I think I actually got approved for a loan so I can pay for Amherst. And without a co-signer.

I got the Amherst bill in the mail today, doesn't include financial aid because technically it isn't done yet (almost). So that spurred me to do a few things, like try to actually apply to one of the many private loan options I've found online. I filled out the one on MyRichUncle, but haven't heard back yet, and then I filled out one at CampusDoor and I was apparently pre-approved/approved in minutes.

Wow.

Now, since I didn't apply with a co-signer, I didn't get that good a rate, but apparently my credit was in fact good enough to get a private loan myself. Awesome. The Loan Fee is 8%, and the Interest Rate is around 10%, so it's expensive but it's what I needed and I'm not going to complain. I might fill out a few more and see if I get better rates, but if this actually worked right, and I'm a little skeptical that it did, I may be all set.

I'm pinching myself, and I'm not dreaming. I see no dreamsigns.

While having a better rate with a cosigner would save me some money, it is not only going to save me the stress of asking, I also don't have to worry about having a co-signer trusting in me and I also get to say that I paid for my college education myself.

Wheeeeeeee.

"Open your eyes boy, I think we are saved."

Tags: amherst, college, money
Current Mood: hopeful

It's just so frustrating.

An equally precocious friend of mine I met at BCC who was planning on applying to Amherst but didn't said to me at Awards Night some weeks ago that even his mom was excited about my acceptance to Amherst. I quipped that she was probably more excited about it then my parents were. I wasn't joking.

Life is generally an uphill battle and there's roadblocks that need to be fought through, but I continue to just hit a roadblock time after time and it's mostly my parents fault.

Yes, it's easy to blame my parents. So easy. But that's not why I do it. It's because they continue to be the roadblock to a promising future time after time.

Besides posting that I got into Amherst, I haven't posted anything about it because there's been a quaint uneasiness about the details behind it.

I never filled out the financial aid applications (FAFSA + PROFILE) back in February when they were supposed to be due. At the time there were quite a few problems. I hadn't done my taxes. My parents hadn't done their taxes. I hadn't been in touch with my father in almost a decade and the schools PROFILE wanted a non-custodial parent form. I was busy with schoolwork and tutoring. I didn't actually think I would get into Amherst.

And then I got in. The whole night I was panicing. I just got into one of the top liberal arts schools in the nation and now I may not be able to go because I didn't fill out any financial aid forms. I called them up the next day and they said I could get everything filled out soon and hand it in and still get the same amount of aid because they're rich and have a huge endowment and pay 100% of need anyway. But it was near finals so schoolwork and tutoring was getting crazy, and I still hadn't filled out my taxes.

And I still haven't finished them. My FAFSA is done but the more complicated PROFILE still contains the uneasiness of contacting my aunt who handles my father's affairs and having her fill out a huge complicated financial form.

But why do I have to do them anyway? Why do I have to pay my parents rent when I could have saved about $6000 by now for college. Why do I have to pay my own car insurance (another $4000)? Why did I have to pay for my first car, and pay off part of my parent's inept financial loaning to get my step-brother's old car on the road after mine died ($600+1000)? How come my mother doesn't have anything saved up for college costs, when my late grandmother on my mother's side wanted both my cousin and I to be able to pay for college? Why did she continue to get in the mail useless college savings plans with $100 in them? Why do I have to fill out financial aid forms most of other parents fill out for their children? Why do my parents not care? Why do they seem to not want me to go to college?

When I finished the FAFSA, the expected family contribution was about $24,000. Even if everything worked right, I would probably still have to find $24,000 out of a third-party loan, and my mom probably still can't even cosign because her credit is so bad. Even if I wasn't going to Amherst, I still probably couldn't go to college. An EFC of $24,000 means that no matter what college I would go to, even if it's little State School at $15k or big university or liberal arts school at $25k or $40k, I would still have to shell out nearly all the costs to go there, unless I got a hold of some serious scholarship money (possible option if everything fails me). Who knows how I'm going to find money to pay for another semester BCC if everything else falls through with Amherst.

My mom innocuously complained about me not having a job today when she left for work. Technically I'm tutoring (they know about that) and have a research work-study position (they may not know about that). This is all for crap pay, $7.50 hour. Technically I could still play poker and make more than that much online propping once I build my bankroll back up for paying for everything I shouldn't have to. And technically even I wanted a good job during the summer, it's not going to pay me enough to meet my goals. It's like my parents want me to leave the house at 7am, come home from work at 9pm and be frustrated and miserable while I then spent all my money on material goods. It's like they don't want me to have a future.

I really want to go. The opportunity is amazing. Everyone other than my parents is excited. It's still possible. But it's frustrating me that I can't pass this parental roadblock. After my mom complained I complained about having to now take up a new car insurance plan on new car, and not being able to afford it, and how I'd like to be able to pay to go to one of the top liberal arts colleges in the nation. And it's like she thinks I'm kidding. It's like my own mom doesn't think I'm worthy.

I know she just doesn't get it. Doesn't get college, doesn't get me, doesn't get why I view work differently.

But it's just so frustrating.

Tags: amherst, college, future, life, money, parents, stupid me, thoughts
Current Mood: see above
Current Music: none - I'm reflecting

So for now, I've given up on the girl.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, login and read my friends-only entry or add me as a friend. I haven't called her, mainly out of fear of her already being in a relationship and finding myself in an awkward situation. If she wanted to, she could call me, and if it happened that she lost my number but really wanted to call me, such is life. If I see her around campus (which I probably will at some point), I chat with her but it really doesn't bother me too much.

Mainly because I realized a few days after seeing her that I really didn't "need" to meet a girl anymore. I've spent the past six month not finding anyone here amazing and it hasn't bothered me too much. I suppose you could partially explain that one through the reasoning that there are 2 girls in my Physics class and 3 in my Differential Equations class. Oh yeah, the two in my Physics class are in my Diff EQs class, and I talk a lot with one of them and know the other one because she tutors as well.

Issue two, I hate living with my parents. I'd love to move to Fall River but financially it's not going to work out unless the fucking government stops making it impossible to play poker on the internet for a living. And I find time to play (read: ambition). My bankroll is quickly going down the tubes, mainly because I'm not playing.

I've been doing a lot of tutoring, and it's going fairly well. Some stuff is more difficult than others. I'm doing a lot of GED-level writing/grammar tutoring which has been the toughest thing so far. I've been doing some MTH 25 tutoring which is Math of Elementary Education Teachers and its a lot of concepts that are easy to understand but I've never learned them. Recently I had to explain standard deviation and quartiles/ranges/frequences, etc, and I helped but obviously I'm a bit new to the stuff as well.

But the people at the tutoring center like me even though I didn't exist in their system last semester. Obviously I should of got started on this earlier. They like teasing me on things (last Tuesday was nobody likes me day), and hanging around there is pretty fun.

Went to Amherst last Thursday to go back up to Amherst College for an interview with the transfer admissions officer, and it was fairly informal and not too much of an interview. I kind of explained my story a bit more than in my essays but I wasn't really enthusiastic enough and don't think I said anything extraordinary that would give me a better chance of being accepted. I think I still have a chance but it really could have been a much better one. I did get my essays done but they were very rushed and not that good I think.

I sat in on a course up there and it was interesting but not that much of an amazing experience. I tried to go to two classes before the class I ended up in and no one was there 15 minutes before class started. I expected a few students in the room before I showed up, but no one was in either room when I peered in, so I tried another class. I can be really dumb sometimes. The rooms themselves were very unclassroom like, more like meeting rooms, and the other for a fairly large course was almost like a miniature Trinity Rep with plush leather seats. I suppose that's cool. I felt kind of out of place which I guess can be understood. I got to eat free at the dining commons and read one of their social and political thought journals. And I got to see some real snow instead of the pissy SE Mass snow we've been getting. Big snowflakes. It was nice.

