divine angst

This post is brought to you courtesy of my BRAND SPANKING NEW 12″ POWERBOOK.

Heeee!!! I’m almost manic over it all! It’s smal and shiny and SOOOOO pretty.

This post is also being brought to you courtesy of someone with an open wireless network. Mr. Angst is going to have to set up ours so this computer can connect. Until then, thank you anonymous neighbor; it is because of your (ignorance, kindness) that I was able to install some necessary updates and post this entry.

Lah dee dah dee dah. More playing. Ta!

For some reason, I’m exhausted today. I went to bed relatively early last night. I slept soundly. I had odd but not disturbing dreams. All of these things usually equal my waking up before the alarm.

Not today, though. I’m just tired. My eyes are droopy and itchy, my head is soggy.

What’s worse is that I have a dentist’s appointment later this morning. Blech. I HATE the dentist, even just for cleanings. But I have to take advantage of the dental insurance while I’ve got it!

Let me tell you all the ways FedEx sucks.

FedEx Ground did not make my delivery today. My package was on a truck early this morning. But no one dropped a package off to the office during the day and no one came to our door this evening. There was no door tag showing an attempted delivery. Yet, when I called FedEx, I was told, by a very nice young lady, that a delivery attempt had been made and my package was going back to the distribution center.

Hm. I think he just skipped me. What do you think?

So I asked if I could just have the package held at the center so I could pick it up tomorrow.

Um, no. FedEx Ground is, get this, “required” to make three delivery attempts before they can hold the package for pickup. So I asked if I could have it delayed until Saturday, when I know one of us can be home all day.

She said, “I can put in a request for that, but I can’t guarantee it.”

Um, OK.

So the best I could do was put in a request to have it delivered tomorrow before 7pm. If it gets here during the day, the office can sign for it; if it gets here before our Aikido class, I’ll be here to take it.

I hope.

I hate HATE HATE FedEx right now. I want to write a nice, nasty letter to whoever is in charge of drivers here in My Fair City and tell them that their driver in charge of my neighborhood is an asshole and took off early to get a drink, rather than deliver my package, my package which has a pricey piece of electronic equipment tucked inside.

(For the record, Mr. Angst was here while I was at choir rehearsal and had to run down the street to drop some stuff off at the storage unit, and while he was on the way, he saw a FedEx Ground truck going in the opposite direction of our apartment. Just so you know this isn’t just the anger talking. But the anger, the anger is there.)

Question:

Why does FedEx bother to have online tracking when it’s not real-time?

I can see that my new computer was put on the truck for delivery this morning at 6:45 am. It is ENTIRELY possible that it has already been delivered to my apartment complex. But because the tracking system will not update until the driver gets back to FedEx, I won’t KNOW it’s been delivered until it’s too late. I. e., until the office at my apartment complex is CLOSED. (And I don’t get off work until AFTER the office is closed. Argh.)

Of course the apartment people are also at lunch right now, so I can’t get a hold of anyone to tell me if it’s already been delivered or even when FedEx usually comes by. Argh again.

I took my first Aikido class last night.

Mr. Angst has been taking Aikido for the last month, and he’s practiced martial arts in the past. We thought this might be a way for us to spend time together. I was hesitant; any time I’ve ever taken a movement class that involved working with partners (dance classes, for instance), I’ve never felt very comfortable or that the teachers were doing much to help me in particular. (I’m thinking particularly of the last dance class I took, a lindy class, where the teachers were much more interested in demonstrating with each other only, and rarely with a student. Because I knew more than some people in the class, I ended up having to dance with the men who didn’t know anything, and I never got better.)

So anyway, I was nervous. Martial arts? Me? I’m a yoga kind of girl. And any form of movement that requires partners? I am definitely better alone—that way I can’t hurt anyone and I can progress at my own pace.

But I really enjoyed the class. I guess we are lucky—there are several senior students who are attending this class and helping out, so I’m not just working with other new students. And the atmosphere is very relaxed, not at all Karate-Kid-scary-dojo stuff (yes, I know that’s karate and not aikido, but there’s a whole competitive-martial-arts mindset that makes me nervous).

