Blogging.

Many of my friends put such care and art into their blogs. Elyssa and Shannon (Miss Manhattan and Cats in Chicago respectively) are legitimate blog artists; if they decided to charge for subscriptions, I would totally pay. Through their own blog refinement, I feel as though *I* need to start writing better blog posts unlike my last one which made little to no sense. Sorry!

I originally conceived this blog as a place for me to intelligently articulate my thoughts on various musicological topics, but it has disintegrated into an artless anthology of my various non-sequitirs, a glorification of the random unimportant things in my life. Hopefully that will change once I am thrust into a scholarly setting again rather than the mundane, faceless day to day of a Bookstore employee.

After e-mailing seven different people various inquiries about the state of my financial aid, I have finally received a beautifully succinct and straightforward "yes" from someone. What was my first reaction? E-mail her for further clarification. Carnegie Mellon endowed me with a desire for clarity, precision, and competence that is practically insatiable in the real world given that these are qualities that only 5% of the population share. Getting a direct explanation from anyone at Rutgers takes about three weeks, six phone calls, and eighteen hours of waiting music music. I want to go up to whomever I have to go up to and offer to revamp EVERYTHING about the music department, including a current and clear graduate school handbook. For a school that ranks among the top 20 graduate programs in the county in most academic programs, they're not doing so well in the organization department. Despite all of this drama and the massive room for improvement, everything worked out with my financial aid and stipend drama. I can finally semi-relax again.

Working at The Bookstore is extremely low key and relaxing...for me, at least. There is a LOT of negativity from my coworkers stemming from recent management shifts which has caused a lot of people to start looking for other jobs. The scary thing about Borders is that most people who I've met have not worked for the company for more than a year but still claim to have worked there "for a long time." Gee, great. It's important to rise above the negativity, people!After all, it's a café in a bookstore. This is not something to stress out about it. Go in, do your job, leave. I think this another aspect of the CMU mentality that is lacking in many other people. Stop complaining and do something about it! Then again, I am in the position where I know I will not be working at The Bookstore for the rest of my life, so I have the luxury to not really care, but, still, if it is your main source of income, why not try to make the best of it? Of course, I do have an awful tendency toward complacency so perhaps I shouldn't be giving this advice.

I'm afraid I've ventured into hodgepodge/mishmosh world again. I am in the Zebra Lounge drinking the usual half Lava Roast, half Hazelnut coffee. It feels good to be back.

Good things.

A lot of good things have been happening recently. I wish that they would spread themselves out evenly over the year rather than happening all in ONE WEEK, but it keeps me on my toes or something like that.

Firstly, I am enjoying The Bookstore. There is usually only one person deployed to the café at a time, so I work by myself a lot. Sound stressful? It is so gosh-darned slow compared to Starbucks. I love it. I also make a wild amount of tips when I work by myself in the morning. Accordingly, I hate working nights.

Secondly, I went to gay karaoke with my friend Dan (not Wetzel). After a few gin and tonics you better believe that I was READY to sang, so I broke out "The Man That Got Away." Whoever says that alcohol isn't good for singing is a LIAR. I don't think singing ever felt so good especially that high. Lovely. That's not the best part of the night. The best part was the extremely GORGEOUS and tall doctor who came up to me after I sang to tell me that he loved it. I wanted him to stay and talk to me longer, but I think he thought I was with Dan. I should also mention that this place is a DIVE BAR...not in appearance, but in terms of the people it attracts AKA a lot of older bears. Okay, maybe that's demeaning to older gay men with facial hair. It's a nice environment and everyone's nice. The moral of the story is we were the only devestatingly gorgeous people in the bar. Gravity pulled us together.

I ended the evening by singing back-up with a middle aged black lesbian to a total man-Guidette's version of "Killing Me Softly." Perfect.

What happened next?

I got an e-mail from Rutgers saying that my Financial Award was revised. The last time I checked it my tuition remission wasn't included and there was about FOUR listed that I had no interest in taking out; I assumed that this was just a notification that this had been remedied.

WRONG.

I found listed: Work Study moneys, a subsidized loan (no thanks. been there. paying that), Graduate Tuition Remission (aka my teaching assistantness), and...A Graduate Fellowship for $12,500 a year. UM WHAT?!?!?! This was a Saturday so I couldn't call anyone to confirm or refute that Rutgers is now giving me a stipend, so I walked around in this daze of "ZOMG, I might not have to kill myself working and going to school for the fifth year in a row!"

After wading through a million busy signals, I finally got through to the Financial Aid office to confirm that yes, Rutgers is giving me a $12,500 stipend. Skeptical of people's competence as usual, I said "Am I listed as an in-state student?!" thinking that they had overlooked the fact that I've never lived anyone OTHER than New Jersey and were billing me for out-of-state tuition and thought that I needed the money to cover tuition. Nope, in-state status.

So. Good things for Steven. Now, I may quit Borders...