Regaining Paradise: The Search for the Lost Green Monther from the grips of the Evil Coquette in the Financial Aid Office

Every once in awhile a man encounters something that he must engage in that is truly a testimony for the kind of man he really is. For this man that encounter is his fight for his financial aid money. This tale begins like so many other ones, in sunshine and happiness. It was late August and I was just beginning to think about the need to apply for a student loan when what I thought was a gift from God appeared to fall into my lap, it was the Frank O'Bannnon Grant from the state of Indiana saying that I wouldn't have to pay for schooling this year. This was quite the momentous occasion in my life for a multitude of reasons namely being that I actually had never received a grant to go to school. The grant was everything I ever thought it could be, free schooling and perhaps even more importantly, no hassle. The grant specifically said on it that I needed to do absolutely nothing to qualify for such an award and that I just should sit back, relax and wait for things to take care of themselves. I how I miss that once glorious August week.

Fast forward to October. I'm starting to think about applying for classes in the spring to start my grad school but here's the hitch. My grant hadn't run through yet. I mean wtf, what could possibly be taking so long? In the meantime I decided to apply for a student loan to help out with bills, my books I bought this semester and the overlapping balance I had to pay from last spring that I basically paid off with a credit card (good idea/bad idea? i don't know). So even though I had kind of procrastinated for this student loan because of the GodKing known as the O'Bannon Grant it was time to make something happen. So in mid October I went to my faithful computer to give ole' Aunt Sallie a look up to get some financial assistance. I filled out my part, sent the information for the folks to cosign and basically take care of the rest. Meanwhile back in the Financial Aid Office they finally had a reason I had not yet received my grant. Apparently according to this fine university my graduation date was set for the Spring of 2008 and even though I did not receive a degree on 2008 they could not allow the state government to give me anything until I changed my graduation date. Trip 1 to Financial Aid Office: I'm there for 4 minutes, change my graduation date to the Winter of 2008 and they tell me my grant should appear on my account the following Wednesday. Great, well about time anyways. Fast forward to the next Wednesday, guess whats not showing up in my account? You guessed it, Frank's Grant. So the following day I make Trip number 2 to the financial aid office: I was there for approximately 5 minutes this time. All they had for me is that it wouldn't be processed now until the next Wednesday. Oh how convenient, and by the way, what kind of business only operates its functions one day a week. I mean it's a FINANCIAL AID OFFICE but yet they only process the ACTUAL FINANCIAL AID 1 DAY A WEEK. That's the equivalent of a pizza shop only selling pizzas on Tuesday's and just telling you the rest of the week to "Wait till Tuesday and your pizza will be ready." The only thing even comparable to how slow this process is would be the Pony Express which was the first mail system in the U.S. which was coincidentally replaced by the telegraph in the 1860's just to give you some perspective on what we're dealing with here.

Another week passes, I hear no activity from the Financial Aid Office, awesome. Wednesday comes and goes and like the two weeks before I stumble in on Thursday to see why the Pony Express didn't drop by my house on Wednesday. Trip 3 to the Financial Aid Office: Now I was expecting a lot of different possible scenarios when I walked in there but what I heard even I wasn't expecting and bare with me because I am paraphrasing here, "Well it wouldn't of processed anything yet since you just changed your graduation date." Ok one. Why is this graduation date thing such a big deal? I am enrolled in classes, I cannot emphasize that enough, what else do you want from me? And two. How come it was totally possible for my financial aid to show up on the first Wednesday but not the second. The man told me I should expect to see something the next Wednesday. Hmmm, sounds kind of familiar.

Over the weekend I decided to start devising my plan of attack, it was difficult though however because it was hard to read the enemy I was dealing with for a variety of reasons. The main reason being is that they want my money which really isn't a new concept to anybody. A lot of people and businesses want money for different reasons, mostly goods and services (this case being my education as a service I am purchasing from the University.) Unlike most collectors however the Financial Aid Department will only accept your money their way. You can't simply borrow money from one place (the state, Sallie Mae) and give it to the University. They have to oversee and pick at you with a needle during the whole process. So here's the game plan. I had decided that within one weeks time I will get my Grant and my Loan settled and be able to move on and essentially be able to start my life once again.

Here comes Tuesday. I need to get my loan done so it can meet that all important Wednesday Pony Express deadline. I check my loan, it says that I am preapproved but still need a cosigner to sign it. Ok dad, where have you been the last couple weeks? Fast forward through a phone call and some step by stepping dad completes the cosigning portion. Bad news though, its denied. What? I mean are you kidding me? Ok whatever I guess, Mom do this. Mom gets on to cosign it for me. Swing and a miss. Wow, how could this really be happening? I mean I was preapproved for the loan individually, how could an addition of a cosigner make my loan be declined?

