Category: School

Looks like Hurricane Emily might just come our way after all. I’ve been watching CNN and the projected path leads right to South Texas. They said if it “makes it” after it reaches the Yucatan Peninsula, it could make landfall in South Texas by the middle of next week. I’d like some rain, maybe a few thunderstorms at night, but no full-bown hurricane, please. School starts on the 26th . And besides, we’re SO not prepared.

What I am, or should I say trying, to prepare for is our future. A little incident (okay, it’s not so little) that happened with the Sentra made me realize we need to check our credit reports and score, and establish better credit. While watching CNN they mentioned annualcreditreport.com so I checked both Mario’s and my credit. Of course, Mario’s two school loans show up as Negative, but thankfully we’ve already paid one off. I have nothing negative on mine, but I don’t have anything in Good Standing either. We’re planning to TRY and buy a house as soon as possible after I’ve been working for a year, so as soon as I finish school and (hopefully) get a (good) job, I’m going to get myself a Captial One credit card. It’s strange that our Lack’s account doesn’t show up on Mario’s though. I hope Jorge and Maggie finish paying off their fridge soon. It was about $1,000 and is on our account and with what Jorge makes I’m pretty sure (and hope) they’re close to paying it off. I want our account free so that we can buy furniture. We also want to get a car if we ever finish paying off the Sentra, so that’s another reason we need good credit. I’d get a credit card now, but we have to see how things are going to go once we’re paying the bills and paying my monthly loan. Bah.

Since Mario had the day off yesterday we went to the CCMS building to apply. Now we’re on a waiting list till God knows when. They said to call and check every 2 weeks to 1 month. Lovely. I’ll probably be out of school by the time we’re off the waiting list. That’s if we even qualify.

We also went to see Gramma at the nursing home. She was telling us about how she’d been having these weird dreams. In one of them, she saw Great-Grandma Lydia, which is her mother, and that she told her, “Andale, Mija. Vente. I haven’t seen you in a long time!”

Her eyes welled up with tears while she was telling me and I told her not to think about it. I hope it’s not some kind of forewarning. It’s too soon for her to leave us. I hate thinking that way, but that’s the inkling I got when she was telling me . I didn’t even tell Mom about that when I spoke to her because she’d probably get really upset about it.

*breathes* Anyway, after we saw her we went to JCPenny to get me some jeans (at least 3 was the plan) and a backpack for school. I got the Jansport Wasabi backpack in Bubblegum. As my luck would have it, I only found one pair of jeans. They never have size 7 short in Bootcut, ever, which is the reason I only have 3 jeans in total, one of which fits me kind of weird. We decided we’d go back later. Mario did find a pair of jeans for himself on sale (just one, because they’re always short on his size too), which is pretty cool.

I hope we can get everything we need to get done these next two months, done. We still need to go shopping for Eenan’s clothes, supplies, backpack and shoes. I need a few more jeans and want to buy a few of my school Polos since they only give us one. Blah. We also need to figure out how much we’re going to need for Eenan’s party and WHAT we’re getting him for his birthday and his cake! I also wanted to save up for some cabinets or a buffet table for the kitchen and a new dining set. *gasp* I just remembered we still have to get the Prelude running. Some parts are going to come in this week, but I don’t know if that’s all the car’s gonna need! Gonna have to budget ourselves A LOT now.

[edit] 1:54pm – My advisor from school just called and asked if I got my PIN and went in and whatnot. I told her yes and I guess everything’s set for me to attend orientation on the 26th. I told her about my transcript and how they did write my grad year on it but they accepted it at Financial Aide anyway. She said it was fine. I really need to go and order that diploma. I have this irking suspicion that *something’s* going to go down and my grad-year-lacking transcript’s going to screw me. I wish I knew where my REAL diploma was!! [/edit]

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I drove Mario to and from work on Monday. I was waiting for my FSA PIN to come in through e-mail but it never came in so I kept the car for nothing. I checked my mail Tuesday morning and it was in my inbox so I kept the car again. Drove him to and from work, went to school and got the rest of my stuff done (now, I just wait till July 26th for orientation), went to Mario’s work and left him some CD’s he forgot, then drove home. I’ve been doing lots of driving and I can honestly say I’m not as terrified as I once was. Traffic over in the Pharr/McAllen area still freaks me out a bit, but I’m getting used to it.

