The epitome of getting your dreams crushed.

[december_solstice]

Well sort of.

Can you believe there was a time when you could actually WORK your way through college? Now, students are spending the cost of a house in less than 4 years.

College is an investment. One that isn't easy to make if you're poor.

The worst is that overwhelming excitement you feel after finding out you got in -- then realizing you can't even afford the tuition deposit, or any other fee thrown at you that is required to even register for your classes.

My spirit? Crushed. My dreams? In ruins.

Yeah, I'll get over it, sure, eventually I will move along and carve a new path for myself.

But there is something else I've realized. It's all nonsensical. Higher education is a profitable business -- it does NOT have the student's best interest in mind.

Here is my story:

I recently completed my Bachelor's and graduated with a 3.5 GPA. This Spring, I applied for an MFA program, with the same university, and got in! This summer, I took my final 2 credits I needed to graduate and start my MFA program in the Fall.

By the time I was nearly done with my short 7 week summer course, I discovered that I would not qualify for any financial aid. For me to qualify, I would need to take 6 credits or more. Why would I take 6 credits, when I only need 2 to graduate? Why would I waste upwards 10,000 in federal grants, scholarships and student loans, that I simply do not need to spend? Why on earth would I do that? That funding could be applied to another deserving student.

This problem has only presented itself because I wanted to graduate this summer, instead of in the Fall. It was the most logical solution to complete my final credit in the summer, therefore being able to attend graduate school in the Fall. Logical. Common sense, even.

In order to start the MFA program, I needed to first fork out nearly $1500 in a matter of days. They did not offer me a payment plan even when I tried to explain to them-- Hey man, there isn't $1500 lying around under my mattress. Hey man, I'm living in it (rent). Which I can barely pay. I'm just trying to get ahead here. I am a working young person with little to no credit. I can't get a private student loan when I have no cosigner. Nor could I get a personal loan.

When I finally exhausted all of my options, I surrendered to the fate...that I kind of already saw coming.

That wasn't even the nail in the coffin, though.

Can I take a semester off to pay this off?

Admissions requires $500 for a 12 month deferment. BY MONDAY. Let me just go pick money from my money tree out back. Not only do I have to wait an entire school year, but I need to pay a tuition deposit for the f'ing tuition I am not even f'ing paying.

So tell me, does colleges have the student's best interest in mind? Because, excuse my french but, all I smell coming out of this university is bullshit.

Comments

Re: hopefully my last long ramble orz

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

Hey, that's a terrible friend! Not a friend at all, I'd say.

I've had those who grew up elsewhere think I was stupid. Ironically, I was kind of the "smart" kid or "nerd" in high school LOL Now I'm the know-it-all :P As always, the more you know, the more you realize you don't know shit.

I'm curious on what your thoughts are on the correlation between diet and obesity. I wager that heart disease, high blood pressure, which is often correlated with obesity (in America), is not so much a result of being fat, as much as it is a result of your diet (regardless of your weight). Americans are #1 in heart related diseases because no other population on earth consumes sodium and sugar at such high volumes as we do (as you mentioned). No one. No one else consumes this much processed foods. We have these health problems because we don't eat real food (like you mentioned :P). If you take a look at other nations and compare their food consumption to ours, and how it correlate with their overall health, you'll notice it's much different. For example, did you know that Greece has a 70% obesity rate? 70% of their population is obese. Yet, they have much much better health than Americans, and a lot of other not-as-fat nations.

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

There've been studies saying that if you eat, say, a McDonald's hamburger that your reactions to stress are a lot worse. (Now when I Googled, apparently caffeine does too. I stopped with my occasional caffeine because I was having a surgery and found out it makes you heal slower.) I don't know if that has to do with blood pressure. This lady who talked about the wheat/sugar said that high blood pressure is one of the things that those processed foods affect, but I don't remember exactly what she said about it (it was just a brief mention I think). Her notes ranged from being about cultures that eat mostly (whole-wheat) bread and vegetables, to the inuits who eat entirely just animal meat and fat... After I finish the books I already have I'm going to check out her book from the library and then I can see if she talks about it any more.

