I have started this entry about 10 times in the last week.
Blogger keeps drafts of my efforts, all epic failures and pieces of crap. I am uninspired and feel I have nothing to say which won't come off like I'm some sort of cry baby. That doesn't mean nothing is going on in our lives. So I'm making a Herculean effort this morning to not crawl back into bed now that Geoff and Doug are gone, and write a journal entry.
Since last I posted, we have not gone back to snowboard, but we did get 2 feet of snow. It snowed like mad and Geoff had two snow days in a row, something that never happens with our school district. I was surprised by the second day's closure... I thought the roads were okay but I guess our administration didn't. Geoff didn't complain.
It is snowing again, I guess we are expecting 2-4 inches and then a half inch of ice. This should be interesting.
We got some paperwork from the credit bureaus and a series of contradictory form letters from BOA which show they have no idea what they even are sending out to their customers. No we won't talk to your lawyer, yes we will talk to your lawyer but only after you confirm your mailing address (which we are ironically mailing this letter to you at) and yes we'll talk to your lawyer. I hate them. I hate them with a white hot burning passion of 10,000 suns. I have broken out in hives, my skin is bumpy and rashy. I am not sleeping well. I wake up in the middle of the night in a panic after series of inappropriate dreams that leave me feeling as if I've done something wrong. I have to repeatedly tell myself "you're just dreaming, you're just dreaming..." as I lay there waiting for the morning.
My mission today is to get all of the documents down to the lawyer. I would like to make photo copies and then swing by his office and slide them under the door if they're not there but I let Doug take the "safe in the snow" car to work, and I don't like driving the Passat in the snow. It gets stuck in a centimeter of precipitation. It shouldn't, but it does. But I need to do this, so ... meh?
I also need to look into ways to get Jessica to be an independent student and a Pennsylvania state resident so we can reduce the cost of her college tuition. I have to do her next FAFSA, and we don't have our tax forms yet so that makes it a little difficult. The deadline is February 1st for this, I don't know why they do that to people -- honestly. I had called them last year and they told me to "guess" my salary totals if I didn't know.
Why not just make the deadline March 1st? By then everyone will have their tax forms in hand, right? I wish I ran the country. That's one decision I'd make to fix the world.
So we have to figure out what establishes someone as a state resident. Do dorm addresses count? Does she need to use another address, like grandma and grampa's house? How long does it take before she's established as an in-state resident? What is the implication of us not declaring her on our taxes? If we declare her this year, it impacts her for the year upcoming... but if we don't declare her as a dependent, do we get screwed financially? And she WAS our dependent last year. How the hell does this work?
I remember going through this myself, and my mom declaring me on her taxes while I was a college student and it kind of messing me up. I was living in Massachusettes, not New York. I had a job, an apartment, and I was not receiving money from her. She wasn't paying my rent or utilities or tuition... but she declared me as a dependent and then I didn't get any money at all. I remember it clearly because I went to the Oregon Extension that year (1988) and they handed me a bill for over $20,000 for me to be there. I was already there. And I couldn't pay the bill.
It was a hard time. And I want Jess to have an easier time of it.
We also need to look into scholarships for studying foreign languages. A professor in the languages department that we talked to last year said there is "tons and tons of money" for people studying foreign languages. But I can't find any that are not SCHOOL SPECIFIC. So I'm frustrated by this as well.
Another issue is her inability, either through refusal or lack of desire or cluelessness, to get a job. She states that she has gone into several establishments and filled out applications, but that she never gets called back. She is a pain in the ass because she refuses to work with children and/or food. I understand that. Children are annoying and working with food is gross. BUT those are the jobs available to someone who is 18 and has no experience doing anything. When I was her age I was working for a cleaning service, working food service, and then I managed a bakery. I had to work with a lot of food. Get over it. Get a job. Do something.
I told her that she needs to go to the University Student Employment office and find a job this semester. I get the "yeah, yeah, yeah, lady" thing from her but I don't know if she realizes how incredibly serious it is for her to get a damn job and contribute to things financially.
My in-laws co-signed on her student loan for this year (because we could not, due to what is going on with BOA and what it has done to our credit rating) and they called me last night upset that interest is already accruing on the loan. And that the interest rate is 8%. My father in law said "this is going to BURY her by the time she is done with school!"
Yeah. I KNOW.
I think that it was my hope when she got there that my friend Liz would farm her out to people in the arts community that she knows, people who need office help for a couple afternoons a week... something, just to get her a little money. That didn't pan out and I think that Jess has simply NOT been engaged in WANTING a job. She's getting used to the city and finding friends and studying (her grades were great last semester)... and this is all fine and good but I honestly do not think we can send her back there next year unless we get the tuition lower, get her some sort of assistance or scholarship, and get her engaged in working.
No one is beating on her door to offer her jobs; she has no experience at anything. She did work for my co-worker MB doing filing and burning CDs for archiving. It was all stuff she can do and she did well. But she has literally no experience doing anything. Hell, no one is beating down MY door to give me a job and I have over ten years experience and in fact have a LIFETIME of experience. And unlike my daughter, I'm willing to do anything. Within reason.
On that topic, the job that I interviewed for at the beginning of December still hasn't gotten back to me pro or con whether or not I'm still a candidate. The guy had told me "I'll bring you in for an in-person interview after the holidays," and yeah... he has never called back. So either he found a much better candidate or he has gotten distracted with the day-to-day work and just hasn't made a decision yet.
I was a bit negative on the whole going to Boston for work thing, but the more I thought about the prospect the more comfortable I got with it. And now, I have a feeling I'll never know.
So this has turned out to be a long winded whinge, hasn't it? I feel so defeated, and I'm hoping that the words of the great Bruce Springsteen will ring true soon. "Someday we'll look back on this and it wall all seem funny."
Right now though, I kind of don't think so.
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