I didn't want to write too much, so I'm ending here even though my life recently has been flying by. I don't even have time to explain my Sociology End of Oil course, our service learning organic garden project, some oil/geopolitics/american industry thoughts (Who Killed The Electric Car? - good doc), or eclectic but entertaining ENG12 professor. Time is a disaster.

Tags: bcc, girls, money, poker
Current Mood: fine
Current Music: Howie Day - Numbness for Sound

I claim that I don't like to play NL cash games, but I seem to do consistently well in the bi-weekly .5/1 NL game I always play in on Saturdays. Tonight I went broke for my first $40 (max) in the first few hands. I bought back in and ran it up to about $400 after NL. We end up playing Dealer's Choice mixed games (usually a mix of 5 Card Draw (Ante), 7 Card High, Omaha H/L, and recently Limit HE Double Board (best hand)) around 12 and I ended up getting to about $480 in the mixed games. I was catching cards in about every game we played. Drew to the nut high in Omaha a few times, and scooped a few pots. Once on a T6d2d board with T54d3d when the 5 hit. Got a good amount of money from that pot, especially after I pointed out that A8 does not take the low on that board. I only won $432 total though, as we did what the pros I think call high carding for stacks. Two guys only had about 50ish in front of them, so they suggested we just go all-in for a hand and so I was willing given I was up so much and didn't have too much to lose. Granted $400 profit would be awesome for the night, but $500 would be even awesomer and $350 wouldn't hurt too much. I lost the HE hand but I did have a flush draw on the flop as well as live pair cards. Queen high won it. Oh babee, gambling is fun.

I might have played possibly the best I ever played so far at this game. The game's pretty good player wise most of the time. Tonight there was the host, a good but somewhat wreckless loose/aggressive player, 2 tight/passive/passive okay players, one loose/passive/passive bad/horrible player, okay loose/agg player, another somewhat loose/aggressive but not as good player and a fairly solid good player who is willing to make laydowns.

I lost my first buy-in by finding myself dominated after a looseish pre-flop call and flopping top pair. Wasn't going to get away from it. Then I did the same thing with KQ vs. AQ except I sucked out on the river.

From then the night just gradually got better and better.

I was specifically proud of this play. I have QJ, I don't remember how we got there but the final board was (not in this order) ATTQx. I believe there was a bet on the flop with 2 callers, the turn checked around, and on the river okay L/A bets $6 into a decent sized pot, $20 or so. I want to pay him off because I think my J might be good against him, but I know the other player to my left is a T/P player who probably called with the Ace but wasn't going to raise with it. I could also see him getting ready to call while I was thinking, and this made me realize that the best play here is to raise because he's tight enough that he will laydown, and then I can see what my L/A friend is up to, if he re-raises I'll put him on a hand and fold, but I think he might have been bluffing, just a feeling. So I make it $16, as expected, player to the left folds, and L/A folds what might have been bottom pair for a 6, and I inquire into T/P player's hand and I was exactly right.

Then, earlier, there was a hand where I made a big laydown. I had AQs, re-raised from one of the blinds, and got one caller from L/A from above hand. I think he may have made it $3 pre-flop and I made it around $12. In doing so I ended up getting a short stack all-in. The flop comes AJJ, I make it $25, and he moves in for $90 total. I think for about two to three minutes while exclaiming how I hate to laydown hands. I really do. I felt pre-flop he probably had some sort of marginal hand and a hand like QJ, JT, KJ, fit right into his range. I decide to fold, figuring him for the Jack, partially because I don't want to spend that much to find out and also because I would get to see the hand anyway. I was right, he had QJ, and I get to pat myself on the back for making a good laydown.

I didn't play completely perfectly I think, as I missed some value on a few key hands. Once where I had KJh on a J7h6h board. The flop action was either bet/raise or check-calling a bet and a call. On the turn a King came off and L/A bet about $25 (very value bet-ish) and other L/A called all-in. I was quite sick because I felt I may have been up against a set but knew I probably had outs. I didn't want to raise because opponent and myself were quite deep stacked ($130ish me, $180ish him), and I'd have been sick to get it in with that big a pot against a set. I decided to just call, the river went check-check and I winced as he turned over J7. I'm the kind of player who winces when he misses value (and in this case, a very large amount), not when he wins a big pot just for the sake of winning it. Therefore raking in the pot was almost bitter sweet.

There was also a key bluff I pulled off with AQ, making it either $15 or $25 after some limps and a raise or small re-raise, can't remember which. I checked the something like JT7 flop, then bet the turn getting a call from L/A which I move in on at the river. He folds and I bluff with what I might have been the best hand as I learned later.

Another fun night on the job. This actually was a very much needed real money win, adding to it a $120 profit from a tournament the night before. I'm a little crunched because a lot of my money is tied up at online sites I haven't been able to withdraw from, and I have a $600 credit card balance and only $700 in the bank. I could always just suck it up and take the interest rate charges, but it's also the account I'm using for my school bill where I only have about a $550 in credit left and the bill is about $515ish, so it has to be paid off eventually.

Tags: money, poker
Current Mood: giddy

So, I'm going to write a "short" poker post to tie up some loose ends. There's a big post about college stuff I want to write, but I don't want a post filled with poker junk to be a post sitting on here for a few weeks.

If you hadn't guessed, no I didn't win a WPT seat that day. It was totally insane at Foxwoods that day though, being one of the first days of the events started. The ladies event was playing in one of the ballrooms, and the tournament area was apparently being used for Act's and they even had tables upstairs where the slots/pit is for the Act III. It was a madhouse, the line for the tournament area was huge and confusing, and the games were packed. Supposedly the 1/2 NL list was like 40 people deep at one point.

So they had to bring in new tables upstairs in the slot area. The lighting was horrible, which isn't a problem for me but many of the old guys were complaining about it. It was very dim and felt strange. The tables also didn't have shuffle machines, but the dealers I had weren't that bad. The decks were different too, Gemaco's but index sized, with a strange flourescent kind of color on the back. At least they weren't getting marked like the other ridiculous decks they have for the other tournaments.

The tournament went horrible, I was in seat 1 and quite uncomfortable. No drink holder, tables seemed smaller. I kept losing my notebook and my Eeyore card capper and eventually just ditched Eeyore and starting holding on to my cards. There weren't too many eventful hands.

I got minraised once with TT, flop came Jack high and I folded like a pussy. Against the same guy though I made a move after he raised my BB and I had J9s, the flop came undercards and I check-raised and bet the turn with nothing. Very risky but I felt like getting aggressive.

Then at 100/200 with AK I got a called in late position and the big blind who seemed tight/agg but was playing hands strangely. The BB took a while to call, I think with a marginal hand based on pot oods and the flop came J99. The guy in late position had like 1550 left and I decided to bet 1500, figuring he has something like KQ and will fold. He goes all-in and the other guy folds and the late position has AA. *puke* Oops. I don't know if the continuation bet is horrible just because he has AA here (I think he has a hand like KQ, AQ, AT, 77, a lot more often here), but I was at least correct that the BB didn't hit.

Then with like 2k ish left I find JJ and push after a late position raised my SB and he calls with K9 and hits a K in the window and a 9 on the flop. Blarg.

