

"Want to head over there?" I asked Parker when I found him. "It is, apparently, a mess."

"Of course," he said. "Let's go."

So we went. I explained to him, on the way, what the email had said. He agreed with me that it sounded like a weak excuse.

"Besides," he added, "the fact is that you've already gotten the first half of it in the fall. So, I really don't understand it either."

"Exactly," I said. "So I'll have to re-explain everything to them again and have them work on my account again, I suppose."

We got to the financial aid office a little after 1:30 PM. There was a line. In fact, it was very much like a doctor's office -- you sign in on a clipboard, and when they have someone available, they come out and call your name. There were at least three or four people waiting already, and that many more came and signed up on the sheet while I was there.

"Want me to stick around?" Parker asked. "I mean, obviously I can't go in there with you, but at least I can keep you company here for a while."

"It's up to you," I said. I didn't want to keep him there any longer than he wanted to be; it had been cool enough of him to come over with me for moral support and conversation.

"I can stick around for a while," he said. "I don't have anywhere in particular to be right now."

And he did. We discussed class stuff; he's taking the editing class that I took last spring, the one where I made a sixty-page syllabus/mock lesson plan. I told him he'd have a blast; that was one of the most enjoyable classes I've taken at the university.

To their credit, the financial aid people move fast. I only had to wait about twenty minutes at the most before, finally, they came out and called my name. I bid Parker farewell, and he returned to his office. I went into the financial aid office and steeled myself for battle.

I explained the situation to the nice lady who helped me -- she was about my age, give or take a year, and she pulled up my account.

"Yeah, you're enrolled for this class when you've taken it and passed it twice before," she said. "Financial aid won't cover it, so your loan money hasn't dropped because of that."

"I realize I've taken it twice in the past before, yes," I said, "but this is my last semester. I'm graduating. I'm taking it to, really, fill hours so that I stay full-time within the English Department. I don't need it to graduate, I just need something there in that spot."

"While I understand that," she said, "because you've taken it twice before, it nullifies itself this time around -- the system's based on what you've taken and the course numbers. Right now, because of that, it only shows you at three hours on the schedule."

"Okay," I said, "but this is a Stafford unsub loan. It's not need-based, and I've already gotten half of it in the fall, so--"

"It doesn't matter," she said. "All financial aid has to come through hours on schedule and full/half time status first before any funds can be disbursed, no matter where they come from."

"Okay. I understand that. So, really, my question is, what do I have to do to fix this, to ensure that I get that money to come in?"

"Well, you could register for another class," she said. "That's about all I can tell you. Until you're classified as at least half-time hours for a graduate student, that loan money won't be disbursed. That's an automatic, in-the-system thing."

"I don't need any more classes, though," I said. "This is my last semester; the other three hours in addition to that filler hours course are my thesis hours. I graduate in May, and have all of my courses covered."

Let's step back from this for a minute before I continue -- financial aid is telling me to, basically, spend more money for a class I don't need in order to graduate (which I'm already doing anyway, hence the extra visiting writer course), any course, just so that I can get money that has already been loaned to me to actually disburse to my account. Yes, I could sign up for another class, any class, and just not attend it/never do anything for it, as it wouldn't hurt or help me in any way since I have everything at this point covered -- but that is, frankly, asking me to pay $900 or so to the university for no real reason whatsoever. It would be just to get my loan money to come through. That's fucking stupid.

"Wait a minute," she said. "You're in thesis hours?"

"Yep. I had the first half of them in the fall. I finish them this semester, as I graduate."

"Aha!" she said, a smile spreading across her face. "Then you're saved. I'm in the exact same situation you are right now. I can fix this."

"Hm?"

"The only exception to that hours rule is if you're a graduate student working on a thesis. I'm in the same situation you are. What you need is to get an exemption form from downstairs and fill it out, and they'll list you as at least half-time -- it's really just a box we check on the back of the form."

See? I told you, I knew it.

Except, as you may recall, I was told in December that I was "good to go," and didn't need any exemptions. I filled out one of those forms and turned it in then, and they sent it back, canceling it, telling me I didn't need it. That was the lady who dealt with my account there then who told me I didn't need anything.

"I had you folks look at my account in December and I was told I didn't need an exemption," I said.

"Oh? Who told you that then?"

I gave her the name of the lady who worked on my account in December. It was the same one who I'd emailed before I contacted the financial aid department directly, and -- I might add -- someone who never got back to me about any of that stuff.

She looked back down at my account on her computer. "Yeah, everything else is good here. Just go downstairs, fill out that exemption form, and take it to the graduate school. What it'll do is tell the graduate school that you need to be at least half-time for financial aid purposes, and they'll put it through. However, it could take a few days for anything to happen with your actual loan money. It depends on how quickly it's approved and put into the system. As soon as that happens, everything should transfer as normal."

I sighed a huge sigh of relief, thanked her profusely, and left. I got the forms, getting an extra in case I screwed up the first one, and went back to my office -- where I filled them out and had the department chair, who adores me, sign off on them. I walked back over to the graduate school (it's in the same building as financial aid), and turned it in by hand so that it would get processed ASAP.

"I have an exception form here," I said, "so that my student loans can drop and I can eat."

The secretary laughed, and told me she'd put it in that afternoon. Relieved, I returned to my office.

"It's done," I told Parker. "Or, at least it's in the process of being done." I gave him the brief rundown of the events that had unfolded, in as uncomplicated way as possible, and thanked him for coming over there with me. "Now," I added, "I'm going home."

It was maybe 3PM by this time. I was tired, I'd taught my classes for the day, and usually on a Thursday I'll be home by around 1PM at the latest. I'd walked to and from financial aid and the graduate school twice, and even though it wasn't a long distance (maybe 500 yards), it was cold and I'd been on my feet all day. All I wanted to do was get home, get something to eat, tell Daisy of my ordeal, and go to bed.

I arrived home with no incident, with what felt like a heavy weight lifted from my shoulders. I was tired, but I was in good spirits. I sat down at the computer and sent a message to Daisy -- and it was then my phone rang.

Oh no, nonono, it's not over yet, folks.

The phone was the graduate school, not financial aid -- which didn't necessarily surprise me, really, but I once more braced myself for bad news.

"Well, Brandon," the lady on the phone said, "I've reviewed your account, and you work 20 hours a week as a GTA, correct?"

"Yep," I said, still bracing.

"Well, you don't need this exemption then; that counts as full-time on its own."

Sigh. They didn't get it.

"According to financial aid, I do," I told the lady on the phone. "I have the other half of a student loan that won't drop until I'm listed as at least half-time. I'm in my final semester; I'm working on my thesis and I graduate in May, and I've fulfilled all of my requirements for graduation, so I don't need to take any more classes, nor do I need to do anything else for graduation but take my comprehensive exams and turn in my thesis."

I made sure I hit all of the important beats. It was almost like I'd rehearsed for this. Well, I sort of had -- after all, I'd explained this situation to no less than five different people both inside and outside my department for the better part of the past week.

"Ohhhh," she said. "I see, I get it. Okay. We can do that. But I'll tell you this -- I can file this exemption and it'll go to the graduate school dean, but he's not going to act on it until you do two things first."

