Pell Grant, Shmell Grant

So I've been bored and I can't seem to find anything outside of part time employment. I'm not interested in stacking up more loans, Jeremy and I have enough school debt between us, but were I to find money I'd probably go back to school and do something productive with my time. The Pell Grant is an elusive little creature that is gifted money, it has no obligations attached to it. They also seem to not give them to anyone. I looked in to it the other day and I got my results back after filing a FAFSA (which was a pain for just me, I can't imagine how much of a pain it was for my mother to fill it out every year!) and even though the 2008 tax year brought me a mere $11k gross, and I am not anyone's dependent (meaning I don't have any potential income from my parents), I don't qualify for the Pell Grant!

What the heck do you have to do to get one of these things?!

I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I already have a degree, and we don't like to encourage furthering education in this country-- anything beyond undergraduate, we're expected to take out loans for the rest of our lives! And I was applying for an MAT, which means that I'm not expecting to be rich for the rest of my life. I mean, really?

Anyway, this MAT program is about $24k for the whole deal, and that could be spread out over two years, but it's still $24k that I definitely do not have. Perhaps in February I'll run the FAFSA again with what is sure to be an even smaller amount, and see what happens then. Any bets on the odds they'll deny me a Pell Grant again?

Hello, hello

I had been posting on LiveJournal, but I'm no longer interested in the format they have over there-- it's just easier to deal with Blogger to me. This is my personal blog, not my ramblings on about "important" stuff, but just what's going on. All my friends are scattered all over the place and this seemed like a better way to keep them updated.

Tomorrow I leave for Muscle Shoals, AL for a few days. My grandfather, who is 86, was diagnosed with leukemia last week and doesn't have more than probably a month left to live. It seems I know more people than not who have died of cancer. What are we doing to ourselves? I'll be sad when he goes, I love him very much, but he's lived a long life and done everything he wanted to do. The love of his life died about 10 years ago and he misses her a lot, so I think he's probably viewing this partially as a way to see her again. I hope when he does she's her old self, not affected by strokes like before she died.

I don't know if this will help with being in a rut or not. I'm out of school, I'm not working (which drives me NUTS because I have nothing to do), and I can't seem to find a job for the life of me. Hopefully, if nothing else, the DeKalb Co schools will hire me on as a substitute teacher. It won't include health insurance, but at least it'll include pay. I think I'm also driving Jeremy a little crazy. I sit at home all day alone, except when Jan (his mom) happens to be here, doing nothing and talking to nobody, while he spends all day at work, chaotic. When he gets home, I want someone to talk to and he wants to just close the door and have quiet. We're both getting tired of it, I think, because neither of us wants to impose on the other.

Anyway, that's all the wonderful stuff I have for now. Until later...