...And now I Googled a bit. People are saying, for high blood pressure, to do stuff like lower your salt intake - "except you literally (when in America) cannot lower your intake to be within the recommended daily limit if you eat any kind of pre-made food. Look at Subway's sandwiches, look at a can of soup, just one of those will put you nearly at or past the daily limit". They add to this derisive comments about how "no one in today's busy world can cook all their own meals every day" which is absolute nonsense. Cook in large amounts, freeze them in meal-sized packages, learn to realize that 30 minutes spent on a meal isn't a long time and that your health (and the health of your kids) is worth more than anything else.

When I look at some Swedish pages about how to lower your blood pressure naturally, it's all "Eat nuts, fish, meat, vegetables and fruits; exercise more; eat brown bread and brown rice, not French bread". They mention dark chocolate helping - plain cocoa powder is just a vegetable, dark chocolate simply has more cocoa and less other stuff. What are people eating if they're not eating all the things listed there? There's not many options.

Then there's the difference in the food itself between countries. Here, all bread is much more likely to have a higher amount of whole-grain or rye in it because Swedes just think white bread is "tasteless" - at the Swedish fast-food chain, the hamburger buns are (mostly) whole-wheat, and you normally bread fish (strömming, forgot the name) using rye flour. Their cakes have marzipan (mashed almonds + sugar), not frosting (sugar + sugar), and instead of whipped cream with sugar they might have "egg cream" in pastries (I think it's egg + whipped cream, without sugar), or plain jam, etc. They have much lower quantities of salt, sugar and spices in general in their food (my wife claims America must put so much in "in order to cover up the taste of the poison"). They might eat cookies, but there's less sugar and more butter and they're not covered in frosting.

And there's zero culture of dessert. Especially not dessert after every meal. I even have a friend who literally never had "dessert" until when at age 20 his dad was trying to suck up to him. So if they get fat, it's probably on different foods. It's like comparing the rate of lung cancer between the US and Japan - I'm pretty sure Japan's cigarettes aren't the same.

2/3

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

Here (and this seems to be more unique to the Nordic countries), instant food and eating out is extremely expensive compared to making the food yourself at home. The cheapest hamburger you can find might actually be $15. Pizzas are definitely more expensive. Even just buying a small pre-made sandwich at the grocery store is like $8. Definitely most of the time, a person who is fat or obese here actually has some serious health problem preventing them from exercise, and/or they're ex. seriously depressed and overeat as a coping mechanism.

Then I find advice saying "exercise to lower blood pressure!". Here you CAN'T do stuff like drive everywhere and park right next to the building, it's simply not possible. There aren't parking spaces everywhere. There aren't those little motorized carts that you can sit in and ride around the grocery store in. The cashiers don't pack your bags for you at the grocery store. So you can still be pretty lazy but you can't be AS lazy. Cars and gas prices are really expensive so in a lot of places you might not even own one. If even that small difference affects blood pressure...

In Europe in general, there's different laws so they can't legally put as much shit in the food as the US can, so maybe that also affects the health a bit less. For example, blue food colouring (I think it was) was banned in Finland for the longest time because they knew it caused cancer. They import American food here but it basically all comes from strange brands I've never heard of that are specially-made for export. I once read that Hershey's and all those big companies literally changed their recipe specifically for Europe to comply with European laws, and then aren't feeding the Americans the same recipe.

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

My wife's mom has dangerously high blood pressure, and she is fat/obese with depression and tons of health problems (some from birth, some not), but she also constantly eats things like white-flour bread, potato chips (that have sugar in them), pizza etc. She basically doesn't eat vegetables aside from potatoes, never eats fruit, she refuses to try stuff like the pasta we eat (made from corn or whole-wheat flour) instead of white-flour pasta. She claims white flour "tastes the best" and she thinks that we've stopped eating it because we don't like the taste, no matter how many times we tell her it's for our health. On that note, there's not many chips you can buy without sugar, but I eat chips made out of different vegetables (beets, carrots, potatoes, parsnips) for example and if I weren't so lazy I'd try making my own at home (I have an awesome french fry recipe btw).

