Alright, so, the quarter is now officially over, and now that Rae has left lip-prints on the inside of your monitor, I guess it’s time for me to tell you how it all came out.
Okay, so this was the hardest quarter I’ve had to deal with overall. I was taking 20 hours worth of classes. One inclass, and two independant studies. This quarter has left me feeling drained and hollow, husked out and empty. I always feel somewhat relieved at the end of a quarter, but sometimes sad too because I, like everyone else, resist change, and the end of a quarter is all about change. Anyways, that’s more philosophical than most of you care about me getting into and I’m needing to guard against waxing maudlin over here I suppose. Here’s how the classes break down (The grades are approximates, I won’t know for sure until they’re all posted out on the website, but it’s close enough):
TCP/IP (inclass): 98
Installation and Maintenance (independant study): 93
Server2003 Administration (independant study): 95
Again, like I said, those grades are approximate.
Now, the next big thing for me to worry about? Next quarter. See, I have to take two more classes and then I’ll be done with school, I’ll have my degree and that’s gonna be good. However, (isn’t there always a but?) because I’ve thus far been enrolled in the Diploma program so I could get the Hope Grant to pay for my tuition, I have to change over to the Degree program so I can take the last two classes I need (Speech & Technical Writing, and Economics). The problem with this is: I’m not eligible for the Hope Scholarship because of the three years I was at Valdosta State University. So, I’ve got to come up with a way to pay my tuition for my next and final quarter. Student Loan you say? Not gonna happen because Valtech doesn’t do student loans, just hope grant and hope scholarship. So right now what I’m staring down the barrel of is either:
A) Go to my bank and try to get a loan to pay for it (around 800-1000.00, and there’s very little chance that they’re going to give me a loan with my credit like it is)
B) Apply for a credit card and put it on there (See above parenthetical statement about cost and credit – also know that the interest rates would be horrendous)
C) Take a break, wait and work until I can get the money saved up and then go back the following quarter to finish.
C is probably the smartest choice, but it’s also the least desirable. I don’t want to wait, I want to go ahead and finish school so I can get done with it and get the degree, get pedigreed and maybe find a job in my field. B scares the shit out of me because I have a natural aversion to credit cards, and all creditcard companies. And A isn’t likely to happen because I have bad credit. So, that’s the dilemma that I am facing and I’m gonna have to come up with an answer for it in the next week or so. I don’t know what I’m going to do, and it looms so large in front of me now that I can’t even really consider it. Blah. How can I be so happy about the grades that I made and still so frightened about the future? At this point I don’t even know how to wrap my mind around the problem. Maybe one of you has the answer.
S
This ends up being the point where I do most of my rambling. Sometimes it's good, most times it's not. As far as I go, I'm a 30-something husband, father, friend, geek...everything else you want to know about me and everything else you don't is contained right here in these pages.
~Swift