After that, I played the 1/2 NL, stacked the same guy twice with KK and AA or something or other, playing a big pot with JJ when I raised in early and got reraised after 2 people called by a guy making it 23. I wasn't sure what to do but I knew I at least had to call, probably raising was a better move, but I didn't want to be making it 100 pre-flop and running into a big decision. I had just sat down. I called, we were 4 to a flop and it came 986 2 clubs and I made it 100. The girl to my left called and Ace came on the turn. I checked she checked, and the river missed the club draw. At this point I was pretty sure the girl didn't have an Ace and had missed her club draw. I checked to her, she bet 75 and I called and she had Kx of clubs. A lot of people felt it was a good call but I think it was automatic. If she goes all-in on the turn I'm fucked though and probably fold.

I should of been up like $200 but I made a bunch of stupid retarded bluffs. Once I decided to make a move with overs and a guy went all-in instantly, said he had a set. At least 3 bluffs/plays at a pot failed. I met a guy I've played with a few times in the Providence/Johnston game, Jeremy, and there were a few poorly played hands of mine against him. Bluffed into him once and he only called with something like the 4th nuts to be nice. I dumped off $60 or so there, and then I folded when there was a straight on the board, I had checked behind him on the flop blind and flopped two pair but the turn was some stupidly horrible card for me that made a 4-card straight and the board put the King high straight on the board and he bet with nada and I folded the board, figuring he had an Ace.


So, I'm going to Atlantic City with Bill from the Friday night poker game. We had been planning a trip since what, August/September, but being the procrastinator I am, I was lazy to work on finishing trip specifics, where we'd be staying, if we'd drive or find another way (the biggest problem, because my car won't make it and my parents ended up deregistering the two cars I could take). X was planning on going but because we/I was lazy he had bills to pay and so couldn't go.

We settled on taking Greyhound from Providence > NY > AC. It was only $130 combined for the Casino fare, and supposedly we get some coupon from Bally's, so that's actually a quite good setup. I've said I would prefer to drive but being able to just "relax" on the bus isn't bad either. It takes about 2-3 hours more, probably smells bad, and costs sort of more, with more logistical variables, but it's not a bad deal.

We're staying at the Crown Motel, some dump next to the Taj Mahal. It was about $290 including some stupid $40 surcharge for booking from some site online. Hopefully everything just goes smoothly in that area. All the casino rooms were booked and super expensive anyway, although if we had booked earlier we could of got a decent room for like $160 each or something or other.

We're planning on trying to play at atleast the Borgata, the Taj, and the Tropicana, the three big poker rooms in the city. Bill is more a tournament player and doesn't play cash games much so we're going to try to play at least 3 tournaments together, although I'm going to try to play some of the 5/10, 6/12, maybe the 7.50/15 pink chip game at the Trop in between, while he plays some penny slots I guess, and tries out some of the good buffets.

Hopefully things go smoothly, and we don't get mugged, as one of the guys I play with on Saturday's warned me about. I'm optimistic, I have to think that the chance of getting in big trouble is slim, like getting a 1-outer or 2-outer at most. He was telling me at night it is really shady, and maybe thinking about opening a hotel account or Western Unioning money back if I win big.


Anyways, it's certainly going to be interesting. My bankroll has shrank. My total life bankroll. It's only less than 6k right now. I haven't played a lot of poker online since all the stupid legislation crap and playing at Foxwoods has definitely hurt. Playing those satellites was truly a bad idea, given that I probably couldn't have even sold $1k of myself if I had won. I just hope I don't run super bad at Atlantic City because I don't know if I could recover in such a short time span, especially since I'm on a trip with the intention of playing poker.

Tags: atlantic city, foxwoods, money, poker

Haven't posted for a while, but I'm heading down to Foxwoods today, planning on playing an Act III super to try to get into the $10k Act III satellite for the WPT event. After that I'll probably just play cash games but I might play an Act II SNG for another Act III seat if the spirit moves me. Will probably make a phone post at sometime in the evening.

Tags: foxwoods, money, poker

Game #3318788764: Hold'em FL ($3/$6) - 2006/09/03 - 05:36:06 (ET)
Table "(Lightning) Abeokuta" Seat 4 is the button.
Seat 4: cornetti ($141.97 in chips)
Seat 5: Shunny ($406 in chips)
Shunny: posts small blind $1.50
Rince: posts big blind $3
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to Shunny [Jd Ad]
Atreyu: folds
cornetti: calls $3
Shunny: raises $4.50
Rince: folds
cornetti: calls $3
----- FLOP ----- [8c Td Kd]
Shunny: bets $3
cornetti: raises $6
Shunny: raises $6
cornetti: raises $6
Shunny: calls $3
----- TURN ----- [8c Td Kd][Qd]
Shunny: checks
cornetti: bets $6
Shunny: raises $12
cornetti: raises $12
Shunny: raises $12
cornetti: calls $6
----- RIVER ----- [8c Td Kd Qd][Kc]
Shunny: bets $6
cornetti: raises $12
Shunny: raises $12
cornetti: raises $12
Shunny: raises $12
cornetti: calls $6
----- SHOW DOWN -----
Shunny: shows [Jd Ad] (Royal Flush)
cornetti: mucks hand  [Ts Tc]
Shunny collects $145 from Main pot
----- SUMMARY -----
Total pot $147 Main pot $145 Rake $2
Board [8c Td Kd Qd Kc]
Seat 4: cornetti (button) mucked  [Ts Tc]
Seat 5: Shunny (small blind) showed [Jd Ad] and won ($145) with Royal Flush

Played a session tonight to qualify for Interpoker added $$$ tournament, ran insanely good including the royal flush to be up about $600 in a little over 2 hours of 2-tabling 3/6 6-max (while 2-tabling a full 2/4 game). Won $121 at Ron's cash game, won $300 in the tournament at Jim's on Friday, won $200ish at the cash game a Friday ago. Poker is awesome. I may be over $11k in bankroll.

Tags: money, poker

I have two days of work left. Today and Saturday, both 6-10. I am going to miss Subway, mainly miss the free food as having to pay for dinner every day especially for school will kind of suck, but I am still glad I'm leaving. I guess Bob is cutting more hours since usually business slows down when school starts, and the store has been slow anyway to begin with. I'm not sure how he expects people to get stuff done when there's one person to do prep until 6, and then that person leaves at 7, that and he's going to have to hire someone else or bring someone over from another store since everyone else is going back to school too. Now that the shifts are 6-10, I probably could float it for school working a few hours a week, but I still think it's better that I quit.

Subway was my first job, and I suppose for many people quiting and leaving small minimum wage jobs becomes like nothing, but I've gotten pretty good at it and leaving is kind of bittersweet. Certain things are awesome, like my coworkers and good customers who come in, and occasionally I love my job, but some things suck, like working with food, rushes, annoying customers, etc. I guess it's just an end of one part of my life and on to another part. I was telling myself I wanted to shave my head/beard to symbolize when I quit, but I don't think I am. I did get a pretty poor haircut yesterday and might just go to some other place and tell them to buzz most of it off. I can't shave my beard though, I'd look ridiculous without it.


I hit the $10k bankroll mark, that's if you include the money I withdrew to pay for school. I haven't exactly figured out how much to write off on my poker bankroll. I can write off about $5k and still have a healthy bankroll to play with, but I'm not sure how much I want to make it. I haven't sat down and done the math regarding playing off my poker money. If I can win something like $500 a month, at least, I'll be pretty good overall to pay for monthly expenses. I know it's possible to play a lot and still have a losing month, and I'm still getting pretty lucky lately to keep on the upswing.

