ok, here’s the info about school…

i don’t really care for most of my professors. my econ professor talks in this rather boring monotone (but if he’s the same guy that pete’s heard about, apparently he’s rather easy, hehe).

my math professor came off as extremely tough no-nonsense… she was also talking about our lectures that we’ll have – they’re scheduled from 6:30 – 8:20, and normally with something as long as that there’d be a 5-10 minute break in the middle for people to get their thoughts together. instead, she says that there won’t be any scheduled break, and so if we need a break to just leave the class when we need to, and she’ll keep on lecturing and we’ll get out of class at 8 pm instead. but i don’t care for this because if we do need to leave the class, then while we’re out we’ll be missing more stuff! and she was telling us how if we ask a question that most people in the lecture should already know then she won’t answer it and have us wait for our discussion group to ask that, but i thought that was rather unfair because what if you needed clarification on some point?? but this is my first real lecture class, so maybe this is the norm. eh.

my ecad (management) professor is the one i like the best – she was rather nice, and just from the way she was conducting the class today i can tell already that i’ll like that class. ^^

finally, my ifsm class. the instructor rushed into things – we were covering the syllabus today, and while we don’t even know what systems analysis is she’s already talking all about an important project that’ll be due even before we’ve covered things such as the class policies!

anyway, after my classes today i met up with pete and saw his dorm, and we hung out and played on his roommate’s ps2. went to kfc for lunch, then went to the financial aid office…

basically, my school funds were partly assumed by me and partly dumped on me, so while i’m taking more responsibility for my school funds, i kinda have all the tuition for the semester to be paid up by myself. the amount due right now is about $3000 (i’ve got about half that amount in my account right now), and while i had a loan when i was in school two years ago (and i’ve been paying that back), i’ve been approved for a loan for a max of $8025 for this semester. well, silly me thought that this was tacked on to the current loan i already have. but i suppose that if it was, i wouldn’t be recieving this here bill in the first place. ^^; and, of course, the financial aid page was no help at all. (i noticed today that they’ve updated it in the past week or three, though)

so, i decided to make my way to the financial aid office after pete and i hung out, but i happened to show up about 5 minutes before they were going to close, so i grabbed some forms and flyers about the student loans before they closed. one of the forms i found was this handy flowchart thing showing exactly what to do after you’ve recieved an award notification! so i’ll follow this form and check with them about everything when i go back to school on tuesday (no classes on labor day so i’ll be working instead).

after i saw that i went back to the commons and went to the bookstore to talk to the people that i used to work with there, and told one of my managers that i had there that i’ll most likely be free on mondays – thursdays if they ever need me to work (because i’ll only need to switch my schedule with verizon on those days if i need friday – sunday free and that’ll be rare) since most of that time i’m available i’m not doing much else and i can use the cash. so maybe i’ll be working there a day or two during the week.

did some of my homework for tuesday while i waited for 6:30 so i could go to the meeting of the off-campus student association…

at the meeting they gave us little memebership cards of the association (we’ll be able to use those in a few weeks to get discounts on stuff around campus to make up for commuting, hehe), and they told us about things like the priority parking that people can apply for (you can apply for that if you are disabled, or carpool, or travel long distances. since i’m 40 minutes from school, i think i qualify, hehe). met several people there when we did “commuter student bingo” as an icebreaker.

while i was at that meeting, bruno_boy called me to say that they’ve finally fixed the phone in his temp housing, and that he had called zenmetsu to come hang out at campus. so i had dave meet me at the meeting, and we hung out while we waited for dan to show up. dan showed up and he had found our friend pete on the way from his car, so us four hung out at dave’s and pete’s dorms and at the commons for the rest of the night.

while we were hanging out i thought about maybe checking to see about living on campus instead of having to commute. i don’t mind commuting, but 40 minutes each way is kinda boring even with an ipod to keep me occupied, hehe ^_^;; it would be more expensive, but umbc is now becoming a fun place to hang out at now, hehe. i talked with mom about seeing about getting temp housing on campus, and she thought it might be a good idea to look in to (since if i lived on campus, i’d only need to be picked up / dropped off once a week, and if i lived on campus and kept the car it’s just the same as driving up every day, so why not stay up there and let the family use the car?)

so i’ve got to do some investigating on this over the next few days, and i’ll be working the rest of the week too. working 45 hours this week, but i can use the money, heh ^_^;;