Spain!

Enjoy Spain, love!

See if you can do anything about that bull that's been following Zig ... I mean REVIEW-O.

I'm still not entirely sure why anyone would pick Spain as the place to go out of all the options in the world, but you obviously want to go there very badly and I'm glad to hear that it looks like it'll work out for you. Enjoy it!

I can think of a reason why: If she takes Spanish. Ha, I run circles around you with my logic!

WQ takes Spanish. With this in mind, Spain's a pretty ideal location.

I'm wary about how much closer to me she now is, though. I'll start to expect weird phonecalls and letters made out of magazine cuttings.

Sí, EmP y Suskie están correcto. Yo saco Español. Es la asignatura.

Spain is actually one of the countries I wanted to visit most, anyway, because the culture is so appealing. So I figured that as long as I'm taking Spanish, I can use the opportunity to go there. My other country of choice would have been England, but you know, they don't speak Spanish there. >_> It's also too expensive (that internship would've cost me $14k for ten weeks!)

Haha. No worries. I'll be too busy and awe-struck to stalk you. Besides, somehow I know you wouldn't mind it anyway. XD

Just be wary of the dirty "street performers". They like to steal your money right in front of you, especially if you visit Barcelona.

Oh, and don't go to any american establishments there, a.k.a Mcdonalds or something. The things I saw in those restrooms....God, not even Hitler should be exposed to that.

Mallorca is more geared towards UK tourest than anything else, so it's like middle ground. There is a McDonalds -- it's right next to a huge crazy golf course that I spent way too much time in.

Haha. And that's kind of why I didn't want to go Mallorca - because it didn't seem Spanish enough... if that makes sense. But maybe I'll be more immersed in it where I'm going, since I'll be in a university environment and whatnot.

Not to worry, though; I plan on avoiding McDonald's at all costs. I'd rather try the local food, anyway. I heard Spanish food is awesome, and maybe the fact that I'll be on an island instead of the mainland will give it its own unique flair or something.

Whatever you do, don't drink tap water or you will end up in a hospital convulsing in horrible pain. At worst, you will die.

So many ellipses...

Well done on this! Money is achievable. It'll be a fab experience.

Thanks. I'm hoping so. Of course, there's a lot of things I need to worry about... chief among them at the moment is whether the person in charge of the program received my e-mails or not in regards to courses taken and such.

Well, I guess I'll see at orientation Friday.

You shouldn't be afraid to take out more loans. My job actually deals with student loans, so I can give you some basic pointers.

- Go ahead and pay what you can while you are still in school.

- If you do make payments, then have them go toward your unsubsidized portion, which is the portion that accrues interest while you are in school. Your servicer should be able to do that for you after you make a payment. If you get those paid down, then that means less interest will accrue. :D

- If your loans are federal, then it's really not that hard to postpone payments even after you graduate. Just be sure to try to qualify for a deferment, since any of your subsidized loans will not accrue interst in a deferment.

Loans can really be a good thing and if your loans are federal, then there are tons of things that can be done to help you out.

Now if you have the money yourself or you can get those donations from family, then great. But you don't necessarily have to be afraid to take out more loans.

The loans I've had to take out so far have accumulated a projected interest of #63,000. Those are just the alternate loas I've had to take out through Citibank.

My stafford loans are probably around #10kish subsidized and not.

I still have two more years of school yet.

They keep rasiing tuition.

The amount in loans I need to take out increases every year.

I project an etra 37k in loans that I'd need to take out to finish school.

So yes, I do need to worry about taking out loans. Because otherwise I'm going to have over #100k in debt whenI get out of here...

And the funny thing is, I've got a scholarship and grant from the school. That's just how bullshit expensive this place is.

Thanks for the advice, though. It's good to know about deferments. I'll probably be using them a lot... if I can. The thing about trying to pay them off early is good, too, but I don't think I can since my parents can't help me with anything and I don't have a job, so the money I have is just accumulated from family and stuff, so I'm sort of in a "conserve all I can because I'll need it when I start living on my own" kind of state with that.

Yeah, it seems more and more schools just keep raising tuition every year. It's almost getting to the point where only the wealthy can afford college anymore. My parents said it was like that in their day.

I was just lucky to be an only child and have parents who paid for my education. I was lucky enough not to have to take out student loans.

I'm sorry to hear you've amassed such a large debt just for trying to get an honest education. It's ridiculous. Do we really want an ignorant and incompetent society?

Heheh. Thank you! That's exactly how I feel about things. I'd blame it on capitalism, but then I'd sound like a communist. Plus my beliefs on how the government should run things are kind of complicated and don't really fall strictly one way capitalist or one way socialist. >_>