I’m Not Dead, I Swear

I just sent this email to a friend because I am crazy and random.

So, since you are a lovely grad student, will you explain some things to me. What the fuck are comprehensives? Are you getting an MS? I’ve been asked to attend grad school by two of my professors, should I do it? How are you paying for grad school? Are you a TA? Do you have a fellowship? Is work paying for it? I want a fellowship, think it’s likely? I’m a girl in mechanical engineering, so I think I have a better chance than some, but still I only have a 3.55 GPA from a crap school, so I don’t think I have a chance. How hard was the GRE – I’ve already been accepted to my school and I don’t need to take it, except most fellowships ask for it. I’m scared of the GRE.

I’m rambling, but I’m so confused about whether I should suck it up for another 2 years and get my MS in mechanical engineering or just go into the workplace. I’m leaning toward grad school cause I don’t think I’m smart enough for real life. And I hate change. Change sucks.

GAH!

Sorry I just asked a thousand questions. I’m just nervous/scared.

Also, last week I got a $300 speeding ticket for going 34 in a school zone. This is a high school school zone and while I didn’t mean to speed, I’m not so opposed to killing a few teenagers – especially because they like shooting guns in my front yard.

I’m sure I’m going to hell for that. Oh well.

I think there should be elderly zones, not school zones. The elderly can’t get out of the way as quickly as kids.

Also, because children are the most important thing in the world and their lives are more valuable than anyone elses, I am required to go to court. I can’t just pay the ticket, I have to actually waste a whole day in court. However, my court date is the same day as one of my finals, so I have to reschedule. But, of course, they don’t make anything easy so I have to actually go to the courthouse to change my court date, I can’t just call to reschedule.

Blah.

Tonight I passed out from shear exhaustion for a small nap around 8:00pm. I planned on sleeping about an hour and then waking up and hitting the books – again. Unfortunately, I overslept a bit, but the universe was looking out for me and sent an alarm to wake me up.

At exactly 9:18pm I was awoken by 4 loud pops. I was a bit startled, but thought it must be fireworks from the assholes who live behind me. However, it was odd enough and loud enough that I noted the exact time it happened incase the cops stopped by and someone was dead.

I’m psychic.

At 9:40 the doorbell rang. I opened the door to 5 cop cars outside my house and a cop asking if everyone in the house was alive and ok.

“Um, yeah – why?”

“Well Ma’am, it seems there were shots fired in your front yard and we need to ask you a few questions.”

Ok, wtf?! I HATE THIS NEIGHBORHOOD. It wasn’t just gunfire a few houses away, or gunfire in front of my house, it was gunfire IN MY FRONT YARD THAT IS FENCED IN.

After HOURS of the cops being here they finally packed up and left. (with no dead body and no real damage to anything other than a broken window in the neighbor’s house, was there a need for hours and hours of mulling around my yard? Tax dollars at work, I see.)  They found 4 shell casings in my yard and on the sidewalk in front of my house. That’s it.

1) Why would someone jump into my yard and shoot a gun? Presumably they shot away from the house towards the street because a bullet shattered the neighbor’s window. Why?!

2) Since there really wasn’t death/serious damage why would the cops stay for hours combing my yard for bullet casings? It just caused a bunch of the neighbors to congregate around my house gossiping about who wants to kill the neighbors.

3) I hate this neighborhood. For obvious reasons now. At least this validated my feelings.

4) May can’t come soon enough. Hopefully I’ll have a job by graduation so I can move the hell out of here.

Ok, I’m going to go try to get a few hours sleep before I have to be back on campus tomorrow morning. I just needed to write that out so I can look back in years and remember how far I’ve come. From the ghetto to the gated community, right? Oh, the perils of being born a white female in a middle class family, right? Ha!

Wanda’s Julie’s Fat Knees:

Been extremely not busy. I could lie and say I’ve been super busy, but I haven’t. I just haven’t felt like spilling my guts here and I don’t know why.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I do feel like spilling my guts here, but I’m too lazy to do it. It takes so much effort to compose my thoughts into coherent paragraphs, ya know?

See, that’s how lazy I am lately. Oh my God, I have to THINK?!

I’m working at the vet clinic again this summer since the internship fell through. It’s pretty easy, pays ok, and is enjoyable most of the time.

I’m pretty lucky to be where I am in life right now and I feel like I’m not seizing the opportunity to enjoy it fully. Someday I will look back with regret, I just know it.

I want to do something.

Something remarkable.

Bah, that would take thinking.

Let me preface this by saying that for the most part, life recently has been good.