She is REALLY REALLY mean all the time, but especially in the mornings, gets huge cravings for chips/sugary stuff basically every day (especially in the evenings), and then she's really tired basically anytime after three in the afternoon. She has sleeping problems and also takes at least one nap a day (btw white flour/sugar affects sleep too, depending on the person). The doctor told her over a year ago that her blood pressure is so high that even just a headache could be the sign of a stroke or heart attack, and she's already had two strokes in her life apparently. Despite this she skips taking her blood pressure medicine, doesn't exercise, refuses to change her diet, lies to doctors and/or simply doesn't go to the doctor when she needs to. Then she talks about "thank god I never started smoking!" as if smoking is any worse, and she claims that being fat is "just in the family".

Being fat isn't in the family. Eating habits and exercise habits, things you teach your children, DO run in the family. Her mom is diabetic, still eats candy every day, is heavily depressed and never exercises past the little she needs to for daily life.

My wife's cousin, who's only 25 years old, recently had a brain cancer surgery. Why'd she get brain cancer? She constantly drinks aspartame-filled soda, she won't listen to anyone telling her that it's poison, and literally the first thing she asked for after she woke up from the tumour surgery was for a diet (aspartame) soda : l

I mean, part of me thinks "fine, let them suffer and die if they're going to be like that". But I know it's only all about education in the long run. If you learn from a young age how to not be so stubborn and to re-examine things based on new evidence... If they only imposed a big tax on all items with added sugar (just like tobacco has a big tax), and then sent that tax money towards making dentists cheaper...

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

I feel you. My parents are going down that same road. My mom, who is barely breaking 50 is having all these health problems, and I'm worried. On top of that, she also skips her high blood pressure medication! I tell her -- little at a time, one step at a time. Start by simply bringing fruits for snacking on, you know what I mean? Slow and steady. So you don't notice it.

My dad, recently had a bad accident. Then surgeries. He fell out of a tree for god's sake! He hurt his back and broke his leg. (He's a landscaper.) Now my mom has to take care of him and herself, and I'm a little panicky about it. The reason why I'm feeling nervous about their situation is because, like you mentioned, diet greatly effects the healing process and I am worried that his diet isn't very good, and he won't heal properly or promptly.

I've been heavy my entire life, well, since probably age 8 or so LOL so my whole life LOL

When I left the nest, I started making lifestyle changes. Because of my weight, also with hereditary reproductive issues (my mom's uterus collapsed after she had me and she stillborn-ed twice), I haven't been ovulating for...years. In short, I'm infertile. Hence my ovulation posts. Studies have shown that changes in weight can give your lady parts a little kick, so I started doing yoga and lost some weight. I ovulated. Once.

This has been difficult on me, and I try not to be resentful towards my parents for not taking me to a doctor as a kid. My father WAS quite a conservative, so I took birth control without him knowing. He was also quite bigoted and ignorant at the time, and didn't think I needed to go to an OBGYN because "that's where girls go to get BC because they had sex blah blah", so now I'm suffering from his stupidity. My chances of having kids naturally decreases greatly in my 30's. I got about 5 years to get my body to do what it' suppose to so I can have spawn.

Otherwise, I actually have incredibly good health! I know that you mentioned that Americans often eat out. That's true. My diet is SO much better today simply because I cook my meals. I actually really enjoy it. I take pride is feeding my husband wholesome foods, and building healthy habits -- habits I will NEED if I want to have a family one day. I don't understand why people even eat out. It's expensive. You can make the same thing at home that is either the same or better. Too tired? Lazy? Probably. Keep in mind Americans also work a lot. People working 2-3 jobs, especially young people, is very common. Americans work a lot. They get home after an 8 hour shift, sit on the couch, stuff their face while watching American Idol Lol

I can tell you right now that New Yorkers eat A SHIT TON OF TAKE OUT. I did when we first moved here. I loved it (still do). But, I realize this isn't something I can do more than 2-3 times a month. But the average New Yorker probably orders take out every day. Yes, every day.

