Familiar Stranger syndrome

Recently my dad posted an unearthed radio interview with my Grandfather (for whom I am named.)

Last night I got a chance to listen to it and hearing his strong voice, the constant humor, and the intelligence that was his signature was both wonderful and painful. Wonderful for the gift of knowing him was and painful for the loss.

It seemed to have triggered a round of home-sickness in me and I could feel it creeping on before I went to bed last night, but it is really strong today.

It seems like every glance out of the cornor of my eye, every half-seen silhouette, every half heard conversation is a reflection of someone I know, someone I haven't seen in too long, someone I miss.

Frankly, it sucks.

You spend so much time thinking you have gotten used to it, and to be so strongly and abruptly reminded of it it both distracting and painful. I am lucky at that at least now I have friend down here to blunt the pain but still...

Textbooks redeux and Finaid is in fact still screwed up.

It's taken me almost a week to write this post without swearing.

I had been told several times by several different people that there was now way to get access to my expected financial aid to buy books except to wait for the check, cash it and then buy books with the cash.

They were wrong.

One of the financial aid officers (while I was standing in line) mentioned to another student that his book loan had been approved. When I got to the front of the line I enquired, and for a $30 fee I could take a loan out up to $500 against my expected return.

So I did.

It took them a couple hours to process it and when I got out of class I verified that there were funds on my student account and then marched over to the book store.

Selecting only the needed items brought my total to $416. I happily marched up to the register. Standing in line I overheard people at the front complaining about problems with their cards. I didn't know if they meant their student account cards or credit cards. (See it's helpful to pay attention to your surroundings)

I got to the front, we swiped my card, and it refused to print a receipt giving a "Cannot connect to host" error message. Subsequent attempts to re-ring up the sale were declined at three other registers and the customer service desk. I was the directed to go to the bookstore accounting office in back where they would help me.

This was in fact a lie.

The swiped my card and discovered that I couldn't buy books because I only had $84 on my card. Me being a clever bloke pointed out that $500 - 416 = $84. Please print me off a reciept so I could go.

However the office person would be having none of that. I pointed out that I had already paid for the books, she assured me that the sales droid had canceled the sale (by writing cancel on the error receipt printout) Her solution was that I wait until Wednesday when she would manually refund the money to my card and then I could buy the books then.

10 minutes of arguing ensued...

I won. I won't bore you with the details. But suffice to say I out-stubborned and out-escalated her.

Oh and regarding the financial aid.

Let me present to you two sentances:

"We are waiting for the paper checks from the loan provider"

or

"We failed to fax back the paperwork the loan provider sent us three weeks and they are waiting for us to do our damn jobs so you can get your student loans."


Do these sentences look even remotely alike? Do any of my beloved readers think these sentances have the same meaning?

Because one of them, I have been told every single time I have gone into the financial aid office since class started last week, and the other one is what really happened. I will leave it to you, dear reader, to discern which is which.

Oh, and just to give you the tiniest hint... only one person processes loans in the Finaid office. That person went on vacation the week school started, the single busiest week of the year for them. Anything that wasn't processed before the vacation is only being looked at now.

I swear to god if this keeps up they are going to have to prescribe me anti-psychotics.

Text Book Ruminations

So as I sit here contemplating an unsatisfying bowl of cold ramen before class and wait for my financial aid check to show up I have to consider just how slightly screwed up the situation is.

Now, complaining about text books is one of those universal gripes that all college students have, but considering the lead time between when you are expected to have the books and when you actually get money from the school to buy those books it's particularly irksome. There is no way to transfer money from your loans to your school account before they issue you a refund... you have to wait to get the check, cash it, wait for it to clear the bank (5-7 days if the refund check is over $1000) and THEN transfer money to buy book and supplies.

I guess they expect you to pay for the books out of pocket and reimburse yourself later.

