not dead; just trying to breathe.
I know I've been really quiet around here lately. (Other than writing or memes, that is.) It's not that nothing's happening (although really, there's not MUCH happening), it's just that, believe it or not, I'm trying to pull myself away from technology lately. (I'll understand if you don't believe it, especially if you follow me on twitter. With as much as I've been twittering, it's probably pretty hard to believe. Also, by "lately," I actually mean "the past week or so," so I really DO understand if you don't believe me.)
So let's try to recap the past few weeks, shall we? I had a long, long weekend for fourth of July, and Jenna was kind enough to come out here and keep me company Friday and Saturday. We went to Harriman State Park and drove down the park roads for hours, windows down, music on, just talking and laughing and breathing and looking at nature. We went to "The Church in the Wilderness" (which is actually what the sign said, which is why we ended up there, because how can you pass up a church in the wilderness?), and we took some pictures.
(Am I getting ahead of myself? Did I ever talk about DC? No? Well, two weeks before that we had gone to DC, and had a really great weekend wandering around the Smithsonian and taking pictures of pictures, mostly. Jenna looked at the air and space and military stuff while I looked at the cultural and political stuff, and I think all in all we saw everything in both the Air & Space and American History museums. We had free wine and found a Whole Foods and had wonderful food and great cocktails and it was all in all a lovely weekend.)
So that's how we spent our 4th of July before we came home, got some dinner (tip for any vegans out there: Romano's Macaroni Grill is very, very vegan-friendly...) and watched the horribly directed Macy's fireworks before I brought her back to the train to leave me all by myself. And then the next day I went to my mom's (ostensibly to watch Freeheld, which was really good, but in reality apparently to listen to my mom and brother fight like my mom and dad used to, which was, um, odd) so that we could go see Waiting for Godot, which was funnier and better than I expected it to be.
Then work ate my brain for a few more weeks, and now here I am tonight.
I'm mostly posting because today I was shoved very friendly-like into looking into registering for courses for the Arts Management certificate I decided to take after failing miserably at getting into grad school, and sure enough, registration is now open. Which means that if I'm going to do it, I need to not only do it, but also to figure out how I'm going to pay for it. Which would normally translate into a poll, but I'm feeling a little too lazy to actually set up the whole poll thing, so I'm just going to ask it here: to pay for the certificate (which is undergrad and will really only serve to give me a shot at grad school a year or so from now), should I:
a) take out what will end up being ~$6000 total in loans,
b) put it on my credit card, or
c) zero out my savings for the first semester, then take it from there?
Things to consider: $6000, while it sounds like a lot, is barely a drop in the bucket of my ~$60-70,000 remaining student loan balance. (That's without a graduate degree. It's a long story, but let's just say my college finances were not handled well.) $6000 would double my credit card debt, and my savings is, obviously, not that impressive as it stands, which is not really a good thing in the current economy. I could potentially pay down the loan while still in school, if they would let me, given that I already have all these other loans, and it would probably have to be private loans, since I make too much money to qualify for aid for a full-time courseload, let alone part-time. I'm asking for advice partly because I genuinely don't know what to do, and partly because I don't want to ask anyone who might actually have valuable input (read: family), because they're infuriating when it comes to money stuff. (My mom will probably offer to loan me the money, which will be drama whether I accept or decline, and my dad...I'm not sure what my dad'll do, but he's in Napa on vacation and probably wouldn't answer me for a week anyway. LOL)
Any thoughts/opinions/what have you welcome. Seriously. I'm down the rabbithole here on this one.
Otherwise, getting ready to leave for Dayton (I will be landing almost exactly a week from this second, zomg...) to see the BFF. The current plan, for real, is to drop my Blackberry off in my room the second I arrive and not pick it back up again for the week (other than to play music to fall asleep to, because I hate sleeping with headphones in and my Nano doesn't have speakers, woe). I am probably bringing the computer with me, but if I do it'll be to do things like write and listen to music/play with my radio setlist, not be on the internet pretty much at all. Have I mentioned the radio thing here? Probably not. The BFF has a weekly two-hour radio show on her college station WWSU, and yours truly is putting together a show for my visit. She's on every Monday from 2-4pm; my guest spot is not this coming Monday, but the next one. I've been planning the setlist for weeks because there are requirements and it's my one shot and omg how do you decide what songs to play for your one and only shot at a radio show?! It's nearly impossible. While I'm there I will also be seeing her perform stand-up, which I'm ridiculously excited about, and we'll be going to the Creation Museum, which I think I'm MORE excited about. If ever anyone could be excited about visiting Dayton? I totally am. :D
And now this is v.v. long and all about personal crap, which from someone who hasn't posted in forever is just probably superlame, so I'm concluding with this.
What's new with you? :D
mwahs!
