The UWM loan is now in forbearance. Non-US schools can’t work for deferrment, sadly. Whatever, that’s another one down. Go go economic hardship 
edit: And now the MSOE-era loan is chugging away, and I will soon have a fun form for economic hardship to fill out. My work is done soon, I hope and think.
Thank you SallieMae! You are not fucking worthless!
I finally got ahold of someone who was compentent, and there is no problem with deferrment status from Beiwai! This is the exact opposite of what they told me before. Oh joy! So, tomorrow morning, I need to pickup my papers from the office, get a signature on a piece of paper, and fax away. And the hellish nightmare of student loans goes away for another year… well from Sallie Mae at least. Now I get to play around with the federal junk… sigh. No sleep for me tonight.
I have been talking with UWM lately. I basically have 10 classes I need to finish up my degree there. 31 credits. I can do 5 classes (15 credits) online actually. My SS requirement, my seminar requirement, and half of my Humanities and Natural Science. The remaining classes are 4 credits of NS, 3 credits of H, an art class, a Syntax class, and one class above 300 level. I have been looking into how these could be done and not interfere with college here in China. I could do EVERYTHING over the Summer in 8 weeks. EVERYTHING that is, except for the Syntax class. I contacted Fred to look into some way that I could do that here, correspondence course? Independent study? Something, anything else? All are a bust. The only way that I could do it would be in the Fall. An entire Fall semester for the sake of 1 class… god. Summer is doable, we could go to the US for 8 weeks instead of Tibet, and Sophie would probably love it. But, Fall semester wouldn’t work, we would have to be apart for far too long, and the cost would be too high. The other classes are horribly boring crap that would just need to be done, and for 8 weeks, I could tolerate it. Not for a full semester though.
So, option two is in the works. The classes here for my major are boring, oh so boring, and I am going insane. Sophie is the only thing that makes it tolerable, I love her so much. I need some real classes, some Linguistics classes. I don’t care if I get credit, I just need them for my sanity. I need real papers to write, real books to read, real thoughts to think. Linguistics is like heroin to me. So, as it stands now, I got course descriptions for all the classes I have taken and all the courses I have remaining. The administration here seems to agree with me that apart from the Syntax class, the others are all pretty stupid. My goal now, is to more or less not get my BA, no, I want to go straight to an MA. It is actually possible to do this. Not easy, but possible. I need letters of recommendation, and some other fun stuff, but it is worth trying. Hell, I have half of my thesis already written and most of the fieldwork already done (long nights of boredom in Japan). All I need is one person here in charge to agree to it, and I get to bust my ass repairing the damage to my Chinese that my classes have done, take an exam, and I am in. This is the goal now. I need it for my sanity. It is worth going after.
And job number 2 has been obtained. I sign the contract on Saturday most likely. This is a long term position with a company called 北阳电子. It is an IT company, and very casual. It is full of nerds and it has a very relaxed environment. I will be teaching (1) 90-minute class every other Saturday morning for 150kuai an hour. After the first month, they might be opening up other classes for me to teach depending on their satisfaction. They are limiting the class size to 20, and it is entirely MY class, meaning I can teach them however I want to. This is very cool and I am excited about it. I now get to experiment with my own theories and methods that I have been wanting to try since SLA classes with Eckman.
Well, to be honest, my first few classes really sucked, a lot. I had no routine at all, and no idea what I was doing. I got some advice that I should just show them movies or something and tell the students differences in American culture. Movies are cheap here and students can watch them on their own. So, I was kind of stuck.
The Problems:
I had no information about the class sizes, ability, how many teachers, etc.
How do I prepare for a class that I know nothing about?
The “best” teachers are just entertainers and seem to have a routine that they work on and “perfect”
I am good at teaching, not good at entertaining.
I respect the age group enough that I am not going to make them play stupid games.
The Solution:
The Daily Show episodes.
Yes, you heard right, I am showing my students Daily Show episodes. I contacted the Comedy Central offices in New York and told them about this, and they support me, they wont give me transcripts, but they support me. This shit is golden for teaching American culture. I get to talk about politics in a safe way, explain American views, explain inside jokes, and I get paid for it. This job is now officially good.