Basically my only firm expenses are going to become my $220 in rent towards my parents. My last insurance bill is $199.20 due on 9/14. There are certain car issues that might change my expenses though, I was looking at buying the Cavalier that was my step-brother's old car off my parents and using it to get back and forth to school since it's supposed to be more reliable, although I don't know if I'm going to go through with it. My car's running really good right now with the exception of the bumper falling off because the clip on it fell off, and I need an oil change.

There are 17 weeks left in the year starting in September, so if say I spent $40 on gas a week. That would be $680. Yow. And If I say spent $30 on food during the week, that'd be like $510. So that's $2269.20 in expenses between all that kind of stuff.

What I decided to do for school was use the payment plan. There's about $3194 total in expenses, I already paid the insurance fee up front leaving $2361 left over paid in like 4 installments. It's sort of playing it safe, just in case I find myself in a situation where I start grinding it out and end up short because I've already paid the $3k up front. I figure doing it this way allows me to pay for stuff incrementally if say I go on a few downswings over the next month.

So, what it looks like is that, let's include books in the school expenses and make it like $4k, and if we assume $2.3k is good for expenses over the 4 months, $6.3k is what I'm going to be spending from poker over the next 4 months. I've already withdrawn $4k to my bank account, to pay for the initial payment installment and insurance fee, etc. There's actually $5.7k in my bank account from my poker bankroll, not including what I've paid for. It's a little tight for the online sites, mainly because I'm trying to keep enough in each to multitable like 3/6 or 5/10 if I find a few good games.

Wheee. So, I know it's going to be tight, and I know I could go on a bad run. My last post's subject was "Don't be afraid to fail." I was watching Current and they had on a video of I believe Michael Dell, the CEO dude of Dell saying his advice to young people was "Don't be afraid to fail." Even if I do fail, what have I lost? I've made enough money to pay for a semester of school. I've ventured out on my own, away from an $8 hour job. As someone commented, I'm sure it won't be hard to find another job if grinding it out playing poker doesn't work, and another job that might be better than Subway. I think I'm in good shape though.

Tags: bcc, money, poker, work
Current Mood: grinding

I hit $9k in bankroll after getting $273 of rakeback for the month of July. It's actually over $9.2k or so right now. I would really like to get it to $10k before school starts, withdraw about $5k and keep playing the stakes I'm playing while going to school.

I wrote a note to my boss that started like I need xxx days off and then I started writing how I was probably going to quit before school starts anyway. It was kind of funny because I started asking for days off and I'm like, I'm going to quit anyway btw. I actually wrote about poker on the note just so I let him know what the reason was, I don't know if he probably thinks I'm a gambling addict now.

Not sure I'm going to yet, but I think it's something I really want to do. I've made over $2k the past two months from poker, not counting bonuses. Granted, I've played a lot of poker 122 hours in June and 174 hours in July - although much of it is very skewed from counting table hours and not real hours and I've luckboxed a lot to win that much.

I haven't felt like writing at all recently which is why I haven't updated about anything. Just so Bill feels good, this is one hand I played poorly at the last league game.

I had doubled up on the second hand against Jim's dad with JJ on AQJ board and he had AQ. Rarely do I build a stack early on but this was one of those occasions. I think still in the first level of 10/20, it folds around to Bill on the SB into my BB and he makes it 60. I call, having position and being deepstacked with J2 of hearts. The flop comes J72 with two clubs, he makes it 120. I raise to 350 total and he calls. At this point I think he's got a Jack of some sort. The turn comes a T. He thinks for a while, looking at the board and the pot, and checks. I make the mistake I frequently make of putting people on exactly the hands that beat me and nothing else, he might have JT and be looking to check to me so I can bet and double him up. In reality I should probably bet like 500 here and hope he has a J and calls. Instead I check behind. The river is a 7 and it's a club making it the worst possible board. If he was semi-bluffing on a flush draw, he got there, if he has a J, my three pair is no good. Bill ends up betting 400 and I think through all those possibilties. I ask him if he'll show me if I fold just so I can know where I was at and he says yes. I think for a few minutes before tabling my Jack deuce and folding and he shows A6 the good old stone cold bluff.

It was a good bluff because my hand basically shriveled up, but I misplayed it several ways as I mentioned. I should of actually realized getting 3:1 to call causes me to have to be over 75% sure my hand is no good, and realizing that by showing weakness on the turn I induced Bill to bluff on me, along with a few other cues that I can't mention here. And that's why I'm not playing at the WSOP right now like all the other newly minted 21 year old poker wizkids.

Tags: money, poker, work
Current Music: internet radio

$4000, $5000, $6000, and quicker than any of them, $7000. Here's the hand that put me over $7000 in poker bankroll.

Hand #355073740  at table: Table TH 740
Started: Tue Jul 04 04:12:37 2006

Clayto is at seat 3 with 514.39

MUFFTACO posts the large blind 5.00
Clayto posts the small blind 2.50

Clayto: Qh, Ah

Pre-flop:

Pietari: Call 5.00
saycheese5: Fold
river_7777: Fold
Brunno9: Fold
illogic: Fold
apatzi1969: Call 5.00
Clayto: Raise  10.00
MUFFTACO: Fold
Pietari: Raise  15.00
apatzi1969: Call 15.00
Clayto: Raise  20.00
Pietari: Call 20.00
apatzi1969: Call 20.00

Flop (Board: 9h, 2d, 2h):

Clayto: Check
Pietari: Bet  5.00
apatzi1969: Raise  10.00
Clayto: Call 10.00
Pietari: Raise  15.00
apatzi1969: Call 15.00
Clayto: Raise  20.00
Pietari: Call 20.00
apatzi1969: Call 20.00

Turn (Board: 9h, 2d, 2h, 10s):

Clayto: Check
Pietari: Check
apatzi1969: Bet  10.00
Clayto: Call 10.00
Pietari: Raise  20.00
apatzi1969: Call 20.00
Clayto: Call 20.00

River (Board: 9h, 2d, 2h, 10s, 3h):

Clayto: Check
Pietari: Bet  10.00
apatzi1969: Raise  20.00
Clayto: Raise  30.00
Pietari: Call 30.00
apatzi1969: Call 30.00

Showdown:

Clayto shows: Qh, Ah (ace high flush)
apatzi1969 shows: 8h, 7h (flush to the Nine)

Mainpot:
Clayto wins the pot of 272.00 with ace high flush, Ace kicker.

(3.00 rake were taken for this hand)


I'm sure it'll fluctuate around $7k, but this run just keeps getting better and better. I just hope it doesn't stop until I'm able to pay off school.

I'm really thinking about quitting Subway. As it is I am working 5 days next week and I really don't want to be.

Tags: life, money, poker
Current Music: Matt Nathanson

I used an analogy a while ago to point to how far behind I am in life.

I'll use another one.

Your room/desk (for those who don't live with your parents, your house) is a good sign of how far behind you are. Lately It's been the worst it's ever been in my life. It's bad when a week goes by and you still haven't finished putting all your laundry back from the last time you did laundry, and have to do more laundry. I've always had really old school papers lying around my room for no reason, and such is still the case. I have two bags of candy from the mall (wait.. make that one I can't find the other one in my desk) from several months ago. I'm going to throw it out now. .1% down. Oh yeah, I guess trash going out would be a good idea right now too.

Yeah, I'm pretty far behind.

I still haven't started my over 100 question Child Psychology final exam. Finals are the week of the 15th (basically 2 more weeks). Nor have I started my list of child observations, my 15 magazine/newspaper articles we are supposed to put together, or have I put together my presentation (probably doing it on child internet safety). I think I probably should I have taken myself more seriously when I considered withdrawing from the course because I knew I wouldn't do anything and I knew it would be a joke. I told myself early in the year that ironically, the "easiest" course for everyone else in the world I would get the worst grade it. It's likely to hold true.

