...and here I am. Gods what a feeling. It's finally July. My student loans are coming due. I am consolidating those I can, but it still leaves me with a hefty chunk to pay a month. (One thing they forget to tell you about private loans is they CANNOT be consolidated, short of a mortgage.)
Well the consolidation papers have yet to go through, so this leaves me with paying the original monthly payment. I'd be okay if it weren't for the fact my car was just in the shop and threw my delicately balanced finances to the sharks. I think I'll be able to cover all my bills this month. Unfortunately this will most likely destroy the amount I had set aside for the vacation that my girlfriend and I have so looked forward to. I hope it won't be the case though... we've surmounted too many obstacles in getting this trip for us.
So I run the numbers again, for the nth time today. How depressing. I think I need another job. I already have a good professional one. Too bad it's a computer/technical job. The market sucks, and I have my job only because I knew the owners of the company. It's worked out well for us, but they can only pay me so much in this, well all expletives aside, unfavorable tech market. The threat of working the night-shift at Walmart or some other such prospect looms.
I guess I shouldn't
bitch too much as I
have a job at least. Talking to an old
friend yesterday I found that many people we graduated near or with in the Comp Tech program got axed in wake of the dot-bomb. One of my buddies (a kick ass CompSci major)has yet to find gainful employment. We graduated in December. He was resorting to selling vacum cleaners door-to-door to make money. Where is this famed
surplus of Tech jobs the
media keeps yelling about? What state are they in? Perhaps on another
plane of existence?!
*looks back at his writing* Wow, that was some angry noding there. Although I guess that's a natural reaction to the fact that 4 years of college will keep you in debt till you are in your forties. Oh and by-the-way; filing bankruptcy won't touch fed loans, and many big bank student loans are just about as iron-clad. Read before you sign that line... you'll thank yourself for it. If you can't get grants and scholarships... work during school to help alleviate the costs. Do not buy into the professor's views of what it'll be like when you get out. One lamentable professor advised us to "...not accept an offer below $45k. It's not worth your time." Right, I'd love to have the ability to jump back to that point in time and warn all of my classmates and I.
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. For at the worst, you are prepared. Now I shall end my rather lengthy node/rant. I apologize if this comes off as bitching. I just hope someone can learn from my mistake, misfortune, whining... whatever you view this as.