I want to cry

I should be a couple months shy of graduating. Instead, I keep getting calls from my school about re-enrolling. Each time I have to explain that they let me down by not informing me my Stafford loans had reached their maximum and that no one would approve me for a private loan and I simply can't afford to return just now. Don't they realize that I would have much rather FINISHED my last three classes than basically drop out so close to graduating?! Morons. I am very upset with DeVry.

The girl I started school with in January 2007 is graduating this weekend. I feel like crap.

so much for being a college graduate

I found out this morning that my Federal Stafford loans are maxed out. I can't get any more money from the government. I tried to get a personal loan and I failed. So I had to withdraw from my current classes.

Looks like I won't get getting that degree after all.

Fuck life.

lack of a 'wow' factor

I just finished up my final exam for BIS245. All about the yawn-worthy world of databases. :P Quite frankly, this class was totally boring. I really didn't find myself interested in it at all. Yet, somehow, I've managed to skate through the course effortlessly losing only a mere 10 points in the last seven weeks. So I'm officially 'school-related worry' free for the next three days. Then my two new courses begin. Thankfully one of them only involves the creation of a resume at the end -- no final exam! So I am now ONE final exam, one resume creation, and two class projects short of a Bachelor's degree.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I should be way more excited about this than I am. Maybe when I am fervently applying for graduation and buying my cap and gown, etc etc the excitement will settle in.

For now, I'm more excited about using my sister's new Clarisonic Brush and getting my new spring shirts in the mail from Old Navy.

the end is near

Today I registered for my last full semester in college. At least for now. I'm still on the fence about my Master's degree. I'm not sure what area I want to pursue and I'm happy just having my Bachelor's for a little while. But, yeah. I started on my Bachelor's in January of 2007. It seems like I've been doing the school thing F-O-R-E-V-E-R. I wish I had been unemployed the whole time. I could've taken three and four courses a semester more often (and been done a whole lot quicker)!

So finals open on Saturday. Then my new classes begin on March 2nd. I'll be taking Career Development (basically a class to perfect a resume) and my last Business Information Systems course: Database and Web site Integration. Spring B I'll take my last general ed requirement (a humanities course): Technology, Society, and Culture. Then Summer A I'll enroll to take my final class which is the Senior Project. The Senior Project is a group collaboration assignment of some sort. Apparently it's pretty involved because they won't let students take another course while doing the Senior Project. At the beginning of the Summer semester I'll jump through all the hoops to apply for graduation. Exciting, no?

I'm looking forward to being done. I'm not so much looking forward to paying back the $60k worth of student loans I've accumulated since I started school in October of 2005. I guess the sense of accomplishment and the prospect of a cushy, high paying job is supposed to offset the costs. Somehow I don't think so.

But I'm pretty stoked none the less.

Lissa and the Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

My day started off with my usual three mile walk. As per the norm, I clipped my [brand new] cell phone to the inside of my hoodie pocket. Somehow, someway, I managed to knock it out and it went clattering onto the asphalt. While the new faceplate did take the brunt of the fall, my poor [brand new] Voyager is already scratched.

Damnit.

I got over that fairly quickly only to have the dumb ass working the Arby's drive-thru hand me a bag that was too small for the food I ordered out the drive-thru window, ripping the bag in the process. I would have asked nicely for a new bag but I was already late picking up The Monkey for lunch so I said screw it. Long story short, all but a third of The Monkey's curly fries wound up on the floor board. Then, when I was attempting to clean up the mess my Diet Dr. Pepper sprung open covering my console and my entire right side in the thankfully un-sticky mess. Come to find out the lid that the dumb ass working the drive-thru gave me was cracked and popped loose when I leaned over to clean up the fries.

Mother f*ckers!

I was grouchy all through lunch. Poor Monkey. I managed to get my anger in check with a nice, long, scalding hot shower. Nothing like near-burning your skin to bring about a nice 'warm fuzziness'. (Now I remmeber why I always used to self injure the worst when I was angry -- there's just something about physical pain that dissolves all the emotional GUNK away.) So, in a slightly better mood, I started on my makeup. I was almost finished and went to sit on the bed to put my socks on when I noticed Jasmine lounging peacefully. I pet her on the head and she looked up at me lazily and started purring. Then she got up and stretched then plopped precariously onto her back revealing a nice hole in her tummy. It wasn't bleeding so I contemplated going to Walgreens and picking up some butterfly stitches to hold the skin together and wrapping her in an ACE bandage. In the mean time, I decided the best course of action would be to put her in the kennel and call the vet that did her surgery. Which I did and I tried futilely for a half hour. As it was already dangerously close to 5:00 PM I went ahead and called a local vet instead. They said to bring her in.

