St. G

So when someone offers you free tickets to Les Mis do you turn them down? Or do you move Heaven and Earth to get into those seats? We opted the rearrangement of Heaven and Earth. My father works for the City of St. George in the advertising and marketing corner of the office. As such he gets freebies and promos to almost everything St. George has to offer. We just happened to being going down to the good ol' south this weekend and he said if we could make it by 7:00 pm on Thursday he would get us free tickets to Tuacahn's production of Les Miserables. Normally that would have been out of the question but seeing as my husband's class was canceled, we took it as a sign that the powers above wanted us to go and so we are. Originally we were heading down to go boating because right now is the best time to go. The weather isn't too hot, but still hot enough, the water hasn't cooled down yet and young obnoxious people are in school. That was on the agenda for Friday. The St. George marathon is to be held on Saturday and my family volunteered to help out with the aide station people. I wasn't too keen on the idea at first, I remember younger days when our church did it as a service project, we were up and on the road by 4:30 am as we were the 2nd aide station. But I thought it'll be good for us to do some service and why not spend some time with the fam, so that's what Saturday has in store for us.

Needless to say it's been a crazy but eventful week, getting everything ready before Thursday so we can get to the play. But this weekend has great treasures in store and it'll be well worth the effort.

GOOGLE

I GOOGLE!
It's pretty much my favorite program ever! My work study is aiding the technology teacher, and as I sit in on her classes taking class notes, I get to learn the the crazy things out there on the internet. I really think GOOGLE is the coolest thing since sliced bread-if not cooler! We're just waiting for them to take over the world and then we'll all be happier.

This week has gone in a flash! My best friend from high school (Ashley) married my other best friend (James)'s cousin (Brian) over the weekend-wheph! So James came up from St. George and brought his fiancee (Kylee), stayed with us and we all went to the wedding together. I hadn't met Kylee yet, and hadn't seen Ashely in almost 2 years! Also James had just gotten back from his mission and I hadn't seen him a lot seeing as he was in St. George and I am in Orem. It was a great reunion for all of us. I saw a lot of people I hadn't seen since I got married and it was nice to finally introduce my mate to all of them. Hopefully we'll all stay in contact better, but we all know how that goes. Anyway it made the week go way too fast and here I am mid week and way behind. Only to find out my parents and brother are coming up this weekend and planning to stay with us as well as James and Kylee coming up again to go to Lagoon and we promised they could crash at our place too. This is gonna be great!

I'm Almost Famous

So, while sitting in my voice and diction class last week, a classmate came up to my and my cousin (also in the class) and said, "I'm making a movie, could either of you be free Thursday at 3?" Well I didn't really say yes, but I asked questions because it did sound interesting. He said he was in a director's workshop class and they were doing a group project, his being a scene from OFFICE SPACE. Well I told him I hadn't seen it so count me out, but he looked so happy. He said that's even better. So we introduced ourselves, he being Jake, then we got each other's contact info and made a rehearsal date. I finally got the call saying Thursday was his day in class so I'd need to meet him in his class at 3. Thursday was also the next day we had class. After class Thursday I met Spence (his partner), who would be the other guy in the scene while Jake directed. We performed it for the class, they all loved it! We then set up a meeting time on Friday to rehears. I'm having a blast! This is really nice because UVU's theatre department sucks. They don't advertise auditions or explain the whole audition process at all. But that's a different story, and also the reason I'm a communication major instead of theatre. Anyway so there is my almost famous moment this week.

In other news, my husband just found out that if he switched his degree from an Associates in Digital Media to a Bachelor's he is eligible for a $2000 grant! Just for being a Digital Media student. Needless to say he's switching. Does the communication department offer anything like that? I didn't think so. Ah well, that's why I married him I guess. :) Meanwhile we're both working on homework daily and loving school. This semester has rocked! I gave my first presentation last night. My partner Brett and I had a 30 minute in class presentation on a current event. Thankfully we sweet talked our way into the Olympics still being current, but we ended up being the first group. It was ok because my partner was fantastic! He had great knowledge and awesome charisma! I hope I didn't drag him down, he had everything memorized and I had to read stuff. But Tyler helped me with a highlight reel with pix from Beijing and Olympics past so hopefully that made up for it.

