FSU, Billing and Loans

            I am going to complain a bit about the way I see money being distributed and collected by my college, Florida State University, and also loans from the government.

            I am going to Law school, which is incredibly expensive, though if you look at the statistics of education costs to projected earnings after graduation Law School does seem less likely to leave you a cashier at Taco Bell than an advanced degree in Foreign literature.  Regardless I have to take out loans, and this is done in an odd way.

            Basically they tell me how much I am allowed to borrow, I then ask to borrow it, and then they send me most of what they said they would give me.  Let's say I need $10,000, and they say, "Okay, we'll give you $10,000."  They will then send me a check for $9,000 and a receipt for me having paid them $1,000 for the use of their service.  Why do that?  That doesn't make any sense.

            One problem: it is incredibly hard to plan around.  If I need X dollars, and ask for that much, and they then tell me that I will get X dollars, students are not going to know that X dollars is not X dollars.  It is a rug getting pulled out from under them.  Why not just charge a higher interest rate?  Why not send them X dollars and just tell them that an additional charge of some smaller amount will be tacked on to account for processing, but won't be charged interest like the loan money?

            This is the sort of bureaucratic crap that people claim is what is wrong with government in general but is never fixed.  There has to be thousands of parents who discover this every year putting kids through college.  And these parents are the type who have money and vote, you can tell because they are sending their kid to college instead of having him work.  So why is this not an issue to get ironed out?

            Then there is the issue of bill collecting.  I had a pinched or irritated nerve in the left part of my rib cage so they took X-rays to be sure nothing serious was there, since they have not bothered to contact me except for a bill I guess I can rest easy.  And while medical care is another bag of worms (charging as much as they do to use a machine is kind of fine, but not telling me how much it costs before doing it is not, and even if they did tell me I am in no position to refuse preventative care because I have a pain in my rib that I can't identify and that puts you in a mindset to spend more money than you otherwise would... Because this country has flooded our heads with medical information that is alarmist in order to get us to both go to the doctor more, and to justify charging more and more for services)... I guess I let a few worms out of the can, but moving on.

            The service was rendered in March, they billed me personally one month later, and then told me of the charge one week later when they decided that enough time had gone by to justify withholding some university services... During finals week.  Aside from the fact that this should have been handled by the insurance, and they bill me if they decide this doctor prescribed treatment wasn't covered, the school shouldn't be billing me directly.  Two, it is all computerized, why did the mistaken billing take a month?  Why was I not notified when it finally happened?  Why was my only notice in the form of a sort of penalty?  Why do they think finals, a time in which people have priorities other than paying the academia pimp, to chose to demand money?  I don't know.

            Then there is the system.  The school charges a $7.75 convenience fee for paying online.  Couple of things, paying online should be the only way to pay, that service is instantaneous, mechanized, and can be done at any time, from nearly anywhere.  The idea of having a room with people sorting written checks is stupid in a modern civilization. 

            Then why charge this fee for every use of the online service?  It is always $7.75 whether you are paying $10,000 in tuition, $250 in med bills, or a $5 library late fee, that is insane and unfair.  They should just have the charge be hidden, slightly increasing the cost of everything to account for that cost.  Wal-Mart does not charge you $5 for paying with a credit card, no one does, that would be insane, and having an all cash business or sorting through all the checks they get would be monstrously time consuming and have huge overhead costs.

            Another solution: charge some flat rate at the beginning of the school year, "Electronic Services: $20" just like they do with "Transportation: $40" that lets FSU student use the Tallahassee bus lines at will.  You get money up front that people see the one time, and can account for.  Either way, you have a billing system that a person can use to pay off the apparently overdue medical bill that is wrongly on his account when he receives the useless email at midnight without feeling like he is getting his/her lunch money taken away as an insult to the injury.

Some Stuff this Week

            The last few days have been too productive.  I hung out with friends three nights, one of which was Dungeons and Dragons, the next was getting Mexican Food, and the last was watching Anime and eating at Applebee's (it was the first time in multiple years I had eaten at an Applebee's, and it will be multiple years before I give them another chance, at one point I actually felt like throwing up on the table, not kidding).

            Of the Anime we watched I have mixed feelings about one in particular, it has double long episodes, and is a Japanese take on the sci-fi superhero genre, both too much and too little is explained many times.  It is called "Giant Robo", I liked the first episode well enough, lots of action good pacing, but the second episode we just watched, had terrible continuity, and I don't mean it went against the last episode (it did, but that is not too important) I mean that it contradicts itself several times in the final 10 minutes, so much so that the basis of the story, the motivations of the villains, and the capabilities of the heroes are all left confused and at odds with literally what just happened in the scene.  It was a mess, and it kind of ruined the series for me, because as much as I like the animation and initial impressions of the setting.  But it doesn't follow its own rules, and has some silly assertions about the world.  I can't recommend it because of those reasons.

Bit of a Shame, not going to lie.