Best of all, I think I can actually be good at this. That was my final reservation about aikido—would I succeed? Could I succeed? (I am not known for my gracefulness, let me just say that.) But I think I can, and I am excited to try.

I received an email today that my school sent all my financial aid paperwork to me last week. I’ve been checking the mail regularly, but haven’t seen it yet. Maybe it will come today. I have until the end of the month to review the stuff, accept my loans, and send all the paperwork back.

I have until the end of the month to be this debt free. (Not that I’m completely debt free, but without the house or the nice car, well, the debt is lower than it was.) And I know that I won’t actually BE in debt until August, when the money is disbursed. But this is a mental thing, more than anything.

I have just a few more days to be able to think of myself as relatively unfettered. I’m not considering this option, but, theoretically, I could say, “No. I won’t go to law school this fall.” I could just find myself a job in Our New City and support Mr. Angst while he gets his degree. I could focus more on starting our family. Of course, that means I could continue being just what I am today—an underpaid, overqualified professional getting through the daily grind. There’s some romance in that vision, actually, but I prefer my romance on the big screen. So that’s not the choice I’m going to make.

Instead, I’ll be filling out this paperwork and investing in my future. That’s what we do. Any time we take a risk, we invest in the future. As gambles go, this law school thing is pretty solid. I’ll be in a lot of debt, but chances are I’ll be able to pay it off.

So, off to research those interest rates! Off to compare incentives and repayment schedules! Off to delve into the paper torture.

With all the Apple-Intel noise, including the expected predictions of doom for Apple’s sales, I am feeling a slight twinge of buyer’s remorse over my Powerbook purchase.

A corner of my brain says, Hey! You could have just sprung for a proc upgrade and new battery for the Pismo and waited till the new Powerbooks come out next year! And there’s logic in that.

(I say PBs next year because I am certain one of the biggest reasons Apple did this move was to get actual mobile procs that run cool AND fast, since the G5 Powerbook was quickly looking more and more mythical.)

Sigh. And of course the voice inside is being silly—I have been craving a new machine for ages and my five-and-a-half-year-old Pismo is NOT getting any faster. But leave it to Apple to announce that there will be a great upgrade to the machine I was looking at—only not for another year.

So, a little twinge of buyer’s remorse. As soon as that box arrives, though, I think the twinge will evaporate. I have never had a new computer. My Pismo was purchased on eBay. Every work computer I’ve had was passed on from someone else. I’ve always had to contend with the little twitches and bumps signifying that someone else’s hands touched my machine first. But not this time. This time, the machine is MINE. ALL mine.

During last night’s weekly phone call with the Angst-in-laws, my mother-in-law asked me how things were going at work. I said I felt like I was in a holding pattern. I’m working on a couple of new things, but nothing really taxing. I said it was just sort of boring.

And she said, “You know, it’s hard to have your heart in something when you know you’re leaving.”

This is why 2-weeks’ notice is such a good thing. Every time I’ve been offered a job, I’ve given two weeks’ notice right then and there. Done. Two weeks to wrap up things, take care of administrative details, and say my goodbyes. Two weeks of anticipation, yes, but filled with stuff to take care of. No time to get bored.

It’s probably not fair to say I’m bored right now; I just have no desire to push forward with what I’m doing very quickly. That’s always been my thing—I work fast. And now? Feh. Working fast is the LAST thing I want to do. I don’t want new projects assigned. I don’t want anything on my plate that I could possibly feel anxious about when I leave. I want everything to be neatly, tidily, wrapped up on the day I say goodbye.

Knowing I’m leaving two months before it’s going to happen sucks. Really.

Depending on what Steve Jobs tells us at WWDC today, I may be ordering my new computer tonight.

Whee! Now THAT’s something to get excited about.

Update: Keynote starts in about 40 minutes. I’m watching this website. I figure we won’t see a PowerBook update, though there might be an iBook speed/RAM/video card bump. But what I really want to find out about is the reported Apple-Intel deal and what it will mean for the future of the Mac.

Update 2: According to MacNN’s live coverage of Steve’s keynote, OS X is moving to Intel and, what’s more, every OS X build for the last five years has been built for both a PowerPC and an Intel processor. Sheesh. But users won’t see any of this until next year.