~a
PS. I didn't forget about memes, they're just taking me forever to answer because they're about writing, and my muse sucks these past few weeks. (Well, there's one set of responses in particular that I can't seem to get going on, and I won't let myself post anything until I finish it, so there you go.) If I don't get there before Ohio, I will definitely get there after Ohio. :)
(Edited because OMG that shit was a lot longer than I thought it was, so uh, now with more cut tags to save yr flists. Which probably means fewer of you will read it, but meh, you don't much care anyway. LOL)
So let's try to recap the past few weeks, shall we? I had a long, long weekend for fourth of July, and Jenna was kind enough to come out here and keep me company Friday and Saturday. We went to Harriman State Park and drove down the park roads for hours, windows down, music on, just talking and laughing and breathing and looking at nature. We went to "The Church in the Wilderness" (which is actually what the sign said, which is why we ended up there, because how can you pass up a church in the wilderness?), and we took some pictures.
(Am I getting ahead of myself? Did I ever talk about DC? No? Well, two weeks before that we had gone to DC, and had a really great weekend wandering around the Smithsonian and taking pictures of pictures, mostly. Jenna looked at the air and space and military stuff while I looked at the cultural and political stuff, and I think all in all we saw everything in both the Air & Space and American History museums. We had free wine and found a Whole Foods and had wonderful food and great cocktails and it was all in all a lovely weekend.)
So that's how we spent our 4th of July before we came home, got some dinner (tip for any vegans out there: Romano's Macaroni Grill is very, very vegan-friendly...) and watched the horribly directed Macy's fireworks before I brought her back to the train to leave me all by myself. And then the next day I went to my mom's (ostensibly to watch Freeheld, which was really good, but in reality apparently to listen to my mom and brother fight like my mom and dad used to, which was, um, odd) so that we could go see Waiting for Godot, which was funnier and better than I expected it to be.
Then work ate my brain for a few more weeks, and now here I am tonight.
I'm mostly posting because today I was shoved very friendly-like into looking into registering for courses for the Arts Management certificate I decided to take after failing miserably at getting into grad school, and sure enough, registration is now open. Which means that if I'm going to do it, I need to not only do it, but also to figure out how I'm going to pay for it. Which would normally translate into a poll, but I'm feeling a little too lazy to actually set up the whole poll thing, so I'm just going to ask it here: to pay for the certificate (which is undergrad and will really only serve to give me a shot at grad school a year or so from now), should I:
a) take out what will end up being ~$6000 total in loans,
b) put it on my credit card, or
c) zero out my savings for the first semester, then take it from there?
Things to consider: $6000, while it sounds like a lot, is barely a drop in the bucket of my ~$60-70,000 remaining student loan balance. (That's without a graduate degree. It's a long story, but let's just say my college finances were not handled well.) $6000 would double my credit card debt, and my savings is, obviously, not that impressive as it stands, which is not really a good thing in the current economy. I could potentially pay down the loan while still in school, if they would let me, given that I already have all these other loans, and it would probably have to be private loans, since I make too much money to qualify for aid for a full-time courseload, let alone part-time. I'm asking for advice partly because I genuinely don't know what to do, and partly because I don't want to ask anyone who might actually have valuable input (read: family), because they're infuriating when it comes to money stuff. (My mom will probably offer to loan me the money, which will be drama whether I accept or decline, and my dad...I'm not sure what my dad'll do, but he's in Napa on vacation and probably wouldn't answer me for a week anyway. LOL)
Any thoughts/opinions/what have you welcome. Seriously. I'm down the rabbithole here on this one.
Otherwise, getting ready to leave for Dayton (I will be landing almost exactly a week from this second, zomg...) to see the BFF. The current plan, for real, is to drop my Blackberry off in my room the second I arrive and not pick it back up again for the week (other than to play music to fall asleep to, because I hate sleeping with headphones in and my Nano doesn't have speakers, woe). I am probably bringing the computer with me, but if I do it'll be to do things like write and listen to music/play with my radio setlist, not be on the internet pretty much at all. Have I mentioned the radio thing here? Probably not. The BFF has a weekly two-hour radio show on her college station WWSU, and yours truly is putting together a show for my visit. She's on every Monday from 2-4pm; my guest spot is not this coming Monday, but the next one. I've been planning the setlist for weeks because there are requirements and it's my one shot and omg how do you decide what songs to play for your one and only shot at a radio show?! It's nearly impossible. While I'm there I will also be seeing her perform stand-up, which I'm ridiculously excited about, and we'll be going to the Creation Museum, which I think I'm MORE excited about. If ever anyone could be excited about visiting Dayton? I totally am. :D
And now this is v.v. long and all about personal crap, which from someone who hasn't posted in forever is just probably superlame, so I'm concluding with this.
Click to viewWhat's new with you? :D
mwahs!
~a
PS. I didn't forget about memes, they're just taking me forever to answer because they're about writing, and my muse sucks these past few weeks. (Well, there's one set of responses in particular that I can't seem to get going on, and I won't let myself post anything until I finish it, so there you go.) If I don't get there before Ohio, I will definitely get there after Ohio. :)
(Edited because OMG that shit was a lot longer than I thought it was, so uh, now with more cut tags to save yr flists. Which probably means fewer of you will read it, but meh, you don't much care anyway. LOL)