After talking to a different financial aid counselor on Monday morning, I've decided I'm taking a year off to get Iowa residency. I'll still probably take classes at Des Moines Area Comm. College (DMACC) so I can attempt to keep my brain in a school mode. So...with taking a year off I should be able to pay state tuition next year, plus not have to file my mother's income on my FAFSA since I'll be 24 by fall '06. And since I'll be reducing my working hours when I start back to college full-time, I'll need to fill out a "Special Conditions" form (again), then probably end up getting a bunch of grants, or at least grants and Stafford loans (i.e., stuff they don't really need to check my credit for). Even if I did need to get other loans, it should be about 10 grand less per year, which means my debt will be much less by time I get done.

I had my interview at Target last Monday, so still waiting to hear back from them. They sounded like they would want someone to work a few more nights during the week instead of just weekends. I also had an interview at Hollywood Video yesterday. They were totally okay with me only working Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I would get free rentals, but they only pay $6/hr. That's less than what Panera was paying ($6.25). They already called me back to offer me a job. I don't know if I want to take it or not given the low pay. I honestly wasn't expecting them to get back to me so quickly. I would hate to accept the job and then find out that Target wanted to hire me and pay me more. I would feel really bad for quitting so soon, or feel bad for working for less money than I could be earnimg someplace else. Either job I take, I'm going to have to buy uniform stuff. I've noticed that Target's photo lab people wear black polos w/ their logo on them instead of just any red shirt like the rest of the employees. Some places give you a uniform shirt, but I have no idea how either place handles that. But I would definetly have to buy pants, which is something I really can't afford since I'm coming home on the 29th for Kate's wedding.

My current job has been trying to help me come up with some more hours. We were initally going to plan my hours around my class schedule for the fall and hire someone to be there when I couldn't. My boss also mentioned that they need someone to do cataloging in the lab which would give me about 20 hrs/week, but its a temp project thing since her grant money will run out in October. I can't be certain that I'll have another source of income by then unless I take something now, before the rest of the college crowd comes back.

Oh yeah, and I'm at the library typing all of this since my laptop continues to be a finniky P.O.S. It looks like I may actually have to get it fixed now. Dell tech support thinks its an LCD backlight that is out, but they don't sell just the backlight. The LCD kit is $379. I've been calling around to some of the computer repair places to get their hourly rates and a time estimate to replace something like that. One place said he's seen a transmittor or connector (I don't remember what he called it) burn out instead of the backlight, so he quoted me "around $150" until I told him it was a Dell. Then he had no idea what it would cost by time they got parts from Dell. This really sucks, I was under the impression that they had a pretty good product and supposedly award winning customer service. The sales guy who eventually quoted me the price of the LCD kit tried to tell me "well, its not really expensive."
"How much is not expensive."
"They don't cost that much."
"I'm in college. I consider five bucks expensive sometimes."
"Oh, I see (fake laugh). Let me put you on hold again and I'll find out." Then I asked how long something normally takes to arrive. He said if I ordered today, it would leave the warehouse on the 26th. So...a friggin week just to get packaged and get on a truck? That's not even the transit time coming from wherever the warehouse is (but I'm assuming India). Dah!  That guy irritated the crap out of me, can you tell?

I guess I should get the DMACC stuff looked up like I came here to do.