I have a 98 in Calc II, despite not doing any homework seriously since the 6th section of the course. I got an 85 on the last test we had, largely because I tried to prove that infinity^0 = 1 when in reality it is an indeterminate form (11 point problem). I would of known that if I had actually read the part of the book that says that. Luckily she let us go back and do the ones we got points off on and I ended up getting a 92.

I have a ~94 in History 14 (1877+). I got a 95 (-5 points of on multiple choice, essays perfect) on the last test despite not reading the 4 chapters the test was on. I'm not sure I've mentioned this, but the professor has study guide questions on the syllabus to go along with each chapter. I realized after the first test that all these study guide questions were the exact same one that I ended up on the test. He'd ask to identify the leaders of Germany, Italy, and Japan in WWII and then the question on the test would be the match which one didn't belong. Etc. So I got down to a bind a few weeks ago where I procrastinated and didn't have time to do the reading. I think I actually ended up waking up in the morning without impetus and realizing I had to write essays and study after playing Halo 2 the night before (yeah.. my priorities are awesome!). I wrote two pretty good essays by focusing on the sections in the book they were about. Then I went through the chapters and followed the study guide to find all the answers. Boom. Doing the test was harder then it would of been had I read, but it's still amazing.

And then my Sociology class where I have about a 93. This was the class where I thought I failed the mid-term. This was the class where I would have put $1000 down that I wouldn't get an A on that mid-term. I had a quiz on Communist Manifesto/Social Stratificaton, and I didn't even finish reading the Communist Manifesto before the quiz. I would have been pretty happy with an 80ish grade because I didn't think my essay on the Marx theory of capitalism was all that good. Boom. 97. (Although I question the grading of the quiz unless she's got some weird scale I don't know about, I got 93% on the 75% multiple choice and she doesn't have a point listed off for the essay. By my math that's a 94.5 but I don't think I'm going to complain. She'd probably wonder why I would bring up a scoring error that favored me (as many other teachers I've done so to said).

I keep telling people that well, I like BCC, but it's really too easy. I suppose if I had a real Child Psychology course I'd be extended a bit more, but still. The Child Psychology course, although I don't like to say it, is like a joke. I want to learn more than anything (even if I don't seem to outside of class), and I'm not being taught anything in the class. My Abnormal Psych course was similar in that we barely got through half the book. I'd be very tempted to audit a Child Psych and Abnormal Psych course in the future if I had the money to do so.

With that said, I don't know what to do. I went to an "Admissions Information Session" with the director of admissions but was frankly kind of bored for most of the hour and didn't stay after to ask any questions like I wanted to. Admissions is easy, $10 fee waived online, send a HS transcript. Not like I wouldn't get in. I sort of wish I had applied back in December when I did all the course stuff, kind of silly of me not to. It's weird telling people that I'm not enrolled or whatever.

I haven't done anything about transferring anywhere else again. And I'm likely out of luck about that for any schools. As it is I haven't done a FAFSA and I know if I do it's just going to be the same bullshit EFC that I can't afford to begin with. There's a BCC Foundation Scholarship App due tomorrow that I am planning on filling out (tonight, even though I knew about it two months ago).

I'm not even sure I could afford fall semester alone unless I planned on directly paying for it with poker. My taxes ended up +800 overall but that's only because I wrote off my tuition and fees from school while declaring gambling winnings properly including getting raped on MA taxes due to not being able to declare gambling losses. Fuck me for being a goody two shooes.


Sigh. Otherwise life is still a mess. I'm a chronic procrastinator despite being someone who could do almost anything if I put my mind to it.

I've been being lazy in everything, including keeping track of poker (i'm backlogged in my stat tracking for a month or two especially online play). I played two crazy sessions of multi-tabling to clear TightPoker.com's WSOP freeroll over the past month. In talking to bastard I mentioned playing the sessions and coming out just about even between them, losing $100 in the first crazy session and about $100 in the second. Actually, I overestimated, Poker Tracker tells me I lost $146.01 in the first session, and won $77.50 in the second. If this doesn't tell you why keeping track of your winnings is important I don't know what does. They're written down in a notepad in front of me and I over/under estimated my winnings and losses despite them being written down. It's likely I've lost a fair amount of bankroll (300ish at  least) in between the two $100 tournaments, trying to qualifying for a $215 and busting out of a $55 90-player SNG.


Still conversing with Tiffany between classes, still thinking I need to make a move but at the same time still thinking I think too much. I told Emily at work about her after she mentioned how Alison has a boyfriend now (btw, said kid John is that boy, except she told me they werent going out then), and she said the typical (in the typical Ryan doesn't remember exactly what she said paraphrase) "Well you know, if you don't give her your phone number you'll probably never see her or hear from her again, and if you do well, you might know her for the rest of your life or you might never hear from her again." Yes, the more I think about it the more I think it can't hurt. I thinking I should talk to her after class on Friday again (our last class before final is the wednesday after wednesday, but it probably won't be convenient) and slip in my number somewhere.

Tags: bcc, college, girls, life, money, poker, school, t
Current Mood: nowhere fast
Current Music: Internet Radio/Whatever I feel like

I asked for today off. Few different reasons, one to try to play Interpoker WSOP freeroll qualifier, and the other to go to a family birthday party.

I came into work Monday and manager Pat came in and asked which day it was I wanted off. "Cause the April 15th isn't a Saturday." One - it is, two - that wasn't what I wanted off, it was April 8th I wanted off. So I'm on the schedule for 3-10 for that day still, I come in the next day or so and ask if I'm going to get that day off cause I'm still on the schedule for it. Pat goes "yeah yeah yeah you'll get it off" whatever. Thursday my coworker Amy tells me I'm still on the schedule and I assume that I'm expected to come in at 3 today.

I'd have to go into a little bit more detail than I have time for to explain it all, but basically 1 - I hate working for the bourgeoisie (we're reading the communism manifesto in soc) making my boss money and only getting paid 7.50 an hour while he just rolls in it. 2 - Random poker stuff I've talked to before. I don't have a gambling problem, it's just that I'm very close to fucking trying to make more money playing poker then working and if I put my mind to it and work more hours than I do at work now while relaxing in my underwear I will be very much better off. Like I've said before, it's not hard to come up with a profit scenario where I 3-table $2/4 or something at 1bb/hr, and make like $12/hr and have the capability to work more hours while relaxing and taking breaks cause I'm sitting at home.

I fucking 5-tabled to try to get that Interpoker freeroll cleared last sunday and now I can't fucking play it because I just don't have the guts to tell my boss to shove it. I've been thinking about this for most of the end of the week and it's a decision that is really being made by impulse. I suppose thinking I can just quit a job immediately and make enough money playing poker immediately is very much a pipe dream and unrealistic thinking.

Grrrr. It's only a fucking freeroll. I'll probably miss qualifying anyway. But I think I'm calling my boss up at work - telling him to give me all Saturday's off from now to eternity, telling him I'm not happy at all, and telling him not to be surprised if he gets my 2 week's notice in the near future.

Tags: life, money, poker, work
Current Mood: not happy

Bunch of stuff I want to mention, so this is in somewhat random order.