The Day of Days

Now today is the culmination of this story. I woke up at 8 A.M. and decided I was going to forfeit all my classes for the day and do whatever it took to get my aid that I have been so desperately fighting for. Move 1: Get my loan. I went online to my Sallie Mae account but couldn't really find a solution to why it wouldn't approve my loan with a cosigner so I decided to call Aunt Sallie and play the waiting game with them. Fast forward 67 minutes of holding and I was talking to a real life person. Success! Here was the sitch though, my loan would go through if I took my potential cosigners off of it. Ok sorry mom and dad, and although even as I write this I don't understand how I could get preapproved for a loan by myself and declined for a loan with a cosigner I was not going to argue with the man, just give me my money, thank you.

Financial Aid Office Trip 4: Alright I can't wait another Wednesday for my Grant to not show up to so it's time to see what's going on. I walk in with all my paperwork and all the information showing what I should already have, my grant. Even though this is my fourth trip in as many weeks to the Aid Office I am talking to my fourth different person sitting in the same chair, I just thought that I would point that out. This specific young lady looks at my information and my account and then tells me that there is a "glitch" in the system and that is the reason I had not received my grant. A glitch huh? She did tell me however that they could override the glitch manually and that my Grant and my Loan should show up on my account within an hour. I couldn't believe it, finally I'm going to be able to live again! I was so excited I went to Penn Station to celebrate and called my dad on my way home to let him know that I had figured everything out, I was just so proud of myself. Once I got back home the first thing I did was get on the computer and check my e-mail and low and behold the Financial Aid Offices had sent me something. This part of my life is called getting punched in the face.

I had received an e-mail telling me that since I had enrolled in over 150 credits over my college career I had to fill out an Academic Process Appeal Form explaining why I have not yet graduated, double awesome. So since I don't have a printer I went to the library to print this mamma jamma out. With this Appeal Form it says I also to have a copy of an Academic Plan signed by an advisor indicating just how close I am to fulfilling my degree. Ok let me go ahead and set the ridiciliness of this whole process for you. The whole reason I have been enrolled in over 150 credits is for two reasons. One being that I am a transfer student and had to retake several classes once I started going to this fine university. The second reason is my enjoyment for taking a fun class (Coaching, P.E. on a given semester). Ok whatever, I can bs a form if that's what it takes for me to get my Aid. The Academic Plan is what really perplexed me. My graduating academic plan consists of the following: This student needs no more classes to graduate. He's done. Give him his money so he can get his diploma. Signed by: Some Lady. Now maybe it's just me but I found this idea utterly retarded.

Financial Aid Office Trip 5: I get there only to see a new person I've never seen before sitting at the desk I've become all to familiar with mere hours after I talked to someone earlier. So here we go again, I give her my information, my situation and she tells me basically what I already know. The woman is though fairly persistent that I have to have an advisor signing something that says I am going to graduate this semester. I remember asking the woman specifically twice if there was a special form that an advisor needed to fill out or if she could just sign my arm and that would be sufficient. Her response was that as long as my arm was attached and signed to my appeal form I would get my money. Ok moving on to the walk across campus to the Ed Building to find an advisor. We do the meet and greet, information giving, story telling but this increasingly unpleasant secretary insisted that I needed a specific form from the Financial Aid Office for an Advisor to fill out. Keep in mind at this point it is 3 PM and all I have done for the last 7 hours was work on this financial aid and eat a sandwich, I've been in better moods. I'm trying to explain to this secretary that the Financial Aid Office told me all I needed was a signature from them and I could move on with my life. She finally tried to call the Financial Aid office but apparently didn't get an answer so she told me to sit down until she could figure something out. While she was "figuring something out" I decided to call my Financial Aid Office myself to triple check that I didn't need a specific form from an advisor. And wouldn't you know it, they answered and told me for the third time all I needed was them to fill out something, anything for me to hand in. Meanwhile at the secretary's desk she returned and while I am still on the phone with Financial Aid Office the secretary tells me I need a specific form from the Financial Aid department. I tell her I am getting conflicting stories and she literally jerks at me with an evil eye and yells "I am not giving you a conflicting story." At this point I hang up the phone and tell the secretary that I was very aware that she was not giving my a conflicting story but her story and the Financial Aid Story was that was conflicting. The secretary clearly unhappy with me at this point wants me to fill out the Appeal Form and hand it for her so they could "take care of the rest". Exactly what they're going to take care of I have no idea since there's absolutely no room for anyone from that department to write anything on it but I gave it to them anyway.