I realize food access is a big factor in all of this, and I am particularly lucky in that retrospect. Here, we have farmers markets and fruit/vegetable stands everywhere. Very affordable. Everything is accessible. I mean it's New York. Everything you can think of is down the block. If you live in butt-fuck Alabama or bible-belt Mississippi (where my bffs live) -- forget about it. There isn't even a culture or interest in that part of the states for health food.

i'm always going off-topic

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

My grandparents have been on a similar "no sugar, no white flour" diet as me for about five years now (they take it a step further and don't eat things like potatoes either) and apparently they feel healthier than they've felt in decades - but everyone around them just scoffs at it. My dad eats fairly healthy, and I'd say very healthy compared to most Americans, but he too hasn't exactly tried that kind of diet.

Yeah, a few years ago someone I knew had basically the same surgery as me. Except he didn't even quit smoking before he had the surgery - claiming he didn't have to. Then he actually had to spend 2-3 weeks in the hospital afterwards because he was healing so slowly. I left the hospital in two DAYS.

Ahh. My wife's cousin actually recently got some kind of weird problems from taking birth control that are probably going to stay with her for life. Now she suddenly can't eat certain foods, I don't remember what happened. As for me, I would never have kids (with my own genes) halfway just because any kid would have a high chance of having eyesight as bad as or worse than mine. Either way I'd rather just adopt and spare some kid an abusive home or orphanage lol.

As for parents... well, nowadays I don't talk to anyone in my family, they more or less disowned me when I moved abroad and got married. But a few years ago my dad told me that everyone in the family thinks I'm really weird and that I have something wrong in my head, and that they've thought so for a long time. And I was like, if you thought that, why did none of you ever take me to get psychological testing? (BTW I have taken it and I'm perfectly normal except for that I have slightly above-average intelligence and adaptation skills, and that I like to fantasize. Pretty sure fantasizing is a skill I taught myself through fandom).

And also, no one in my family really treated me differently despite that I'm almost blind. Sometimes this is perfectly fine, but a lot of the time it's unfair. My pupils don't contract and don't change in light, yet I never had prescription sunglasses (just like, clip-on sunglasses that are awful and super heavy). I never had any kind of reading help (no magnifying glasses, no large-print books - which btw I didn't even know existed until like five years ago). My dad would expect me to find things in two seconds despite that when you have ex. a pile of clothes, my eyes can't distinguish the separate pieces so well. And since I was TAUGHT to not use any help like that, I became someone who doesn't get help even when I really need it, and I probably missed out on a lot of stuff (if it were easier to read I would read more books).

Like I want to do arts and crafts, but every time I try I realize the reason why I get so frustrated is because I can't see shit, or I try to read a book and realize I never read books (that aren't on the computer) anymore because it's so difficult, so I really need some kind of magnifying glass thingy : / I do want to go out and be active but I feel like shit when I realize I can't do some stuff. Like, someone even just shows you a photo on their smartphone or your potential employer points to a paper and you smile and go "mmhm" and pretend you can see it....

RE: 2/3

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

Interesting. It's good to read labels really carefully because you know the FDA is sloppy as hell. Well, not sloppy, but I'm sure food companies have a lot of say in that. Think of Monsanto. Banned everywhere! But here, of course.

Personally, the only thing I really eat that is processed is probably pasta, and we don't even really like pasta so we don't eat it often Lol I'm a pretty big fan of stews and chili, so we make a lot of them. (It's almost chowder every single week season!) LOL I also keep things simple. I don't try to be fancy in the kitchen. Lol I kind of take after a toddler. I like finger foods. Simple stuff. We make our own chicken nuggets, for example :P

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

Cooking is really easy, but one of the problems is that English-speakers are really really REALLY awful at writing and making lessons, and even at video tutorials. It's not just with cooking, it's with all handicrafts and even just stuff like math and foreign languages. We were a lot better at teaching most things 100 years ago, so I don't get why it happens. But anyway, it means it's their fault for making it seem hard and then you feel really stupid for not getting it. Meanwhile if I go find instructions in Swedish for the same thing they're usually really clear.