Half an hour later (after the poor kitty was poked and prodded and weighed and violated with the butt thermometer) they determined that she needed to be resutured and to do so they had to anesthize her again. I walked out with a semi-healthy cat, $160 poorer. Needless to say, I was not happy. This time around they put a lampshade collar on her to keep her from chewing out these sutures. She has to wear it for a week. I am so pissed that the vet didn't do this initially but the girl said it's really not a standard practice for cats. I didn't have this problem with Olivia or William when they got fixed and declawed so this was really unexpected. Thank heavens the vet accepts Care Credit although now we went from having $0 balances on all but one of our credit cards to only having a $0 balance on one. I'm waiting for something to happen to one of my or The Monkey's tires. Then we'll have a $0 balance on none.



She looks pretty pissed, huh?



Poor kitty!

I am very irritated with this whole situation and having to pay $160 that we really do not have. My sister has been talking about the electric and water bills a lot more lately and I feel like she's hinting around wanting us to chip in. I feel like shit that we really don't have the extra cash to chip in. I thought about giving her some money when we get our tax return but The Monkey STILL hasn't gotten his W2 yet. ARRRGH! Depending on how much we get back, I'd like to throw at least $300 my sister's way. I know it's really not much but there's not much else we can do. We're going to need that money to fall back on for other things. Like groceries. I do not like living like this. I do not want to live like this. I do not want to be sitting at my computer wearing gloves with a blanket draped over me just to keep from freezing. I do not like feeling USELESS and WORTHLESS and POINTLESS all. the. freaking. time. I am tired of the mood swings. I am already sick and tired of the meds and how the Lithium makes my stomach feel like it is in a perpetual knot and I hate that even the micro-dose of Zyprexa has me sleeping 12 hours against my will. (I won't even go in on the food cravings and how my weight is not BUDGING even though I am doing my best to eat less, drink more water, and exercise daily.)

On my to-do list this week:

1. Start looking into getting paid to blog. Since I do it almost daily anyway, why not try to make some extra cash?? Even an extra $100 a month would be a huge help at this point.


2. Find out whether or not we qualify for any other assistance while we're waiting for my SSD appeal.


3. Call my school and see about getting them to credit back the finance charges they tacked onto my bill. (I owe them around $200, they charged me finance charges for for the $6,000+ that was on my account for two months because my student loans too almost the entire semester to post to my account. I am NOT paying interest on $6,000+ dollars!!)


4. See what I can do about registering for next semester -- hopefully my FINAL semester.


5. Try to think of good reasons to keep on living.

On top of everything else, I caught my niece's cold. So now I'm stuffy, sneezy, achey, blah blah blah...

Now I am going to get off of this thing so The Monkey can play WarCrack for a little while and I'm going to attempt to give myself carpel tunnel from playing Guitar Hero on Hyperspeed.

cruisin' along '09

So the month of January comes to a close. I'll be the first to admit that 2009 has been very kind to me and mine thus far. I can't think of one significant thing to complain about. (There are plenty of minor things, mostly inconveniences that really don't merit blog time.)

School, at this point, is mostly yawn-worthy. I'm taking a class that is sort of a hybrid of two classes I've already taken. So, essentially, everything we're doing is 'review' and I haven't really had to put forth much effort to keep my grade at a high A. I also had my academic advisor run a graduation audit for me. The results came as quite a shock. According to them (and I'm still waiting on confirmation that they haven't flubbed something up) I only have THREE more classes (equal to eight credit hours) until I graduate! This is me doing the freaking Snoopy Dance like you've never seen me do the Snoopy Dance before! I have a Humanities class to take (Technology, Society & Culture), a Career Development course, and my final class will be the Senior Project. If the graduation audit is correct I will be finished with school by summer time! However I suspect they made a mistake because, according to my well-kept records, I still have two concentration courses to take -- Database and Website Integration and Integrated Computer Applications. I'm kind of on the fence as to what I want the answer to my inquiry to be. On one hand I am greatly looking forward to graduating and putting school behind me for a while. On the other hand the sooner school ends, the sooner I will have to start paying back my school loans. I peeked at one of my recent statements and, though it was expected, the $60k balance threw me for a loop. I'm guessing my loan payments are going to run me somewhere close to $300 a month and we're just not in a place financially where that is feasible. So the longer I stay in school the longer I can put that off. (Of course, that also means interest is going to keep accruing which is another dilemma I am facing. Gah!) Once I graduate, though, I fully intend on looking into a consolidation program with a low interest rate. I still have to make a firm decision on graduate school. I do want to get a Masters but it seems kind of wasteful at the moment. But if I'm not going to be working I may wind up qualifying for grants to help pay for my Masters and the program shouldn't take me much longer than a year to complete. Then I could potentially re-enter the job market with a very strong academic background indeed. A lot can change in six months so it really doesn't make much sense for me to make myself crazy over the details right now.