Got my new prescription for the contacts on Tuesday. I don't know what brand my old pair was, but they were daily-wear ones because at the time the doctor didn't have the extended-wear ones. With the old pair I had a bit of double vision and trouble focusing on objects close up or especially with text on computer screens. These are PureVision extended-wear contacts, and the moment I put them in I could tell the difference. I can pretty much read text on computer just as well as I could with glasses, and focusing is much better. When I went for my checkup on Thursday I could read the 20/20 line easily. Although I put in an order for a 6-month supply and it cost me $160, I think it is worth it. In the short-term it is less expensive then glasses and considering I couldn't decide on a good looking pair of glasses to save my life, contacts really were a good choice.

A few things bother me though about the whole contacts issue. While I received a lot of guidelines for the first set of lenses, I really wasn't told much of what to do with these, just given them. I read over a pamphlet on their website and there were a bunch of suggestions about what to do regarding wearing them for a prolonged period continuously. Right now I haven't worn them overnight and I probably won't till Saturday night. I wore them for over 13 hours I think on Thursday and everything was fine and my eyes felt pretty good. I think if my eye doctor isn't going to set any guidelines for wearing them I might as well play it cautiously for now and just gradually get used to wearing them for prolonged periods. I.E., it would probably be a bad idea to just wear them for 7 days straight off.

Also, The doctor I saw on Thursday was the same one I saw the first time, and while I know I wanted to really thank her before I didn't other then a typical thank you. I felt kind of weird because I'm not sure if that first appointment I had was a typical experience for a first time contact lens patient but it seemed like she might have got a bit annoyed that day and might have remembered me and not been in that good a mood. Whatever. I also don't have a followup appointment scheduled any time in the near future, which I would have thought was what they would do after about 3 or 6 months to make sure everything is okay in that time. Again, whatever. Yeah for 20/20 vision.

On to school. I was able to go down and get registered for that Calc II class on Tuesday as well. I went home and tried to pay for all $2177 of my school bill on my check card and it was denied. I'm not really sure why it was, I guess there's a max payment limit or something on the account/check card, because smaller payments went through. Eventually I did like 5 or 6 different payments and got the whole $2177 cleared. So in the past 3 days I've probably spent more money then I did the first 18 years of my life.

Here's what my pending transactions on the Sovereign website look like...
01/19/2006 PENDING - Debit Card $327.00-
01/19/2006 PENDING - Debit Card $160.00-
01/18/2006 PENDING - Debit Card $400.00-
01/18/2006 PENDING - Debit Card $1,000.00-
01/18/2006 PENDING - Debit Card $100.00-

The $160 is the contact lens order and the rest are the school payments that went through. $1827 of it on my bank account and $350 on the Capital One card because I thought the check card was the problem.

And why can I pay for all of this? I knew I was going to be cutting it close on the school bill with how much money I had in my bank account so I made an EFT from my Neteller account for $800 from my poker bankroll. The scary part is, I now have $1466.35 of Poker money in my Bank Account after that transfer and my last two big wins and I think I only have $1000 in the bank after all those purchases. I've kind of overdrawn my poker bankroll, but I'm planning on just repaying it back on money from the real notrealjob and not removing money from it, yet. Now, that is why I play poker ain't it?

(Gosh I write a lot don't I?)

Also regarding school, realized that the two days that I have to work are the lighter workload days, Monday and Wednesday with only 3 hours of classes, an hour break on Monday and going in at 10 on Wednesday. So that isn't too too bad. Wednesday is technically only Sociology and Calc II as well, so that might mean less work due on Thursday.

Regarding life, I've had the chance to hang out with Liz Lutz (I'm sure you guys remember her, she works over at the Shell Station where the Subway is) at least 5 times now and I've chickened out and not called her every time. Last Monday she had a party at her house to play Cranium and while I've heard the game is great and I wanted to hang out with her but I didn't go for a few various reasons. I'm a loser. That's why no one hangs out with me anymore.

There are a few things I want to say about poker but I'll leave those thoughts for another post.

Tags: bcc, contacts, life, money

The replacement headphones I bought off Ebay for $9.99 came in good time, but must be the newer shittier model of the LT-820, cause they sound worse and aren't nearly as comfortable. I'd almost rather wear the dead headphones and not listen to music than these things. Very frustrating because the dead headphones were just so awesomely comfortable and sounded awesome. Very frustrating, now I have to actually go buy another pair and hope they are better.

( So let's see, poker recap. )

I don't even really care that it's Thanksgiving tommorrow. It was nice to not have school today and I don't have work for two days, but I'm not in the spirit and I could care less what I do tommorrow with family. Little upset there isn't any PokerStars Deep Stack tournaments worth playing on either of these days I could use. Pretty annoying.

I'm going to have about $400 in bills per month, $200 rent and $195.20 a month car insurance this new year. I'm thinking my best bet is to work about 20 hours a month at Subway, to make a little over $100, and then go to BCC full-timeish. Still seeing how my schedule could work, haven't finalized stuff.

I really have about 15 things that should probably get done. Need to get an oil change/new fuel filter. I wanted to call up Speedee and see how much I'd have to dish out to get a new fuel filter but I haven't yet. I need to call BCC and talk to them about AP credit for Calc II so I can actually register for it. I need to write those paper thingies for Abnormal psych. My room kind of needs a cleaning as usual, but that won't happen. I swear there was more to this list but I can't remember now. Sigh.

Tags: life, money, poker
Current Music: music on shitty sounding headphones

I was thinking earlier today about what I'm going to do next semester.

I'm enjoying the two courses and at this rate presuming I don't fall flat on my face for some reason I'll probably ace both courses. Don't I sound cocky? Ohhh what success does to you.

Anyway, I got some big choices ahead of me. I want to take more courses/work less this next semester. I suppose I could do the two class deal again but I'm really enjoying the stuff and I wish I was taking a few more courses right now instead of just the two.

Of course, didn't I want to go to Fitchburg? Yeah, I did, I've said since like 2003 I don't want to commute and here I am commuting. I'm not sure if going to Fitchburg is the right move for next semester. Obviously if I go there I'm living there, and that adds money to the process. But really for only a spring semester it would probably be only 6000+. I think if I go to BCC for 4 courses I'd be up near 3000 [450 x 4 + 1200] including insurance the big joker in the picture. At that rate, double the money and I could just go to a state school, and when you consider I will probably get one small federal loan for 1.2k-ish (I already got a Award Letter for spring from Fitchburg), I might as well take the jump for a semester.

The other problem is still money. I may not be able to pay for a semester at BCC alone still. I've got like 1.5k saved up right now (not counting poker) which is a lot but car insurance will be upcoming and that will hurt the bank account. So even if I decide to take all the courses at BCC I may not be able to afford it. Sigh.

It's also tempting to try to go to CCRI instead of BCC (I guess the Lincoln campus isn't too far away from here, which might be a good choice if they have classes I actually want to take), or to actually commute to a state school from here, even though I really don't want to. BCC also has an Honors program which I think would be a good idea to take part in. I mean shit, if I continue running good grades wise, a school's got to give me something don't they? Maybe I should even try getting into a Private school to take advantage of that (because supposedly Private schools give more money).

Hmm.. Anyone got any bright ideas? (That means you.)

Tags: bcc, college, life, money
Current Music: Last Train Home acoustic

I meant to post a few days ago and I meant to post like a week ago and just didn't get to it. Oh well.

I since have had 2 weeks of school with one week of really enjoyable classes. Last week Abnormal Psych was so awesome, we were supposed to just be going over Chapter 3 (we're still on Chapter 3 sadly), but we did and took up most of the class time (without a break, which was awesome) and went over this "case study" that was actually a case the professor had regarding a kid who was somewhat like an ADHD misbehaving type of kid but whose actually problem was he was having seizures which were causing his temper tantrums. I won't go over the whole thing here but it was pretty awesome analyzing it through his eyes and some of the things that came about. Last night I did an all-nighter for the class to do this abstract on a research article and I found out this class that my article is shit and the professor really didn't like the way I did the abstract so long. I'm not that upset because I almost expected it cause the article I picked really was shit and not what we were supposed to do. It does seem like a waste to have stayed up so late working on that though.

