Yesterday, North Carolina’s Anti-transgender Climate Reached A New Low.

Student Loan Forgiveness

An email I got this morning from the government regarding my student loans:

We recalculated your monthly payment for your Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plan. We used the income documentation […] to determine your monthly payment of $334.66 [….] If you do not recertify or you no longer have a partial financial hardship (PFH), your payment amount will be $641.77.

The power of Income-Based Repayment plans for student loans: I am literally paying half what my monthly payment would be if I didn’t have “income based” forbearance.

The downside of course is that it would take me well over twice the length of time to pay off my loans (given the payment size plus interest), but I am enrolled in Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which means if I am employed with a not-for-profit for another four years, to make ten years total, the balance of my loans, roughly $30K, will be forgiven.

Furthermore, I believe (qualifier: this may no longer be true, I haven’t checked recently) if you are enrolled in IBR and paying based on income, after 25 years your loans will be forgiven regardless of where you work. If you are unemployed, IBR can reduce your loan payments to zero even once you’ve used up your grace period. If you are long-term unemployed, that means in 25 years you will no longer carry student loan debt. 

It’s 25 years of payments instead of 10, but it’s better than no help at all.

If you are in a low-earning job (I make just over $50K per year which in Chicago does not go far), IBR can help you keep your head above water and build savings by not charging you through the nose for your loan repayments. IBR is making it possible for me to afford to buy a home.

If you are employed with a charity, public school, private not-for-profit school, government agency, or other 501( c)(3) organization, you also qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which means after ten years of payments all of your qualifying loans will be forgiven.

A few years ago I wrote up how to apply for IBR and PSLF here. I just went through and updated all the links; it should be a good primer on the kinds of loans and jobs that the setup involves.

On Autism and College, revised.

Here is some advice on navigating college/university, by an Autistic (American) student, for a/Autistic students.

Register with disability services as soon as you make your decision to go to your school. If you don’t have a diagnosis, you may be able to talk to them and get tested/diagnosed and get accommodations. It depends on your school.

Make sure to research housing. You will want to know about food, the type of people who live there, location, and activities available. You want to be able to eat with your meal plan, get to class just fine, meet people there (or not, depending what you prefer), and if you want something to do there you should know what is available.

Spread out classes as much as possible. You will get to choose when you have your classes. Know your schedule and work with it. For example, next semester all of my classes are in the afternoon, which is good because I have a weird ass circadian rhythm and ended up being nocturnal for half of this semester.

Find out the minimum amount of classes you can take and start with that. Don’t overwhelm yourself. I’m taking twelve hours (the minimum for a full time student) next semester.

Make a schedule of when your work is due. You will likely (especially in math and sciences) have weekly homework due on a certain day. Know when that is and plan for it.

Try your best to not procrastinate. I’ve had far too many panic attacks and meltdowns from waiting too long to do work. You probably won’t have work assigned one day and due the next (it can happen, but I haven’t seen it), so plan your time.

Don’t overdo it with organizations/clubs. Friends are great, but don’t make extra commitments you can’t keep. I’m being treasurer of an organization I love because I’m needed and it’s not a huge commitment; I just have to turn in paperwork by deadlines, which I have no problem with.

Keep in touch with your advisor. If you need to drop a class or change your major, you will need their help. Know their email and use it. 

It’s okay to stim. No one’s gonna notice you stimming in a lecture hall unless it’s loud. I twist a paracord bracelet and chew a necklace in lectures. Smaller classes are trickier, but people tend to not care if you’re fidgeting with a bracelet or something that doesn’t make noise or chewing on something. It’s okay.

Emails can be awkward, it’s okay. You’re not going to have the perfect email all the time. Most professors are fine with a very straight to the point email. Example asking for help from a professor:

Dear [name]: I am in your [time] [class name] class. I need help with [x]. Could we meet sometime to work through this? (If you have a problem with face to face interaction, you could say “Could you explain this to me via email?” They may ask you to meet with them anyway, just a warning.) Thank you, [your name]

Write down all office hours, whether or not you think you’ll need them. Professors want to help. It looks good for them when students do well. Mostly they sit bored in their office during hours. Even if you’re not struggling, it looks good for you when you come in and talk about the course with them during hours.

