Aaack! Consolidate Loans or You Will Spontaneously Combust!

Memo to college law students: Consolidate your loans now or pay more later.

“The rates in effect right now are the lowest in the history of the student loan program,”   he said. “It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Yeah, that's right. Rates are low, but they're going up on July 1. You wanna pay even more for this already insanely-overpriced education? I don't think so. So what to do? Well, Access says it will consolidate for you. Access owns my soul, so perhaps I'll let them consolidate it, too. But if you don't want to go that route, NPR did a piece on this recently that might have more options. I'm assured that consolidation is possible even if you're still in school, which is a new thing. Probably everywhere you look you'll find banks jumping to help you with this. They know you're going to pay them lots of money over the life of those zillion-dollar consolidated loans. Mmmm. Feeding the machine. Satisfying, isn't it? Ok, so no, but still, what choice do we have? So consolidate your loans already, will you? You can send the money you save right here. ;-) UPDATE: It appears I don't know as much about this as I thought. (Shock!) If you know more than I do about loan consolidation pros/cons/strategies, or know where I (and others) could learn more, please do share!

Posted 08:30 PM | Comments (8) | law school

What My Inbox Tells Me, Among Other Things

1. Sitting checking my email box I realize: Wow. My ebay account has been suspended so many times it's not even funny. I wonder why ebay keeps reinstating it if they're just going to suspend it again. Also, PayPal sure does need me to verify my account a lot -- like every day and sometimes twice or more the same day. Not a very tightly run ship, that PayPal.
2. Yubbledew says we shouldn't listen to Amnesty International when it says America is abusing its prisoners—and especially when reports of abuse (see e.g.) come from “people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth” (emphasis mine). You tell 'em George! Now, should we listen to claims that something is absurd from someone who speaks in absurdities?
3. disassemble |ˌdisəˈsembəl| verb [ trans. ] (often be disassembled) take (something) to pieces : the piston can be disassembled for transport.
4. And speaking of language, do you speak Deadwood? (Caution: This link is absolutely not for those offended by, um, vulgar lingo.)
5. Is it just me, or has Daypop died? No matter when I try to load the page my browser says it cannot connect to the server. That makes me sad.
6. iMuffs: Cool. Now that portable music players are small enough to really fit in your pocket the most annoying thing is dealing with cords. No more cords, no more problems. Of course, if you have a shuffle or have something non-iPod, you could always just get a cord keeper.
Did you know that while I was whiling away the hours redesigning this site (to no purpose, since RSS is killing design; the horror!), I actually should have been grading about 100 journal competitions? Funny, I didn't know that either. Oops. I need to hire someone to keep track of my to-do list. If you see a help-wanted ad like that soon on the DC Craiglist, that's me.
7. Congratulations and best wishes to my Seester who has a job interview today. Knock 'em dead! (But not really, of course. More language games....)

Posted 06:53 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack | lists