Financial Stress

I hate it when you have unexpected expenses. Especially when they equal $1000 . . .

I just realized a couple weeks ago that we were not getting a Pell Grant this year. I guess I figured we would still get something, now that I'm working full time, but apparently the government thinks $20,000/year is WAY too much to get ANYTHING. So we absolutely got no money this year for school from the government. Well, at least Aaron got a half-tuition scholarship, so that helps.

So when I realized this I applied for a Stafford Loan to pay the rest. I called the Financial Aid office and they told me to fill out a form and they would notify us in 3-5 business days. So we wait 5 business days and then give them a call (we had to call because for reasons I don't want to get in to, we don't have access to our mail box, so I didn't know if they notified us by mail). I'm thinking that we'll call, see if we get approved and then have the money to pay tuition. Well, when we called yesterday we found out there was a whole bunch of other stuff we needed to do to get the loan approved, let alone get the money (that they didn't bother to inform us about when we first called). On top of that, UVSC adds over $200 in "Student Fees". Why this is not included in the tuition, or what it's for, is beyond me. It bugs, though, because the half-tuition scholarship doesn't pay for half of the student fee and so we owe almost $1000 to UVSC by today.

I hate money stress!

What a Busy Weekend!

Well, my weekend was really busy. I had fun, but I get stressed out when I'm around a lot of people for an extended period of time. I have always knew I needed my alone time, but I'm just now realizing that the reason is because otherwise I'm stressed. This worries me somewhat because I know when I have kids, alone time won't exist (except when I get a cherished moment when someone else is taking care of them). I still really want children, though. I think I'll just get somewhat used to the chaoticness, or something.

Anyway, so on Friday, Andrea arrived with Kayla and Natalie because Pat, Tina, and the kids were coming to Provo to take Ashley to BYU. It was fun seeing the girls, and overall, they're very well behaved and have fun with each other, which was good, but it seemed hard to keep them occupied (it doesn't help when we have no toys for them to play with!). I did find that Kayla loves playing games on children's Web sites, and that helped. But Natalie kept bugging her wanting to play Dora the Explorer games. Overall, though, they had fun with that.

We saw Ashley and the family later when we went to her new college apartment. I think she is really excited about starting college, and I'm glad we're nearby to help if she needs it. Saturday was filled with getting her situated and getting groceries to start her off. It takes me back to my first year of college. It's an exciting time, that's for sure! It wasn't till that night, when Andrea and the girls left to go home, that I really got some quiet alone time. It was good to see everyone, but it's good to have your house back, too. Overall, the weekend was really busy!

Scholarship Money!

I'm very excited because last weekend we got a letter from UVSC, the school my husband attends, saying he got a half-tuition scholarship for next year. This is very exciting. I think our Pell Grant will be less this next year because I made more last year and so hopefully with the two combined, we'll have tuition covered! I'm a little surprised he didn't get more considering his GPA, but whatever. Maybe Computer Science doesn't give out full tuition scholarships. As long as we get enough government money, we'll be okay. But I'm so proud of him!

TLE Is Now on Its Own

Well, now that we've officially announced it, I guess I can let you all know that Leading Edge, the magazine I work for, will no longer be associated with BYU's English department beginning this October (once October's issue is back from the printers). 

The English department has decided that their resources are better used for other things. It's been a fight with them for awhile, mostly because they believe science fiction and fantasy are not literary genres and therefore are not worthy of study or funding. This has especially been the case since our major advocates have retired or passed on. We are hoping to keep the magazine going, but will now have to fund ourselves. This is somewhat of a task because just to print the magazine costs us about $3000 a year and we probably only get about $500 in revenue (i.e. subscriptions and selling the magazine). There are other costs involved besides printing, especially now that we're on our own. There is advertising, space to work in, computers and more.

I think what the English department fails to realize is what benefit this magazine has brought to students. It is considered the most professional magazine on campus by many faculty members in both English and editing, and has been around for over 25 years. It has given student real world experience in running the magazine (which has been solely run by students and recent graduates since its inception). It's given students the ability to make decisions on how to run the magazine, how to improve circulation, how to choose stories to publish, and how to edit. Even though we will be disconnected from BYU, we will still be relying on students volunteering to run the magazine, so they will still get this experience, but only as long as we have money to keep the magazine going. And because we accept submissions from all over the world (and I mean that literally--from The Netherlands to Japan), our level of writing is much higher than many college sci-fi and fantasy magazines. If you'd like to see the reaction of current and previous staff members of TLE, check out the thread on Timewaster's Guide Forum.