If you can’t handle your major, switch. Try to major in a longtime special interest if you have one that you could do that with. There are jobs in every field. I personally am switching from physics to psychology.

Clubs are good for finding friends. I’m in five(ish) queer organizations and have quite a lot of friends from them. Especially in larger schools, you can probably find other a/Autistic folk by pursuing interests and joining clubs devoted to them.

You likely won’t be judged for being a little “odd”. No one really bats an eye when they find people sleeping in public places here. At most, people might know you as “that person that does X thing”, but if you have the confidence to rock that, then you’ll be fine.

 Don’t buy textbooks until class starts. You almost definitely won’t need them the first day of class and there’s no point in buying a $120 textbook you never actually use. 

Keep all of your class syllabuses together. Just… try not to lose them, and if you do contact your professor. They might have assignment due dates for the whole year.

Use a planner. I use Habitica, an app that works kinda like an RPG. It helps me remember meds and work and all that jazz.

If you need one, take a gap year. School will still be there when you get back. It’s okay.

Feel free to message me with questions! I will be a sophomore at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign next semester!

Important for people looking for colleges next year!

Campus Pride gives lists of:

Trans-inclusive women’s colleges

Colleges that have insurance that covers medical transition for students

Colleges with nondiscrimination policies that include gender

Colleges that allow you to change your name and gender on school records

Colleges with gender-neutral housing

Trans-inclusive college sports teams

Trans-inclusive college admissions policies

Also more stuff. (All are directly linked from the first link.)

Reblog so someone doesn’t have to spend their next 2-4(+) years at a school that treats them like crap.

I’m never over the fact that Juliet, though sunshiney, loving and in many ways naive, is actually a ridiculously morbid and very calculating person.  I love her for it, honestly, and I hate when people cut those lines or play it as though she isn’t these things.

Like, my love for Juliet Capulet knows no bounds as it is–she’s defiant, she’s passionate, she’s nonviolent, she’s loving, and basically  the coolest.  But I feel like the fact that she’s kind of a manipulative genius at times, and a somewhat creepy Gothic romantic at  others is so often overlooked, and I can’t imagine why, because that’s great!

I mean, it’s clear how intelligent she is, and how easily she manages to say what her parents want to hear, without even once letting on what she’s really saying, as the audience knows, most notable in Act III, Scene VL

Indeed, I never shall be satisfied With Romeo, till I behold him—dead— Is my poor heart for a kinsman vexed.

Where she basically knows how to simultaneously say that she’s grieving both for the loss of Tybalt and Romeo, while letting her mother hear that she wants Romeo dead, and then later in the same scene:

I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam ,I will not marry yet. And when I do, I swear It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, Rather than Paris. These are news indeed!

Where she manages to basically throw it all out on the table–she’d rather marry Romeo than Paris–and still words it just so they have no idea.  This is an extremely subtle and deft crafting of word and communication and how people hear things.  The girl is basically a genius and could probably have made a terrifyingly good con artist if she wanted.

But then I also love the fact that lots of her other lines are oddly morbid, and that she clearly loves and enjoys darker things, and isn’t quite the wilting, delicate flower people seem to portray her as.  I mean, one need mostly just look at her speech in Act III, Scene II, which I’ll do here, and then it becomes a wonder no one modernizes R&J and makes her an adorable Gothic princess, in a way. 

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, Towards Phoebus’ lodging: such a wagoner  As Phaethon would whip you to the west, And bring in cloudy night immediately. Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night, That runaway’s eyes may wink and Romeo Leap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen. 

This part isn’t terribly dark, but it’s got the feeling of a battle  cry, in a way, invoking horses of the gods to go away, commanding the sun to set.  It’s intense stuff.

Lovers can see to do their amorous rites By their own beauties; or, if love be blind, It best agrees with night. Come, civil night, Thou sober-suited matron, all in black, And learn me how to lose a winning match,  Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:

To me, at least, there’s something witchy about this: it reminds me, in a way, of Lady Macbeth’s “Come, thick night,” speech, where she’s powerful, literally calling evil spirits to do her bidding and change the course of what’s to be done.  Obviously, Juliet isn’t a witch and no spirits come to her aid, but the thought is there, as is her love for darkness, her disdain for light, her romanticization of the night and its cover and the color black.  It makes me want to picture a modern Juliet painting spider-webs on her fingernails and watching the starts for hours in the dark, and listening to The Cure.  