But today I spent the entire day in bed crying. My eyes are swollen and I look as if I have the flu. I’m exhausted.

If I didn’t have to work tomorrow I’m sure the day would be spent much the same.

I think that I am fundamentally flawed beyond repair.

Earlier this month I made a few poor money decisions and I ended up being short for two bills that I completely forgot were being debited. Unfortunately, my bank, US Bank, is the shittiest bank on the planet. As you can see from the following excerpt from my account, the total for the original overdrafts was $24.17 more than I had in my account.

Now, I understand that there will be overdraft fees and that this was my fault completely. This is how banks stay in business and I am responsible to pay any fees associated with my mistake. However, I have been a customer of this bank for almost 10 years, and I will admit I have been overdrawn a few times before, but have ALWAYS paid the fees. This time was different and I knew I wouldn’t be able to pay them until the end of the month. I called the bank to ask for help, or a stay of execution if you will. No such luck, in fact, Sholanda was a complete cunt to me. As I do in stressful situations, I ignored it for awhile.

US Bank’s policy is to kick you while you’re down, so for every day your account is in the negative (from previous experience I know that even if it was fees that put you in the negative this still applies) they charge you $8.00.

What I didn’t know was that for every week your account stays negative, they charge you an additional $35.00 just for the fuck of it.

I contact the bank on several occasions, through email, by phone, and in person, hoping I would get a sympathetic person that would somehow let me work out a plan so that the $8.00 fee would stop accruing. No such luck. US Bank employees are cunts. All of them.

There was nothing I could do about the situation, I had no one who I could borrow the money from, so I was resigned to the fact that I’d have to pay whatever they charged me. Then, on Friday, I got a letter stating that my account was in the negative and they were going to send me to collections unless I paid immediately or set up a payment plan to get my account in good standing again. A payment plan they would work out with me cause they care about me.

A FUCKING PAYMENT PLAN THAT I HAD BEEN ASKING FOR A MONTH TO GET AND THAT EVERYONE CLAIMED DIDN’T EXIST.

I was beyond livid. As you can see while the fucking cunts I had talked to played ignorant about the whole ordeal, my account had accrued a fucking ridiculous amount of fees. Convenient? Yes.

So, for an original negative balance of $24.17, I ended up paying $402.00 in fees. FOUR HUNDRED AND TWO DOLLARS.

That’s 16.6 times the original amount, or 1663% interest for less than one month.

I’m all for personal responsibility, and I paid what I owed, but I think this is quite possibly the most disgustingly poor business practice I’ve ever come in contact with. I have 10 years of good standing with their company and it meant nothing. I was treated as if I was scum when asking for help, and I actually got an eye roll when I tried explaining the situation to the teller in person.

I’ve been trying really hard to just accept this as a learning experience, but I just can’t get over it. I know there’s nothing I can do, but at least I can warn as many people as possible to bank elsewhere.

* See how there are 3 overdraft fees, but only two actual items that were cleared? Well, apparently my account balance was pending from a deposit, so while the money was there, they didn’t want to count it just yet…

** See how that’s still pending? Conveniently, it will be pending until Monday. That way they can squeeze $16.00 more out of me with the negative balance fee for Saturday and Sunday. There is no possible way to deposit money on the weekend and it count until Monday – even when I go in person with cash and give it directly to a teller. Nice.

*** I was told by a cunty US Bank employee when I called that if I didn’t get my balance up to $16.00 to cover the negative balance fees I would be charged another $35.00 for going negative again. ‘I just wanted to let you know so I could save you some money.” Thanks lady, appreciate it.

I’d say happy earth day, but I feel the actual meaning of it has turned into who can be the trendiest ‘eco-saver’.

I especially love the mommies who drive HUGE SUVs and Hummers, but act like they are so environmentally savvy because they use reusable totes for their grocery bags. Then, they have the nerve to glare at me like I’m some horrible person because I don’t have a fashionable ‘I’m NOT a plastic bag’ bag.

While I hate buzzwords, I’d just like to point out: my carbon footprint is finite, it will end with me. Yours is infinite and will continue to pollute the earth for generations to come because you can’t stop popping out babies.

I suppose every little bit helps, so I shouldn’t be so negative. Blah. Wow, I’m pretty cunty this morning. It probably has to do with the fact that it’s morning and I’m up.

And that stupid Hummer that cut me off on the way to campus this morning.

Edited to add:

I saw the perfect example of the ‘I’m better than you cause I’m eco-trendy’ attitude while shopping at Target today.