Here we go, I thought. This can't be good.

"First thing," she said, continuing, "you need to file the application for degree if you're graduating this semester. You can do that online. It's a $15 fee, but it's really fast and easy to do."

"Okay," I said. "I can do that tonight, no worries."

"Good; once you do that, it'll pop up in my system here at the graduate school and I'll see it. The second thing is that we don't have a plan of study on file for you."

Shit. I knew that would come back to bite me in the ass.

I had planned to file my plan of study at the end of last semester, before the break started, because I've already covered all of my requirements and the like. I'd even filled it out, listing all of my classes and my grades in them, etc. I'd just never actually filed it -- the end of the semester, what with collecting/grading papers, administering and grading the final exam, and taking care of all of the stuff for Playwriting and the Surrealism course -- all of that crushing work took over, and my plan of study got pushed to the bottom of the pile. When break started and I was traveling for more than half of it, I sort of forgot about it. My bad. No, really, that one's on me. Totally on me.


"I have it ready," I said. "I meant to file it last semester before break, but never had the chance before I left town."

"Well, good. That's not due to us until next month, but I can tell you now the dean isn't going to act on this exemption until there's one on file for you."

"I can have it in there as early as tomorrow morning, and if not tomorrow Monday at the latest," I said.

This is because filing the plan of study is a bit more difficult than one might think; one has to get the director of the program to sign off on it, get an advisor signature, get it copied and on file within the department, and then send it over to the graduate school. This is a process that can, at times, take days. I don't have days. Even more troubling was that it was Thursday night, and there was no guarantee that my advisor/director(s) would be in to campus on Friday -- I had to be there for mandatory GTA meetings (with yet another dean, actually), but who knows what administrative staff would be there, as the English Department doesn't hold classes on Fridays.

"Okay, once you get that in, everything should be fine," she said.

"I'll apply for the degree tonight and will get the plan of study over to you as soon as I possibly can," I said. "Thank you. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this."

Once more my stress levels and blood pressure were spiked. Something else to do, something to gum up the works a little bit more, slow things down a little bit more, give me more headaches. I talked to Daisy for about an hour or so, but still couldn't properly de-stress. I wasn't feeling well, I needed to eat, and I was exhausted. She encouraged me to just eat and go to sleep, but I told her that before I could do that, I had to file the application for degree.

"Do that then," she said. "If you can't get your mind off of everything until it's all done, then just do it so you can relax and feel better."

I was inclined to agree -- so that's what I did. I made food, and once that was done I sat down and applied for my degree. It took about fifteen minutes; there's a questionnaire that one has to plow through before they'll let you actually submit the application -- but once you do that, it's a simple one-click process, they charge you $15 (I put it on my Citi Card), and give you a printable receipt. I printed two: one for my records, and the other to take to the graduate school to prove that yes, I'd filed my application for degree. One thing down, I thought.

The plan of study was a bit trickier. I would have to have a lot of luck to get that processed and completely finished on a Friday, as mentioned before. I sent an email to my advisor, who is not only the interim director of the entire MFA program but someone I haven't seen in about two months, and explained my situation (again, to yet another colleague). I asked her if she wasn't going to be there on Friday who else could sign off on the plan of study to get it filed ASAP, and asked a few other small minor questions to make sure I was filling it all out correctly. I told her I was asking who could sign off on it because if she wasn't going to be there, there was no way I would ask her to come to campus to sign a simple sheet of paper -- not only would that be stupid, but incredibly inconsiderate of her time and her own life. My hope was that she would read the email that night, and I would have a response by the morning -- but that's all I could do. Crossing my proverbial fingers and hoping for the best, my stress levels slowly decreased over the course of a few hours, and even more exhausted than before, I ate my dinner and tried not to think about things.

Two hours later, as I was readying for bed, I (unexpectedly) received a reply from my advisor. Yes, she would be in on Friday morning around 9, and would be happy to help get everything taken care of and filed -- and even apologized that I had to go through such a mess when I'm just trying to get my money, live my life, and graduate. I sent a message to Parker to tell him, and sent a message to Daisy as well, before turning on the electric blanket, setting my alarm, and going to bed.

The electric blanket is an awesome invention, by the way. Daaaaaaaamn.

Ahem. Anyway.

The next morning, I got up at my normal time of 5AM. It felt like a regular day to me, even though it wasn't -- I had no less than three meetings to attend on Friday, and I had to take care of the plan of study stuff, get it copied and signed, and then taken to the graduate school. It was going to be a long, stressful day, but hopefully a day of reckoning.

I got to campus around 7:10, and immediately went about making sure everything I needed to do was done. I took my time; the first meeting wouldn't be until 10AM, and my advisor wasn't supposed to be there until around 9. I made sure I did everything correctly, made coffee, and tried to wake up a bit more -- 7AM on a Friday means that campus, especially that department, is a ghost town. I felt like an extra in I Am Legend. People slowly started to filter in; office staff, a few fellow grad students, directors of various programs, etc. Around 9:10, my advisor showed up, checked over my plan of study, and once she verified that it was perfectly filled out, she signed off on it, I had the copies of it made, and I took it again, by hand, over to the graduate school around 9:30.

The lady on the phone the night before gave me her name -- she told me exactly where to go when I came in, in order to find her. I found her quickly.

"Got your plan?" she asked.

"Got it all here," I said, smiling.

"Great," she said. "I saw you filed your application for degree as well, so that's already here in the system. I'll make sure this gets a memo on it and it processed quickly so that you don't have any more waiting than you have to."

"I do have one question," I said. "Student billing comes due on Monday. Those loans, when they come through, always pay my student fees first, right off the bat, and then it's deposited into my bank account afterwards."

"Right," she said.

"Well, today is Friday. My question is, not to be a bother about it or anything, but exactly how quickly should I expect all of that to be in the system? Should I pay my student fees myself before Monday night -- it'll be refunded to me, of course, but I don't want to incur the $100 late fee -- or should it go through by then without me worrying about it?"

Being a GTA covers tuition; we get a waiver for that, meaning we get a free education as long as we're teaching. I've written about this before. However, student fees are separate from teaching, and they're not covered by the tuition waiver or anything else. Depending on how many hours one takes every semester (as well as what classes they're taking), student fees can be anywhere between $200 and $600 or so. For us grad students, they're generally about $400, out of pocket, before we even get paid our first checks of the semester. In short, they're a pain in the ass -- but if you get financial aid, as I do, they're paid off with that before the rest of the money even sees my bank account, and I don't even see or notice it.

However, since my loans have been seriously delayed, there's nothing there to pay the student fees this semester as of yet. On Tuesday morning at 12AM, if everything isn't processed and disbursed by then, my account balance will become overdue, and I will be charged an extra $100 late payment fee if my balance on it is over $150. My student fees this semester are $250.80. While I have the cash to pay this in full (barely) and still have some money to spare, I'd rather not have to do it myself if I can avoid it. Therefore, I was asking whether I'd actually need to in order to be safe and keep everything with my student accounts on the up-and-up.

