How's life treating ya?

Katniss Locksley wrote:

Wish they would fund you here in America. Today's prices for a four year degree in the United States is nuts. It is almost a punishment to get a high level of education here. Puts you years in debt. I went to a public university not even private and the cost was about 120 grand, when I finished. Thank goodness I didn't have to pay a dime of that, not to mention most my friends that finished with me in the past year still don't have jobs. To say it's the land of the free is funny because everyone I know is enslaved into debt in this country.

Yes, yes, yes. Student loans are basically indentured servitude for as long as you can see. I am working on the graduate degree and it is gonna push me to the six digit mark. To say it is aggravating is an understatement.

guys, 6 digits? *suddenly appreciates his country 9001 times more*

Toasti Jen wrote:

Katniss Locksley wrote:

Wish they would fund you here in America. Today's prices for a four year degree in the United States is nuts. It is almost a punishment to get a high level of education here. Puts you years in debt. I went to a public university not even private and the cost was about 120 grand, when I finished. Thank goodness I didn't have to pay a dime of that, not to mention most my friends that finished with me in the past year still don't have jobs. To say it's the land of the free is funny because everyone I know is enslaved into debt in this country.

Yes, yes, yes. Student loans are basically indentured servitude for as long as you can see. I am working on the graduate degree and it is gonna push me to the six digit mark. To say it is aggravating is an understatement.

My graduate degree will easily push me into the six digit loan mark. I'll be lucky to get away with less than 200K in loans for a 2 year master's degree, since I won't be able to work at the same time and will have to borrow living expenses as well. The good news is that I'm finishing up my bachelor's degree relatively debt-free, and my master's degree has almost guaranteed job placement at twice what I make now. Thus is the state of education in America. You can't get anything but minimum wage without some kind of degree, and you'll pay out the ass for that degree.

ArcaneJill wrote:

Toasti Jen wrote:

Katniss Locksley wrote:

Wish they would fund you here in America. Today's prices for a four year degree in the United States is nuts. It is almost a punishment to get a high level of education here. Puts you years in debt. I went to a public university not even private and the cost was about 120 grand, when I finished. Thank goodness I didn't have to pay a dime of that, not to mention most my friends that finished with me in the past year still don't have jobs. To say it's the land of the free is funny because everyone I know is enslaved into debt in this country.

Yes, yes, yes. Student loans are basically indentured servitude for as long as you can see. I am working on the graduate degree and it is gonna push me to the six digit mark. To say it is aggravating is an understatement.

My graduate degree will easily push me into the six digit loan mark.  I'll be lucky to get away with less than 200K in loans for a 2 year master's degree, since I won't be able to work at the same time and will have to borrow living expenses as well.  The good news is that I'm finishing up my bachelor's degree relatively debt-free, and my master's degree has almost guaranteed job placement at twice what I make now.  Thus is the state of education in America.  You can't get anything but minimum wage without some kind of degree, and you'll pay out the ass for that degree.

What the actual fuck. 6 digits, for 2 years of college? That is insane...  Y'all, forget I whined. I feel like I don't have any place complaining, we're relatively 'lucky'. Especially considering I WILL hit the 6 digits, but my debt pay off will be based on income, and the first 2 years you don't have to pay. On top of that, the interest rate is like, 1% and when you hit 35, they'll be like 'All is cool. Consider the debt non-existing!'.

Granted, I graduated undergrad back in 2000, but we technically we were tuition free, just had $4k of fees per quarter.  So, with scholarships and parents each chipping in 1/3, I'm down to $4k on my student loans, and PhD was tuition free.  It's possible in the US, but it depends on your field.  Of course, I've never made more than $20/ hr and have been out of work for 9 months, so I'm probably a really bad example.  

I do anticipate to make the amount I borrowed relatively quickly once I graduate. Still, when I think about the debt I am taking on, I break out in a cold sweat, my stomach turns in knots, and anxiety takes over. Lets talk about kittens!     

My kitten threw up on the floor. I totally didn't see it and Rage gave me a hard time. >.>

IT'S SPRINGTIME!!!

+1 feel so bad for some of you our system is so backwards. Some day I'll run for president and fix that problem and many others... as to kittens you have it all wrong it's all about the border collies

I nearly split my left kneecap in half on the corner of my desk drawer... After hardly being able to walk last night because my knees hurt so badly. Happy Birthday to me! XD

Happy Birthday Morgan!   

