August 11, 2010

  • School Starting Back

    I'm feelin' pretty good about myself -- I actually made a goal and I followed through with it. Last week, I planned on going to the school around Monday or Tuesday. A while back I had documents that were incomplete and I spent a little while preparing those documents, making copies, and sending them in a nice envelope. Everything was going good until I went to my school to figure out why those documents were still incomplete.

    On Tuesday, August 10th, 2010, I woke up early to arrive at my school before 8:00 AM. Supposedly my school opens up at 8:00 AM and it would be a smart choice to get to the school early so other students wouldn't pile in and cause me to wait in line for 30+ minutes to answer questions that will only take a couple minutes to verify and answer. I was motivated to go to school because I could take my car out for a spin, enjoy the comfort of sitting in my own vehicle, driving my own vehicle, and testing whether the engine overheats.

    The first time I walked in the financial aid office, around 8:04 AM, I signed up to be in the line to ask questions. I waited for about five minutes and decided to go over to student accounts to verify that I owed 98 dollars and to get my class schedule. I usually go to one female because she's usually wearing semi-attractive clothing. From my angle of view, her cleavage sticks out a mile from her body and I find myself staring secretly at her boobs. She's not physically attractive, mind you, but she's really nice and she's usually the only student account's person that is available to talk to. I don't go over to her just because she has "the big jugs", I swear!

    After I verified the 98 dollars, which I'm not really happy about but thankful for not having to pay more than that, I went over to the financial aid office and waited a little while before my name was called. She asked me to fill out some paperwork, and she showed me where my dad didn't complete his 2009 tax return. Everything else was correct, but he forgot his signature. His signature set me back and delayed my FAFSA from completing.

    I went to the bookstore after I finished with financial aid and asked the cashiers for the red booklet that showed me which books I needed for which class. They claimed to have no idea what I was talking about. Perhaps I wasn't asking for the right color binder, or something, and so it was an awkward situation when they looked at me as if I was on crack. They said that I can order my books online, but I'm pretty sure the books don't list the UPC number. The UPC number is the most important number on a book when you plan on buying your books online from Amazon, eBay, or some kind of online store. You should never buy directly from your school store unless absolutely necessary. After being a student in GPC for 2 semesters, I looked at them like they were on crack and thanked them anyways for the help as I left.

    After I got back home, I quickly swooped up a copy of my dad's 2009 tax return with a signed signature and drove back to GPC. When I walked back into the financial aid office, things got a little bit interesting. Before I left the first time at GPC, the financial aid person said that the HOPE scholarship was paying for my tuition. At the time, nothing really rang a bell and I just dismissed it. When I was driving back to GPC the second time, I realized that I didn't know what the heck she was talking about. I skipped the entire line and gave her my completed document and went straight to the lady who helped me at student accounts. She explained further that my tuition was being covered by the HOPE scholarship because my FAFSA wasn't completed. Because I visited my school's financial site, it said that my HOPE was 2,150 dollars. What puzzled me was...why in the world, if my college expenses equaled up to 1200 something dollars, why did I owe 98 dollars if my HOPE would've covered it and more? The spent a long time trying to explain to me that, basically, my HOPE is acting like my FAFSA. FAFSA only covers most of the money that I need for tuition, therefore that 700-800 dollars that I thought was left over in my account never existed. She said that the HOPE would've covered for me up to 2,000 dollars, but because it is acting in place of my financial aid, it is only covering for what it has to. She said that if I was going to get any money, it would be from the pell grant. At this point in time, that amount could be anything, and I won't be expecting any money until the beginning of September. The bad thing isn't that I have no clue how much money I'm getting, if any, it's the fact that I'm in some serious debt right now. I relied on that 2,000 dollars that the HOPE was going to give me, but since my dad failed to sign his name on his 2009 tax return...it screwed up the financial aid process.

    Next month, I planned on buying another 6 months of car insurance. That would've been 500-600 dollars. I already owe my dad just above 1,300 dollars for the computer parts to build my computer. That's 1,900 dollars...which means that I only have 100 dollars left over. Today, my friend's brother is coming over to build the computer -- most likely a labor fee of 50 dollars. That's about 1,950 dollars. I used my grandfather's check to pay for the 98 dollars. So that's over 2,000 dollars. The real problem is that my car needs a water pump: the part itself is around 75 dollars, and the labor is 200-300 dollars. If I get less than 2,000 dollars from the pell grant, then I will be financially screwed.

    But I kind of like to be optimistic; at least I'm going to have a really nice computer to play plenty of games on without a problem, to do my school work so that I can maintain the HOPE scholarship, and I won't have to worry about my computer messing up. I did attempt to build my computer, and I did take pictures of what I did do, but all that information including the end result of the final build will be on my next entry.

    So, stay tuned my friends.