another update on the damn license plate thing. (see yesterday's entry). sent karl down to an auto tag store to order a new plate and sticker, and turns out that i have to go myself, since i'm the car's owner, and that the documents have to be notarized. which'll probably cost me. natch.

all this means that i have to take time out of my day, sometime, to go down there. when karl works 2 blocks away. fer cryin out loud.

i would probably have gone today, on my way home from the barn, except that i didn't go to the barn. because i can't really afford 2 lessons/week, and i'd rather go on thursday (more jumping) than today. so i'll go on thursday and hopefully get to jump around the course that was set up for the horse show that was supposed to happen on sunday but that was rained out. though because i drove all the way out there on sunday, not knowing it was cancelled, i have already jumped the jumps. but that was not the most exciting thing to happen at the barn on sunday.

the most exciting thing was that i got dumped. random was being kind of a jerk, and after several times of punishing him by popping him in the mouth, he got really upset and reared up with me and i came off. it didn't hurt at all at the time (landed in the soft sand of the ring) and he didn't run off or anything, but still. rearing is totally unacceptable. i wanted to get really mad at him about it but i didn't feel like i could without him getting REALLY out of control. so i just got back on and rode around some more, jumping some jumps and really riding til he calmed down. and he ended up being fine. 'course, i've had a really sore back and, for some reason, right forearm, since then. another reason to skip riding today.

and the bad news of the week: i was offered a TA position for spring 05 for, get this, $4300. this whole money situation just sucks. my grant runs out at the end of the year, so i don't have funding for next spring. if my advisor had been on top of things, i could have been funded by his grant, but he's already given his two grant positions to two other grad students in the lab. but, my advisor thought that my grant ran through june (thanks for ASKING, jt), so he gave away "my" portion of his grant, leaving me to fend for myself.

the department offered me this TA position, which i suppose is nice enough of them, except that it only pays $4300 instead of the $7300 that qualifies as a "full" stipend. if i was in years 1-5 of my grad career, i would be getting the full stipend. but, for whatever crackpot reason, now that i'll be in year 7 (gulp) i make less money. it doesn't make sense--more experience=less money. fuckers. and it gets worse: it doesn't pay tuition ($550 or so) or health insurance ($1050) for the semester. so, subtract that off my pay, and i'm getting $2700 for the semester. that's january-may, making my pre-tax pay a luxurious $540/month. that's less than my part of the mortgage payment is going to be, not to mention food, gas, clothes, utilities, and contributing to my IRA. i can completely write off riding, i suppose. karl and i spent last night brainstorming about how i'm going to survive, and getting really depressed about it. more than the money, though that's a big part, i just want to be DONE. i'm so tired of being a poor student. i'm nearly 30, i desperately need another car, i've just bought a house, i want to ride more. i know at this point that i don't want to do this for a living. i'm going to leave academia, so why don't i just drop out? i've thought about it, but having put in 6 -SIX- years at this, i want the degree. i know they're just letters, they don't really mean anything, but i want them. i want to finish. no. i want to BE FINISHED.