Now I don't know how long it would take you to look at an Academic Process Report and see that I don't need to take any more classes to graduate and then sign a piece of paper stating that but right now I am going to give you an idea of how long it would take me, so excuse me for a moment while I do a little experiment. 47 seconds. That's how long it takes to log onto Onestart. Pull up a degree process report. Scroll through that report and sign a paper saying my Undergraduate career is affectly over. Granted I'm from the computer generation and it could take someone older a little longer to do this procedure. But apparently it takes this specific Advising Department 24 hours to perform such a task which was just music to my ears because I can't wait to walk back to the Ed Building tomorrow for some good news about my loan progress.

So although this story has not ended and possibly will never end I have high hopes of getting my signature tomorrow for my phantom Academic Plan so I can journey to the ever so exciting Financial Aid Office for Part 6 of my quest and to officially hand in my Academic Progress Appeal that basically says I'm a transfer student and I'm graduating this Fall so please give me my money that I have already been preapproved so I can pay you with it? Now there's something about this whole process that doesn't really make sense to me and it seems to be a lot more complicated than it really should be but what do I know except that I actually might be getting my money after I turn in this form tomorrow and wait the mandatory 10-14 days for the Financial Aid Office to review the form and of course then wait for whatever the following Wednesday is so my money can/might actually be processed and disbursed to me and so I get to apply for graduation!

I'm Running on Dunkin' (Take II)

After leaving the world reknown Dunkin Donuts franchise last month I recently received a phone call from my former employer imploring me to come back in exchange for a promotion and a significant pay raise. I know what you're thinking, how can a franchise with thousands of stores set up across the nation be so dependent one one lowly college worker in Bloomington, Indiana. The only logical answer to this question is that after years and years of being overshadowed by Starbucks the ole' Double D was recently dubbed for having the best coffee across the country. Now I know that you see the connection as well. Dunkin' strived for 50 years to make the best coffee in the world, and it took me all of a month and a half to push them over the top which coincidentally is exactly what I told my friend and coffee rival from Starbucks Troy Thornburg after being appointed a job at DD I would do. Now that America's best cup of Joe has their secret weapon I secretly doubt that they will ever let me leave for another sabbatical again.

In Sean we Trust

This is a new section of the blog dedicated to the creator of this writers blogging life.

In loom of tonight's Indiana Pacer season debut at Detroit I have decided to give you to following suggestions on what to watch in case the Pacers do not give a par performance and the game is decided by halftime:

Game 51/2 of World Series on Fox

Scrubs on TV Land

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III on ABC Family

Phoenix Suns vs Spurs on ESPN

Numbers 20-1 Worlds Greatest Rap Songs on VH1

Wisconsin vs. Northwestern in Women's Volleyball on the Big 10 Network

A Love Story

Last summer a friend and I went to a concert in out of state. While at the concert my friend got attention from a very attractive girl who was also attending the show. They exchanged names, chit chatted and eventually got each others numbers even though they lived hundreds of miles away from each other. For weeks my friend would text this girl constantly and she would text him back constantly. I could not believe it. Finally after about a month the girl decided to make a 4 hour drive to see my friend. Her stay was quite an eventful one. She only stayed one night and was gone by almost sun up. While she was visiting although she did manage to take my friend for a ride, or two or three....Right before she left however she told my friend that she had a kid and that's why she had to go back so soon. Interesting. So off she went, 4 hours back home to attend to her child. Later that day my friend got a call from a number he had never seen before. It was this girl's husband who was extremely upset about the whole situation and was wanting to know who this guy was that was constantly talking to his wife. My friend hung up the phone, ignored several more calls from that same number and never heard from the girl again. The end.

Your Indiana HOOOOOOOOOOSIERS

Well the preseason poll is out and IU has been picked to finish dead last in the big Big Ten this season which would be the first time IU finished last since the 1960's or while Bob Knight was still coaching at Army. Coincidentally Purdue was picked to finish first in the conference which only means one thing, Purdue is well on its way to set itself up for one of those massive choke jobs they are best known for, and maybe I'll have to sit through four months of Purdue winning first but it's still the best possible setup to their second round exit of the NCAA's.

Inspiration for Tom

After much debate what I wanted your segment to be about I decided to go with famous quotes to serve as motivational and thinking purposes. I decided this week to go with a Yogi Berra quote but couldn't settle on just one so here is two of them. Hope this helps you get through your week.

"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."

"If you come to a fork in the road, take it."

It's time to turn a new leaf

Welcome to Bo's thoughts.

After months of being the driving force of a certain "in the day of life of sean" blog I have decided to branch off and be become my own entity and start the first ever running series where the spinoff was actually better than the original. So sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

Wild Thing you make my heart sing!