So this week my Banana-shaped friend and I walked 12-ish miles. I feel great. I'm definitely more energized. I've also been taking a low dose of Zyprexa every night which has helped me sleep well for the most part. Last night I woke up at 2:30 in the morning (after falling asleep just after 1:00) ready to do something. Normally when I wake up in the middle of the night I toss and turn for a few then eventually fall back asleep. Last night was different, though. I woke up and felt like I could run a mile or drive to the coast. I settled on browsing the Internet instead. I was on eBay for about an hour and came ohsoclose to buying a lot of makeup that I don't need/can't afford. Call it an act of God or what have you, but The Monkey actually woke up in the middle of my [almost] shopping spree and sent me back to bed. Drat! (Ok, ok... I know it was a good thing he woke up. But oh how I would've loved to have some Afterglow blush and four new eyeshadow singles and two new palettes -- all by Urban Decay -- to add to my makeup collection! :P)

I think manias are so much more difficult for people to grasp/understand/deal with. I mean, a depressed person is quite obviously unwell. In my case I am lethargic, almost bed-ridden, weepy, and full of 'doom and gloom' as it were. But with mania, it's a little difficult to register the fact that I am not, in fact, doing well but am, in fact, dealing with the opposite end of my illness. I'm cheerfulness and happiness abounding. I'm talkative and social. Full of energy with life coursing heavily through my veins. I am very much alive. I have ideas -- so many ideas -- that it's hard to channel my energy into any one direction. How do I chose?? (This is one reason I've started keeping the makeup blog -- it's a specific way to 'channel' all my manic energy.) And anyone on the outside looking in may find it easy to look at me and think that I am well when I really, really am not. The surface of things can be monumentally deceiving. While I'd much rather be manic than depressed any day I'm trying to get to a point where I recognize what is happening and instead of just 'enjoying the ride' I am trying to find ways of centering/grounding/focusing myself so that I don't fall off the deep end and get lost in the manic frenzies. Because manic, like depressed, is not good.

I need to start aiming towards euthymic.

ride the walrus!

I've been riding a nice steady wave of mild hypomania for days. It broke briefly on my birthday during which I sobbed uncontrollably for an hour before pasting a fake smile on my face long enough for my husband, sister and family to sing me happy birthday and eat cake and icecream. I must say that it's a pleasant change from my 'norm' which tends more toward depressive states rittled with anxiety and aggression/irritibility.

I did something kinda, sorta stupid today. I went shopping. ACK! I had a nice time with my sister, though. I woke up super early (after only a few hours of sleep) and got dressed, primped and pressed for a day of shopping in Dothan. We hit up Target first (hooray for Starbucks!) and then we went to Kohl's, Walmart, Old Navy, and the mall. Honestly, as far as manic-fueled shopping sprees go, this one was pretty tame. I found some PJs on sale at Target, a car charger for my iPod for $5 bucks, and two three packs of Argyle socks for $6 bucks each at Target. I followed my sister around in Kohl's and managed to distract myself from their massive pre-Christmas everything sale (jewelry, clothes, and shoes... oh my!) by playing the hand-held game 20Q - TV Edition. In Walmart I found a pair of Happy Bunny fleece PJs but managed to talk myself out of them. In Old Navy - my infinite weakness because I love their clothes AND I have an Old Navy credit card - I managed to walk out only spending $10 on a really cute long-sleeved t-shirt. What can I say, it was on sale, and the last one they had and it just so happened to be in my size. It was totally meant to be, damnit! I was doing fabulously well controlling myself in the mall until we went into Pacific Sun. On the surface, it appears to be a skinny-girl store but their XL tops actually fit me! So, I wound up buying four v-neck long sleeved t-shirts there, too. They were only $6 bucks a piece so it really wasn't a horrible expenditure either. All in all, I spent around $55 bucks, total.