I also got a good grade on my test that we had a few weeks ago, 96 I think? Had a Macro test I know I did okay on but not great because I got some of the questions wrong I know. My main worry was an essay on Mercantilism/Adam Smith because with an essay stating historical facts I really can't BS anything that's supposed to be factual points like I can a theoretical essay in Psych or something. I got that done well but didn't study enough on other parts of the test. Otherwise Macro has been okay but not as fun as Psych. Prof is still cool though.

Hmm. Work stuff. Still sucks. Didn't have to go in Saturday because in case you didn't know Attleboro got mad rained on. I got called by Adrian a few hours before saying that RT 1 was blocked off right where the Shell was because it was flooded by the Dunkin Donuts down the way near CVS. I seriously didn't know what to think and thought that was pretty crazy. It was pouring coming home from poker and it had rained all week (and my car was feeling it..fucking seat was soaked afterwards). My mom was out and came back and told me it was pretty bad near Wal-Mart too. So I got the day off and basically did nothing the whole day. Was nice I guess. When my mom got home from work I still didn't believe the whole deal so she took me by Dunkin Donuts and it really was flooded all in front of there. Was insane. There was a picture in the paper of County Street being flooded too.

Let's see, I haven't talked about last friday's poker night yet, I might try to do another entry on poker specifically cause I have a few other things to say and don't want to overload this.

I spent some money last week on guitar stuff and 4 Xbox games at EB. So I splurged a little bit but I guess I need to do it occasionally to keep myself in check.

Saw Corey Tuesday at work when he was at Shell and it was cool to catch up with him, especially because I haven't seen anyone since July.

Uh okay, that's it for now. I'll really try to write more sooner and write about poker in a few days. I didn't cash but ran really good for the early part of the first two tournaments but busted out in 10th in both.

Oh yeah, specifically one thing I wanted to say was that there's an Elliott Smith Memorial Open Mic I was thinking of going to up in Salem on Friday. But I don't think I'm going to go because ideally I would of liked to go up there and play a cover of Last Call or something else, and I still can't play Last Call on my acoustic even with the Custom Light strings I put on (oh yeah, did I forget to mention I put new strings on my acoustic? Did I mention I fucking hate changing guitar strings?). So it's pretty frustrating, my guitar is nice but the action is still too fucking high and it's annoyingly hard to play some songs on it. I could probably play Sweet Adeline with the exception of the Chorus Barre A chords for the same reason as Last Call. Anyway, I'm just not good enough to do something like that although it would be pretty awesome to go up there and see if I could play something ad-lib anyway and borrow someone's guitar or something. Ah well.

Tags: bcc, money, poker, work
Current Music: Howie Day bootleg -

So, before I forget...



An iPod Nano or the nice flat-screen would be nice.

I forgot to mention I had jury duty Thursday. It wasn't too bad, doing my civic duty. Drive wasn't too bad with my CD Player/Radio (which actually broke on the way back, cassette player keeps flipping sides so I can't use the adapter). Got there, in a room with all kinds of other people I didn't know, wasn't too bad. Read a little Psychology and Cardplayer mag, got bored and started playing a poker game on my mom's phone and then the judge gave us a cool talk and sent us home at 11:30. Not bad at all. When I drove home, I got honked at a few times and decided to take the offramp and pull over for a bit to see if something was up. Apparently my bumper was hanging down, on the left side where I had thought a clip was coming undone a few days ago so I pulled it off. Apparently that clip was important and it started dragging on the road on the ride home. It isn't too bad and you can't really tell now that I did that. Oh well. Although I hope the clip doesnt fall off again when I'm driving.

Let's see, I'll get to Friday's poker night later. School still isn't too bad, I got 100s on both the Economics homeworks, so I feel good about that. Class is good. (I'm trying to avoid saying 'too bad' again.) Took a test in Abnormal Psych today which I thought I wouldn't do good in, but it actually wasn't that bad. The essay question was my biggest problem, and I either did really good on that or not that great. Need to do something with a research article for next class. Saw Rosa after I got out of class early and said hi and told her how I was doing and that was that.

Umm, not too much non-poker stuff left to say. Work still sucks kind of. But that's work. I'm starting to think it's a bad idea to keep telling myself that I don't hate this job. Targets in the area are hiring as well as Sears still so I should really fill out some applications for them and get out of this place. I have figured out part of my problem with working. Money doesn't really mean anything to me. I don't spend much, so it's not like it gives me joy from buying stuff. I'm mainly trying to save it so I can try to afford college eventually. Worse, I have a $3500 Poker bankroll that if I ever got in serious trouble I could always raid for more money. Even that means little, because I only use it to move up the limits and have a cushion for all the limits I play. Sometimes I wish I never started playing because this illusion is crazy.

( Poker night )

Tags: bcc, life, money, poker, work

It's probably stupid to admit that I didn't understand the point of those savings bonds I just cashed in. 3 bonds, 2 $50 ones and 1 $100, I thought cashing them in would just get me $200 in the bank. I didn't actually know they collected interest and stuff. Yeah, I'm stupid. Oops. At least I got enough interest that they were over face value. I'll go back and win the interest I lost playing poker now. Hell, I'll make more than that interest lost completeing deposit bonuses over the next few weeks.

Tags: money

I'm thinking I will definitely probably take a few of those courses. I've registered online (online registration - sweet) for Economics, Sociology, and Abnormal Psych, just have to confirm it, and I may take one of the others ones too. Maybe the Computer Information Science course, but it might be a remedial course (because the CIS major doesnt even list it), or the History of Music course maybe, I'm not sure.

Unfortunately, if I take 9 credits or over, I have to have health insurance. This is fine and dandy if I'm already paying 5k a semester, but when health insurance doubles your bill, it's a little more of an annoyance. As it is it would of been like 1k for the 3 classes, but health insurance jacks it up to like 1.8k. Not cool, health insurance.

But then if I take all these courses, when spring comes around I may find myself in the exact boat as I am this month and get the same I don't want to take these courses I want to take them at Fitchburg feeling. If I was going to do nothing and just save and keep Subway job I would probably end up with $2400ish to pay for college if I had to, but if I go to school I end up with the same +$1000 I am now.

I hate decisions.

In other news, my mom found $200 in savings bonds for me. Sweet. If only $200 was worth as much as it was 15 years ago though.

I've been thinking about my college "plan" (I'm actually thinking ahead right now), I'd love to double major Computer Science/Math with minors in Psychology and Philosophy. It'd be perfect but the course load to complete all the requirements might not work in four years. With this thought I'm thinking about my schedule and looking at filler courses that might not work if I need to compress all my classes into those four concentrations. Like Economics and History of Music probably wouldn't satisfy any requirements in those fields. But they are still things I would find interesting and worth taking.

Okay, I will return you to more interesting livejournal entries.

Tags: bcc, college, future, money
Current Music: nothing actually

I asked Debbie about her and Gary cosigning for the loan and they couldn't do it, I won't go into the reasons why here, but I completely understand why they don't want to cosign for me at the moment. Maybe in the future.

So I called Fitchburg to withdraw on Friday, forgot to leave a note for my boss on Saturday and I'll probably call him up or leave a note today when I go in. I just hope he doesn't like not put me on the schedule because I forgot to tell him, but hopefully everything will be okay.