For an NBA season preview this year I have decided to focus all my attention on the only team that actually matters, the Indiana Pacers. Now before I actually make my prediction on how this team will finish (stay tuned for next weeks blog) I have though that it is better suited for me to take this time to actually introduce the team to others who may not be so familar with the team. To best do this I have decided to compare this years Pacers to the Cleveland Indians from the movie Major League. This comparison of the two became strikingly clear to me last week when I attended a Pacer preseason game with approximately 700 other willing Americans. Here's what

I concluded:

Pedro Cerano/Roy Hibbert

This is a very obvious connection because both are big, black and have rarely been heard speaking complete sentences in english. Also where Cerano only accels at hitting the simple fast ball, Hibberts biggest quality so far as been the ever so difficult right handed layup. Although I am unfamilar with Hibberts religious beliefs and am pretty sure Larry Bird would not let Roy admit it even if he was, the Pacer center is a voodoo doll away from being my new player.

Roger Dorn/ Troy Murphy, Mike Dunleavy, the Artist formily known as Croshere.

All are white, all are overpriced and all are very unlikeable (with the exception of the Dunleavy wardrobe). I put down three Pacers down here because in all likelyhood only 1 will be healthy at the conclusion of the year. Way to earn your money guys!

Willie Mays Hays/ TJ Ford

Small, quick, ready to break out into stardom. This is TJ Ford.

Eddie Harris/ Jeff Foster

Old, been around the block, doing little cheap things to get ahead of the game, this is how Jeff Foster is still in the league and thanks to the contract the Pacers just signed him to it is the reason he will be in the league for years to come.

Jake Taylor/ Danny Granger.

Probably the weakest comparison by far but like Taylor, Granger is the leader of this time and that is what is going to take us to the playoffs or not.

Ricky Vaughn/Brandon Rush

Like Vaughn, Rush is extremely talented but just throws shit up there sometimes. Pacer Nation as a whole is collectively holding their breath hoping Rush finds his sight in time, until then, Wild Thing, You make my heart sing!

Lou Brown/ Coach O'Brien

Both started their professional coaching careers while on the ladder part of their life and like Brown, O'Brien may see himself as a manager of "TireWorld" if he does not eventually find sucess with the Pacers.

Rachel Phelps/ Larry Bid

The terrible owner of the Indians is reminding me more and more of the Pacers President of Operations these days. Some of the moves Bird has done since he came back have made me wonder whether he's trying to win or move the team closer to his favorite golf resort. Well I have news for you Larry Legend, Orlando already has a team.

Harry Doyle/ Slick Lenard

Both are old enough to have witnessed the Rise and Fall of Communism in Russia, A Great Depression, and a couple of Mavericks running for the office of presidency and vice-presidency. Also during their lifetime they got to witness 40 years of what was mostly fugile seasons by their repected teams. What has this bought them? They can say literally anything they want on the radio. Congratulations Gentlemen.

The Dead Guy/ Eddie Jones

For anyone who is not a die hard fan of Major League you may not directly connect the dots in. In the Movie when Rachel Phelps issues the list of the players the Indians would invite to spring seaon the Cleveland GM had to let Phelps know that one of the players on the list was dead. I found this a fitting comparion considering Mr. Bird recently traded for 73 year old Eddie Jones who hasn't been seen since the turn of the Millenium. I guess all of us didn't survive Y2K.

In conclusion this years pacers resembles the Major League team alot, both are very young, talented teams oozing with potential. All the Pacers need is something to bring it all together and maybe its just me talking but I think a giant peel-off poster of Larry Bird would be just the trick.

I'm a Reformer

As the world knows, I recently hit a donkey with my car that slightly damaged the hood of my car. over the weekend I have done some research on how this could have been prevented and found out that in Namibia there is an organization that puts yellow reflective tags on donkey's ears to prevent such accidents. I purpose that this become law in America.

A Love Story

Once there was a young man who got a job at a donut shop. While working at the donut shot he began to like one of the girls he was working with. After a couple weeks of casual flirting and small talk at work the young man decided to ask her out. After some that the girl told him no and they both went on baking donuts together for the next two and a half hours. It was awkard for both of them.

The boy was undetered though. He still honestly believed that he could date this girl. So he spent the next couple of days thinking long and hard and decided to write her a poem expressing his feelings for her that he would read to her the next time he seen her. He worked on this poem for hours and hours and couldn't wait to read it to her. Finally the day came when he would see her at work again. Upon arriving at work however it was apparant that the girl had been making fun of the boy the past couple of days to all their coworkers that they worked with about him asking her out. So he quit and never went back to the donut shop. The end.

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