Try as I may, I have been completely unable to find a bathrobe ANYWHERE. I looked in Target, Walmart, Kohl's, JC Penney's, Old Navy, and Dillards and all I can manage to find are fleece house coats! UGH. I want a bathrobe made of terry cloth so I can throw it on right out of the shower while I'm still wet and use it as nature intended -- as a robe-shaped bath towel. My current bathrobe is falling apart and doesn't quite close around my body since I've gained about 20 pounds since Tony bought it for me. But whatever.

Shopping isn't quite finished. I didn't get any Christmas shopping done today, unfortunately. I think I'm going to buy my sister a couple of belly rings, my mom a couple of Urban Decay eyeshadows, my niece some pajamas (at her request), my nephew a DVD (The Dark Knight), my other nephew a Nirvana hoodie, The Monkey World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and a new 60 game pass, Madison a toy or an outfit, and my dad a gift card. I'll have to consult with my sister to figure out something for my BIL. Oy.

In other news, I found a couple of my good friends from High School on Facebook yesterday! I was freaking ecstatic to finally get in touch with them after more than five years! I didn't have many friends in High School but the few that I did have were really wonderful and it's nice to be in touch with them after all these years.

Hmm. Time to go lie down and curl up under the covers. It's freaking COLD out tonight! Very windy with some rain. Not bad holiday weather for LA ('Lower Alabama'). Tomorrow is Friday (already!) and I need to buckle down and knock out my homework so I can clear my schedule for finals this coming week. Thank goodness we have a two week break after these classes! It's definitely needed.

I hope I can sleep tonight. I have a sneaking suspicion that my hypomanic 'wave' is being fueled by sleep deprivation. :-P

just a few random snippets

I've already crashed from my manic high. No surprise there. I think the longest [euphoric] manic episode I've experienced was a couple of weeks. Mostly I'm lucky if the happy-happy, joy-joy feelings last for a day or two. I was sailing for about 36 hours this time.

I'm trying to do some research on medications so I can be prepared for my pdoc appointment on the 18th of December. I already know I don't want to go back on Lithium because Lithium is primarily an anti-manic and doesn't have significant antidepressant qualities. Lamictal, on the other hand, has significant antidepressant qualities but is a really, REALLY fickle medication. It carries a significant risk of a potentially fatal rash called Stevens-Johnson syndrome and titration takes a month or longer. Plus the side effects are questionable. The two I'm most worried about are, primarily, body aches and headaches. Since I stopped working I've had very few headaches. In the past seven months I think I've had three migraines. This is a phenomenal change! The thought of being on a med that causes headaches scares the crap out of me. Then there's good ol' Dopamax (Topamax). Another slow titration drug that causes my mood to get even WACKIER before it actually stabilizes. (It also takes about a month to get to my theraputic dose of 150mg.) Topamax does have some perks (mainly the weight loss "side effect") but it has a LOT of wacky side effects. Tingling in the hands, feet, and face. Aphasia. General dopey-headedness (though I never got this side effect too badly). And, the wackiest of them all - making carbonated drinks taste like CRAP. No more diet soda for me. :-/ The worst side effect of Topamax is the hair loss. My hair started coming out in clumps, unfortunately. Not to mention, the hair itself thinned out dramatically. I'm really not sure, at this point, what I'm going to ask for. The only two meds I know for certain are a no go are Lithium and Depakote.

Our trip to Dothan was actually pretty nice. We stopped at Personnel Resources (a temp agency setup) first and got The Monkey registered there. They immediately said something about a collector's position (in Dothan) but they had to consult with the company before they could say whether or not he'd be a good candidate. We were hoping for a call back that afternoon but it never came. So, we called the next day and they said the company declined to interview because they didn't feel The Monkey had sufficient sales drive. [eyeroll] However, we did stop by Farmer's Furniture that afternoon as well and spoke to the manager of the store. (FYI - The Monkey was working for Farmer's as the Credit Manager in Enterprise in 2003 when we met. He can't get back on at Farmer's in Enterprise, though, because my mom works there. Conflict of interest. Meh.) At any rate, he put in his app with Farmer's in Dothan. After the brief, but fairly productive, job hunt, we stopped at Barnes & Noble for Starbucks and I picked up a couple of books.