Here's "simple recipes" from the main Swedish grocery chain, if you click around and find a picture (or a few pictures) you think looks good I can translate them and you can try them out:

http://www.ica.se/recept/enkel/vardag/

you can also google "enkelt mat" (simple food) "lättlagade mat" (easily-made food), "student mat recept" (student food recipe) or "snabb mat recept" (quick food recipe) and just choose a picture and i can find/translate a recipe for you!

"korvstroganoff" (sausage stroganoff - sausages in a sort of tomato-ish sauce) and "kladdkaka" (gooey cake - it's like brownies) are two things that even people who can't cook can cook really fast, as well stuff like broccoli-potato soup, and that's all classic, cheap (here at least) Swedish food ; D I've never made pea soup myself but maybe that too...

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

I've actually noticed that to. A lot of how-to instructions are terrible.

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

Food culture is hugely a part of the problem. But culture was encouraged by the food industry, is it not? I mean -- what *is* American food? Burgers? Hotdogs? Lol Shit, I don't even really know. Pot roast I guess. Unlike other countries, where people eat their native foods (foods native to the ethnic backgrounds of those who live there), people don't really do that very much in the U.S.

I'm bi-racial, but I grew up in a predominately pacific islander household (Filipino and native Hawaiian -- my mother's family). My father has unknown European ancestry. Lol. He is white. Thing is, even my grandparents LOVE American food. They LOVE McDonalds :/ And, that has greatly impacted their health. As they introduce processed foods into their diet, their native cooking also changes. Filipino food, for one, is very salty as is. Hawaiian food is too. Lots of steamed pork and Hawaiian sea salt. Most of the Filipino dishes I grew up with include a kind of extremely salty fermented fish paste. Over the years, my grandma has been adding a lot more to her food, to increase the saltiness. Sometimes she adds a nice bit of table salt (which is unheard of), to her food.

When my grandpa relocated to Hawaii from the Philippines, he suddenly developed a sweet tooth. I grew up eating a lot of fresh milked coconut for sweet rice dishes (dessert -- (literally rice and coconut milk, that's it.), but eventually this wasn't sweet enough, so my Grandma added heaps of white sugar to appease his sweet tooth.

What I'm trying to say is, I believe that their exposure to processed sugars and salt has overall altered their taste buds, as well as their native dishes.

Think of Chinese take out and how Chinese food is altered to appease the mouths of the average American. MSG is added, and so is sugar. Ginger is taken out and a thick savory sauce is replaced.

Marzipan sounds amazing by the way! I am quite a fan of nut butters.

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

What Swedes and Icelanders seem to think is American food, or what's advertised as American (got some input from my wife too, which is in quotes):

Cereal "not plain cornflakes or oatmeal but definitely any chocolate or rainbow-coloured cereal, flavoured oatmeal, any cereal that is actually candy", hamburgers "and layer-hamburgers" (double-deckers), chocolate-chip cookies "in sweden when you say 'cookies' you mean chocolate chip cookies because we think you don't have any other cookies", "chicken in a bucket", popcorn, "hotdogs with ketchup on and the ketchup is a zigzag".

Turkey, BBQ, marshmallows, s'mores, jello, jelly, french fries, pulled pork/chicken/beef, Coca Cola, root beer, cream soda, and all other sodas that aren't simply fruit or malt flavour.

Cupcakes, doughnuts, hoagies "sandwiches that are like tall or long and have layers and are a really big sandwich like in cartoons or at subway", bagels, melted cheese on most things but especially macaroni and cheese. BTW American cheese itself is very unique and so is the butter, the amount of fat in it is different from here in Europe and America's also allowed to put food dye in stuff like cheese if it wants. So "orange" food and cheese doesn't exist here, neither is the cheese really spongy or stringy.

"Eating take-out food that comes in a box is very American, even if Chinese food isn't American the fact that it comes in a box is. For us this is only in cartoons, we go to the Chinese restaurant to pick up the food ourselves, there's no take-out". "When I heard about macaroni and cheese I thought it was just macaroni with a simple cheese sauce (with other things like onion and ham in it), I didn't realize it was literally just macaroni and cheese."