            Yesterday (6/10) I continued with my weekly self evaluation to see if my summer gym visits are having an impact.  And I am doing alright, with almost universal improvement over last week:

Blood Pressure: 134/84 (Last week: 132/73)

            This is the only thing that did not improve and I have an explanation.  Normally I take 3 readings in 5 minutes and average them, that seems to be the better method than just taking one and done.  Even the machine says that multiple readings are necessary to get an accurate assessment of one's blood pressure.  But things were weird this time.

            I was approached by someone I knew from my study abroad trip to Istanbul, and I had the typical panicky reaction I have to social interaction that I have not been expecting, and while this doesn't manifest outwardly, aside from my usual blathering insanity, it did cause my blood pressure to spike on the first reading to 142/96, a bit of an outlier, so today I took a second to calm down, from the nerve wracking task of saying a pleasant hello to a very polite woman who I had previously talked to on a regular basis for more than a month (I am a shit head).  Then I took 5 readings, dropped the highest and the lowest, and averaged the other three.  It seemed sensible at the time to not queer my progress, though I think the impact still remains to a lesser extent (stupid public places with their people and chit chat).

Chin-ups: 6 (Last Week: 5)

            This may not be impressive in the grand scheme but I have not done this many in many, many, many months.

Leg Extensions (70lbs): 28 (Last Week: 26)

Bench (95lbs): 32 (Last Week: 28)

            Honestly I don't see this going too much higher, I have worked at this a lot and I am glad for my progress, but I doubt I will be getting beyond the upper 30's lower 40's in repetitions.

Leg Lifts: 22 (Last Week: 20)

1.5 miles: 20minutes 54seconds (Last Week: 21:30)

            This remains my weakest area and I think I will have to just try and do this exercise on a different day prior to exercising, rather than doing it as part of a larger evaluation.

Curls (25lbs): 33 (Last Week: 30)

Fly Extensions (10lbs): 40 (Last Week: 35)

Hold Breath: 56 seconds (Last Week: 52 seconds)

            This I also changed the way I take the data.  I usually average three attempts taken in 5 minutes, this time I did five attempts in 7 minutes and dropped the highest and lowest result before averaging the middle three.  I have no idea if this will have a meaningful impact on things.

Weight: 215lbs (Last Week: 216.5lbs)

            Not my best, but I am hoping it is just muscle.

Also, these are the boxes from the Cadbury Eggs I ate around Easter time.  That is three to a layer, 8 layers, equals 24 boxes.  Each box had 5 eggs, which means 120 all told.  The Cheez-it box is present for a sense of scale.

Donating Blood

            I gave blood for the first time this week, I was walking out of the Library on Wednesday and was hit by a one two punch of charity, a group selling brownies for breast cancer, and a woman asking people to give blood.  I bought two brownies, in part because I had not eaten since 5 hours prior, and that had been a spoonful of peanut butter and a tiny cup of yogurt, then had spent the rest of that morning doing homework and not thinking about food.  The brownies, I think helped with the blood donation.

            It was kind of funny the questions they ask, I think I had to confirm more than once that I was not in fact a drug user, and had never had sexual contact with a man, hopefully they are as probing with their questions to everyone and not just me, I think it would be a little rude to question me twice because I give off some sort of vibe, though what vibe a gay smack user gives off is unknown to me.

            Then there were the questions relating to going abroad, the attendant knew that Greece had some questionable cities on it, but none of the islands I had visited on my trip were on the list, and when I asked about Istanbul, the attendant stared blankly into space for a minute before deciding it was best to check.  Turns out, Turkey rings a few questionable bells, and I was in at least three places for which bells were typically rung.  London is also an issue, because of the angry cows, but they decided that you have to have been there for a certain period of time to be of issue.  During all of this they handed me crackers and juice, because brownies and yogurt was not exactly robust dinging and they thought I might get woozy without some additional calories.

This is me months ago, next to the Tigris River.  Not contracting any blood born pathogens.

            Then they pricked my finger and squeezed the bejeezus out of it to check my iron levels, which were fine.  Why they could not check that numeral by punching a hole in the back of my hand or the fleshy part of my palm so it didn't hurt as much I do not know.

            Then they laid me back, hooked up a shocking number of tubes, and stuck me.  It hurt, evidently this nurse had never been a user of intravenous drugs either because it was not the distant light stinging I had expected.  Either way I squeezed the stress ball, imbibed more juice and waited until the bag was filled, they handed me a receipt for my blood.  I relaxed for a minute watching them juggle and mix my vitals, using this little clamp thing to push the blood out of the tube that had ran to my arm, up into the sack which would be its final home, before being pumped into some poor sod who needed it.  I then was told to go home and eat and rest.

            I did, I went home, ate something, probably much smaller than I should have.  And then napped for 5 hours, it was lovely, even though I ended up having some really strange dreams as a result.

            And that was my last Wednesday.

