whew

I got my student loan notice yesterday...am being allowed to take out enough to cover classes and enough to live off of for the next four months. I also found out that WMU considers 6 hours to be full time for a graduate student, so I was able to drop my one class in Lansing (an hour away) and chill out about my getting into a class that I'm currently on the waiting list for (if I get in, sweet. If I don't, oh well). So I'm going to be able to ease into going back into school with two classes (maybe three), two nights a week rather than go all out, traveling cross-state and taking four classes for 12 hours.

And then there's the fact that I'm able to take out about $1400 a month to live off of. I don't live that well, but I'm taking all of it. Any money that I make at work will therefore be able to pay down my debts...and it should be enough that I'll be down to just student loans by this time next year. That will make life so much more comfortable.

In any case, I was able to look at apartment listings tonight knowing that I'll be able to actually make calls and take some walk-throughs tomorrow and over the weekend. Hopefully, I'll find a place within the next week and the landlord will be willing to wait until I get my dispersement the last week of the month to pay my security deposit -- thus leaving me with enough still to buy a car in the next week as well rather than having to wait for my loan money to come in to do one or the other. At the very least, I'm extremely confident that I'll have a place of my own and a car by the end of the year. That makes me happy. Very Happy.