The wilds of upstate

[fredericks]

This being the middle of my three-day weekend (yet again my love for 12-hour shifts knows no bounds) I was planning on lying in bed, watching the occasional DVD, and mebbe heading out to atraxia's bangin' shindig. Course, things came up - middle bro needed to go to Pleasantville on a football recruiting trip, mom was working, dad came home the night before plastered, so I ended up volunteering my accompaniment services at the very last minute (11:35PM last night). The campus is pretty and quaint, but 42k for tuition + fees + room and board?? Seriously, forty-two THOUSAND DOLLARS? Teh crack, it is strong. Needless to say, the chance of bro going there is slim-to-nil. Things wrapped up around 3:40 and we got dropped up at the local Metro-North station. Blah blah blah we weren't paying attention, we ended up taking the train *further* upstate and ended up in Chappaqua. What a Chappaqua is, I don't know. However, during our hour wait for another NYC-bound train and subsequent tour of the portion of the town closest to the station we learned that Chappaqua was founded by Quakers in 1730. Uhm, yeah. We did some window-shopping, made the obligatory Starbucks stop and then caught the 5:40 train down. By the time I got back to the city (made it to the house by 8PM) I was tired, disgruntled, and ready to fall into bed. No party for me.

Aside from the frustration inherent in trying to help bro do the whole college application thing (he's all "I don't care/I hate writing essays", I'm all "you're fuckin' smart! apply to more places! you'll get scholarship money") today's been okay. Work's been all right as well. Wednesday was my worse day on the floor...and it started out so well! So, okay, I spent the long cold dark ride in sleepily daydreaming about Paul Gross's mouth (FY-mebbetoomuch-I: I love a subtle overbite. I can watch Mssr Gross say "yes" over and over again) and it's possible that frazzled me enough to make me this close to being a bumbling fool on the floor. Thursday was loads better, even though I ended up with another clinical coach that day. I had the same patients as the day before and most everything went amazingly smooth.

I'm still very tired. I apologize for this entry being more scattered than usual.

Oh! I mailed out cards to the lovely folk who shared their info with me, and got cards from a couple of you folk in return. Holiday cards = sweet!

My license came in the mail Thursday. The folks were psyched, but dad started up with his "you should change your last name" speech again. To be fair, he didn't give me a speech so much as a couple of words. My feeling is, hey, if y'all were too absentminded to remember to change my name after y'all got married there's no reason for me to go about doing it now. All the documentation needed to change my important information/paperwork would be waaaaaaay too difficult. I do have to go about having pops declared as my legal pops (yet ANOTHER thing they neglected to do) sooner or later, though. Craziness.

One more week until Christmas. Time flies indeed.

Comments

This comment was added at 1:24 am, so be forewarned of sleepy craziness that may ensue... :P

[1x2foralways.livejournal.com]

Yay for trips!

$42k?? Please tell me that's for all 4 years. Pretty damn expensive, but God help us all if that's for one year alone.

Have a good rest of the weekend! Get lots of rest and have plenty of happy times. You totally deserve it.

Did my card arrive to you safely?

Time does indeed fly! I can't keep up with it anymore.

Yay for hanging out again in a few weeks! Am totally stoked about that. (:

Re: This comment was added at 1:24 am, so be forewarned of sleepy craziness that may ensue... :P

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

I got your card! It was on the first wave. I can't believe you gave me a present! Dude, that was so uncalled for. I do appreciate it though and I'm miffed I didn't send you anything. I'll make up for it when we meet up, promise.

The 42k is for one year. RE-diculous. I'm making him look into the state schools, which are around 10k/year. We can swing that, I think.

I'm excited too. We'll paint the town. :)

Re: This comment was added at 1:24 am, so be forewarned of sleepy craziness that may ensue... :P

[1x2foralways.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you like it! I knew you would, you being a Starbucks fan and all. (:

And don't worry, spending the day with you is a gift in and of itself. (:

$10k is understandable, and a lot more reasonable. The college must be made of gold or something. *grin*

I'll bring the red paint! ;)

[rwarner.livejournal.com]

Chappaqua is *not* upstate! It's barely north of White Plains, it can't be upstate. Now, if you want to see the wilds of upstate, you should come up and see places like Morrisville or Hamilton. :)

By the way, your brother should look into Syracuse University if he's smart *and* good at football...true, SU is expensive too, but they might bestow upon him one of their full ride football scholarships. They're desperate for good football players (or should be, based on their record the past two years), and they'd probably beg him to go there if he's any good.

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

You do realize that anything that's past the Bronx for me is *automatically* labeled "upstate", right? When you get to Albany the obligatory "effin' far" is stuck in there somewhere. *grin* Trying to talk sense to me is a waste...or so I've been told.

Syracuse is the same price as Pace, and while they most likely have more money to throw around for football (assuming they're a Division I school) they tend to actively recruit athletes they want to dish out for. My brother is *good* but, to be quite honest, he's not *that good*. Schools that are checking him out are more captivated by the combination of his average (92) and his history of sports (basketball/football/baseball) than specific work on any playing field. He gets merit scholarships wherever he goes, but he'd only get straight sports scholarships at a Division I school, and none of them are recruiting him hard enough. The 'rents make too much money for him to get one of the need-based full-ride scholarships, so he's sort of assed out wherever he goes.

[nelliewu.livejournal.com]

$42K? for an in-state school?!? that's ridiculous! they are suppose to make the out-of-state tuition crazy high.

[fredericks.livejournal.com]

There's a difference between in-state public schools and private schools. Private schools like Pace don't give residents price reductions, while public state and city schools are usually 5k cheaper for people from the area. I'm trying to steer him towards the state schools. It's something I wish someone had pointed out to me when I was applying to schools, even though I enjoyed my college years where I ended up going. Unfortunately the folks and I will be paying back money for *years* to come.

[nelliewu.livejournal.com]

oooooh, private school. makes sense now. i went to a state school and i loved my experience there. i was out of state, but my dad was in the military and got stationed in GA right before i started school, so i was allowed to pay the in-state price, just had to do the paperwork every year. i don't even want to think about what my student loan would look like without that break :o