Minor Rants

Just a few things that being online for most of the day (I deserve a one day break. Back to getting things done tomorrow.) that have struck me as something worth a minor rant about. And also some things that came up in life recently.

1. RESPECT PERSONAL SPACE/BOUNDARIES! This is in all capital letters, because, well, it should be. Yes, I am a fairly touchy-feely person. I like hugs and all that. But NOT from everyone. There are some people I feel are invading my space/boundaries when they give me a hug. And I have absolutely no problems telling them not to. Yes, it will probably offend them. But I feel that respecting my boundaries is worth that. I will not let somebody take advantage of me for the sake of being polite. (No one that I know reads this blog is included in this category, if you're reading my blog and haven't told me, you might be, because that's just creepy)

2. Going to school part time does NOT mean that I am not a serious student. In fact, if you sit down to hear the whole story of why I'm going part-time you would probably realize that if anything, it makes me more of a serious student, because I didn't just give up on the whole enterprise. If you want me to go to school full-time and be a "serious" student, pay my tuition.

But for those who don't know, the basic outline of the story is that I can't even apply for financial aid because I am not 24, not married, don't have kids, and am not a grad student, and therefore am not independent. Yes I file as independent on my taxes, and no, the office of financial aid doesn't care. But it's not their fault they don't care. The federal government decided at some point that your parents are responsible for paying for your college until any of the above requirements are met (or you graduate, obviously) whether or not they are actually supporting you. I was raised by my grandparents, but they never legally adopted me, for a myriad of reasons, and it was the only thing we really ever fought about when I was growing up. My parents were neglectful and abusive towards both me and my sister, who doesn't remember any of it. Because of me saying one time that as soon as my sister was old enough to cross the street we were going to run away, my grandparents took us from my father. It was easily the BEST thing that's ever happened in my life. I was seven years old when they saved our lives. Nine years later my grandfather died, two weeks before my junior year of high school. My grandmother and I became really close after that, because in a lot of ways, we were all each other had left. When I moved to Utah to go to college, it nearly broke her heart, but I knew that I still needed to leave. So I moved 1000 miles away with both her blessing and her support, because she realized that however much she didn't want me to leave, that I needed to get out of Lubbock. She never knew all of my reasons for leaving, but she was willing to be supportive, not asking for them all, because she long held the belief that you shouldn't ask a question if you aren't willing for the answer to go either way. I started going to the University of Utah quite happily, and stayed through the summer for summer school, and became a resident of Utah by the following fall. At this point my grandmother was getting my father's income tax forms and filling out the FAFSA from her house in Texas, and then getting him to sign the paperwork. For various reasons I decided that I was no longer even willing to get that much support from him, a decision that was hard to make financially, but emotionally made me much happier. At that point though, I still had my grandmother's support and help in paying bills when I couldn't quite make it with my paycheck. My very beloved grandmother died August 30, 2009. So now I have no way of knowing where my father is, even if I were willing to use his tax information. I also have no desire to try and find him. So now I am in the process of trying to get all of the paperwork rounded up to try and convince the office of financial aid to grant me an exception, so that I could go to school full-time again. I could graduate in four semesters of full time, which would be next spring, if I could afford the tuition, especially as I would then only have to work part-time to pay for living expenses. (And to think, that's the basic outline)

3. People saying Hi, How are you?. This has really been pissing me off lately, especially when I'm clearly not doing well. Really, what do you expect the answer to be? The only polite answer is, I'm well, thanks. How are you? But even though that's not always true, you get really weird looks if you answer anything different. So if I look like I'm having a bad day, and you aren't prepared to give me a hug (unless you're one of the aforementioned people in rant #1), don't ask how I am. If I'm at work, as how my kids are. If it's after work, ask how my kids were. Or how school was. Both work and school are generally happy topics for me. (Except the office of financial aid, but that's rant #2)If I'm crying, really, do not say Hi, how are you?. This is monumentally stupid, and pisses me off, because the answer is quite clearly, terrible, thanks, and you?

4. That because my blog is generally bitchy, I don't seem to be happy. Or that's what I would gather if I only knew me through my blog posts. Also, my blog seems to leave out key details that occasionally fail to get mentioned. Like my grandmother dying, I think this is the first post that is mentioned in. That I had an awesome, amazing fun summer with Jamie, who I wasn't dating, never got put in, after me saying that the summer would probably be boring. Actually, it was not boring thanks to Jamie. And other things, like General Convention, which I don't think I ever wrote a post about, the Indigo Girls concert, which was an amazingly good time, the Utah Pride Festival, which also never got a post, and I think may have also left out that I did, in fact, get elected to Diocesan Council.

5. That I may have actually said out loud about someone, "She would probably be a lot of fun to have sex with." While not a bad thing in and of itself, I object to this statement for a number of reasons, and I'm the one that said it. Never mind the fact that it's about someone completely inappropriate to think that about (and no, the woman in question is not one of my professors or a priest). But really, I didn't mean it quite how it sounds. I usually try not to say things like that.