            I also realize I have not been keeping up with updating my progress to get more in shape over the summer, so here is last Sunday (5/27) which shows a lot of improvement, though that might just be because I did the exercise after taking a day off to recuperate, where as before the battery of exercise came at the end of the week:

 Blood Pressure: 135/81

Chin-ups: 4

Leg Extensions (70lbs): 27

Bench (95lbs): 23

Leg Lifts: 21

1.5 miles: I lost count and couldn't tell you what time I was on.  This is a boring exercise.

Curls (25lbs): 30

Fly Extensions (10lbs): 30

Hold Breath: 55 seconds

Weight: 214.25lbs

And just yesterday (6/3) which had some big ups and several small downs:

Blood Pressure: 132/73

Chin-ups: 5

Leg Extensions (70lbs): 26

Bench (95lbs): 28

Leg Lifts: 20

1.5 miles: 21minutes 30seconds

Curls (25lbs): 30

Fly Extensions (10lbs): 35

Hold Breath: 52 seconds

Weight: 216.5lbs

            I am also reading a book I bought about 3-4 years ago, "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell who is my favorite non-fiction writer.  The book is about geniuses and the environmental factors that produce extreme results.  How a large IQ is helpful, but only to a point; about how 10,000 hours of practice or study very much defines a persons ability to succeed in what they are doing; and how raising children to ask questions and to be willing to engage with those around them will make them vastly better at utilizing that high IQ and those hours of practice.  It is a fascinating read, sort of makes me wonder how different my life would be if I had gone to school at a different time, or if I had focused on writing more as a hobby in middle and high school to get the 10,000 hours of practice.

This Past Week

            Things from my week.  I have discovered that the "Italian Style Favorite" DiGiorno pizza, Meatball Marinara and Chicken Parmesan are quite delicious.  But then so is a toasted whole wheat bagel with cream cheese, garlic salt, and a slice of tomato.  I started taking French, which when compared to Chinese is a chocolate cake walk.  I have managed to go to the gym 5 times, each day after class and have drastically changed the way I was going about getting fit.

            Really my whole routine has changed in that I have one, French is always the same time for the same period of time, it happens late enough in the morning that I have time to wake up, have breakfast, and do my homework before it begins which puts me in a state of mind to do French.  Afterword I read some, head to the gym, head home, and do more homework and read until bed.  It is relaxing to know what I am doing and to be able to do it without grinding my teeth.  But at the same time I feel busy and I do not think of myself as having a lot of flex time, I am in class effectively 10 hours each week not counting additional homework and studying, that is the equivalent to a full schedule, even if the work is a step down in difficulty and I think I could handle another course that was safely in my wheelhouse, like my terrorism or International trade course from this spring.

            As for working out changes I have decided to start grading myself each week to see if I have any improvement, a few small exercises that I can use to measure progress.  Along with my weight, blood pressure (averaged off of three measurements all taken in the same 5 minutes), and the amount of time I can hold my breath (again averaged off of three measurements all taken in the same 5 minutes).  Mostly the shift is to cardio, and I think that will be a good change of pace to help me lose weight, as I have hit a plateau with my current weight lifting efforts.

Blood Pressure: 137/81

Chin-ups: 4

Leg Extensions (70lbs): 26

Bench (95lbs): 16

Leg Lifts: 20

1.5 miles: 19minutes 29seconds (this needs a lot of work)

Curls (25lbs): 20

Fly Extensions (10lbs): 25

Hold Breath: 51 seconds

Weight: 216.25lbs

Learning Chinese

            Learning Chinese is going to be a harsh little time for me.  See, I still do remember a large amount of what I learned of it in undergrad, a large amount when you consider how long ago that all was, but the focus at FSU is different than that of FGCU.

            At FGCU I learned characters, and was far better at knowing the English definition of a character than I was at recognizing spoken Chinese.  I would hear Chinese spoken, sound it out into Pinyin (that is Chinese language written as English script) then remember what that Pinyin coordinated to with the characters, then knew what the character meant.  That is a lot of steps that I could trip on.  If someone just wrote several characters I would be able to tell you what each meant, and over a period time I could start to get the gist of sentences (sentences written for a first grader).

            Now I am at FSU where spoken Chinese is the norm.  Which makes things hard, because I am expending a lot of energy to learn it, and since I am less efficient at doing so I am left with less time to remember the individual characters.  Sort of an economics problem, I am efficient at learning writing, not at speaking, so I am not using my greatest possible utility.

            I can kind of see where they are coming from, spoken language is the most common form of communication on Earth, but here is my rebuttal: I don't like talking to people.  And I will never speak Chinese at a level that would permit me to talk with someone in it that wouldn't make me sound mentally disabled, with most conversations being that of tired and forced chit-chat that people pry out of tourists.  But I could conceivably learn to read and write it well enough to read a novel in Chinese, a newspaper, or street signs.  So while I will take the lessons, I will take the tests, and I will do as well as possible, I feel uncomfortable, and this will probably be the most challenging class I take this semester, then again the other two classes I am taking are so in my ballpark they are standing on the home plate.

A Chinese stop sign.  Though many also write stop in English.