If I Had A Nickle for Every Time Financial Aid Faked Me Out...

I’m exhausted for the second weekend in a row. I still can’t believe I waited until I was 25 to get an ear infection and how horrible it’s been. I’m so darn tired *from* being sick; I’m so darn tired *of* being sick.

Other than that, everything is still going well. I found out by mail Saturday that I might have been awarded a scholarship from my graduate school program worth a couple thousand dollars. I say I “might” have been awarded this thing because I’ve learned from years of dealing with financial aid that just because you think you’re getting cash doesn’t always mean that you are, in fact, going to experience extra money in your life. Sometimes they tell you that you’ve been awarded money, and then you go to get it and find out that the business office has figured out some creative way to take it from you.

If I were still at MTSU, I wouldn’t even trust the letter, I’d just assume it was another of the business office’s cruel tricks to make me think there was no such thing as hope in the world. Now that I’m in a college where the people are generally kind and work for the forces of good, the letter leads me to expect that I might be able to afford nice Christmas gifts for friends and family. But I won’t know if the reward is sincere or not until Monday, so I’m left to my overactive imagination. I’m hoping that the reward is sincere, because I have yet to interview for the first professional archivist position, and I graduate in 60 days.

It’s time to buckle down. This is my last free weekend until December, because next week I start two half term classes, and one of them will nail down my Saturdays from here on out. Hi ho, Hi Ho.

My muscles ache and I wish there was someone to give me a back rub. Maybe if I get this award, I can go to the walk-up massage place at the mall and have someone loosen up the knots in my shoulders. The knots are just as much from not knowing what’s going to happen next as from the illness. I have this internal sense that everything will be all right, but it’s still unnerving to not know where, exactly, my life is headed. Mr. Puck is, as always, very comforting to me when I have to think about these things, but of course I do have to worry a little.

Maybe if I get this award my middle sister can come and visit me over the holidays. She’s been having a rough year – her body has turned on her, and she had to start at a new High School where she didn’t know anyone. She’s never flown before, and if I could swing a discount ticket I know the ride alone would give her a big thrill. She’s at a good age to run around a big city like a crazy person with her older sister.

See what this award letter has done to me? I’m all full of hope now for professional back rubs and possible visits from my sister, and I don’t even know if I’m really going to get any cash. This is what financial aid will do to you. Financial aid will make you hope for things that you hadn’t thought you needed. Financial aid will then usually dash those hopes upon the rocks of bills you have to pay to the school. I’ll post something more positive about financial aid if they give me some dough Monday.