Obviously this really sucks, and I am a tad depressed about the whole situation. There are certainly some positives to not going to school right now though.

For one, I get to play poker with this group on Friday for the whole fall. It's a cool group, Kurt's an awesome host, everyone is years older than me and I'm kind of like a young punk but I'm enjoying it and learning a lot playing live poker on a regular basis. There's a whole points system, and a big winners freeroll tournament at the end of the year and I've already won a tournament. So I'm looking forward to having something to look forward to every other Friday night, and I definitely want to ask Bob for always having Fridays off. I'll also get to play more of the Sunday $40 tournaments in East Providence. I'm bound to cash big in this tournament eventually with the weak field.

For two, I won't have to leave my lovely cats. I was going to miss them going to Fitchburg, but now I get to sleep in my own crotchy bed and room and enjoy my cats.

Wow..what were the other positives I was thinking about?

I'll be saving a lot more money now that my car insurance is paid off for the year. I estimate I might end up +$2000 in December not including expenses. So I'll be able to save up a good amount of money for college if I go in spring.

Yeah, so unfortunately I still have to work at Subway. I may try to look for a better job more money/less work and I'd like to look hard but don't know how much looking I will be doing. My motto for the next few months will be to not take Subway so seriously. There's a line out the door..oh well. I'm getting out at 11 tonight, oh well, they have to pay me anyway for that time. If they had a problem with paying me working till 11 they'd have 2 people working all the time. I think Adrian takes the job too seriously sometimes, I see his pain. Unfortunately, I do like to care about working hard so it will be hard to balance.

Hmm. I may try to take some courses at BCC, but I'm not sure if I want to or not. I'd like to take more of the basic courses, even if it's just filler and not courses for a Comp Sci/Math major or whatever I wanted to do. I believe Calc II is off limits to take, because the days and times suck over at Fall River. Sociology might be interesting, maybe another Psych course, Chemistry or Physics would be cool. And I'd love to take a Philosophy course too.

And so life goes on.

Tags: college, life, money, poker, work
Current Mood: okay is just a state of mind
Current Music: Elliott 95 show

I didn't get that loan I mentioned, and I tried the other Sovereign Bank loan and didn't get that one either. Awesome.

Kind of scared of looking elsewhere, kind of just want to give up and try again. But don't want to at the same time. I just want to go to college... why must it be so hard?

Tags: college, money

SOAR at Fitchburg was okay. It was for Transfer students, and as the Dean was saying, "Transfer students just want to get in and out," so there wasn't much stuff with groups where I actually met people. I would of liked that, since technically I'm hardly even a transfer student, and I would of liked to meet some cool people before moving in. I did meet this one kid Trav who was next to me during the presentation, commuter, majoring in Photography. That was cool.

I ended up coming up with a nice schedule for me, like, Comp Sci I/Calc II/Logic/Writing II/Sociology. The best laid plans of mice and men get fucked up and I made two mistakes though. I didn't look at seats open when filling in my schedule, and I wrote down the Comp Sci CRN wrong, I wrote down the Comp Sci II CRN. I realized that after the registeror had got done with a nice fixed up schedule. I felt kind of bad, considering I wasted all the time with my easily caught mistake (I could of double checked them during the 10 minute wait). In the end I got Comp Sci I/Calc II/Writing II/and US Hist I. I really want to take the first 3 classes to start, but US Hist is kind of an eh. It's not going to help out my major search other then being something to study, I'd probably rather take Logic and some random Psych course or something. It's also at 8 o clock am. Even if I don't switch totally, I might try to get into one of the ones later in the day. The way the schedule looks right now though I have Fridays off which is totally sweet but not planned.

Unfortunately, I may pretty much be fucked.

I got my mom to attempt to cosign for a $10k Citiassist loan, and she got declined for it. I will know exactly why presumably when I get a letter from Citibank. I could possible reapply and add in my step-father's income which I didn't do the first time. But it's still no guarantee because my mom has fairly bad credit and that may be the sole reason why. In that case there may not be any loans she would be able to cosign for.

This really sucks. The $10k is my guesstimate for both fall and spring. The fall bill for FSC is sitting on my desk for $5703, including the $1.2k federal loan credit. I can't directly pay the $5.7k in theory. They have a payment plan but I'm not sure about that either. I have $3.3k of poker money I really don't want to use, probably about $800 or so in my bank account once Visa fixes my account, not to mention I need to pay for books and still pay off car insurance if I'm going to use my car, etc. It just isn't adding up. If I don't get a loan I can't go to school.

This is devastating considering I've been saying for a years, I want to go to college, I want to live in the dorms. I want to be a college kid. Now I have the opportunity, at a school I really like, and I can't go because I don't have the money. I knew it would be risky putting down my deposit a while ago but even I didn't know I would be this fucked.

I'm tempted to go whoring for cosigners. I told my mom to reassure her that if she ever has to pay off any of the loan for some reason, I will pay her back 110%. Once the deferment period ends I don't see a reason why I wouldn't be able to deal with it myself if I get a even half decent job out of college. Any credit worthy adults want to cosign a loan for me? Please?

I could possibly ask my grandparents, or maybe Debbie and Gary. But I don't want to feel like a desperate whore, and while I'd like to think cosigning a loan isn't a big deal, it is, although this isn't a typical loan. Cosigning in this inference is different from like, co-borrowing or parents taking out a loan for their child.

Sigh.

I really don't want to have to work at Subway ever again after this month. If I have to withdraw, I'll be looking for other things to do, but I was really hoping to get out of it all.

ARRRRRRRRGGGH.

Tags: college, money
Current Mood: pretty crappy

I hadn't checked my bank account figures in a while so I went to my Online Banking page with Sovereign Bank and was surprised to see my bank account was overdrawn 93 dollars. What the fuck? I don't remember spending anything huge. I go to check my account history and there's 2 purchases for 727.06 and 125.54 from Santo Andre and Sao Paulo. WHAT THE FUCK??!??

Obviously I wasn't in Brazil recently and therefore did not make those purchases. I'm pretty pissed but it could be worse. I called up Sovereign Bank's customer support (live from India!) and they should be sending me something to fill out in 10 days to claim the fraud or whatever I'm supposed to do. At least I have a Visa CheckCard with 0 fraud liability (we hope). Well, it's a good thing I didn't need that $850 right away.

Man, what the fuck. Most likely this was caused because I'm an idiot and sent my creditcard number over e-mail to AP Services/College Board to get an AP score sent out to Fitchburg. Motherfucker. I knew that was risky but figured it wouldn't be a big deal. I should of fucking called them up.

Lesson learned : DO NOT SEND CREDIT CARD NUMBERS OVER EMAIL. ELSE YOU WILL END UP -860.

Okay, I'm a fucking idiot.

Anyway, today at like 9:50 I saw one girl I recognized from North in a pack of 3 in line, and I figured I'd serve them cause they looked cool. Anyway, all 3 of them were from North, and when I started to make their subs, I was like, "Sue, Karen, Jill" (although Karen was actually Katie, I've seen her before and thought her name was Karen), and Sue was like, "Hi Ryan". I can't believe they actually remembered my name. That was cool, and we made small talk, and Jill asked me where I'm going to school. I used to take speech classes with Jill I think back in elementary school.

Usually I'd just clam up and not say anything to them, but I figured I'd go for broke and say hi like I've known them forever and it was cool. I should probably do that more often. I really can't believe they remembered my name.


Anyways, I'm tempted to go donate to some PokerStars nickel/dime game. I really don't get infuriatingly pissed and this is one of those times where it's nice.

Tags: life, money, nahs
Current Mood: relatively more pissed than I usually am