Hood my unmann’d blood, bating in my cheeks, With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, Think true love acted simple modesty. Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;  For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back. 

Again, this is something she very clearly loves and thinks is gorgeous, and it’s morbid and dark and rich.  And yet she’s so constantly written off as this silly little girl, foolish and flowery in the way people read her or perform her.

Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night, Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, 

Honestly, just to drive the point home, she’s thinking about her lover’s death making him scatter into the stars and literally becoming part of the night.  She wants to be Night’s lover, in an indirect kind of ways, and the fact that she twines darkness with Romeo in this image, indicates that she associates love and things she adores with darkness.  It’s certainly a love for the dark that I’d put into a Gothic Heroine of later literature.

And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun.

And finally, she concludes with calling the sun “garish,” which, if anything, makes me think of a line in a song from Phantom of the Opera–”Turn your face away/ from the Garish light of day”–which also associates romance with darkness, and a contempt for light.  But this isn’t meant to make her bad or wrong, simply private and rich and dark.

So basically, this all boils down to two things:  One is that Juliet Capulet should not be written off as stupid because she is literally too clever for anyone else.  The other is that I don’t get why people portray her wearing all white, or bright colors so often in modern adaptations, because there’s literally text-based justification for goth!Juliet if you wanted.

TL;DR Juliet Capulet is my cunning Goth Daughter who I love to hell and back and would kill someone for and I hate that people do not like her or put a lot of thought into her.  Also, if you’re ever thinking on it, consider goth!Juliet who loves spooky things and sneaking out at night. It could go very well with pastel!Romeo.

3 SUPER QUICK STUDY TIPS

1. Everyone is different, but find a good rhythm to study in. What I mean is find a good time increment to study in, and a good time increment for breaks. For me, I like to study in 45 minute bursts and take 15 minute breaks. 

Note that it doesn’t have to be constant. Sometimes I’ll plug away for two hours and then run for an hour. There isn’t a set technique that works for 100% of the population, so you do you ☺

2. Stretch!!! This is important not just for exercise but for studying as well. Stretch before, stretch during, stretch after. Especially if you’re sitting on your butt for a while. This will be good for your joints, and also to get your blood pumping when you can’t break out and exercise.

3. Have snacks and water. Keep the snacks minimally messy, or eat with utensils so that you don’t make a mess all over your notes/textbook/laptop. Snacking healthily will help with metabolism and with keeping your focus on what you’re studying, NOT on food.

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Teacher inspires nervous young test-takers with messages on all of their desks

Chandni Langford teaches fifth grade in the Woodbury City public school system in New Jersey. When she heard that her students were nervous about an upcoming test, she devised a clever and heartfelt way to encourage them. 

The pictures have since gone viral with over 18,000 shares, and hundreds of people have chimed in with messages of support. But it’s the students’ response that will leave you in tears. 

People with and without federal student loans please check this out!!

Ok so I want to tell you guys about this project I found out about called Givling! It’s basically a trivia game website that benefits people with student loans! 

The way it works is people make an account for free which secures their spot in the list of people involved in the site. Then people pay 50 cents a game to play. If you have federal student loans and you’re next on the list then you provide them with proof of your loans and they start raising money from all the people  playing to pay off your loans. Once your loans are paid off then they go to the next person in line. If you don’t have loans then you can sell your spot in line or give it away. So far it looks like this is legit and it’s really exciting! They haven’t been around long so they just recently paid off the loan of the first person on the list and are a third of the way through the second person on the list. The also do daily money giveaways of much smaller amounts as extra incentive for people to play the game and help raise loan paying funds!

Please check this out and play if you want and do your own research if you are worried about the legitimacy of this project! Below is the link to the website, the group’s facebook page, and a few articles I found about it. So far I haven’t found anything bad about it and everything points to it being legit so please support or promote if you can!

Givling site:

https://givling.com/givling/

Givling facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/Givling?fref=ts

Articles about Givling:

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/online-game-thatll-help-pay-off-student-debt/

http://college.usatoday.com/tag/givling/

http://www.businessinsider.com/online-gamers-are-helping-people-pay-off-their-student-debt-2015-7

http://www.psfk.com/2015/03/givling-gamifying-paying-off-student-loans-paying-college-debt.html

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