I will add that if I do pay them myself, I will get that refunded to me as well once the loan drops. Financial aid supersedes everything else, sort of like how your bank account won't process a debit or check transaction until all pending deposits clear first, to ensure that there's money in the account. If I pay it myself, the system will see that, apply the loan to it instead, and kick that money back to me along with the rest of my refund. So, really, this is a fairly minor concern -- but I asked because I wanted to know, desperately, when I could expect that loan to drop into my student account once that exemption was fully processed, and how long it would take to process it period.

"You should be okay," she said. "All of this stuff rolls over at the end-of-day cycle, so if it's put in the system it will roll over, financial aid will get the automated 'all-clear', and everything should go to your student account."

"Okay," I told her. "That's good; I just wanted to make sure."

I'll still check up on it on Monday, of course; if it hasn't dropped or processed before then (I'll get an automated email telling me if it does, more than likely), then I'll shoot an email to her telling her that I'll just pay the fees to be safe, so don't think I'm being paranoid or anything. In the event that I didn't pay those fees and the loans didn't drop into my student account before the late payment cutoff date, it puts a financial hold on my account that stops anything from coming in until that balance is paid -- that includes loans. Yet another reason I was asking.

Anyway, I thanked her even more profusely than I'd thanked the girl at the financial aid office, and told her that I was incredibly relieved, grateful, and absolutely happy for her help and her working with me, making things a priority, etc. Yes, she may have just been doing her job, but the fact that she walked me through what I needed and told me exactly what I had to do and by when was above and beyond the call of duty for her, and immensely put me at ease. Once everything goes through okay, I'm actually going to send a thank-you card/letter to her office to further show my appreciation. Yeah, that's how grateful I am.

I returned to the department, where I ran into Parker.

"Well?" he asked.

"It's done," I said, shrugging. "Or it's as done as it can be. Got [advisor] to sign off on the plan of study this morning, turned it in just now, and filed my application for degree last night. All of the paperwork has been taken care of, turned in, and is being processed. So, really, it's fixed, or as fixed as it's going to be."

"That's impressive and, actually, really inspiring that [advisor] stepped up to the bat for you like that," he said. "Getting your back and all that, making sure everything was ready and signed off on."

"Yeah," I said. "That was really cool of her. I was very happy and relieved."

And so, I went to my meetings, socialized for a few hours with my friends and colleagues in the department, and with my stress greatly lessened, I went back home, where I told Daisy of the day's events, ate an early dinner, and went to sleep.

That would be the end of the story, except there's a small addendum to it -- on the exemption form, there's a spot where it says "mail to student" once it's processed. I signed that spot so that once it went through, I would know the date/time it did (or didn't). I received that form in the mail here at my house yesterday, showing that my exemption had indeed been approved by the dean of the graduate school, with the requisite "one time only" handwritten next to it (grad students can only get the half-time hours exemption once throughout their entire tenure at the university, so most of them -- like me -- take it in their final semester). It was signed and dated on Friday, which means it was processed almost immediately, put into the system, and then copied and mailed to me. With the exemption processed, all that I've been waiting for should now be in motion, and I should therefore receive the loans in my student account imminently. And, again, there's nothing else I can do but wait for that.

While my stress levels are greatly lessened now, and I can relax a lot more than I could, say, a week ago, the battle is far from over. It's actually just beginning. This semester itself is going to be a battle, starting with when I'll actually get that money -- which will be the first victory in many, many proverbial conflicts. I still have to completely finish my thesis, I have to teach and grade like always, and I have to read and study for my comprehensive exams, which will take place in early April.

This probably means I should sleep now, while I still have the time to do so.

Preparing for Battle

I have heard nothing from the financial aid office. No phone calls, no emails, and no changes to my student account. This means that, starting tonight, I must spring into action myself, roll up my proverbial sleeves, and go into battle.

I am not looking forward to this; it will more than likely involve at least one trip over to the actual financial aid office so that I can sort this stuff out myself, but I have devised a three-step battle plan of which I have to enact. I was hoping it wouldn't have to come to this, really, but I'm left with no recourse -- bills and rent are coming due, and I don't have the time to wait anymore with no answers and no new information to go on. So, here's the plan:

1.) Send an email not to the one lady who worked on my account before, but directly to the financial aid office tonight before I go to bed, explaining the situation and adding that I've not heard back from said lady or anyone else there about it since I sent my first email on Tuesday. Basically tell them everything that needs to be done and ask if I need to come in, if they need to call me, etc, but to let everyone there know that hey, something's up, and it's something that definitely needs to be fixed. Tell them my teaching schedule and that I'll be on campus both tomorrow and on Friday and to please get back to me ASAP.

2.) Go to bed, go to school, and check my email in the morning before I teach at 9:30 to see if I've gotten a reply. If I have no reply then, return to my office at 12:30 when I'm done teaching for the day to see if they've replied by then. If they haven't, go home for the night and wait some more.

3.) Reply or not, on Friday morning (if necessary, of course) mentally dress myself for proverbial battle and go to the actual Financial Aid office before the 10AM departmental meeting I am required to attend, and talk to someone there in person, because clearly if I'm forced to go over there nothing else is goddamned working to get this fixed. It should not have to come to this, but it is the first week of classes, and I would imagine they've been busy. Still, whatever's going on should not be terribly difficult to fix.

There's not a lot else I can do. As I mentioned above, my bills and rent are coming due for this month. My rent alone will more than cut my bank account in half, and depending on what dates my bills are due for electric, water, and credit cards, those things may take the rest of it -- not to mention that I obviously still have to eat and put gas in the car for next week until I get paid for the first time this semester.

So, with that in mind, I began to write the email. Half an hour later, I had this (with some pertinent information obviously redacted):

Hi there. Hopefully you can help me. My name is Brandon [last name and student ID number redacted], and I'm a graduate student and teaching assistant in the Department of English. I contacted you folks before Christmas to make sure everything was clear on my account for the spring semester (as I graduate in May), and I was referred to [redacted], who reviewed my information, called me, and told me everything was good in my student account, credit hours, and that I was fine for the spring. However, something new has popped up that more than likely requires attention.

I took out an unsubsidized Stafford loan (the only type now available to graduate students) for the full amount for both fall 2012/spring 2013. As you know, that loan is split into two parts; one chunk for the fall, and the second for the spring. The first half for the fall came through on schedule back in August with no problems or issues. However, the second half has not yet come in -- or, if it has, it has not yet posted to my student account, nor have I received the expected refund of it (after student fees and the like are applied) direct-deposited into my bank account as per the usual. As [redacted] last handled my student account back in December, I sent an email to her about this as well on Tuesday, but have not yet received a reply, so I figured I'd send this one off to the main office to see if you folks can figure out what has gone wrong and hopefully remedy the situation.

According to everything I can access on my own student account, I have no holds, all of my proverbial paperwork has been completed, my MPN was updated as of this past July, and I am a student in good standing with the university...so this strange delay in the other half of this loan coming through has me puzzled, to say the least. Therefore, anything you folks can do to help figure this out with me would be immensely appreciated.

Tomorrow (Thursday) morning I teach at 9:30 and 11, but if you get back to me via email before 12:15PM, I can stay on campus if you need me to come over to the Financial Aid office and discuss this in person, as I know you cannot discuss details of my account via email. You may also call me at [redacted] and I'll answer (provided I'm not teaching at the time, of course) if necessary. I will also be on campus on Friday morning before 10AM, as I have departmental meetings I must attend after that time.