Took John driving for a little while last night in my car since his is still not working. Our luck would have it that there was a soccer game between USA and Monterrey going on in our city so traffic was backed up for miles. We waited at the crossover for a LONG TIME before a guy left space in front of him and waved us over. How very nice of him. John, Mario and I have this inside joke about how I’m just too damn sexy (it all started when we were making up reasons cops would stop us a while back and has turned into this daily thing) and we decided that it was my sexiness that helped us get through traffic. (I’m really not sexy, I’m quite self-concious so don’t think I’m that conceited! .)

The darn a/c went out again yesterday…hopefully it’ll stay “fixed” this time. It was so incredibly hot! It’s supposed to rain today but, ha! That’s what they always say and it doesn’t.

I need to finish painting the rest of the Yu-gi-oh plaster thingys for Eenan’s party. We’re not going to have his party at the usual place this year because they’re moving to another city and they’re closed. Blah. We have no idea what we’re going to do. I also need to buy a few more acrylic paints and I’m broke!

I’m so excited about school starting. Been catching up with Rejeana and she’s also getting things ready to start school in August . It’s awesome that we’re starting together (although we’re not going to the same school) and I’m so relieved I have someone who can relate to what I’m feeling right now.

I need to get my backpack soon (while it’s still on sale!). I thought I was going to have an excuse to go shopping, but then I realized the most I’ll be shopping for is jeans; I have to wear a polo shirt or T-shirt with our logo on it . I hope they have my size though. It always turns out the smallest size they have is Medium and it never fits right. Grr.

I guess that’s all for now. I’m just typing whatever’s on the top of my head so that makes for a very random entry .

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It hurts to type right now. Mary asked John to paint the empty apartment Jose and Elda are going to move into (I thought Elda said she was gonna do it?) and being the wonderful sister that I am, went out there to help him . My hands are killing me. We were trying to paint as fast as possible. It’s about 101° right now, which doesn’t feel good at all. We started at around 10:15. We came back at 12:30. Screw being in THAT heat.

I drove everywhere I needed to go yesterday, and then some. Holy crap, by the end of the day, I seriously had leg spasms. Mario drove to work, I drove back since I needed the car. Drove back at 12:30 to pick up his paycheck. Went to the bank to deposit money. Drove to Mary’s to leave our car payment with her. Got directions from her on how to get to my school from her office (and the ladies that work with her were saying how pretty and long my hair was and congratulating me for getting my license and starting school *beams*). She scribbled them down for me and well, I didn’t understand them. Thank God John was with me…we eventually figured out how to get there .

Things went well at the meeting. Almost had a heart attack because my “sealed” transcript didn’t have my grad year on it. All the ladies kept whispering to eachother and sounding genuinely concerned so I asked, “Am I going to be able to apply for Financial Aide??” She says, “Yes, we’ll do it anyway.” *whew*

Took about an hour to fill everything out (an hour less than the day before when I was enrolling). Like Mario said, it felt like we were buying a house LOL. After figuring everything out with our W2 with the F.A. lady, we’re going to be paying $124.77 out of our pocket each month. Then, 6 months after I graduate, I need to pay back my loans. Scary. I hope we don’t end up knee-deep in debt . We’re still having to pay back Mario’s loan, and it’s pissing me off they keep adding from $50-70 each time they send the bill for “Fees and Costs”. Bastards. We pay $40 for it…they’re charging $50-70…it’s like we’re taking 1 step foward and 2 steps back! We’re never going to pay it off like that! I seriously need to call and dispute those charges.

We’re going to be a little tight financially for the next 9 months. But it’ll be worth it. I made all those calls yesterday that will hopefully help us out a bit. Called CCMS for Mom — I’ll have to fill out an application and IF we qualify, they put us on a waiting list. That’ll help us out a lot with paying mom for babysitting the kids. I also called around to ask about my Scholarship, but I kept getting the run-around and eventually they told me to leave my name and number and they’d call me back, which they haven’t. But I’m .

After driving home from my meeting, we chilled out and then John and I left to pick Mario up from work. The boys insisted on staying with Big Mario, so they did. After waiting an hour for Mario to get out, we went to Denny’s. The food was so good and the three of us had a blast laughing and making jokes. Nice ending to a hectic day .

I feel so much better about myself now. Now when people ask me, “So how’ve you been? What’s new? What are you doing now?”, I happily say, “I finally got my driver’s license and I’m starting college!” Before, I’d say something like, “Oh. Not much. At home, with my kids.”

What I love about my hours are that I’ll get to go to school and still have time to spend with the boys. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time .

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