I'm up early

Although just to feed the animals and grab a bite to eat myself before going back to sleep for another hour or two. I sooooo crashed yesterday. I went out to a gaming store and over to Turfland Mall, then did some entry work into the computer. I was so sleepy I was falling asleep whilst typing. I laid down for awhile, then got up and caught the bus (and yes, I really appreciate the bus saving more walking in the heat and its cheap summer fares--25 cents--and told the driver so). Then I had some dinner and crashed some more.

I got the notice yesterday that my student loans will consolidate in 10 days. Yea! No word on what the payments will be, although I used an online calculator they had at the Department of Education's loan consolidation site, and it looks like it'll be about $200 a month, which isn't great but is doable. And it'll help my credit, I'm sure, to have just one loan instead of 23. The total damage comes to...gulp...$125,000 and some change, and I'll have up to 25 years to pay it off, on an income contingent basis, with anything not paid in that time forgiven at the end. Considering I make less than $23K a year, it was the only way to make payments where I could still live. Even if I get a job at the normal librarian range ($32K to $40K) for my experience level, it'll continue to be a reasonable percentage. Ah, the problems of too much education and not enough earning power! I would not recommend anyone not, say, going into medicine take out that amount of loans. On the other hand, there's no way I could have made it without them, especially during some of the past job market crashes. Unfortunately I missed to boom in the '90s, but hopefully we're edging at least back up in terms of the oeconomy. At least since I wasn't making money hand over fist in the stockmarket, etc., I also didn't lose much from my retirement, etc.--although I did have to freeze my contributions for awhile to deal with my current finances. I need to work out another budget now that I have a general idea of my payments so that I can restart those contributions.

Damn, I'm still sleepy, even after breakfast and a soda. I'm going to go nap a little more. I caught a bit of another programme on PBS called Waiting for God which was absolutely hilarious. It's set in a British retirement home where the inmates...sorry residents...are determined not to age gracefully, and are, indeed downright cantankerous in that biting manner that the British are so well known for. One of the residents is the father of the administrator. In the first episode he stages a hunger strike, gets the others packed off to Lourdes, and trades barbs with a woman who seems his match. He gets better food by threatening to disembowel himself in the town square. There's a certain freedom to being treated like a batty old gentleman, because he can get away with just about anything, even calling his son 'Harry' instead of 'Harvey' just to needle him. Trust me, he knows exactly who Harvey is--the man who put him in a home. Check it out if you like British comedy. Dwana and my mother, I'm sure, could relate, having worked in nursing homes.

Talk to you later.