Last week I paid umpteen thousand dollars to ODU. The fact that they don't take Tuition Assistance vouchers is understandable I suppose but it is a bitch on cash flow. I'm tapped.
Saturday I was served with a pre-eviction notice.
It seems the US Postal Service lost my lot-rent. Fortunately, I had both the tracking info and the money order reciept so this heart stopping moment of zen was quickly defused with a few phone calls.
Still, this is annoying.
If the Trailer Park accepted electronic payment, it would never have happened. This sort of thing pings on ones credit (unjustly) and is hard to get off.
I'm unsure of what to do regards school.
The requirements for my major have changed so much that it will be 3-4 more YEARS before I finish. I've got 72 credits and it's like I'm a freshman. If I switch my major and my minor, I can pull it off in 18-24 months (depending on course availability).
I've given up a LOT for school. I could be driving at UPS, I could be full time in the Coast Guard. I could have pursued all manner of interests, but instead I kept the PT job in anticipation of getting out of debt and returning to school. Now I'm back and in my junior year, am looking at another half decade of undergraduate sillieness. I'm 36 now.
Saturday I talked to a woman who was despondent because she had to drop out of school to work. She's lamented that life was passing her by and didn't think she'd be back in school for a year. She never thought she'd be where she is now.
She's 19....
Thursday, at a get-together for exchange students, I met a professor at ODU. He's working on his PHD.
He was a freshman in the Japanese class I took in spring 2001.
I am soon to be in Websters as the definition of ignominy.
On the other hand my leg, though painful, is healing. I am very fortunate that the UPS Doctor is a quack and I can work again. ("NO Doctor thhhhhat doesnnn't huuuurt!!!! I feel ffffffinnne":) I got a raise, and I'm getting caught up in school, though there is some doubt as to weather or not I'll be allowed to finish the math course as my hospital stay and down time exceeded the normally allowable # of days missed. The clutch in the pickup of peril is fixed and as I sloooowly regain the ability to bend my home becomes a little cleaner each day.
The questions then revolve around where I'll be in 2, 5 and 10 years.
Plan A: Continue doggedly pursuing an Oceanography degree. Do summer study in Japan, possibly some graduate courses. Possibly make money on the side as tutor.
Plan B: Switch Asian Studies from Minor to Major Oceanography from Major to Minor. Go to Japan, teach English, possibly get job in Pacific territories/Hawaii as translator. Pursue garaduate studies at leisure.
Plan C: Screw it! Quit college, go full time either with UPS or the Coast Guard. Essentialy double what I'm making now immediately.
Plan D: Quit school. Eat from cans. Quote Ayn Rand. Fight crime
It's enough to make you go "hurmm".
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment