Financial (and Spiritual) Aid

Allow me to tell you a story about something that happened a couple of weeks ago.

So, I'm kind of an idiot. Not sure if you have gathered that already (if you know me well at all, then you most likely will agree with me). Well, one of my proudest moments of idioticy (idiocy? idioticness?) occurred earlier this month when I received an email from my school with the subject heading "Financial Aid-IMPORTANT MESSAGE."

Honestly I wasn't fazed in the least when I saw it on my university email page. They literally send me at least five emails a day telling me that my tuition payment is due from the day that the payment shows up on my bill until the day that I pay it. So I figured it was just another one of those.

When I clicked on it though, I knew something was wrong when the majority of the email was in bold-text red. I started to worry a bit. Normally bold-text equals important and red-text equals bad, so bold-text plus red-letter must equal REALLY BAD.

Well, I wasn't wrong. Basically the content of the email stated that they had failed to receive a financial aid application and there wasn't enough time to apply before tuition was due. So that meant that I would have to pay everything out of pocket or else my classes would all be dropped.

So yeah. There I was, sitting at my desk, staring wide-eyed at my laptop screen, chest tightening, heartbeat quickening...

I knew very well how much tuition was going to be. I had been checking my bill pretty regularly on my school's page to find out when financial aid was going to go through, not even thinking that I needed to actually apply for it first.

It was a big amount. Because of some special classes I have to take for my degree, the expenses were higher than usual. Basically the total we would have to pay was around 3 times the amount we normally pay per semester.

I think I panicked for a little while. I knew I would have to tell my parents. I knew they wouldn't be happy. We had been having a lot of car troubles and air conditioning troubles recently (among other things), so another big expense would be most unwelcome at that point in time.

That night I told mom, then I decided to let her tell dad (I'm not a coward, I just wanted to stay alive a little longer).

Truthfully they were pretty upset with me. But they had a good reason to be. I let time slip by and I didn't remember to put in the application (which I always do every summer before the Fall semester. Why did I not remember this? I still have no idea.). Anyways, my mom told me to call the people at the financial aid office to see what options I had.

I thought, Great, that'll be a fun conversation...

FA: "Financial aid office, how can I help you?"

Me: "Yes, I forgot to apply for financial aid, so I was wondering if there was any other way I could get it for the fall."
FA: "Oh, well I'm afraid there isn't."
Me: "Oh."
FA: "I'm sorry about that. It's okay though. A lot of freshmen usually forget to put in the application their first year."
Me: "Actually I'm a senior."
FA: "..."
Me: "Hello?"
FA: "You're an idiot." *hangs up*

Okay, okay, that's not exactly how the conversation went, but the guy did ask me if I was a freshman, and I had to tell him I was a senior. I'm just glad it was a phone conversation.

So I asked the guy a few questions and he told me that I could put in an application and then wait to pay my tuition until after financial aid goes through. That meant that my classes would all be dropped, but I would just have to risk it and re-register for them.

At this point I was thinking, Okay, this'll be fine. We're good. All is good. I put in my application immediately and waited. I was still worried that in the process of dropping classes they would get filled up and I wouldn't be able to re-register for some of them. If that happened, I would have to take summer classes again or wait another semester to graduate. Either way, that would mean more tuition to pay in the future.

And so I prayed. There was nothing else I could do, so I lifted it up to the One who is all-powerful and has the ability to do all things. I asked Him that by some miracle my application would be processed quickly and that financial aid would go through before the payment deadline.

Before I continue this story, I just want to make clear that I looked up the amount of time it takes to process a financial aid application and send it to a school for it to protect Fall semester classes. Normally it takes 2-3 weeks. I tried checking in lots of other places (like Yahoo! Answers) to see if anyone had a different experience, but they all said the same thing.

So, 2-3 weeks for financial aid to go through. My tuition payment was due in a little over 1 week. It just wasn't going to happen.

Resume story.

I got an email the very next day saying that my application had been processed. I was a little stunned, but then I saw that lots of people said that the processing was usually finished quickly. It just took a long time for the school to receive it and cover the tuition.

I literally checked every single day after that to see if my student bill total had changed to reflect the financial aid amount, but it hadn't.

That is, until I went to Starbuck's one afternoon to work on my homework for my summer class. I sat down at a small table against the wall, opened up my laptop, went to the student bill page, and there it was. All of my financial aid had gone through and the total left to pay was the normal amount we always pay.

I was shocked, excited, grateful, and I had to call my mom immediately to tell her. The process that was supposed to take 2-3 weeks was fully completed in 5 days.

God is good. He is gracious and faithful far beyond what I deserve time and time again. I had tears in my eyes as I prayed and thanked Him for being so good to me through my lack of responsibility and my lack of faith.

I write this not just to share a story or to entertain you, dear readers. I write this to remind you that we serve a wonderful God who is mighty and able to do far beyond what we ask or think. All glory be to Him.

End of story.

Downton Abbey strikes again...

Several of you are aware of my particular fondness of Julian Fellowes' period drama "Downton Abbey."

Well, it's back for a fourth season, so emotions will be running high for the next 3 months or so.

Bear with me, folks.

To clarify, there will be absolutely nothing spoiled for anyone. I am aware that it doesn't air in the US until January, but it's currently being aired in the UK (and let's face it...the really desperate fans watch it as soon as it airs, no matter which country they live in. Where there's a will there's a way, I always say.)

Anyways, I will never provide details.
But there's no possible way to keep such intense emotions bottled inside one human soul, sooooo....

In short, here's my reaction to the most recent episode in the form of a GIF:

There, I did it. I released a little bit of my frustration with absolutely no spoilers. I'll just say that I was a little bit very extremely angered by what occurred in the episode.

I shall leave you with an open letter to a particular character who shall remain nameless....

(Come on, at least I was vague...)

Awesome Vocal Impressions

I saw this video on facebook a couple weeks back and thought it was fantastic. So, here I am, sharing it with all of you on my blog. :) Enjoy!

(This lady is a broadway singer named Christina Bianco, by the way. Her impressions of Zooey Deschanel and Julie Andrews are my favorites. :)

Healthy Dessert, Lychee Nuts, and Lizzie Bennet

Right now I'm eating gluten-free cookies and 100% organic (like grass-fed cows and all that) chocolate milk for dessert. Super healthy diet FTDUBS.

Which brings me to my next bit of exciting news...I'm rewatching the Lizzie Bennet Diaries!

What are the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, you may ask? Well, first of all it's a shame that you would have to ask such a question...
Secondly, they are a web video series which puts a modern spin on the classic story of Pride and Prejudice. The entire story is on Youtube...soooo go take a gander.

WARNING: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries consist of one hundred 3-5 minute videos. You WILL catch yourself saying, "I'll just watch one more..."

Seriously though, it's amazing how accurately they portray the original story and characters while still maintaining the "this could actually happen in today's world" feel. The creators are geniuses.
(also, Lydia Bennet says "FTDUBS" a lot in the series. So that's why it sorta popped up out of the blue at the start of this post...)

Okay. So back to the dessert. The reason I'm eating such healthy stuff is because my siblings and I went to the Dekalb Farmers Market in Decatur today. That's where we bought the organic chocolate milk and we also got....

LYCHEE NUTS! :D

As in, like....

MOMO! AVATAR! Ringing any bells? (it's only my favorite TV series of all time...)

Anyway, this is what they look like in real life:

They taste pretty good. The white part is what we eat. It's really juicy and sweet, it just doesn't have a whole lot of flavor. It's kinda watery. That's okay though because it still makes me happy that we got to eat fruit from the Avatar world. :D

So that's all. Bye.

April 4, 2014

It's the most anticipated date of the upcoming year. It's when Captain America 2 comes out. 

That is all I have to say.

A Fond Farewell

Last month marked my 3-year anniversary working at Chick-fil-a. It's amazing how fast 3 years can fly by. Three years ago I was a baby 16-year-old who had just graduated high school. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I didn't really like to think about the future, I just wanted to live for the present. I was starting to get all of this responsibility and adult stuff thrown at me, and I didn't like it one bit.

Around that time I started to experience a lot of growth and maturing, both mentally and spiritually. God used several events and people to show me that He is greater and more worth knowing than anyone or anything else in existence.

The reason I'm getting all deep and emotional is because today is the last day I will ever be a teenager. That's right. Tomorrow I turn 20.

At Chick-fil-a we are taught a "system" to help us remember how to treat our customers. We greet them with a smile, make eye contact, be genuine in our enthusiasm, stay connected, and finally we offer them a fond farewell as they go out the door.

As I pause and turn around to look back at my teenage years on the eve of my twentieth birthday, I want to bid a fond farewell to some of the best, worst, and most confusing and frustrating times I have ever experienced, all of which has worked to shape and mold me according to God's perfect plan.

I'm not going to go into much detail about my high school years (honestly, who wants to hear about those times? Yikes...), but I will say that from 9th all the way through 12th grade I firmly believed I was better than every other person on the planet and that they were all greater sinners than I was. Whoever put that thought in my head, I have no idea. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and I was a living testament to that.

I remember not being happy or content to stay that way though. I often would draw near to the Lord, then fall right back out of the habit of reading the Word and praying. It frustrated me so much that I couldn't just stay on the "good" side and justify my belief that I was a better Christian and overall better person than all of my peers.
Through a series of events and people and sermons and family talks which came at the perfect time, I am humbled and overjoyed to say that God's grace is greater than my sin and His mercy is unfathomable. If I were Him, I would have given up on me years ago. I still fall short so often, but He is so good to remind me Whose righteousness I stand upon.

One question which always puzzles me but never fails to be asked on my birthday is "So, how does it feel to be [insert age here]?" I don't think I've ever met someone who has woken up on their birthday and suddenly experienced a drastic change of feelings caused by their sudden increase in age. It's not like one whole year of aging is saved until your actual birthday. That would be weird and sort of awkward and would definitely result in some drastic changes.
Tomorrow I will only be one day older than I am today, and I don't think I'm going to feel much different than I do right now. My only hope is that I will wake up tomorrow more in love with the Lord and more in awe of His grace than I am today. I pray that as I keep growing one day older my desire to know Him and seek His kingdom will increase all the more.

I feel it is fitting to end this post with a praise song. I praise my Father in heaven for my teenage years, even though I wasted much of that time striving for useless things. I praise Him for showing me grace through my selfishness and for listening to the prayers of such a wretch as I.

So I bid a fond farewell to my years as a teen and look ahead to what the Lord has planned next. If He can do such great things in the span of 19 years, I can't imagine what lies ahead.

A New Addition...

We meet again, blog followers.

(Which is amazing since my average posts-per-day is like 0.00000000000000000000001)

Anyways, I am here to talk to you about a special person who has grown very dear to my heart during the course of this week. I don't believe I've met anyone quite like him. He's brave, loyal, self-sacrificial, clever, compassionate, honorable...yet he is not without fear and still has much to learn.

You have probably guessed by now that I am talking about the magnificent Horatio Hornblower.

Now many may claim that since I have only just finished watching the television adaptation of the original novels, I do not have the right to accurately judge Horatio's character until I have read the originals. Well, this afternoon I will be heading to the library to pick up the first installment, thank you very much. ;)

I am very eager to read the original Hornblower series to get to know this character more. C.S. Forester wrote eleven novels in the series and only a few of those stories made it into the A&E series on TV back in the late 1990s. I HIGHLY recommend that series, but I'm telling you now that it is addicting...just be sure to watch them when you don't have a lot of stuff to do (there are eight episodes, each about 90 minutes long). :D

Now you're probably wondering what the heck the stories are about.
It's set during the late 1700s/early 1800s when the French revolution was taking place. It follows the life of Horatio as he begins as a 17-year-old midshipman on a British naval ship and gains experience in the British navy, leading to his promotion to Commander as Napoleon Bonaparte instigates another war.

That's as far as the TV series goes, but there are more adventures and promotions chronicled in the book series.

If you aren't into British history or movies about ships and stuff, you may not like it. However, I'm not a huge fan of 18th century British wars or naval battles and I still loved it. The characters are just incredible. I almost wanted to cry when I realized I had finished watching the last episode. The company decided not to make anymore because it was too expensive, apparently. Pfft. Losers.

Anyways, enough summarizing of the story. Horatio is an incredible character. He's a war hero, but when he's out of his element he doesn't really know what he's doing. He often knows exactly what to do when unexpected situations arise, but sometimes takes risks to do what he believes to be right. He is absolutely, undoubtedly loyal to his duty as an officer, but that loyalty turns into a problem when other aspects of life require him to re-examine his priorities. He is handsome and an absolute gentleman, but lacks any sort of confidence when interacting with women (it's rather comical at times).

In short, Horatio has become one of my favorite fictional characters in a matter of 4 days. I can admit with certainty that he is a new addition to my list of fictional characters I could marry...

The List (in no particular order):

Matthew Crawley (Downton Abbey)

Mr. Knightley (Emma)

Aragorn (LOTR)

Steve Rogers (Captain America)

Faramir (LOTR)

Horatio Hornblower

I've probably forgotten a few in there, but you get the point. ;)