Thank you in advance for your help; I realize all of you must be quite busy this week with it being the first week of classes and all, so your help is even more appreciated.

When it comes to professionalism, I know there's a time and a place for it, and this email is definitely one of those times and places. That was about as brief of a description I could've given them while still giving them all of the pertinent, important information they need. Now the next move is up to them, really. I almost feel as if I am positioning chess pieces with some sort of swelling, dramatic music playing in the background.

I can't be much more proactive than this, really. At least not right now, and not without barging into the Financial Aid office and asking them a bunch of exasperated questions. That's not going to help anyone or anything, obviously. But, as I told Daisy, I don't have much of a choice in the matter of being proactive -- the madness must stop. So, this is step one of the master plan to make it stop. I sent the email half an hour ago, and now I just have to wait to see what happens. Hopefully, it's something that can be fixed, as I said, with a simple click or two, and I'll receive an email or call tomorrow that will say that the issue has been resolved. But, well, if it's not -- and I don't really see why it wouldn't be, but okay -- then as of right now, I've done everything I can. Hopefully, knowing that will allow me to rest a little bit easier tonight, as I'm getting up at 5AM for what I'm sure will be another delightful day of teaching.

Daisy went home this afternoon and arrived safely back in Omaha in almost record time; I spent the afternoon trying to relax and obsessively checked my school email over and over waiting on something, anything to come through about the money before I gave up around the end of the day. I then took a shower and made something to eat before coming back here to the computer.

Tomorrow on the way home I must also stop for a few minor grocery items, as much as it pains me to spend more money right now; this afternoon before Daisy left, I put gas in her car and we went to the discount grocery store here in town so I could show her the place. I spent a whopping eight dollars there, all cash, and she found some snacks for the drive home as well as a massive box of grapefruit. Sadly, today they were very well-stocked with new stuff, which isn't always the case, and of course I don't have any money to use there, really. Once all of this financial aid mess gets cleared up, I do intend to go back.

On that note, however, now I must go to bed, as I do have a long and potentially stressful day ahead of me tomorrow, and an even longer one on Friday.

Waiting, Part III

Spring semester: day two

The first day of classes, for me, was pretty easily managed. I let Daisy sleep while I went to campus, arranged my stuff, and taught my two classes -- one at 9:30, one at 11. Each one lasted about 30-35 minutes or so, as there was little to do other than to introduce my students to the course, their syllabus, and their books, and then let them go. While I was there, I got to see many of my friends who I'd not seen since early last month, though not all of them of course, and I was able to set up my new laptop Daisy got me for Christmas before I came back home.

That's all of the good stuff, really. Here's the bad: there is, unfortunately, something screwy with my loan money and/or financial aid in general. I do have a few colleagues in the department who -- like me -- must take out those loans to live on. They, as expected, got their loans last week. Mine, however, have not yet come in, even though everything is green and clear on my student account -- I have no holds, no black marks, no unfiled paperwork, nothing. Everything is fine, I just haven't received my loan money as I should have. Believe me, I've obsessively checked all of this stuff -- there's nothing that I should've done that I haven't when it comes to my financial aid status at the university. Doubly baffling is that this is an unsubsidized loan that I've already received the first half of (in August), and unsub loans are not need-based; they are, essentially, money to live on. Which is, not-so-ironically, what I need to do with it.

I brought this up with the director of the composition program, one of the three people basically "in charge" of us GTAs, and told her the story. Her first suggestion was that I email the department secretaries and ask them if there's anything they could check on or look at to see if they could figure out why it's not in there, because sometimes a minor scheduling issue or something along those lines could mess with their timely disbursement. So, I did so, asking very politely if they could check and see if there was such a snag or snafu. I received a reply once I got home that was what I was expecting, relatively -- I'm fine with the department and my place in the program itself; there's nothing they can see, or do, that is stopping that money from coming through -- and they told me (as expected) that I should take up the matter with the financial aid office.

So I did.

I sent an email to the lady who handled my account in December, first thanking her for her work on it and the kind voicemail she left me then, and briefly explained the situation, asking if she could tell me why it's not come in and/or hopefully fix that problem, as I, ahem, do need the money. I did not tell her that there's no logical reason it hasn't come through, as I've already received the first half of it in fall, and that it's not need/tuition based, because I'm sure she already knows that (and my eligibility for aid, she assured me, would not change just because I'm graduating this semester). I told her I would not be on campus today, but if she needed to call me to discuss it further, she could, and I left my number. I also told her that I'd be on campus tomorrow to teach anyhow, if she needed me to come in. I've not yet heard a response from her -- but, as it was the first day of classes yesterday, be assured that the financial aid office was swamped with students and their problems.

So, really, I continue to wait.

I told Daisy that it has to be something very minor, something small and overlooked that is causing this; there's nothing else on my end at least that it could be. Perhaps while my account was being looked over and worked on last month, they forgot to click a button or clear a proverbial flag or something along those lines. I will remind you that the money has already been loaned to me; as far as the student loan agency's records will show, I've already been cleared for and have been given the full amount -- it's just distributed to the university in two chunks at two different times. Therefore, it is truly out of my hands, and there has to be some sort of minor snafu holding it all up. The sooner said snafu gets fixed, the sooner I will get my funds, and as I've got at least one woman at financial aid on the case, it shouldn't take too long to get it solved. Hopefully. Again, all I can do is wait to see what happens.

Because I know my luck, however, and because I'm always paranoid about everything to a certain degree, every worst-case-scenario imaginable is running through my head. I told a few friends yesterday in no uncertain terms that, if something happens and I can't end up getting that money for whatever reason, my academic career is over. And it really is; I'd have to quit school in my last semester, four months before graduation, and get a job immediately if I want to be able to survive. Without that loan money, I can't even pay my student fees, much less pay rent and bills. A month from now, even with GTA paychecks, I'd be broke again. While I could feasibly stay in school to get my degree in May, I would have to give up my GTA position as I can't live on it alone, which would revoke my tuition waiver (not to mention leave all of my students without a professor this semester). The bills and tuition payments for school would rack up too quickly with no funds to pay them and nothing else I could do -- again, I live on my own, and I am not independently wealthy (otherwise I wouldn't be in school in the first place). How scary it is to think that my entire foreseeable future, both in a financial sense as well as pertaining to my well-being, always rests on a simple mouse click or proverbial flag that must be cleared in some computer somewhere, and how scary it is to know that through all of this, my hands are tied with nothing I can do. It may not be a lot of money to most people, but the other half of that loan is the only thing that will keep me going for the better part of the next year. I need it not only to live on, but to more than likely help move me out of this house after I graduate. Even my tax refund will only pay for two months' rent at most, and will also go to paying off my credit cards -- which, until I get any more cash, I have to use to put gas in the car and eat with. Again -- I'm not a control freak, but it is maddening to not have any control over anything in this particular situation. Rent and bills over the course of this next two weeks will drain the remaining funds from my bank account like a bucket with holes in the bottom.

