February 21, 2000 ~ Morgan's Book, Wedding Logistics, and Money %*!$@

Morgan is finally feeling better. He just has a few residual symptoms like a runny nose. It looks like I avoided The Sick entirely, a fact that I am eternally grateful for.

Today Morgan finished the second segment of his independent study on the history of Wicca. This part was at least seventy pages, and he even left out a few sections because he just couldn't fit it all in with the two-week work period he had. He is doing this as an eight-credit independent study course this semester. Over the summer he plans to add to his manuscript even more, edit it, and then hopefully get it published at the end of this summer. I am so very proud of him. He has been working quite hard on this. (I haven't had ANY computer time!) I find it amazing that he is doing a scholarly work in a field that is understudied, and he is actually writing about things that have never been published all in one book before. It is fascinating material, as well.

Morgan's dad visited today, and he took us out to eat at the Dragon, a wonderful Japanese/Thai/Chinese place about five minutes away from campus that has excellent food. They have plenty of vegan stuff too! It was delicious.

We talked about all sorts of topics. Morgan's dad mentioned that he plans to help support us after we're married. We don't want to take advantage of that, and we are going to try to do everything in our power to be completely financially independent... but it is still very comforting to know that there is help for us if we really need it. The offer was really sweet of him.

I'm still trying to figure out how to pull off having my wedding here in North Carolina where I am living without hurting all my family and friends from Oregon (on the other side of the country). There is no way I can even dream of paying for their plane tickets. My grandmother said that I should have the ceremony and everything here and then go to Oregon and have a second copy ceremony. That just sounds strange and fake to me though. My wedding is a spiritually significant and symbolic event, and I would feel as if it had been cheapened in some way if we could just "pretend" to get married for the first time in Oregon even though we had already made that vow and commitment... *sigh* I don't want to hurt the people who care about me, though. I'm at quite a loss, and if anyone has suggestions, I would be happy to hear them.

Hmm. A guy who lives down the hall just asked me to help him fix his computer and I actually FIXED it for him. I had no idea how to fix the problem, but I tinkered a bit and the tinkering worked. Yea!

Morgan and I both received polite letters in the mail today that told us that tuition for next year will be about TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS more for each of us than it was last year. CRAP! There is no way we can afford that! We don't have four thousand dollars to spare! Between the two of us we are probably about 12,000 dollars in debt already, after just two years of college. *sigh* We work our butts off already, both doing an average of 25 to 30 hours of work every week, on top of 18 credits a semester and working full time over the summer. That, of course, moves us up a tax bracket, so we end up paying about 700 dollars each in taxes... There is no possible way for us to make more money than we have before. On top of all that, this year our financial aid will be less due to the fact that both of our parents remarried this year, and will therefore appear to have plenty of money to help us out, but in reality won't be able to. ACK!! I hate money. I hate the fact that education is so expensive. And I also hate the fact that some kids with rich parents come here for free plus a bunch of free pocket money, and then spend the whole time drinking and partying, being entirely ungrateful for what a privilege this is. They don't know what it means to have to struggle just to survive while learning here. Ugh. I am so frustrated. I honestly don't know if I will be able to come here next year, with this increase in cost. And we were hoping to maybe have a couple hundred dollars extra for wedding rings. HA! Such is the plight two people attempting to rise up from the lower class in this society.

We are going to have to get creative in moneymaking possibilities. *sigh*

Well, I'm behind on homework, I have quite a bit to do for The Well, and I have TONS of emails and letters to respond to, so I had best get moving.

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