March 13, 2002

• Ok, I'll mention a few things concerning the situation referred to in my previous post:

  
  

  My beautiful and lovely and wonderful and capable and intelligent wife is not cut out for university. She's smart enough, and gets high grades, but temperamentally it doesn't suit her. She's kind of the opposite of me in that respect, since I've always loved school (well, the learning aspect anyway).

  
  

  The past 6 months have not been kind to us, and the past 2 1/2 have been nasty. My wife started back doing courses in January. Unfortunately, the same time period has also included a number of medical problems, my unemployment, horrendous student loan problems, family illness, and other bits and pieces. The result has been that her studies dwindled and finally ground to a halt some weeks ago. She's been trying half-heartedly to soldier on, getting deferred exams and things. But this morning, the university called, and with a voice full of condescension declared her doctor's note to be insufficient and denied her deferals.

  
  

  So. Here we are.

  
  

  It was the straw that broke the camel's back. She's going to drop all but one course. This will have a number of repercussions:

  
  

  - the student loan, which only just arrived (9 weeks late), will have to be at least partially returned (perhaps including the part we've spent on frivolous things like rent and food)

  
  

  - Her academic record will suffer another blotch, which may represent a serious impediment in her plans to (eventually) get through the highly competitive admission process to the School of Social Work.

  
  

  - At best, the student loan people will put her on academic probation for 12 months, during which time she will be ineligible for a loan even should she want to return to school.

  
  

  - Our plans and timeline that we've worked on are null and void. We now have no idea what we'll do, where we'll go, when/if she'll ever take another stab at university....

  
  

  There's also the nagging fact that her loan is now up to about $35000, with nothing to show for it, and 3 years more to get her degree when she eventually goes back.

  
  

  I dunno. It's going to mean a humongous adjustment, and a lot of things are going to be quite difficult for a while. It doesn't bother me as much as it might, since we're young and it's certainly not the end of the world. But there's also something to be said for planning and reasonable certainties in life. It's another fight that I would rather not enter into right now. But oh well. As I said, here we are.

  
  

  So yeah. That's where we are.

  
  

  Anyhow, we have an early meeting with someone who's going to help us to cut free with the minimum amount of lasting academic and financial damage. Gotta get a snack and get some sleep. 'Night.

  
  

  Take care
  -J-

  • 4:14 am
  • 4 Comments