There is a little good news, however, before I go down the obsessive trail of despair -- my first paycheck for the spring, according to the office, will come in on February 1st. That's a week from Friday. I'm perfectly fine with this, as by that time I may be absolutely desperate to get something, anything in my bank account so that I don't starve. But, of course, if my loans are delayed much further, it's not going to matter; I already have to plan for that check to go entirely to bills -- water, electric, credit cards, etc. As mentioned briefly in a previous post, I applied for a Discover card this week. I don't need another credit card, but fuck, I have to be able to have a bit of control over something in my life; I have to be able to eat, even if it means I have to rack up even more debt on that card.

Daisy tells me not to stress, that stress solves nothing. She's right, but I don't have the physical ability not to do so when I am terrified for my own survival. I've written before that few people can grasp the gravity of my situation until they've been in one similar. People can tell me not to worry and to not get so worked up or stressed out about something all they want, but until everything is fixed, I can't rest easy. So much of my life revolves around budgeting for everything; other people's "little things" like getting gas in their car or making a shopping trip for groceries are not little things to me; they have to be planned for and budgeted around, calculations must be made so that I don't bankrupt myself, etc. And I cannot tell you how tiring that is, how mentally taxing it all is and remains. How I long for a day when I can go to the grocery store and get everything I need without having to worry about money, without looking down at my list and saying to myself something along the lines of do I really need this right now or can it wait a few more weeks? when it's something as minor or insignificant as a roll or paper towels or a few loaves of bread. I mean, I had to tell my students yesterday that I live outside of town and that my car is 17 years old and rapidly approaching 250,000 miles on the odometer, so if something happens to it I will have to cancel class. This is something I should never have to say, because at age thirty, I should be in a much better monetary situation than I am. But I'm not. I'm a poor grad student who has, apparently, made some exceptionally poor life choices over the years.

So all I can do is wait and hope things get sorted out and fixed. I don't know what the problem is, and there's nothing I can do to solve it myself. It's all in the hands of the financial aid office, and even though it may be something extremely minor, I cannot relax until I am out of the proverbial woods.

On a positive note, finally, my parents' first box arrived yesterday:

Cat included for scale (hi, Maggie!). It was massive. I did not document all of its contents, but it contained almost, if not all, of my clothing from back home (including my new teachin' gear and my favorite pants), as well as my rice cooker and most of the food my parents were planning to send me. My mother sent me an email this morning saying that she still had to get a second box to ship the rest of it in, but that she will do so soon. Amongst the big things that remain are a huge furry blanket and a crock pot, along with some other assorted odds and ends that I'm more than likely forgetting -- when I unpacked this box, I pulled out several items that I'd completely forgotten about, such as the steel WVU emblem for my car that I've been wanting for several years now. With the ($15) shopping trip Daisy and I made a few nights ago combined with the food in the box, I should be okay when it comes to having something around the house to eat for the next week or two, which is good.

Today is a bit of a relaxation day for me (as ironic as that may sound when coupled with what I've written above). I have Wednesdays off this semester, and Daisy will go home early this afternoon. Tomorrow I'll be on campus to teach and will possibly have to go to the financial aid office, and on Friday (usually another day off) I have to be on campus almost all day, as I have several departmental meetings to attend. Saturday will be a day of taking care of things around the house such as laundry and cleaning, and Sunday/Monday will be me preparing for next week's classes, as I will be getting hip-deep into the semester with my students as soon as possible so that we can start discussing readings and assignments. Throughout all of this I will, of course, be waiting for my money to clear so that I can actually focus on all of my work. Hopefully that gets remedied sooner rather than later.

Day One

Spring semester: day one

Today is the start of what I can only hope will be the very last semester of my college education, ever. It is 5:39 AM. I have showered, had approximately half a cup of coffee, and have smoked two cigarettes. Below me, downstairs in the bedroom, Daisy is sleeping. In less than an hour, I will pull the Monte Carlo out of the driveway in the freezing, I-can't-feel-my-fingers cold, and will drive to campus, where I will make more coffee and mingle a bit before I teach my two classes and head home. Daisy will barely know I'm gone before I've once more returned to her.

Yes, she does know that my semester starts today, and that I have to teach this morning. It's not like I'm going to abandon her without reason under cover of early morning darkness and not tell her where I've gone. She told me she'd probably sleep until 9 or so, which is perfectly fine; I'm sure the cats will keep her warm once I leave for school. When I got up this morning, almost an hour ago now, she felt me get off the bed, and in a sleep-haze, told me she loved me before passing out again. It was sweet.

This is a huge trust thing for me, leaving someone -- anyone -- here at my home when I'm not here. I've never done it before, not even for a little while or for a trip to the store or anything like that. My longtime ex and I used to live together for five years or so, and yes, it's not like I never left the house with her at home, because I did -- we lived together. But since I've been living on my own, alone, for the past eighteen months or so? I've never just up and left anyone in my house while I've not been there. It's the same reason I don't let anyone take care of the cats while I'm gone on vacation or otherwise out of town, opting instead to provide them with an overabundance of food, water, and litter -- I don't like people in my living space when I'm not there. Ever. I don't trust anyone with the cats. I don't trust a whole lot of people in general.

Daisy is different. She and I have been together for a little over six months now (even if our "official" anniversary is in October), and I trust her. She loves me, she loves the cats, and I love her very much. I trust her innately. Daisy almost immediately had my trust; she's one of the kindest, gentlest souls I've ever known, and even the cats can sense it -- all of them (even Sadie, who is legendarily skittish) buddied up to her almost immediately upon meeting her. Therefore, I really have no true worries about Daisy being here without me.

"You have a very important job today," I told her as we settled in to bed last night.

"Oh?"

"Yes. My parents' box should arrive today. I don't know if it will come before or after I get back home, but if it comes before I get back, you have to get it from the mailman if he knocks on the door."

The mail in Newton is really strange; some days it will come at 10AM, other days not until after 5PM. It all depends on the day, really.

Daisy's mother also sent down a gallon Ziploc bag of bread dough, which Daisy will probably make while I'm gone (if she wakes up with enough time to do so before I get back). We planned on baking it last night, but all we did yesterday, really, was sleep, watch Firefly, and eat dinner before going back to sleep again. This is probably why I woke up at 4:40 AM.

As for my loan money, it has not yet arrived, but -- as I said before -- I am forcing myself to be as patient as possible about it. I'll check tonight and tomorrow again before, if nothing's changed by tomorrow evening, I'll send an email to the financial aid office and/or go over there myself after class on Thursday. I have tomorrow off, and Daisy will be going home tomorrow afternoon, more than likely. Today on campus should be a fairly quick in-and-out trip consisting of little more than "Hey kids, I'm your instructor. Here's your syllabus. Here's the books you'll need. You'll need this one by Thursday. Laters." Normally I would give the diagnostic exam on the first day of class, but I'm not sure I'll have the time to do it today, what with everything else I have to cover on the syllabus. I'd also like to get the students in and out so that I myself can get in and out and be done with my day.

And with that, folks, my semester begins. I now venture out into the cold morning to broaden some minds. For the last semester I'll ever have to do it.

