College Woes
“Well, this is another fine kettle of fish…”
Yes, I’m starting things rolling with a quote from Laurel & Hardy, I believe. The last half of the statement doesn’t quite flow with my rant though, cause I’m the one who got me into this. As I’m sure everyone knows, I’m now attending college! Woo. I’m taking: Beginning Chinese, Intro to Teaching, Lifetime Fitness (a gay as Hades health class- it counts as a PE credit) and Speech. Online I’m also taking English, which I’ll rant about in a few lines pretty soon. Now if one of you have been living under a rock, this probably means you aren’t aware of just how much I Hate my college, the University of Texas- Brownsville. So far, UTB has just about made me almost want to hate being a college student. Though I do know that a normal, you know… good, college isn’t this half assed about it’s efficiency at processing students, performing academic advisement, and at actually getting the student their financial aid refunds! I have been in school since August the 27th, which gives me about two or three weeks of class now and I still don’t have my funds. It’s perfect, I’m a freshman with little experience with college procedures, yet they have made no attempt at guiding me through actually getting the funds to pay for my classes. I was given an initial subsidized loan for 1,750 for my fall semester… My statement of charges rings up at 2,250.56, a nice batch of fees give me that cost seeing as my tuition is 1,508.00 by itself. Pretty gay I get automatically get charged for shit that I don’t know if I’m going to use, like for example the 79.00 charge for the student recreation fee… Seeing as, I have no idea what the fuck their idea of recreation is, because they charge 20 dollars for a membership to their gym- which is craptactular and as far as sports go- I didn’t plan on joining the football team… Why should I pay to have the option to play? Or just maybe they mean recreation as going to student life events or maybe a club? Why should I have to pay for the things that should be freely given? It’s bullshit if you ask me. I’ll move on though, I can live with paying a batch of cruddy fees and an overpriced tuition, well… I would live with it if I could pay it. You see, as I mentioned there’s a 500.56 dollar difference between how much I was given and how much I owe. So after harassing the financial aid office (which is a complete bitch to get a hold of because the jackasses never actually answer their phones and if you go to the office it’s a nice four hour wait on a good day) by phone for days, I was able to finally reach someone who told me that I was not eligible for any unsubsidized loans until my parents had tried for a Federal Plus loan to get me the money I needed. You know, despite the fact I usually don’t live with Dad and I’m an adult who usually lives without any financial help from my Dad? (Okay, that without financial help part is a lie, we all know I’m a normal bum teenager even if I’m already legal age… I don’t seem to have qualms about borrowing gas moneys from Dad. ^.^” The point is… I don’t want Dad to be a few thousand in debt due to me wanting to go to college- He’s an old fart, he’s got enough problems with just being an old coot.) So, despite the fact I don’t really like the fact, I went ahead and put in the application for a plus loan through SallieMae… I figured it would be denied anyway- which is a good thing because that means I’d qualify for unsubsidized loans in my own name. So today, weeks after I began classes, I’m finally getting somewhere on my loan process… But even if I am approved for the unsubsidized loans, it’ll take about a week to have it cover my statement of charges and then maybe a week after that so the remainder can be refunded to me, which brings up another lovely problem.
Books. Books and more Books. College books are fucking expensive as hell! Gaia be damned if I have to be stuck with these books, but knowing my luck nobody will want my cruddy books when I’m done with them. As far as even getting the books, it was a close call but Dad came through for me and gave me a nice 350 dollars to cover the books. That should have been it, I had the money which in turn means I could have the books, right? No, of course things can’t be that simple for me. I went to the on campus book store and they were sold out of my into to teaching, English, speech and my beginning Chinese book. Sound like a long list? Yes, that happens to be everyone of my classes except for my shitty PE wannabe class. So instead of finding out about the second bookstore from my ~best~ friend, Priscilla… I learned of Book Bee from a guy in our Chinese class, Alan. Thus, I skipped my Speech class the same afternoon to try to get my books and found the stupid bookstore closes at 7:30pm… I was at the doors at 7:31pm and they refused to let me in. My grade for my first English assignment that was due that evening at 10:00 sharp. Two days later was a Saturday and I had to go to the campus for a fucking loan management session (total bullshit if you ask me) so I figured I’d grab my books after the class. I make my way back to the store and guess what? The penis-wipes don’t even open on Saturday!!! So I didn’t get (some of) my books until Tuesday after that when I went back to class. They were completely sold out of my Chinese book and since it’s an imported book, it’s only on special order- I would much rather just order it online. All they had for my into to teaching book was a brand new copy which cost a pretty 100 dollars- I found it later that day online for a third off. I picked up my lame excuse for a speech book- it’s nothing more than a flimsy little spiral notepad with some tips. The problem at first glance was my English book, it was the wrong edition. Then looking at the tag, it seemed fine since the book was actually assigned for my weird ass named teacher. I received an e-mail now from Mr. Mynameisentirelytoofuckinglong that all the assignments I’ve done now for English are F’s because I have the wrong book. So yay- I’m definitely not happy about this because I don’t have more money for books and because book bee fucked me over. To make matters better, they are no longer giving refunds. They told me no refunds as soon as they took the cash for the books! Those fuckers. I don’t know how I’m going to get the book, but I have to because I can’t afford to fail my English- I’m an English major for Gaia’s sake. That sounds great… an English major who can’t pass Comp 101! I can’t drop the class because it’s already past add/drop week and so, I’m screwed. *sigh*
End transmission.