This is all very interesting. But I will hold off on my “Wow! Steve Jobs has been working a cool 10-year plan!” reaction until I hear what he has to say about keeping the clones away. Power Computing, a Mac clone company, went out of business when Steve Jobs pulled the plug on Mac OS licensing. But if OS X is going to be ported to an x86 base, what’s to keep the hacker-builder community from building their own Macs? The only reason Macs are so stable is because of the total control Apple has on software AND hardware. That advantage goes the way of the dodo unless Apple has some clever means of preventing home builds of Macs.

Update 3: Since it appears that WWDC will not introduce any new hardware, I went ahead and ordered my new computer. A shiny, new, teensy-weensy 12″ Powerbook. It should arrive by the end of the week. I think I’ll go order the bag to go with it RIGHT NOW. Whee!!!

It’s just hot today. And the A/C in my car sucks. And I had to go the grocery store.

And I’m tired because I didn’t sleep well last night (due in part to Mr. Angst’s coming home late from poker and in part to our neighbors having an impromptu party at 4 am). And our apartment is still messy and we’re not completely moved in. And there’s crap on TV.

So I don’t really feel like posting today. If I feel better later, I might write something more.

I had big plans for today, involving my car, my hair, and my nails.

Instead, I’m relaxing on the couch, watching the Mythbusters marathon on Discovery. I will eventualy get some stuff done later, since Mr. Angst is playing poker tonight and I need to pick up some food to eat. But for now, I’m takin’ it easy.

(Surprisingly, I’m not terribly hungover. I’m not particularly inclined to do much and I have a small headache, which may be indicative of the bottle of rosé and everclear-soaked melon I partook of last night. But I’m usually lazy on Saturday and I have chronic headaches, so I can’t be sure.)

It’s past midnight and if I can get this blog post out without significant typos, I figure I’ll be doing well.

I have a few things to gripe about.

First, I chose tonight to buy a rosé, at least partially because I was shamed into it by some posts that I got to from Crescat. However, I don’t know where the specific posts are, and I am drunk and incapable of finding them, so you’ll just have to take my word. Tonight, I tried a Spanish rosé, and it wasn’t that great. But it did the trick, as far as buzzed-ness goes, so I’m not going to bitch TOO much.

Also, it was less than $10 and we drank it while we were with fun people. And Mr. Angst’s experimental bottles of beer cost less than $4. Such is the delight of Whole Foods. $14 and we are happy happy happy.

Second, I’ve been irked (or I was irked until I got some wine in me) by this comment. Look, I know JD2B linked to me. And it wasn’t my best post. Perhaps I came off whiny? Point being, I have two things to say: first, whoever posted this is a coward. I allow anonymous comments because i don’t like to stifle anyone who might feel restricted by having to submit an email address, but comments like this make me want to change my mind.

Second, did you realize that the fake URL you submitted is for an etiquette school in the South? Kind of ironic, huh?

My final response to this shitty comment is:

Over 100,000 students took the LSAT last year. For the sake of argument, let’s assume at least as many took it this year. Of that 100,000, something like 99,000 applied to law school. And something like 48,000 were admitted. (All data are for 2004 admission, but I’m going to assume the data for this year is pretty similar.)

So what does this data mean? Basically, that anyone who gets into law school is a f**king rock star in my book. The top 50% get admitted? F**k yeah. So someone has the nerve to come trolling over here, knowing NOTHING about me and my admissions process except what I have chosen to reveal and say something as stupid as “enjoy being ttt”? Yeah. Whatever. Don’t be tacky.

Mr. Angst is telling me I need to come to bed now, because I am drunk and it is late, so I’ll just add that it’s LUCKY I am not sober and LUCKY I have to go to bed, otherwise I’d go BALLISTIC on you. OK, maybe not so much. But I’d be tempted and I might try before I passed out.

Goodnight.

Friday Spies: Uhm, yeah, we started at the regular time today. It’s not a half day or anything.

Via Fitz-Hume and Milbarge, who proffered this lame excuse for the late questions: “Alarms didn’t go off, snooze buttons were hit, people overslept. It happens. I apologize for the delay, but the upside is that readers contributed all of this week’s questions. Enjoy!”