Waiting, Part II

My paranoia, stress, and worrying has reached a fever pitch, to the point where I am constantly restless and irritable. I just want my money, and I don't know why it's taking so long or what's holding it up. It's so incredibly mentally taxing to worry about one's well-being and financial stability so constantly. But, the truth is, the money should've been disbursed to me almost a week ago now, and it's not even showing up on my student account at the school. Oh, sure, it has the "expected amount" listed, but it still says $0.00 under the "paid to date" place.

The lady at the financial aid office told me on the phone, when she called a month ago, that I was "good to go," and that nothing would interrupt my normal aid disbursement, enrollment, or GTA position. Yet, four days after the money should have cleared my bank and be in my proverbial hands, it's not even showing up on my student account.

Slightly panicky, I googled for news on "student loan delays," and came up with nothing. I also googled "student loan disbursement dates," which brought up a big list of pages for all sorts of colleges around the states on when those loans will be disbursed to said schools. All of these schools had different dates, but many (read: the majority of the ones I found) said January 22nd. January 22nd is Tuesday, the first day of classes for me. Hm. That's interesting. That would be a full week after I was expecting them to drop into my account, and many schools have already started up (WVU started this past week, even). I wonder if Flat State University never updated their expected disbursement date info, or it changed somehow over the past few weeks, and it actually is supposed to be January 22 for most universities, including mine. After reading many of these calendars for other schools, I began to relax a bit, but only a bit. After all, it's not like I'm going to starve or be homeless anytime soon; I do have enough money to pay the bills that come in and pay the rent between now and my first paycheck...but that's about it, really. After that, I'm out of money until I get that first paycheck of the spring. This is, of course, if the loans are delayed any more than they already have been. Seeing the date of the 22nd on all of those other school websites also stopped me dead in my tracks before I would've sent an email off to the lady in the financial aid office who dealt with my account; after all, they wouldn't receive said email until the 22nd anyway, as they're off the 21st just like the rest of us for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. And, unless something drops in the next 24 hours, nothing's going to change in my bank account until the 22nd or after anyway -- both Sunday and Monday the banks are closed.

Instead, I have cooled my jets and have decided to just...well, wait some more. It's all I can do. Again, as I've said, this sort of stuff is out of my control; being "proactive" does little more than spin my wheels in place. If nothing happens on Tuesday the 22nd or Wednesday the 23rd (read: I'll be off that day, and Daisy will more than likely stay here until then), only then will I send an email saying something along the lines of "Uhh, so, is there something wrong with my loans? 'Cause I haven't gotten them yet."

More eloquently worded than that, of course.

But, again, that's a last-ditch-effort sort of thing. As I mentioned before, I seem to recall the same thing happening either last spring or the spring before, where I started classes and my money didn't drop until that week. It sounds familiar, but again, I can't completely remember. My mind is foggy on the specifics, yet my mind is still clear enough to recite every lyric from every song in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and every line of dialogue in any of the Star Wars, Ghostbusters, or Back to the Future movies. It's funny what the brain chooses to remember, isn't it? Still, as stressed and/or worried as I am, I'm also equally not stressed/worried about it. That's hard to explain, I know, but anxiety is like that sometimes. It comes and goes, ebbs and flows.

Regardless, there's nothing that can be done now until at least next week, so I return to waiting. I told Daisy that because of this, I really don't have a lot in the house to eat, so it's going to be a relatively light weekend of foodstuffs. She's coming down early tomorrow, and will be staying probably until Wednesday, I'm guessing, as mentioned above. I told her there was no hurry for her to leave to go back up to Omaha; I'll only be out of the house for about seven hours on Tuesday morning/early afternoon, most of which she'll probably be asleep. If she's not, well, I do have the Firefly Blu-ray set, and if she thinks she's getting out of watching that while she's here...hahahah. Also, I have Wednesday off, so there's no reason for her to make an in-and-out quick visit. We'll probably get some food from Dillon's or Walmart while she's here, but more than likely only enough to feed us until my money comes in. She asked if I wanted her to cook or bake anything to bring with her, and I told her she didn't have to. Just having her here is enough for me. I know she'll bring a few things anyhow; I did ask her to bring down a bag of Veggie Straws, a snack food she introduced me to when I was visiting her in Omaha, as I quickly became addicted to them during my visit. She may also bring down an (amazing) vegan pizza from her favorite pizza place up there, but I told her not to worry about it if she didn't want to or didn't have the money. She's poorer than I am right now.

Her response to having limited food available in the house when she's here, however?

"Waffles and cereal? Sounds good to me, babe."

I love that woman.

Speaking of waiting, my parents' box did not arrive today as scheduled. My parents mailed it on Monday, and the post office gave them the vague delivery date of "by Saturday." Well, today was Saturday, and no box. I don't even think the mailman came down my street today, actually, as I'd been watching for him since I got up this morning around 9. Oh well. Looks like it'll come in on Tuesday, then. No mail on Monday either. If it comes on Tuesday while I'm on campus teaching, Daisy will (more than likely) be here to get it, and I'll be home by around 1PM that day anyway. Still, it really pissed me off that it didn't arrive today; that box carries food and clothing that I really want to have in my possession, including (probably) my mother's famous chex mix and my favorite pair of pants. I even waited to eat today until I knew that the box wouldn't arrive (read: nightfall) because I wanted to eat some of the good stuff in the box instead of needing to eat what I have here in the house already, as budget cooking/eating gets old after a while. In an email to my mother this evening, I told her that if she wants to clean out her pantry (which is overflowing like she expects a nuclear holocaust to happen tomorrow) and send me anything that she doesn't need or want, or that my dad can't eat anymore, she can do so and I will happily eat it. She has to send a second box of stuff to me anyhow, as not everything could fit in the first one. I don't know if my parents realize that when they send me a "care package" sort of box of food and/or treats, they save me like $50 in groceries over the course of the time it takes me to consume that stuff. It's one of the major reasons why I look forward to them sending me things, and they don't do it very often -- maybe once or twice a year, and even less if I haven't visited beforehand.

Tomorrow morning, before Daisy arrives, I'm going to be cleaning the house and getting a shower, and I will more than likely eat something before she gets here so that I'm not hungry while we spend our time together. Tonight she's out visiting and being social with her former coworkers, all dolled up with her new red-hair-and-glasses look, and like the old man I am, I will quite possibly be in bed before she gets home. Yes, I am indeed an old man; this is my last Saturday night of real freedom before the semester starts, and what am I doing? Sitting at home and blogging -- while wearing longjohns, fuzzy socks, and a cardigan-style sweatshirt with a badly-drawn skull on it, I might add -- and plan to be in bed before midnight.

It's times like this where I tend to ask myself where in the hell did my life go so wrong?

At this point, most of my friends are back in Wichita, and I've spoken to several of them back and forth via Facebook messages. I am excited to see them next week -- yes, even antisocial, hermit-like Brandon is excited to see his friends -- even if the first week of classes is incredibly hectic. The winter break, up until these past two weeks, was also hectic on a scale previously unseen for me, what with all of my travel. It's been good to be able to relax, rest and recover over the past two weeks, but even I get a bit restless sometimes and want to interact with other people. Shocking, I know.

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.

TCB (or, "The Pauper"), and the Poor Man's Diet

I've actually gotten a lot done over the past two days.

