Luck o' the...Russians? Hmm, yes quite.

It's been a long time since I've blogged. I originally wanted this to solely be a travel blog, hence why I haven't posted nothin' in a while. No travel, no post and my life has been pretty void of traveling. However, I have had various requests throughout the year to start this thing back up, despite my current stationary lifestyle. I informed them that if I started back up I wouldn't be posting about anything much interesting, just my life happenings and crazy rants. Apparently that's good enough though. I considered it all year long. Since I have been finishing my last couple of terms for my BA I haven't had much time to think about it, but now that i'm practically  done with my degree I started to consider it harder and now here I am. So here I go. Post one after a long hiatus.


I have noticed throughout the years that I have some of the most ridiculous good luck. However, before that good luck comes a'knockin' things always seem to plummet down a spiraling tunnel of shit for a couple minutes before taking a sharp turn for the best.  


I graduated a couple weekends ago and it felt great. After four years I finally had my degree and I was going to start grad school in the fall (that's right, they accepted my sorry ass into the MA TESOL program, yahoo!).
I had two summer jobs lined up and ready to go.
After a year of "it's your's! ...oh wait just kidding we have no funding...Gotcha! You still have it!", my graduate tuition is going to be paid for by the department I currently work for as part of a graduate assistant program.
I was going to travel to a part of the US I have been wanting to go to forever (although since the East coast seems to be having a bit of trouble with heat i'm a little glad I didn't go).
Life was looking great.
Until I had  4 credits sneak up on me out of nowhere that need to be completed in order to receive my BA. That's right, I made my family sit for 3 + hours watching as 6000+ students they didn't know walk up and receive their empty diploma case for nothing.
DESPITE having two advisers in my department go over my DARS report (my university's system for tallying up credit requirements) and telling me I was on the right track. I guess there was some sort of miss-communication or something because I am for sure 4 credits behind and there ain't no way around it. It's an accreditation issue for the university; all undergrads needs a minimum of 180 credits to graduate and I've got 176. Le sigh. Thankfully all my specific degree requirements have been taken care of so I just need four credits of anything, upper or lower division.  


So, I panicked and scrambled to get into a low level online course (I'll be damned if I'll let this get in the way of my summer vacation!). I'm taking a 100 level women's studies course online. So far it's been easy breezy and i'm not too worried about it as far as school work/effort goes. I am pissed that the university decided it needs an extra 250 dollars for "online class fees", totaling my tuition this term to over 800. All paid out of my pocket (and some of my mom and step dad's pocket--thanks guys!). Oh well, life shall go on.


But like I said, life plummets before taking an unexpected turn. Here's some more examples


I had applied for a teaching job in Chile once I found out that I wasn't going to have the funding I thought I would for grad school. I had a really good interview, the contract the lady drew up  for me was a amazing, and I truly thought that I was going to have to learn Spanish over the summer. Unfortunately the owner of the school did not have the projected enrollment she thought she would so I didn't get the job. However, around that same time I found out that I had the graduate assistant position. Plummet and turn.


Another example, I was told back in November by a dear co-worker of mine that student workers were not allowed to work over 1039 hours in the fiscal year (which runs from June to July for us), otherwise we would have to resign because the university would have to pay back benefits. I panicked and tallied up my total hours for the year so far and I was already at 600. I doubled checked with our lady who deals with HR and she confirmed it. So since November I have been working a measly 14 hours per week, BARELY getting by with 500 dollar pay checks PER MONTH (shit shit shitty shit shit). Luckily I had financial aid otherwise I wouldn't have made it. HOWEVER, I found out a couple days ago that there was a miss-communication (this seems like a pattern with my uni). Turns out my dear co-worker was not considered a student worker but rather was under some other category that rendered her unable to work over the 1039. Student workers, however are not eligible for benefits no matter what and can therefore work up to 130 hours per pay period. I've been living poor for NO REASON. I have since then been racking up the hours like mad. A plummet with a slight turn (if I had been working 130/month hours for the past year I wouldn't have batted an eye at the amount I have to pay for my summer class).


I'm still going to Japan in August though! I'm planning on mostly staying in Tokyo, but hopefully going to Shizuoka to see an awesome friend as well. I am also going to try and drive over to Montana's Glacier National Park to do something camping and climbing and visiting my most awesome roommate Jenn. 
We'll see though. That's one hell of a drive from here and I wasn't the best pilot last year when I did it with friends. 


Today is fourth of July so I feel like I should end this with something patriotic so here ya go 

couldn't have said it better myself!

Happy fourth everyone and expect more posts in the future!

-J