1. From Janie Q: “How about your favorite tv show when you were a kid, and why hasn’t it been remade into a movie, or if it has, how was that movie, or maybe it shouldn’t be remade at all?”

Hee! Favorite show as a kid? The Dukes of Hazzard. I am sad to say that it, however, is being made into a movie, a very wrong movie with a very wrong, ever-shrinking, dumb blonde portraying the savvy, brunette Daisy. Phooey on them, I say!

2. Stag asks: “Tell us about your favorite vacation or your fav place to go on vacation.”

I covered this one in my essentials post, and those choices still stand.

3. Soup inquires: “Are you a fan of Get Fuzzy?”

Hadn’t seen it till now, but it looks like something I could become fond of, if I had time to add a cartoon to my daily dose of blogs and news.

4. Sebastian Haff has a burning desire to know: “[Which] celebrities [do] you think are most likely to pose in Playboy and why[?]”

I’m searching my brain for the names of B-list actresses who will jump on the “it’s all for my career” bandwagon and pose for Hugh. But I’m coming up short. I will say this, though—despite the hopes of a million dirty old men, the Olsen twins are never going to pose for Playboy. They’ve already got more money than God, so there’s no incentive. Sorry.

5. Energy Spatula gets to the heart of the matter with the final question for the week: “Why don’t you write about which one [Fitz-Hume or Milbarge] is a huge liar?”

You know, this is a good question. First, we have FH’s deliberate misrepresentation of himself as a metrosexual when, in fact, he’s just a good old boy who likes to shovel some s**t. And Milbarge? With his “oh, I CAN’T blog anymore, I just CAN’T, and I CAN’T tell you why!” but then coming back two months later? I think they’re both full of it.

So law school is something like 2-1/2 months away and we’ll be moving in about two months and yet many things are still up in the air. True, we’re going up to find our apartment in two weeks, but finding a place to live is pretty low on my list of things to worry about. What things are high on that list?

Well, for one, I haven’t received paperwork for my “financial aid package” (student loans). Law School said they’d send that stuff in early June. Hey! It’s early June! Mr. Angst is already filling out his promissory notes and doing his entrance interviews for his federal loans. Me, though? Just sitting here, waiting for information. Argh! I guess I could be trying to secure my private loans, you know, for that remainder that my federal loans and “need-based” loans won’t cover (I guess they call that the “estimated family contribution”) but I don’t even know who my school’s preferred lenders are. I like using preferred lenders. They’re preferred for a reason, after all. Truth be told, I’m starting to feel a little nervous about the loans and their procurement and whatnot.

What else am I worried about? Well, I’m not really worried about it, but I haven’t gotten any information on Orientation yet. I think a list of fun stuff Law School has planned for me in the last week of August might brighten my spirits a bit, during this dry, waiting period.

Update: Welcome, JD2B readers! Wander about and stay awhile.

I’m watching The Full Monty, and I forgot how much I liked this movie. It’s funny, heartfelt, risque but not vulgar—just an overall good show.

That’s all.

There’s a lot of noise out there right now (see one post) regarding consolidating student loans to lock in lower rates.

And because this involves the federal government and money, it is, of course, totally confusing. So I’m going to throw some info at you right now, gleaned from my years of applying for financial aid and doing everything possible to save a few cents in the process.

First, you can only consolidate federal student loan debt. This means Stafford Loans for most of us. (And Perkins Loans, though there may be drawbacks to consolidating Perkins Loans because they already have such good terms.) There are some other loans that are eligible, too, including PLUS loans from undergrad. (See the full list here.) But all those private loans you took out? Not eligible. You may be able to refinance them through your lender, but that is NOT the same as consolidation.

What is consolidation, then? A primer: You have separate federal loans for each year of school you took out federal loans. You could also have more than one loan in a given year, since subsidized Staffords are disbursed separately from unsubsidized Staffords and Perkins and PLUS loans. Yeesh! And in many cases, all of these loans will have different interest rates. They also will all have separate repayment schedules, based on their dates of disbursement.