You're getting old Morgan, hot, but old

Happy Birthday!!

Happy birthday! (and ouch!)

It's 1:21am and I'm currently shit faced. And I've been drunk for the last 15 hours.... Yep. Awesomeness. I'm just so grateful for the vending machine at the end of the hallway.    

Life has a way of sometimes handing out a sweet victory.  For four years I have been engaged in a constant and very stressful battle with a company called ATOS whose sole purpose has been to get people off benefits and into work.  This sounds fine, except when you look a little deeper and see that that one man went back to work who should not have been declared fit for work and subsequently died of a heart attack.  These people have been quoted saying that a person with one arm can still work a check out so they don't need benefits.  By the same token, I have had to take them to court after every assessment where they say I should be in work so that a magistrate and two consultants can overturn their decision and confirm my doctors diagnosis.  So you can imagine my joy and elation when I come across this article: Fit-to-work tests: Atos contract to end.  Which (for the benefit of those who might not be able to read that) states that the Government are dumping them for  "significant quality failures".  After all this time fighting them it is a big relief to see that what I have been saying is an opinion shared by many.  

This sums it up nicely for me

Quote :

Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope, meanwhile, said: "I doubt there's a single disabled person who'll be sorry to hear that Atos will no longer be running the fit-for-work tests."

He said the "fundamentally flawed" test should be "more than an exercise in getting people off benefits".

"It should make sure disabled people get the specialist, tailored and flexible support they need to find and keep a job."

Public and Commercial Services union general secretary, Mark Serwotka, said the assessments were "designed to harass vulnerable people and take their benefits away rather than provide support and guidance".

"Doctors, MPs and disabled people all believe the tests should be scrapped so, instead of replacing the failed Atos with another profit-hungry provider, the government should bring the work in-house and invest in it properly."

So yeah *fistpump* they lose

they sound like a bunch of wankers so they deserve what they got!

My friend got tickets and invited a bunch of us to go to the finale of The Voice Arabia. We had no idea who the judges or the contestants were, and we barely understood all the non-Lebanese accents but it was soooo much fun cheering the wrong names during the show!

Also, we were live witnesses of this and that. (WHY WAS I SO UNAWARE THAT RICKY MARTIN IS THIS HAWT? *swooons*) Keep in mind, none of us was a particularly big fan of his, but the way we were screaming for fun made us seem like some sort of groupie haha. I don't think I've laughed this hard in a long while

haha awesome Rita!

OKay, well I'm thinking its time to move now. Boring weekend, other than the body found in one of the apartments. Then taking daughter to work, hear on the news police investing a shooting that happens to be in my area. Couple hours later, yeah it was my area, in fact it was in the lobby of my building...

Soooo, yeah, time to move, just maybe...

oooo! maybe time to move indeed! Stay safe!

Now I know that I am jaded. I read that and thought "another normal day isn't it?" I suppose with where I have lived in the past and even now, I accept that violence is a part of city life. It's not nice when it happens close by and can be very unsettling so my thoughts and prayers go out to you Dark. Big hug coming your way from me.

Scary stuff.   

Been really busy irl/inactive on here because I got my first full time big person job!

I work for this IT company making about double what I made before, we efficiently track online advertising and we do it more efficiently than anyone else. We're like the only company in the world I'm pretty sure that does our type of ad campaign monitoring so its pretty crazy working 5 years of retail, no college degree and now I'm working for this multi million dollar company (theres also only ~15 of us in 2 different offices).

Its a real sick job (lotsa money, free lunch, browse the internet for a few hours a day) but also is probably the start of my career. I work with a few of my IRL friends and the guys who were already in the office are cool too (star wars posters and breaking bad posters on the wall) we're all a bunch of nerds pretty much. ^^

wow man, super jealous!

Darkness wrote:

OKay, well I'm thinking its time to move now. Boring weekend, other than the body found in one of the apartments. Then taking daughter to work, hear on the news police investing a shooting that happens to be in my area. Couple hours later, yeah it was my area, in fact it was in the lobby of my building...

Soooo, yeah, time to move, just maybe...

No joke. Reminds me of a summer I had when I was fourteen or so... Was visiting my grandparents and there were bodies found in a shack down the street from where they lived. A couple and their daughter, shot by their son and then hidden.

Went home X amount of days later and someone was shot/murdered execution style (as in, on their knees, hands tied behind their back and shot in the back of the head) a mile or so up the road.

Not in the same building but I know the feeling. Eesh.