Problem is that I may in fact be setting a new personal record for textbook costs this year. One Architecture class alone has 10 books, 5 required, 3 strongly recommended and 2 optional. If I just buy the required texts for the class I'm at $453. Oh, and one of the books has been out of print for 30 years and they have ~50 copies for a class of 102 students. My language class is going to cost me $134 for books and finally math is $99.

That is $686 just for books. I haven't gotten into the supplies.

I did mention I'm eating Ramen, right? What student has $700 just lying around to blow on books that isn't earmarked for anything else?

And before you ask, there is a copy of the language books in the library, math text is not, and 2 of the 5 Architecture books are available at the library. The other three were checked out (not supposed to be possible) and never returned.

If you will excuse me I have to go sit in my math class and pretend I am following along in a text book I don't have.

FinAid Fixed.

I guess that means I actually get to eat this semester. Wheee.

S.N.A.F.A.F.U.

Situation Normal All Financial Aid Fouled Up.

The local FinAid office has record of my putting in needed paperwork back in May but managed to lose the paperwork. Let me repeat that: they have a record of it being submitted but apparently no-one did anything with it and it has since been lost.

Because I'm paranoid I checked with them a month before classes started, and 15 days before my bill was due just to make sure the ducks were in a row.

They, of course weren't.

So I re-submitted the paperwork in time for their weekly meeting, making sure I included Information A, B and C which I verified with them.

Committee took a look at the information and denied the claim because I didn't include information D and E... which they didn't tell me I needed when I asked.

Resubmitted the paperwork and waited for their weekly meeting again.

And... it was rejected again. Because apparently anytime the paperwork has been rejected by the committee it has to go to the Director instead. So sorry you had to wait a week, we'll get it to her right now so she can look at it.

Everyday since I have called and have been told it is "On her desk and she will look at immediately."

Well, except today, when they told me she will look at it sometime next week. Problem is they only process the Federal financial aid inputs on Thursdays, and bundle up the paperwork on Friday and then it takes 7-10 business days for them to process that, but they only cut check's on Mondays and then it takes ~ 3 days for the check to get the 200 feet from the Accounting office to my P.O. Box. I am not kidding, they mail all the checks offsite and then they get delivered BACK to the university post office.

So at this point, even if she looks at it first thing on Monday (unlikely) the soonest that they would actually process my aid is the 28th, 7 days for accounting to deal with it is the 4th, cut a check on 7th and maybe... just maybe I will have it on the 11th or nearly two weeks after school started.

Why am I doing this again?

Metalsmithing Collected

I realized that all my metal-smithing stuff was sorta scattered around and some people may not realize you can click on the tags below to see all the items.

In any case I collected all the metals schtuff in one place in it's one web folder.

Metalsmithing

If you want to book mark that link or something, I'll try and make sure any additional work I do gets posted there along with the blog archive.

Dog ... in thought.

So I came upstairs to feed the mighty Cinnamon and found her sprawled winsomely at the top of the stairs, clearly exaustesd by the wait. I ran back down and grabbed my camera, but she had moved before I could snap the shot.

The shot with the flash on, although blurry, was too funny not to post.

Comic Con Math

Steam Punk Fan Meetup:

Last Year: 250 people in attendence, room capacity 100.
This Year: 300+ express interest for the fan meetup,6 months of lobbying by the organizer, 400+ in attendance... room capacity 100.

Same exact room as last year.

Perhaps the fact the the Guinesses Book of Worlds record took the "Largest Steampunk Photoshoot" today on the back steps of the con may increase their understanding of the interest.
For the record. I am in the photo, in the back... next to the Steam-punk bunny.

Which What?

Observe:

Finally something goes right.

At a particularly sucky summer for, a variety of reasons I won't go into here, something has gone well.

I passed my Blue-belt test tonight.

Good News bad news Good news...

Good News: at 1am on Tuesday the Emergency room is not particularly busy.

Bad news: There is something in my eye, they can't find it and although it hasn't scratched my cornea it is itchy as hell.

Good News: My insurance covered all the costs except $20. And I get to see how I react to Vicodin.