This is why college sucks.

Written on August 7, 2011. Posted in Ranting, School. 1 Comment.

You know, nothing really beats coming back from vacation (Hatteras Island, as per usual, with 30 of my closest relatives) than getting out my debit card an hour after arriving home and shelling out almost $600.00 for college textbooks. Really, there’s nothing like it in the world. Well, maybe going to the accounting office the next Monday to hand over a $4500.00 check will. That remains to be seen.

It makes me sad to think that even with all of my scholarships, I’m still having trouble paying for college. (Granted, this is completely sans loans, but still.) What do kids who have to pay full price for tuition do? How do they manage? Most in-state, public schools are at least $25,000 a year. Private institutions can be almost twice that much.  When it’s almost impossible to get anywhere in life without at least some graduate school- let alone a bachelor’s degree- it’s not really surprising that no one these days has any money.

It kind of makes a person wonder if a basic liberal arts degree is even worth it any more- wouldn’t it be better just to enter the job market straight out of high school and start earning a living? For a lot of people, it probably would- unfortunately, college isn’t really considered an option any more- for all but the worst high school students, it’s like a required step. Not everyone is made for college- for some, it’s just a waste of money. A lot of money, as the case may be.

Eh, I don’t really know where this thought train is supposed to lead- maybe high schools should stop pushing kids who really shouldn’t go to college to apply anyway?  Maybe college should be less expensive? (Given the amount of money that was in my bank account two days ago versus the amount of money that will be in my bank account tomorrow, definitely. Don’t get me wrong, though, I’m definitely grateful for my scholarships. If I didn’t have them, I would probably be crying right about now.) But really, I just wanted to whine about both my empty bank account and how school will be starting again in two short weeks. Where did summer go, anyway?

The Dinosaur, AKA my air conditioner

Written on July 10, 2011. Posted in Ranting, Summer. 3 Comments.

Summer is not a comfortable time for me. It never was. And it wouldn’t be for you, either, if your house was located in suburban Maryland, where temperatures frequently hit the mid 90′s, and yet contains no central air conditioning. (Although, to be fair, the poor thing was built in the 1800′s, when they didn’t bother to build the walls wide enough to allow for AC ducts. I wonder why.)

For pretty much- no, actually, my whole life, the middle of June has signified that it’s time to get down the window AC units. In the past few years, all of the window air conditioners have been replaced by shiny new ones, with a single exception- the one in my bedroom. This is slightly ironic, because I’m pretty sure mine was the oldest one to begin with. The thing was manufactured sometime in the 1970′s. Yes, really. The plastic parts had long gone from a white to a yellow-brownish color, and the front was a hideous faux-wood type pattern.

The sides of the air conditioner had long rotted away, so in order to keep out the hot air, I had to shove old towels in the gap between the air conditioner and the edge of my window frame.

Aside from being visually hideous, something I didn’t appreciate but could certainly put up with, a year ago, the air conditioner lost its ability to properly drain itself. As a result, whenever I would turn on the air conditioner, it would spew little drops of water everywhere. But when it’s 87 degrees in your bedroom and all you want to do is sleep, are you really NOT going to turn on the air conditioner, no matter what kind of filth it spits out? Yeah, didn’t think so. But of late, the air conditioner had gotten so bad that my entire carpet ended up soaked and the paint on my windowsill is bubbling up from being constantly soaked. This despite the 3-4 towels that I constantly had shoved underneath it.

But there is good news to report: “The Dinosaur” has been gone from my window for three whole days. Actually, my dad, after putting up with three days of whining with relative grace (Me: “It’s so hot, when are you going to install my new air conditioner?” Dad: “It’s *checks thermostat* only 83 degrees in your bedroom, that’s not hot!” Me: “Buuuut…..”) just installed it. I would say I helped, but the only thing that he asked me to do was run out to the pool house to get a Phillips screwdriver, and I couldn’t even do that properly. Apparently, Phillips screwdrivers are the X shaped ones, NOT the flat ones. How was I supposed to know?!

Unfortunately, the carpet by the window where the old air conditioner used to be is still wet. Oh, well.

Anyway, so it looks like I’m back, doesn’t it? I converted the whole website to WordPress, which didn’t end up being nearly as difficult as I would have supposed- except for transferring over my blog comments, which I had to do by hand and took me HOURS. Someone (and I mean a coding genius, not me) really needs to come up with a better way to do that. Seriously. Google “uploading fanupdate comments to wordpress” and you get nothing. I made a shiny new layout (light for a change, whopee- I guess I’m on version…. 7 of this website?) And this time around, I’m determined to expand my circle- I need to be commenting on new people’s blogs and making some new friends, because it seems like every few months, more and more of my friends disappear from the internet…