Consolidation allows you to combine all of the debt into a single loan, and that single loan will have a single interest rate and a single repayment schedule. The interest rate will be based on the current federal student loan interest rates. (Oh, and not everyone who consolidates right now will end up with the same rate—it does vary depending on when you took out the loan. Yeah, it’s really confusing, but websites like Sallie Mae have some helpful FAQs and some wizards to help you figure out if you are eligible for consolidation and what your new rate will be after consolidation.)

Consolidation also allows you to extend your repayment period—up to 30 years from the date of consolidation. So if you just started repayment and you have 9-1/2 years left, consolidating will give you an additional 30 years, for a total of 30-1/2 years. Whee! However, if you’ve been repaying for five years, consolidation may not be the best option for you, unless you are about to take on some additional financial burdens, like buying a house, having a child, or going back to school. (Of course, you can consolidate anyway and continue to make the same payments. However, you could possibly be putting your money to better use in that scenario. But that’s fodder for a different post [and different blog]. If you don’t know what I am talking about, contact a financial advisor.)

One other thing—I am pretty sure that you have to have at least $10,000 in debt to be eligible to consolidate. (At least, that’s what Sallie Mae told me when I wanted to consolidate undergraduate debt last year.) Look into it.

What about in-school consolidation? You can consolidate while you are still in school and lock in that low, low, rate on your existing loans. You will lose your grace period on those loans, though. Now, while you’re still in school, you won’t have to pay on them—you’ll get “in-school deferrment” as long as you are enrolled at least half-time. But once you graduate, you won’t have that 6 month grace period to get your stuff together and start earning some money. You have to start paying back right away. If you’re at the end of your schooling and you have a lot of debt, it still might be worth it to consolidate anyway, especially depending on how much lower your monthly payments will be if you consolidate. But do be aware of the ramifications.

What if I take out more loans after I consolidate? You can always consolidate federal loans as long as you have at least one eligible loan that isn’t already consolidated. But any time you reconsolidate, you get a new interest rate, based on the base interest rate for that year. So if you consolidate now, get the good rate, and take out another loan for next year and consolidate NEXT summer, you will reconsolidate to the new, HIGHER rate for next year. That would be silly, yes?

Now, if you have already incurred most of your debt and you’ll only be taking out a little for next year, it could definitely be worth it to consolidate now on the lion’s share, and just pay that extra loan separately. If you just started incurring debt, though, crunch the numbers a few times to see whether you’ll come out ahead. And of course, remember that, if you extend repayment, you may end up paying more in interest over the life of the loan than you otherwise might have. Even with a low rate.

There’s a lot of information out there about reconsolidation. Do your research. Basically, if you’re just about to enter repayment or you’ve only been in repayment for a short time, consolidation is almost a no-brainer—do it. But if you’ve been in repayment for a while, it’s probably worth running the numbers and maybe talking to a financial advisor before consolidation. Ditto for in-school consolidation.

Quickie: You’re a frisky pony who wants to revel in speed. Take the reins, and go for it.

Um, OK?

I have two cousins getting married this summer. One is very organized (to a fault, really) and one is not organized at all (also to a fault).

The latter’s wedding is in three and a half weeks. I JUST got the invitation last Thursday. This cousin also JUST called me on Sunday to ask if I would sing in the wedding.

He swears the music will all be stuff I am familiar with, along with a simple psalm tone. If he is being truthful (and I am sure he THINKS he is being truthful) this will be fine. What worries me is that he also said he and his fiancee haven’t finished PICKING OUT the music yet.

How can he know I’ll be familiar with it when they don’t know what they’re choosing? Also, I’ll be singing with two other cousins, who both sang at MY wedding. That’s fine, too, except one of those two is the overplanned bride-to-be (who also happened to be the cousin who changed out of her nice clothes into khakis at my wedding) and she’s a little neurotic for my taste lately. Also, we won’t all be in the same room until the night before the wedding. The wedding is at 10 am the next day. I’m not sure I want to be practicing wedding music for the first time after a four-hour car trip, much less with only 12 hours till showtime.

But I agreed and am very happy to do this. I just wish my cousin had made it a little easier for me to be excited about it.