If anyone would like to support our magazine, the easiest way to do so is to go to www.leadingedgemagazine.com and get information on how to buy a subscription or old issues. Or you can send us a check stating that it's a donation. At the moment we only accept checks, but we are hoping to start accepting credit cards soon. Once we do, we will be adding a link for straight donations. Any donation would be wonderful. Please help keep us alive.

Edit (5/15/06): Well, I guess this was premature. Just a couple of weeks ago the Linguistics and English Language department has decided to take over Leading Edge. Why not before? Because the English department has tried to push student journals off onto the Ling/ELang department before and when Ling/ELang said no, English said, "Fine, we'll keep it." When asked if Ling/Elang would take Leading Edge, they thought it was a bluff just like in the past. It wasn't until they found out that English was going through with giving up Leading Edge that the chair for Ling/ELang said that they would take up Leading Edge. We now have an advisor from that department and are very happy to be staying at BYU. Phew! What a relief.

Life Is Life

Well, I know I haven't posted, but I just really don't know what to postabout. Everything is same old, same old. Aaron is still having a hard semester and struggling to do well. He got a 96% on his American Heritage mid-term, but he still has lots of projects, tests, and 2 papers before the end of the semester and I don't know how he's going to get it all done by then.

Work is same old. My boss hinted that the job for me was approved, but he hasn't opened it up yet. He also hinted that he's planning on hiring me for it, but I won't know till it happens. I don't know what is going on and I'm scared to ask.

Leading Edge is going well. As we get closer to publishing the next issue, I start taking more responsibility on myself. Matt has been good at helping, but I still feel a lot of pressure to do well. I'm excited by the fact that we've already accepted four stories for the next issue (in October) and possibly will have our fifth soon. We usually on publish 4 to 6, so that means we should be ahead on production since we're not waiting on accepting stories so we can start on production. I think this is partially due to Matt and I staying caught up on reading stories that are passed up to us. We make decisions quickly instead of letting them pile up.

Still, no real big news there. Other than that there is not much happening to report on. Sometimes this is a good thing because news can be good or bad, and I want to avoid bad news as much as possible . Can't wait till Aaron's semester ends, though. He's been so stressed!

Update

So Aaron has continued to do well in school. He's had three more tests and received A's on all of them (not even an A-). He also got a 98 percent on his programming project. I'm so proud of how hard he's worked and how well he's done despite feeling like his classes are hard and some of his teachers aren't very good at their jobs.

My job is still doing okay. Costco came to my work to try to get us to sign up for memberships. They had a drawing for some Halloween candle holders, so I entered and won one. Funny huh? I always considered myself unlucky, but I've had a lot of luck lately. First the Dustbuster and now the candle holder. My work is taking all of us to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire next month (the day after it is released). I'm very excited about this. We were planning on going anyway, but this will save us money, although we have to drive 45 min to the theater, so I'm not sure how much it's really saving :). They also provide popcorn and pop, but since it will be at 9 in the morning, I'm not sure I'll be in the mood for those sorts of snacks.

It looks like we won't be able to go home for Christmas. We were planning on it (our parents, his and mine, were planning on paying for the plane tickets), but we weren't able to find a cheap flight and with it being around Christmas, it's extra hard to find flights anyway. So it looks like we're staying in Utah. I guess that's okay, especially since my sister and her family aren't going to be there around Christmas anymore (they're going for Thanksgiving or shortly after). But it still would have been good to go home and see family. I don't think Aaron's too sad, though, because he saw his step-dad and step-brother, and his dad, step-mom, and siblings came in August; his sister and her family are moving here within weeks; and his mom is coming here to visit next month. So he's seen all of his family with the last few months (or will before Christmas). I did see my parents (mom, step-dad, dad, and step-mom) in April, so it's not like it's been that long, but it'd still be nice to go home. Oh, well.

So as I said above, Aaron's sister Andrea and her family are moving to Utah in a few weeks. This weekend she's coming to look at houses. She's asked Aaron to look with her. I think she misses him and wants to spend time with him. I'm interested to see what house she picks and where they'll be living. It will be nice to have her near. And with his other sister Ashley moving here next fall, we'll be surrounded by family. Yeah!

Well, that's all for now.

A++

Aaron just told me that he got a 101 percent on his test! He actually got a 99.5 percent, but his teacher decided to give extra credit for a couple questions that they hadn't gone over in class yet. Since he got them right, he got extra credit! That took him over the 100 percent mark. Congrats to Aaron!

He made the Dean's List

Well, it's official, Aaron made the Dean's List!! We got a certificate from his school in the mail today announcing that he made it on the list. The hard work has paid off!! I never even made on the Dean's list when I was in school. Congratulations to Aaron!