Today’s mail bore bad news. I knew that tuition went up, but getting that bill for $302 hurt. A lot! I am going to have to go on a monthly payment plan this semester, something I didn’t want to do. Because my biggest fear is that there will be a month where we can’t make the payment…and then what? It’s a level of stress I could have done without.
And then I start looking at my junk mail. Because I like to torture myself with advertisements for things I desperately want but cannot buy. Like the Dell laptops that are super-duper cheap. They have a netbook for $399. even better, an Inspiron 15 for $479. And they come in pink. PINK! I totally need a pink laptop. At this point I’d settle for the itty bitty netbook, because it is SO hard for me to do school work at this computer. The children are constantly running in and out of the room because there’s no way to block it off and the chaos makes it impossible for me to concentrate. And by the time they go to bed, I’m so fried that I don’t feel like I can do what I need to do. Right now it is not a huge problem (obviously, since I’m rocking my psych class) but when I start algebra in the fall, then bio and chem at the same time in the spring, it is NOT going to work.
I really try not to complain here…considering our situation, it is a miracle that we are still surviving, much less able to afford tuition! Sometimes it really gets me down and I just want to pull the big drama queen move and quit because I can’t have it easy. Ridiculous and immature, but it really reminds me just how hard it is to better yourself if you haven’t been given a lot of opportunities. I don’t qualify for financial aid despite the fact that we are below the poverty line right now. I don’t have money to pay for a babysitter so I can go to class, nor do I have family locally who can help with the kids. Most people in my situation wouldn’t have the money for a computer to do distance education, so if they didn’t already have one they’d be unable to do that. It is so easy to sit back and talk about how easy people have it here in the US, how much opportunity there is out there for everyone. The truth is it’s NOT that easy. I know I won’t be quite so quick to judge people in the future. The last 12+ months have taught me a lesson in humility that I won’t soon forget!
