A couple of miracles

So, the last little while . . . ok long while, I've been feeling really stressed. I've been feeling stressed about a lot of things. One of my major stressors, as for most people, is money. How in the world am I going to pay for my last year of school now that I no longer have scholarship money coming? Well, I prayed about that and soon after I found out that I FINALLY qualified for financial aid! I've never qualified for federal aid before, but the grant I was granted is enough to cover tuition!
That, however, led to another stress. I soon discovered that I was approaching the limit of credits to be able to receive federal financial aid. How Murphy is that? I finally qualify to receive federal aid, but I will lose it because I've been in school too long. It is possible to appeal, so I went in to talk to a financial aid counselor about it. He said I could petition to get my financial aid, but it would be better if I could rearrange my schedule so that going into Winter semester, I would have no more than 179.5 (the max is 180) credits. To my great surprise, I realized that I had already done that! Without thinking about it, I had dropped my scuba class (.5 credits) and now I will have exactly 179.5 credits going into Winter semester!
The final miracle that has happened, has to do with my laptop. When I went back to Bismarck to get my brother's car and to get Sara, I let Elizabeth use my laptop. Not much later, she told me that it stopped working, the screen would no longer turn on. I was a little worried about that, especially because I didn't know if it was still covered under warranty. I took it to Best Buy (where I bought my laptop) and was pleased to discover that it was still covered! That means I didn't have to pay a single penny for my laptop to be fixed! That's good, because even though I have money for tuition now, that doesn't mean I have money for anything else.

Financial aid, dropping SCUBA, laptop issues.

First Day of Classes

Today was my first day of summer classes. This term is going to be very busy, but I think it will be interesting, at least. I am debating about dropping my "fun" class. It is at a rather inconvenient time. The only other time I can take it is Friday nights. I switched, but we shall see what happens. Having it on Tuesday night just isn't an option because I am going to be having a lot of homework due on Wednesdays.
Things have been pretty uneventful other than starting classes. Oh, I went to class today thinking that I wouldn't know anyone. In my first class, Russian grammar, I was surprised to see Jeff! Not only do I know Jeff, but he was in Jerusalem at the same time as me and we had a class together last fall. It seems I can't get away with having classes with him.
Then in my next class I was surprised to see Sandra! She served in my mission. She was starting her mission just as I was finishing it, but we kind of served together for a few days. I guess I know more people here than I thought!

I'm back . . . again

Well, I went to North Dakota again. This time I took the bus. It was horrible. I left Friday night and didn't get to Bismarck until Sunday morning. That is because I had a 9 hour layover in Butte. The other thing that was annoying was that every single guy there seemed to think it was not only his right, but his duty to talk to me. Most of the time it was just kind of funny, but there were a couple of guys that creeped me out. On my first bus, there was a guy who was drunk (I could smell the alcohol on him, though it took me a while to remember that smell from my experiences with drunk Russians) and said some crazy things. He told me that not only was the owner of Levi Strauss on our bus, but so was the younger sister of Willie Nelson and the oldest daughter of Dick Cheney. I've never traveled with so many important people before!
In Butte, I spent a lot of time reading (I read a lot the entire trip) and went across the street to a grocery store when I ran out of food that I brought with me. I was relieved when my new bus finally came. It was a long drive, but at least we didn't have too long of stops anywhere. After it wasn't as crowded, it wasn't bad either. We had a stop in Billings where we switched buses, but that was about it.
Sunday, I went to church after a short nap. It was weird because they are meeting in a different building while our building is renovated. It was nice to see people, though.
Monday, the first thing I did was renew my license. I didn't want to risk forgetting to do that! The new North Dakota license is weird. I'd show you what it looked like, but I don't want you to be able to figure out my personal information. That night, I had to pick up my brother's car from the shop (my dad took it in so that it would be road-worthy) and then Erin and I hung out. We went to see a movie. It was the new Adam Sandler movie, the Zohan or whatever. It wasn't what I expected. It was interesting because there were a lot of references to Israel and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but it was a lot dirtier than I've become accustomed to with Adam Sandler. He's been doing better movies lately, but this one was horrible. There were some funny lines, but I wish I hadn't wasted my money. Oh well, it was nice to hang out with Erin.
The next day, Tuesday, I went to visit Erin's kids. It makes me feel good that they still love me. Later that night, Sara and I left for Utah. I wanted to get back down here to have a good night's sleep before work this morning. I made it! We got in around 4 pm, I dropped Sara off and helped unload her stuff, talked with Linda (my aunt) for a bit. She's having a rough time right now because she has to go through Chemotherapy. But, I was surprised at how well she is handling it. Then again, she is that kind of person. She always seems to roll with the punches.