Maybe I should just wait for the economy to collapse.

I checked into my debt situation with Portland State University. Now that I've calmed down, here are the numbers:

The total for my debt is $3882.60. Of that, 844.30 is interest, and 25.00 is a billing fee. Per negotiation, they can waive half of the interest and fees.

Which is 3447.96. It's less, but it's not *much* less in terms of how feasible it looks for me to pay this off. That's 287.33 per month if I make monthly installments over the course of a year. A year in which I can't even *apply* to another university. Do I really have that? Let's find out...

Job pays 11.50/hour. I get about 30 hours per week. In late September, I'll be doing 12 hours per week (or, if they don't have room to schedule me then, they'll let me go instead). The next 7 weeks will be about 30 hours each...

11.50 x 30 x 0.85 (because tax) x 7 = 2052.75

That's a significant fraction, but...it doesn't account for the fact that I need to eat and use public transportation and whatnot. That will probably diminish the total significantly.

If I petition the deadline appeals board, it could be reduced ultimately to 1830.46. That's much more feasible, but the deadline to petition the board was over two years ago, at this point. I don't see how I'm even supposed to approach them; it seems like far too much gall to expect them to even listen to me about this. The circumstances don't seem to matter, and I have a tough time imagining they'll care about my situation now. I'm just some deadbeat who dropped out and didn't pay.

This was incredibly stressful to find out; not just the answer itself, but the process of actually finding out. Having to conduct business under the birth name is...difficult to handle. Reading the cruel and hateful things one of my instructors from that term said about me in his email statement (he never liked me, and evidently his response to my request for a statement was to cast serious doubt on my having ever had a problem, and to pronoun me excessively...he had a serious problem with me being trans).

I...managed not to contain the anger and self-hatred that came boiling up, and the worst of it seems to have been released.

I'm...not numb. Strangely. I think I can get through this, emotionally. I'm just...tired, and frustrated, and feeling incompetent to handle my own affairs. I don't see how I'm supposed to get myself through school anymore, or what I'd do afterward, or why I even bother having dreams of living abroad, or trave,l or trying to do anything with my life that strikes me as worthwhile.