"We don't eat peanut butter. you have like peanut butter cake with peanut butter chocolate frosting."

Anything deep fried or BBQ, pumpkin, peanut butter, or maple-flavoured (though maple syrup also traditionally exists here, they just don't eat it). Basically ALL instant food and "microwave food" (ex. mug cakes) but also instant mixes (ex. cake mix). They also don't have frosting here, if anything they have glaze instead or use egg-cream or plain whipped cream. Their cakes are always just like whipped cream with fruit and maybe marzipan, nuts or chocolate. That or what they call cake is just like bread with fruit in it. There's no "cakes" that are like entirely white bread and sugar with nothing else (which is the most typical American cake).

Basically all desserts and pastries that are sold in America are "American". For example, we have muffins but they're never poppyseed and if they're "blueberry" that means they have blueberry jam on the bottom-inside, not that they have full blueberries mixed in with the dough. Thin-crust pizza isn't seen as American but definitely pepperoni and deep-dish pizza is. I also saw "American BBQ chicken pizza" being sold once.

Ants on a log, tunafish sandwiches, pancakes with fruit or chocolate in them. Corn dogs, elephant ears and other fair food is stuff no one's ever even heard of here. Apple-cinnamon-clove ("pumpkin spice") flavour isn't really used here, instead they use ex. just clove and orange, and then they call it "Christmas spice". Here there's no grape, cherry, lime, pizza or jalapeno flavoured anything (unless it's an American import or copy of some American food), instead Swedes have elderflower, pear, onion, dill, chili pepper flavours. Ranch flavour for chips is American, it sometimes even gets called "Cool American".

All sorts of taco, nacho, tortilla, tortilla chip things are seen as American. Generally speaking, spicy sauces are "American" and generally speaking, so is ketchup. Pork and beans is American though I don't know how many people know about it (here they have pork-and-pea-soup instead).

I asked "What about chowder and relish?" and she said "I didn't know what they were, I've never seen/had it in real life so I don't know what it is."

Here, somehow Swedes have gotten the mistaken impression that in order to be a hardcore videogamer you have to eat American junk food, and so they sell that kind of stuff at the videogame store : l

Here's what the Swedish big grocery store chain thinks is American food:
http://www.ica.se/recept/amerikansk/

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, seriously, I've been eating American food for basically all my life and MY taste buds changed extremely fast as soon as I just quit eating sugar/white flour. American recipes literally do stuff like use three times as much sugar as a Swede would use. So I can really see how someone would change into needing more and more... JUST LIKE DRUGS : Þ

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

It basically is! A dime bag is cheaper than your coke and oreos lmfao

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

Oops, forgot to note, on the page I linked click "visa fler recept" once you get to the bottom of the list of recipes in order to see more.

"Pulled pork with apple cider and coleslaw"

"Roasted corn with chili"

"Barbeque Sauce With Coffee"

"Bacon-wrapped (meats of various kinds"

The best ones though, are the "classic American chocolate chip cookies" which is actually a CAKE MADE IN A FRYING PAN THEN COOKED OVER A CAMPFIRE, and then the "American favourite pumpkin pie" which is a "food pie" not a "dessert pie" (as in, pumpkin + onion, salt, chili etc. not... sugar). They also seem to think that we do stuff like make our own marshmallows and flavour them with raspberries.

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

Have you had Mexican roasted "street" corn?!? So good. Sort of a summer thing. I've only seen it here though. Probably see it near Mexico/NM too.

The let's wrap everything in bacon fad is soooooo grossly American!!

That pie and berry marshmallows sound terrible Lol Actually most of it does. LOL

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

Nope I never have!

Swedish food is basically always more fancy or detailed than American food, unless it's traditional food, and sometimes even then. It's ALWAYS much healthier (and even if they have cinnamon rolls, they don't put frosting on top, that's seen as an abomination).

What they often seem to do is actually just look at a picture of food or hear the name of it and "figure out" how to make it (often from memory) without looking up any recipes. So they see some picture on Tumblr or in a movie and try to make it at home without help, for example. It's the only explanation for how they can get some stuff so wrong despite them all knowing English...