ok, see, this? will be a rant journal. if you do not want to read rant, then don't. there is a small section of non-rant below, demarcated in bold for your viewing pleasure. thank you, and good night.

[rant : on]

as mentioned in the title, fuck college. more specifically, fuck college financial aid. if a person wants to go to college, they should just be able to go, it should not depend upon having to fill out fifty different forms just to make sure that you're eligible to be educated. as if being rich, and thus not having to apply for financial aid, instantly makes you an acceptable person. ... ok, that sounds juvenile, but here's how it goes:

you're broke OR you're not

if you're broke, you fill out the FAFSA, wait for that wing of the government to decide that you are broke enough, then they tell your college that you're broke enough, and you get a letter stating that people will give you money. if this is your first year at college, probably this is where your story ends. you go to class, you (hopefully) don't fuck up, and your life goes merrily on. if, like me, you have had some previous experience at college (college a), your story will most likely NOT end there. you will have to transfer over all of your credit from your college a, in the desperate hope that you will not have to pay to take classes you've already taken. then the government will decide that you have to pay back your loans from your previous college experience (PCE) and so you better *hurry hurry* fill out those deferment requests, so that this wing of the government, too, can realize that you are broke. then your second college (college b) will decide which credits they feel like accepting and which they don't. then they'll finally decide to tell you, and now that it's two quarters past when you actually applied to college b, they'll also tell you that you've been accepted. then the government will tell you that you have too many credits, and that they have decided you've been in college just about long enough, and that they will not be giving you any more money. if you haven't already, this is the time to start sobbing.

if you're not broke, you pay the college, you take whatever classes you want, and you move on. end of story.

im not sure about you, but i'm pretty sure i'd be taking the Not Broke option if at all possible. too bad i'm broke.

so, i'm driving home after some disinterested old bald guy tells me that i'm either to pay them $771 by tomorrow at 11 pm or skip out on college FOR A FOURTH STRAIGHT QUARTER, and i'm thinking: obviously, somebody doesn't want me at columbus state. well, what the hell am i doing there anyway? well, what the hell am i trying to be there for, i suppose. a pc technician degree on paper, but what the hell's that for? if i really wanted one of those so bad, i could probably go talk to suzanne sommers and get it on the cheap. what i really want, is my damn OSU english degree back. i was three quarters, THREE FUCKING QUARTERS away from a bachelors in english, when tuition went through the roof and i had to drop out. what i want is a bachelors degree, a plane ticket to japan, and an endless supply of stories to write. so tomorrow morning, i'm calling OSU's english department to see what it would take for me to reapply there. i like college, i like learning stuff, i just wish our system wasn't set up to make poor people's lives so damn difficult.

[rant : off]

ok, speaking of being broke, yard sales are just about the best thing EVARZ. this past weekend, my mother and youngest sister and i spent the entire day yard sale-ing, and here are some things that i picked up on the cheap:



an HP LaserJet 4 Plus, total cost? $12. it was $5 at the actual yard sale, and the power cable i had to go buy to make it work was $7. i love it when the accessory costs more than the item itself, don't you? (^_^)v



a two-hole punch. now, to most of you, this will seem like nothing. "it's office equipment," you will say, "wtf?" well, i'm the kind of girl who gets excited by office supplies. paper, printers, hole punches, even those tabbed dividers aren't so bad if you think about it. it's when you are forced to spend eight hours a day cataloguing dead people's cancelled insurance that you begin to hate offices.



that's right, a yale composition book. the book itself isn't anything special, but on the back it has all kinds of weird measurements, like, apothecary's measurements, and troy weights and how many roods there are in an acre. for instance, did you know that 100 lbs is 1 cask of raisins? or that 280 lbs of salt makes 1 barrel at the NY state salt works? ... what? you didn't want to know? ... oh. well, poo on you.

i also picked up a fancy shmancy light bulb shaped lamp, but i neglected to take pictures of that before i took it downstairs, and now i'm too lazy to go get it. so, poo on me.