student loans

You know, student loans are a pretty glorious thing. Without them I never would have been able to go to school. Sure, I think university education should be free in the US, but it's not. And students loans are very helpful.

I still owed on my undergrad when I had to borrow a lot to complete my teaching certificate program. But my masters and PhD work - I wrote a check for all that tuition, while I was plugging away at paying off my student loans.

And I did. When I sold my house, I paid off the last ones. A few thousand had been forgiven because of teaching in challenge schools in California, but mostly I just worked a lot and paid them off.

Today I got a familiar envelope in the mail from Sallie Mae. Sallie and me, we're jolly good friends. And she offered to lower my interest rate 2.4% if I do certain things for her.

That's lowering 2.4% on a loan for so far exactly $42,000. Yes, blog fans, I'm already in debt $42,000. If I were to quit law school now (which more than a couple have done), it would take me years to pay it off as a teacher. If I were to teach in Louisiana, it would take me decades.

Mind you, I have a scholarship for $7500 per year. It's not the big-ass scholarships that my friends all got, but I didn't expect any money, applying as I did just a couple months before school started. And that scholarship is not currently in jeopardy, thank you Professor Crim Law.

By the way, my GPA is just below 33%. So, am I, say, a 36%er?

Oh, and I had surgery on my head today. Um, sort of. Minor surgery to remove sebaceous cysts from my scalp. She was a way nice doctor and explained every single thing she was doing, but honestly I don't really want to know when the scalpel is slicing into my head and when there are loads of fluid flowing right out and that the sac is like a grape.

And I'm feeling a little over Amazon now. Yeah, I know, the love affair was short and I still have piles of books. But it's starting to annoy me, the constant attention. And I'm running out of paper bags to wrap them in.