Financial WHAT?

Cheers to starting off a new semester. I feel bad for bragging about this, especially since everyone else I know is paying left, right and centre. I can't lie, apart from the fact that in four years I'm going to have to pay OSAP back for part of what they have given me, I can't help but snicker at the huge financial aid I got for school.

Originally, I had it all planned out. I worked, made money between February and August, with a few weeks I needed off. I figured I had made a good sum of money and calculated almost to the exact amount how much money it would cost me for my first year here. I knew what I'd be paying, in what intervals and when.

I am so unbelievably thankful right now for the aid I have gotten. I don't have to pay a cent for this semester. I didn't have to pay a cent for last semester. God is good.

On the one hand, I'm thrilled I got this extra money that I wasn't expecting. On the other hand, I kind of wish it had gone to someone who is still paying. I know that most of my dormmates are paying for the year out of their own pockets, taking out bank loans, etc. I had saved up the money to be able to pay for what I knew wasn't coming from OSAP and Redeemer scholarships, and now that I got two more grants (the 'you-do-not-pay-these-back' kind) which sum up more than I figured I'd have to pay out of my own pocket, I'm actually making money this year by coming to University.

On the bonus side of things, this makes affording the mission trip to Mexico over reading break a lot easier...in fact, the check I got from the Government of Ontario's Ministry of Education/Finance whatever is officially paying for that trip. And then some.

I feel blessed, mostly. Confused, but blessed.

On a completely different note, I took a nice trip down to student services today. I went to the registrars office to change a course. I found yesterday in class that I really didn't like my professor for the class. This sounds pretty bad, but if I don't like a prof, or a teacher, I will not do my best in the course. It's a respect thing for me. Why should I try and impress them if I don't like them right?

Yeah, I know its not the right attitude, and had it been any other course, I might not have cared, but English is my major, and so I need to be in a class that I enjoy. Especially if its poetry. It was a productive day for me. Second semester is shaping up to be pretty okay.