When I'm preoccupied with waiting on my goddamned money to arrive, or anything else that's rather stressful, I tend to busy myself with other things to occupy my time. However, today everything seemed to bore me; there's only so much sleeping I can do, and normally I would be thrilled to have spare time to play video games, but this afternoon I was bored by them. I started making up things to do around the house -- hey, this blanket needs to be washed, or hm, the toilet needs to be scrubbed. Mind you, I have to be really, really restless or bored to want to scrub the toilet (which I did, by the way) or to do any other time/labor-intensive household chores. I told Daisy that I was bored last night, and she told me to read a book.

I've been reading lots of things as of late, really; they help keep my mind off my anxiety and keep me from wanting to pull my hair out in frustration that there is money coming to me that should've been in my grasp earlier this week, but it's taking its slow, sweet time in getting to me. It's the anticipation more than anything else -- yes, I know it's coming. I know I'll have it soon enough. I know I won't have to necessarily worry about my finances past, say, a few days from now...but it's so stressful. I know my luck and know that there are so many things that can always go wrong, and no matter how I try to, I just cannot relax about it or stop worrying that something's going to happen until it's in my bank account. Again, I can't help that I'm survival-oriented.

I've not seen or heard anything from the university about my money, other than the fact that it hasn't posted to my account yet. Today is Thursday. It's a full day after the direct deposits were supposed to have started. Nothing. I seem to recall there was a bit of a delay last spring as well, but I can't remember fully -- once everything goes through I tend to forget about the stress leading up to that moment. Last spring, I think I did have to wait until the weekend before classes started before I actually had the loan money in my possession, but I really can't remember. Again, I know they don't update the student accounts until everything has completely gone through and is on its way to me, but having checked at least twice a day for the past three days now, with no changes and no updates, has left me really frustrated and anxious. I'm trying not to think about it too much, mainly because I know that if it hasn't gone through by the time classes start, it won't be the end of the world, and I'll be on campus, so I'll be able to go over to the actual financial aid office in person and ask them what's up. Still -- it's stressful.

To take my mind off of things, I revised my syllabus for my students and emailed it to the office receptionist -- a good friend of mine and former GTA -- so that copies of it can be made before I teach on Tuesday morning. I also finalized and printed my students' diagnostic essays and the timeline for their first unit of the class, printed a class roster to use before I create a new gradebook for the semester, and created my office hours sheet for the outside of my office door. The vast majority of the work I have to do before the semester starts is now finished, though I'll still have to send the students some messages via Blackboard (which I now have access to, thankfully).

Am I looking forward to teaching again? I...guess? I don't know, really. I like teaching, I really do. I like creating a learning environment that these students enjoy, one that really lets me know that they're getting something out of my class, but I'm definitely not looking forward to grading stacks and stacks of papers and quizzes, or having to deal with students' excuses for why they can't show up to class and/or do the work I assign to them. Yes, that's part of being a teacher, I know, but after a while the excuses just get tedious. When the weather gets nice, they'll all get "spring fever" and will get antsy for the end of the semester, to get outside and the like, and they won't want to pay attention to lectures anymore. It's the same process every spring, really. While I love my job, and love the environment I work in, there are always going to be minor annoyances or grievances I have with wherever I work and whatever I do. This blog was founded, six years ago, on the grievances I had at my job then -- working at a grocery store. So, at least something good, something productive can come out of those proverbial snags and chinks in the armor, right?

I have apparently managed to get myself back on a somewhat normal sleeping schedule -- as mentioned in my last post, I went to bed two nights ago around 10PM and slept until nearly 9AM. I did this again last night, as well. This was pure happenstance, actually -- being sick had thrown off my sleeping rhythms a lot, and I couldn't really get back on them until I stayed awake for almost 24 hours straight. This also serves the dual purpose of needing to be awake over the next few days to get the box from my parents once it arrives in the mail; they said it may take until Saturday, but somehow I doubt it will take that long, and will probably arrive tomorrow. When my parents send those big boxes, they go fairly quickly. It's everything else that goes slowly between West Virginia and here, or vice versa. For example, my friend Amber bought a tie-dye shirt from me about two years ago in the summer. I mailed it to her over Memorial Day weekend, and she didn't actually receive it until around July 4 -- when she did, she told me that the envelope I'd sent it in (a bubble mailer) looked like it had been through hell and back. Stuff like that happens a lot -- I have relatively bad luck when it comes to mail. To know when the mailman comes, I've been slowly sending out bills and other things (such as Publisher's Clearing House envelopes) one or two a day, and have been trying to check when I notice the flag on my mailbox has been put down (indicating the mailman has been here). He tends to come between 1 and 4PM most days, so I just have to be alert and listen/watch for him during those times. If the box doesn't come tomorrow, I have to be home, awake, and alert pretty much all day Saturday to make sure I get it when it arrives, as if they choose not to leave it on my doorstep, I will have to wait until at least Tuesday (because of MLK day) to go to the post office to claim it, and I teach on Tuesday morning -- so I wouldn't even be able to do it until that afternoon when I got back home.

Of course, I'd also like to be able to, y'know, enjoy the things my parents sent me before all of my time is consumed by school again, too. Plus, the clothes that are more than likely in said box are things I would like to wear to teach in -- dressy sweaters and the like that I bought cheaply while in West Virginia.

Daisy is returning from Chicago tonight; she should be arriving back in Omaha any minute now, actually. From all accounts, the three ladies had a wonderful trip, but I'm very glad they're all getting back home safely. I don't yet know if Daisy is going to make it down here this weekend; it depends on how much money she has to spare (read: not a lot) and if she's willing to make the trip after being on the road for so long back and forth from Chicago on the bus. We've talked about it a little bit, with the unsaid implication she'll come, but it's totally up to her -- I'm not going to beg her to come down here after she's been in Chicago all week, nor am I going to be upset if she doesn't want to or can't due to money issues. Believe me, I definitely understand the "money issues" thing right now -- tonight I just paid the other two bills I had which came in earlier this week, draining my bank account a little bit further. I'll have to write out the rent check next week, loans or no loans, which will effectively cut what I have left in half. On top of that, I've been eating very little so that I don't have to get groceries until absolutely necessary -- preparing for the worst and all that. While Daisy and I don't go out to eat when she's in town (this is Kansas, and she's vegan), we usually do go out to the grocery store to get stuff to cook while she's around. If we do that this time, I'll have to use my credit card, and keep my fingers crossed that I get that fucking money soon.

On the plus side, I do have a ton of my famous waffles for me and Daisy to eat for breakfast if she does come into town this weekend -- I bought a six-pound box of Bisquick when I went to Walmart last week, and made a bunch of them a few days ago. I'll make more tonight or tomorrow, more than likely; they're easy and fairly quick to make, and when I'm poor, waffles and peanut butter make an awesome, cheap meal. Because Daisy showed me how to do so, I make them vegan -- Bisquick is vegan. I replace the eggs needed to make batter with flax seed (which works like eggs and gelatinates when blended with water), and use almond milk and a bit of coconut oil. That's it. Whip it together into batter, and pour it onto the waffle iron. Oh yeah, baby. As I've mentioned before, I've been eating a lot more vegan since Daisy came into my life; it's not as hard as everyone thinks it is.