Last night we got a call from the Dothan Farmer's Furniture manager asking The Monkey to come in for an interview this afternoon. [snoopy dance] It looks really promising. He'll be starting off as a collector and the hours are kind of jacked up but at least it's a job. The manager, thankfully, remembers Tony from his Credit Manager days in Enterprise and, apparently, the current Credit Manager in Dothan isn't working out so well and there's a very good chance she'll be out of there in the next 30-60 days. If The Monkey gets hired as the collector, he can step up to the Credit Manager position if/when the current one gets booted. (According to the store manager, she's just too nice for collections; not assertive enough with the customers to get them to come in and pay on time.) If that happens, The Monkey will get a nice pay increase. We're keeping our fingers crossed!

All in all the week has been decent. I finished reading one of my books and I'm half way through the second one I bought. I need to get cracking on my homework, though. I have a website to setup on the topic "Blogging: A fad or here to stay?" on top of having a midterm in my other class. I got my lab for Web Development finished yesterday but I still have to take this week's quiz. Drat.

I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. I'm craving turkey and sweet potatoes like nobody's business. My mom just needs to get the grocery list together so we can go shopping! We're really bad with waiting until the last minute. :-P

life in autumn

I absolutely love October. I love the constant flux of temperatures. Mostly I love the cold days. Halloween is my favorite holiday. I take regular trips down the holiday aisles in drug stores, grocery stores, and Wal-Mart. I love the traditions, the breeze, the colors, the smells. This year, however, we won't be having our annual Halloween party. My grandmother is still very ill and my parents just don't seem to be 'into' the idea of throwing our annual bash. No creepy decorations. No costumes. No cupcakes. No candy. No Jell-O shots. I feel like I'm being gyped of my favorite time of year. :( But oh well.

We did go to the Haunted House on post this weekend. We took all the kids, waited in line for two hours, and FINALLY got to the door. We had an escort because the setup was a series of tents that you had to step in and out of carefully and they didn't want to risk anyone falling and getting hurt. For the price (two canned goods) they put on a really good show. My nephew David got a really good scare before we even got to the second tent and was pretty much done after that. Poor guy! I'm not a huge fan of haunted houses because I generally don't enjoy being scared but this one was very tame and I spent the entire time marvelling the props and actors rather than being scared. We're talking about taking a trip out to Dothan this week to go to Jaycee's Haunted House which is a much scarier setup. It's set in a house that's more than 100 years old and apparently this house has some 'history' as well. The windows are all boarded up, the paint is cracked and peeling, and it just looks spooky without anything else being done to it. I've heard (pardon the pun) horror stories about it and I'm half curious, half scared to check it out. We'll see. The only other traditions we have left are trick-or-treating and the Peanut Festival. I've been in Alabama for five years and have never bothered with the Peanut Festival because I'm not into carnival rides, country music, or large crowds. I probably won't bother this year, either. The kids are going trick-or-treating on Friday night but Tony and I will probably just sit at the house and possibly hand out candy.

On the religious front, I'm not sure what I'm going to do for Samhain this year. I need to fish my book out of storage. I'll probably do a small, private ritual and bake some spice cake (or cupcakes) and drink cider. I wish I could go to California for the weekend, honestly.

In other news, the fall semester has begun. For Fall A I'm taking Principles of Web Development and Business Systems Analysis. I'm very excited about the Web Development course! But I'm not so excited about taking two courses at once. I haven't taken two at the same time in almost a year. So I'm a little nervous that I'm going to get overwhelmed. Thankfully, there is only one midterm (Business Systems Analysis) but we'll see how taking two final exams goes in week eight.

I guess all is well. I have an appointment with SpectraCare tomorrow to find out about mental health care. I suppose this is good. My mood is crazy all over the place so, yeah. Tony is still looking for work. November 7th is when his unemployment officially ends. I colored my hair this weekend with L'Oreal Feria's "Chocolate Cherry". It's a very rich burgandy-ish brown that boasts wine-red highlights in the sun. Very fall. Very me. I love it! Pictures to follow at some point.

how goes it, sunshine?