Student Loans--Suck!

So tuition is due tomorrow before the late fee of $100 hits. Of course I correlate this as $200 because 2 people in my household are in school. Now my husband and I both applied for student loans to help us out. Well with no help from the school, we found out on Friday (5th) from UVU that we had unfinished business. Well after taking care of everything to get the loans underway (which under our accounts had been accepted), we still weren't going to make the deadline. After talking with financial aide again (their job must not be fun), they suggested a short-term loan with a co-signer. That mean that the full tuition wouldn't be due until October when-God willing-our loans had finally processed and been accredited to our account. After each of us called a favor of our mothers respectively to be our co-signers the short-term loan would take 48 to process. That should have been Monday. Well checking the status Monday and seeing that is was still being processed, I got nervous but of course I still had today (Tuesday) to take care of unsatisfied requirements. After checking today, both my and my husband's short-term loans were 'pending' and asked us to call the collections-which of course had all ready left for the day. We have until tomorrow at 5 pm to either get our loans to get to our account or get our short-term loan processed, neither of which I see happening-even though UVU assured us they would. So now we will have spent $40 each ($80) for the processing fee of the short-term loan-which didn't get processed in time-and end up paying another $100 each ($200) in late fees-which shouldn't have been applied because we paid the short-term loan fee-just to have our loan be applied the day after the fee hits-according to Murphy's Law.
Now to me that doesn't seem quite fair. The government has all ready turned me down for a grant claiming that according to my and my husband's taxes we should be able to contribute $4000 to school. Now if I had $4000 for school I wouldn't need to apply for such things as grants and loans but that's the Republicans for you. So being denied a grant, we apply for loans from the government-which of course they're all too happy to divvy out. Unfortunately the school hasn't helped us at all in the process, but of course they don't care because they just got $280 from me and my husband, and we're getting a loan anyway. I feel like I'm trying to better society by going to school and do it as independently as I can. This is my first loan-can't you tell. I want to better myself and society and no one is giving a helping hand. Gee it'd be nice if the school could help us out-but alas they just want money too. Maybe I'll do what so many others do-default to quitting my job, and having the government pay for everything while I do nothing. I won't work, I won't go to school, I won't better myself at all-the taxes of those who work (as I do now) can pay for everything for me. I work and try to go to school and stay out of debt, but unfortunately I don't get all of my earnings because others who have decided they don't want to work have the government to take care of them. The same government who takes my hard earns away from me, see that I want to go to school, still says I should be able to contribute $4000 toward school and still takes my money-then won't help me out when I need it. It's all about money. When did America's values shift from family and love to the dollar? Cities use to shut down for Thanksgiving and Christmas and it was expected that families got together for those holidays, now I could get fired for even thinking about wanting 1/2 of Christmas Day off.

DOESN'T REALLY SEEM FAIR

First Week of School

Well another semester underway! I guess after getting some great tan line over the summer it was bound to happen. Now it's time to get nestled in for a nice long semester. Fall semester always seem longer in the beginning, but by the time the 2nd or so week is done, it zooms past and Christmas as all ready come and gone. Then the waiting really sets in. I guess it's because I look forward to summer more than anything and spring semester has so few breaks.

After the first week I've decided that I'm going to quite enjoy the semester. Among my classes I'm doing work study for the first time ever-I don't quite know what to expect but I enjoy it at the moment. I'm a professor aide for Dr. Waters-she teaches technology class in education. I've decided that I want to teach, but I don't know who or what to teach yet. As of the moment, I'm working toward an Associates Degree in Communications and then I'll jump into the education realm. We'll see where that takes me.

I hope the semester brings great reward, I'll be working and looking for it. Both myself and my husband of full time students and employees so I won't have time to slack (hopefully). It'll be good to get it all done with, but the break will be much welcome and sought after.