Still, I think it's a bit blasphemous to put Vegenaise (vegan mayonnaise) on a ham sandwich, which I did this afternoon. Eh. Better for me than real mayo, I suppose. I don't eat a lot of meat anymore, mainly because I can't afford it, but I do keep lunch meats in the house. Daisy should still be proud of me, though -- I used to be a total carnivore. Whole milk, eggs, steaks, pounds of bacon, chicken and pork, etc. I don't eat any of those things anymore unless it's a special occasion or unless they're offered to me (such as when I visited her house earlier this month and her father was cooking meat for us meat-eating manly-men). I've also been eating a lot of cereal and oatmeal as of late, both of which are vegan when eaten with almond milk. I cannot describe to you folks how awesome almond milk is. Just take my word for it and get a carton the next time you're at the store.

Because I am generally low on money at any given time, I'm going to describe to you what I call "The Poor Man's Diet," as in, what you can purchase at the store fairly cheaply and live on for a long time without having to worry about starving between paychecks. Here are some of my staples:

• Rice and pastas. No, seriously. You folks were probably expecting this, but let me explain -- you can do a lot of things with a simple bag of rice or a few boxes/bags of pasta (and yes, this includes ramen, don't kid yourself). Load up on these items at the store, and get a variety of them -- spaghetti, egg noodles, salad shells, rotini, etc. A decent-sized bag of white or brown rice will cost you a dollar or so, and will last a long time. Cook and toss this stuff with some spices, a little oil/butter/Earth Balance/etc, and you've got a cheap meal. Add a can of vegetables as well, if you want to jazz it up somewhat.
• Canned or frozen vegetables. Ahem, as mentioned above. If you get store-brand canned vegetables, you'll pay about 50 cents per can. Store-brand frozen veggies are a bit more expensive, but you'll get more in the bag and you don't have to use them all at once. Choose wisely; only buy what you know you will eat and/or cook with, otherwise it's just going to sit in your pantry and/or freezer.
• Bouillon cubes/powders of varying flavors and types. I go generic on these, not the high-end brands -- I find that you can get the best deals on these in the latino foods section of your local grocery store. Get several different kinds; vegetable, tomato, chicken, beef, etc. You can use them to flavor your rice/pasta-based meals above, or use them as a soup base.
• Peanut butter. Should go without saying, but yes. Get as big of a jar as you can for the lowest price. Again, go generic -- people say name-brand peanut butter is better, but it's really not, and you don't have the budget to be picky. Peanut butter is a very good source of protein and good fats, and you can use it for almost anything. I tend to enjoy it on saltines or on the aforementioned waffles.
• Cheap oil/butter/margarine/Earth Balance/etc. Whatever your tastes are. You'll need it for cooking more than anything else.
• Fruits; a bag of apples, oranges, or a bunch of bananas. A bag of apples will run you about $4, oranges about $5. Bananas are really cheap, but don't get more than you can eat over the course of a week, or they'll over-ripen too quickly. Oranges and apples will last in the refrigerator for many months. If you're not a fan of fruits or they're too expensive to get on your budget, get a bottle of multivitamins (which are cheaper and will last much longer in the long run) and take one a day.
• Cereal and oatmeal. As mentioned before, cereals and oatmeals, depending on the brand you get, can be very cheap and very filling. A box of Walmart-brand oatmeal packets, in a variety of flavors, is about $2. Store-brand generic cereals are about the same price. Again, choose carefully so that you can get something that you will enjoy eating for as long as it lasts, and don't get something too sugary or too fancy -- I've always been a big fan of normal Raisin Bran or Rice Krispies. 
• Bologna. Some people may retch at this, but if you must have some sort of meat in your diet, as processed as it is, bologna will do the trick -- it's cheap, too. A pack of Bar-S or Gwaltney's bologna will run you about a dollar. Hot dogs and buns, if you get the store brand, will run you about $1 each as well.
• Other meats and cheeses. Purchase sparingly, or your grocery bill will soar. If you must have steak, chicken, or pork, splurge and get a bulk pack of it for about $10-15 or so. It will be expensive, but you can separate said bulk pack into individual servings in freezer bags, and only use what you need when you need it. It'll last you weeks this way.
• Breads. Store-brand only, and always try to get whole wheat if at all possible. Another good thing to do is to wait until your local grocery store puts out all of the bakery reduced items, where their fresh-baked bread prices will be cut in half, and buy whatever you want, need, and can afford -- then freeze what you're not going to eat immediately. 
• Coffees and teas. I may get a bit of hate over this one, but really, don't be picky. Most coffees taste relatively the same, so most of the time you can get generic and be just fine. Tea is even more uniform; if you like tea, don't get the expensive flavored ones, but get a $1 box of teabags of either green or black tea, and if you must, sweeten or flavor it yourself with whatever you have on hand. Some people may say that coffee or tea is a "luxury" that people on a budget cannot afford; I would say to them that if you're as caffeine-dependent as I am, fuck you, I'll starve and/or give up other food items to have the ability to brew fresh coffee or a pot of tea when I need it.
• Stop drinking soda. Soda is a luxury. If you must have some sort of sugary, cold drink in your home, buy a bag of sugar and several packets of Kool-Aid. It'll last much longer and will probably be cheaper than a 12-pack of soda. And in case you haven't noticed recently, the price of soda keeps going up every year.
• Cut out alcohol. Also should go without saying. Alcohol is expensive and does not do a lot for your survival levels. The object here is to only purchase what you need to keep your stomach full, while cutting out as many extraneous items as possible.

I could make this list go on forever, really, if I wanted to. I will also add that this is just for foodstuffs; another great tip I definitely recommend (because I do it myself) is to get your other necessities for life as cheaply as possible at discount grocery stores or places like Dollar Tree. There's no reason to pay $4 for a bottle of shampoo/conditioner/body wash when you can get some at the Dollar Tree for a buck. The same goes for other household items -- deodorant, toothbrushes/paste, freezer bags/aluminum foil/garbage bags, laundry/dish detergent, assorted spices (most of which the Dollar Tree has 2/$1), toilet paper/paper towels, etc. The Dollar Tree has chips, crackers, and nuts if you need something around the house to snack on, as well. It's not uncommon for me to spend $50 or $60 there on one trip, and be set on a lot of those items for 4-6 months. Buy what you need, be smart, and be cheap, and you can survive on very little money. It just takes practice and the ability to budget, as well as the realization that you don't need the name brands on anything you purchase. It also takes a bit of creativity and ingenuity, too -- for example, did you know that you can use normal dish liquid in a dishwasher (instead of having to purchase special detergent or those little pacs for it)? You can. You just have to use a lot less -- a 50-cent piece-sized dollop in the soap compartment should do you fine. You can use dish soap to do your laundry, too -- I recommend something green apple or lavender-scented, or use a few squirts from your $1 bottle of (much-better-smelling) shampoo instead of a $10 bottle of chemical-filled laundry detergent. It works. Trust me, I know -- I've done this for months.

I'll leave you folks with that; I will keep you updated over the next few days on what happens with Daisy's possible trip down here as well as when my student loans come in.