So I haven't updated in a month. I haven't updated properly in longer than a month. I guess I really don't have much to say lately.

Living with my sister is going remarkably well. Sure, it's not the ideal living situation, but it's working. Right now The Monkey and I aren't really actively looking for work. I know, shame on us, but we've been enjoying each other's company and The Monkey is drawing unemployment and it's enough to pay our bills so we've both had the "why bother" attitude towards work. It's like being on summer vacation! A vacation that will soon be ending because we do need to work and find our own place to live and get back to being responsible adults again.

One of my primary concerns right now is getting some kind of medical insurance for the two of us. I've never gone this long without medical insurance. I've pretty much stopped all my meds which isn't going as well as I'd hoped. I'd hoped that being minus the stress and anxiety from my job that meds wouldn't be such an issue. I was wrong. I have spent the last week or so pretty much down and out. I sleep a lot. (Which I always feel incredibly guilty for afterwards.) I don't miss being on Lithium. I doubt I'll go back on it when I do have medical coverage again. I'm having more mood swings lately. I guess that's all to be expected being off meds.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what I want out of life. I can't say that I'm completely satisfied with not having kids because that's not true. I still want children or, at least, one child. But I'm content enough waiting until I'm 30, I guess. No point in worrying over something I have no control over. I want a house. I want furniture to put in that house. I want a good job related to my field of study. I want my husband to get a good job that he's not miserable at. I want to pay off our cars and get rid of that little bit of debt. (For the most part, we are debt free. We only have one credit card that we're paying on and our cars. Other than that, we have student loans but that's it.) I want all of these seemingly achievable goals but it seems like it's going to take forever to get there.

I'm back in school also. At first, I'll admit, that I didn't want to keep going. After my biology course I felt drained. We had a two week break afterwards and it was heavenly not having to worry about classes and assignments and grades for that two weeks. But now that I'm back at it, it's kind of nice. At least I don't feel like a complete layabout. I'm taking Principles of Small Systems. It's a computer course and it's basically repeat of a course I took this time last year so it has been remarkably easy. My standing grade is a 100%. Of course, we are only in week three. I calculated my cumulative GPA recently and found that I have a 3.79 average. I have to have at least a 3.90 to graduate Summa Cum Laude so I'm hell bent on getting straight A's from now until graduation. If I do, I should walk with highest honors. I find myself daydreaming about graduation day. I didn't graduate high school so this will be my first time wearing a cap and gown. I'm looking forward to it. 20 more credit hours to go and I'm FINISHED! It seems like so much yet so little.

therapy 101

So my session yesterday wasn't too bad. I really wasn't feeling particularly down anymore and it's so hard to say "I was feeling depressed two days ago, but now I feel okay." without feeling like a complete moron. But I told her anyway and, if necessary, we'll look at shifting some meds around. I'm hoping restarting the Topamax will be the ultimate "boost" that I need to stay moodswing free for a while at least.

We also discussed TTC. She stays up on that because that is the primary reason I started going to therapy. I was just tired of being so bitter towards other women. Anyhow, we talked about a few different things and then she brought up that she has another patient that has been TTC for about seven years. So now she's looking into starting a support group for infertile women! I'm very excited! It may take a while but the prospect of meeting people that are going through the same thing I am is really encouraging. Not that I'd wish IF on anyone, but it's nice to know you're not alone. I have all my online friends and I love and appreciate you very much, but nothing compares to having someone to talk to IRL. (If I lived closer to Birmingham, this wouldn't be a problem. [le sigh])

In other news, school is stressing me out to no end. This class is a lot harder than I expected. Hmmph. Programming can bite me, I just want to get to the web developing!! My next class is going to be my second and final math class. That should be a nice eight weeks. (It's all self-paced so I could finish it in two weeks and have six weeks off! Or something similar, you get the picture.) Following that I'll be taking either Biology or Astronomy. I haven't decided which. I'm leaning more towards Biology because I'm good at Biology. But Astronomy seems so interesting and I love looking at the stars. So I guess we'll see.

I also need to do my FAFSA which means I need to file our taxes. Tony and I both got our W2s back so it's time! If the 2007 H&R Block Tax Estimator is right, we'll be getting around $4,000 back this year. w00t w00t! This excites me to no end. We are going to get a new mattress and box spring, pay off the WaMu credit card and still have some money left over. Hooray! I'm really looking forward to being mostly debt free again.