do I have "strong face" written all over me?
Much as I love my best friend Nicholas at school, this is the last time he gets to call me at midnight, tell me we'll go out for dinner the next day, and then flake on me to the point of not even being available by phone. He's done this many times. I bawled him out on his voicemail and went for Thai food by myself.
I have a date at 9 with a hot chick, though, so that's okay.
Other major irritant: The University and the law school have cockblocked me at every turn in my search for funding for the New Orleans trip. They praise my plan effusively, then refuse to put their money where their mouth is. There are several separate resources for travel funding, but all are reserved for conferences within the student's area of study. Yeah, I guess legal aid work by law students doesn't count because it's not something respectable like a conference, it's only one of America's greatest tragedies. My bad, there, sorry to waste your time. The Student Bar Association and the Dean have likewise held up their hands and shrugged, though at least I may be able to piggyback on existing student organizations and beg money off them. Where exactly the hell is my tuition going? Is it funding these mythical travel grants, or is it going to giving the administrators great dental work so that their teeth will be nice and white when they smile approvingly at me before turning their backs? I need to hit up the Gates Public Service Foundation people. If *they* can't come up with a few bucks, then I'll really be amused.
Heh, "Bloodletting" just came on. "The ways and means"? I wish. It'll be awhile yet; in the meantime, I've got nearly twenty interested students, all broke like me, and, though I've reminded them to be active in their own fundraising and some have shared some really good resources already, I feel like the onus is on me alone to come through for them and magick the $11,700 out of thin air that it will take to send eighteen people down for a six-night stay on $400 airfare, $100 lodging, and $30 per diem for food, not including the fly-down and fly-back days. Damn it, why can't SHN be a full-service food'n'lodging-provided group like Hands On or Project Hope?
Why did I decide to do this? It could've been just a little trip, me and a couple people I got together through casual word-of-mouth, but now I'm setting myself up for public failure, I'll feel like I let everyone down if I can't bring all eighteen people along, and that thought fills me with dread. Dread, even though the reality is that even just a few people going will be great. We can still help out and see what it's like down there and do more with spring break than drink and fuck around. But I'll feel so ashamed of myself whenever I run into one of the people who won't be able to go because I couldn't find money for them. Why am I already assuming we won't all find the money to go? I haven't even talked to any firms yet, or called up the airlines, or had the first of several meetings I have this week to ask for money. But already my scant experience makes me disinclined to think I'll get any results from those meetings. ARGH.
Here's a coincidence: Longtime readers may recall my saga of trying to get a credit card in 2005. It's now been a year since the behatèd Bank of America deigned to give me a secured credit card; apparently I done good enough that they've made it unsecured and doubled my credit limit. Oh, you devils of temptation, to raise my limit right when I could really use a spare $600 for New Orleans. Nonetheless, I suppose this is a good thing. I'm reluctant to get my free credit report and see what shape I'm in, though, since you get only one a year and it's only early February. Guess I'll just keep payin' the bills on time.
'Kay, I should try to get some things done before my date. ...Fuck! Just as I was typing that, she called up to postpone! Some night I'm having. (Blame her hangover.) At least she, a woman I have never met, has been communicative and apologetic about having to put off our plans, unlike my alleged best friend at school who has silently ditched me several times over. Well, I have a cold anyway and have been a mucus machine for several days, so Tipsy McHangover and Sneezy von Snotstein are probably just as well waiting for a few days to make first impressions.
Well, back to doing Contorts homework and writing up projected budgets and funding requests for those upcoming meetings.
ETA: OK, I guess a 103-degree fever is excuse enough to ditch me... this time. Hangover, fever - am I that hard to be around, that people make themselves sick to avoid me? :P
I have a date at 9 with a hot chick, though, so that's okay.
Other major irritant: The University and the law school have cockblocked me at every turn in my search for funding for the New Orleans trip. They praise my plan effusively, then refuse to put their money where their mouth is. There are several separate resources for travel funding, but all are reserved for conferences within the student's area of study. Yeah, I guess legal aid work by law students doesn't count because it's not something respectable like a conference, it's only one of America's greatest tragedies. My bad, there, sorry to waste your time. The Student Bar Association and the Dean have likewise held up their hands and shrugged, though at least I may be able to piggyback on existing student organizations and beg money off them. Where exactly the hell is my tuition going? Is it funding these mythical travel grants, or is it going to giving the administrators great dental work so that their teeth will be nice and white when they smile approvingly at me before turning their backs? I need to hit up the Gates Public Service Foundation people. If *they* can't come up with a few bucks, then I'll really be amused.
Heh, "Bloodletting" just came on. "The ways and means"? I wish. It'll be awhile yet; in the meantime, I've got nearly twenty interested students, all broke like me, and, though I've reminded them to be active in their own fundraising and some have shared some really good resources already, I feel like the onus is on me alone to come through for them and magick the $11,700 out of thin air that it will take to send eighteen people down for a six-night stay on $400 airfare, $100 lodging, and $30 per diem for food, not including the fly-down and fly-back days. Damn it, why can't SHN be a full-service food'n'lodging-provided group like Hands On or Project Hope?
Why did I decide to do this? It could've been just a little trip, me and a couple people I got together through casual word-of-mouth, but now I'm setting myself up for public failure, I'll feel like I let everyone down if I can't bring all eighteen people along, and that thought fills me with dread. Dread, even though the reality is that even just a few people going will be great. We can still help out and see what it's like down there and do more with spring break than drink and fuck around. But I'll feel so ashamed of myself whenever I run into one of the people who won't be able to go because I couldn't find money for them. Why am I already assuming we won't all find the money to go? I haven't even talked to any firms yet, or called up the airlines, or had the first of several meetings I have this week to ask for money. But already my scant experience makes me disinclined to think I'll get any results from those meetings. ARGH.
Here's a coincidence: Longtime readers may recall my saga of trying to get a credit card in 2005. It's now been a year since the behatèd Bank of America deigned to give me a secured credit card; apparently I done good enough that they've made it unsecured and doubled my credit limit. Oh, you devils of temptation, to raise my limit right when I could really use a spare $600 for New Orleans. Nonetheless, I suppose this is a good thing. I'm reluctant to get my free credit report and see what shape I'm in, though, since you get only one a year and it's only early February. Guess I'll just keep payin' the bills on time.
'Kay, I should try to get some things done before my date. ...Fuck! Just as I was typing that, she called up to postpone! Some night I'm having. (Blame her hangover.) At least she, a woman I have never met, has been communicative and apologetic about having to put off our plans, unlike my alleged best friend at school who has silently ditched me several times over. Well, I have a cold anyway and have been a mucus machine for several days, so Tipsy McHangover and Sneezy von Snotstein are probably just as well waiting for a few days to make first impressions.
Well, back to doing Contorts homework and writing up projected budgets and funding requests for those upcoming meetings.
ETA: OK, I guess a 103-degree fever is excuse enough to ditch me... this time. Hangover, fever - am I that hard to be around, that people make themselves sick to avoid me? :P