Please remember that you are choosing to read my opinions.

Thanks guys! Now if only you could automatically slap the people whose backgrounds and font colors collide in a sickly fashion that makes the head spin and the eyes consider going on strike... then everything would be perfect!

So, an update? Yes. I'm going to be busy for a few days, then I will finish the next installment of Picking a Graduate School, my adventures in finding an area and school that I wouldn't mind being at for several years. Just a note about my series. It isn't a bad way to find out where you want to go to college, but it is by no stretch of the imagination the best way. In my case I know exactly what I want to do now, so I can find schools with the program I want rather easily. A variety of factors go into a choice, for some of us the most important is money.

Banks like to screw us, let's face that fact. College students can get some of the best loans on the planet, but we also get some of the worst loans. It is evil. The dilemma is this: you want to go to college but, left to your own resources, you may never be able to afford it. The solution is that you either work until you can afford a semester and then continue working thereby increasing the chances that you'll end up on your death bed regretting that you didn't go to college, or must complete financial aid forms and go through a lot of hassle. When the results come back and you have loans you are offered, they give you a big talk on the responsibilities of having loans. You hear them rattling on about what it is all about, and it translates to "if you ever want to see the inside of a university building, you'll sign these papers and submit them."

Loan companies explain things to students that they don't quite grasp and you'll be lucky if they ever mention the loans ever again until you graduate. Then you'll find out that you own them a modest life's savings and 1 non-redeemable soul. When I finally grasped the concept of an unsubsidized loan, I stopped taking it. It made money a little tight, but it was a big relief to not have loan sharks waiting for me after graduation.

Unsubsidized loans should be avoided at all costs. If you need to get little job to offset the loss, do it, because you'll be getting one hell of a raw deal otherwise. Unlike a subsidized loan, an unsubsidized loan charges interest soon as you get your first disbursement. If you let the interest to accumulate, it is capitalized. Basically that means that the interest is added on to the amount of money that you were awarded in the first place and you then must pay interest on THAT amount. And, although this is explained in various fashions to the student, the reality probably doesn't sink in with most people until they graduate.

I was sort of lucky. I stopped taking the loan before I understood exactly why it was bad. Maybe it was the lack of someone really telling me what was happening. I'm sure if I truly understood what it meant, I'd have been paying the interest seeing at I usually have enough money to do so. I imagine that there are people in a bunch of dept because of the necessity of taking out a loan to go to school and I suppose that few of them grasp the reality of what it will mean to them after they graduate.

There is my cautionary statement of the month. Additional cautions may follow.

I'll also pick my brain with more personality tests and post them. I may continue this until I run out of tests, but they'll be much less frequent now that I can quit stalling for threaded replies. Oh! And maybe I'll give you my thoughts on the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy movie that I will probably see today. I'll be disappointed beyond the ability for words to portray if this movie isn't entertaining....