“What did you just say?” he asked, between chortles.
“What do you mean?”
“Just now, when you were singing. What did you think they were saying?”
“I don’t know. It sounded like ‘don’t go out tonight, there’s bound to be a fight. There’s a bathroom on the right.’ Why? What did you hear?”
Between snorts and guffaws, he asked me if I thought what I was singing made any sense.
“Well, no, but then a lot of the songs don’t make sense. What’s so funny?!”
He started singing the chorus. “Don't go around tonight. Well, it's bound to take your life, there's a bad moon on the rise.”
Forever after, whenever I heard the song, I joined in at the chorus, singing my version. (Turns out, there were thousands of us who thought the singers were giving directions to the head.) It has remained one of my favorite examples of miscommunications.
Today, five weeks into my new career as a college student, I received notices, via email from the state and snail-mail from the college, that one of my grants is being rescinded, because I am enrolled in a program that does not meet the requirements for getting a grant from PHEAA. This means I have lost funding for this semester and next. It means I owe the college nearly a thousand dollars more, if I plan to stay enrolled through the end of this semester, and another thousand for the spring semester. This will be on top of the Stafford loan I made to pay the shortfall from the Pell and the PHEAA grants, to cover the tuition balance and the cost of books.
I am flabbergasted. When I applied for admission to HACC in May, I told my advisors what courses I intended to take. When I went to the financial aid office, I repeated my plans, and asked for help with obtaining grants, if any were available for the courses I intended to take. When I applied for grants through FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and PHEAA (Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency), I clearly stated which college I wanted to attend and the program I intended to enter.
Was I singing the wrong lyrics again, or were all these other people hearing/reading the wrong words? I don’t understand how the grant from PHEAA could have been made in the first place, since the program (which I spelled out for them in all my applications) was not eligible.
This is not the blog I wanted to write tonight. I planned to write about my first month at college, how it has turned out that I really like the accounting class (which I thought I’d hate) and that I’m having a blast in the computer class learning how all the software I have works. I love learning new things. I like the challenge to my brain and the stimulation of being in a school setting again. I wanted to tell you all the fun stuff.
Tomorrow (Thursday) morning, I’ll visit the financial aid office and say “WTF?!”, or words to that effect, only more polite and socially acceptable words to that effect. (You don’t suppose PHEAA is in cahoots with OVR, do you?) Tonight, I’m too bummed out to do much of anything. I’m feeling queasy, from the disappointment, I’m sure.
Damned good thing there’s a bathroom on the right!
(Thursday afternoon follow-up: Nothing I could do about PHEAA; those funds are lost. However, I'm still enrolled because I was able to increase the student loan to make up the difference for this and the next semesters. If I change from the diploma program to the associate degree program, PHEAA funds would become available. Have to think about that some more, for it means a longer period of study [60 credit hours as opposed to 20 credits for the diploma], but an associate's degree might serve me better in the work place. Something to consider.)
(The guy on the left, full beard, looks a good bit like my first ex, John.)
