Mindful Musings

Friday morning was a definite 9 in the level of bewilderment and complete disgust at the University of Toledo. I found out, in the third week of the semester mind you, that my position as a TA and webmaster for the EECS Department had been terminated as of Thursday evening (after having been confirmed in writing three weeks prior). They simply took away my funding without any official reason. On further enquiry into this fiasco, I find out that this was not personal or related to my performance at all. They needed to cut some funds and decided that 4 semesters were too long to hang around for a graduate degree in computer science (though my undergrad was in physics and I was only funded for one semester prior to this one! I had paid my way through the four undergrad CS courses I was forced to take) and that they were going to cut my assistantship. (Knock on wood) I still have my tuition waiver and I was offered a part time position as webmaster by the chair of the department. I will take the position in spite of being disgruntled about the whole situation because some money is better than none and it will get my out of the house. All the more reason to get the frick out of this God-Awful-Place (ha! GAP) and get my ass into gear.
Needless to say, I have been listless, a little worried (though I am financially quite secure from my own savings and with a lot of help from my wonderful parents) and just cannot concentrate on what is really important, my thesis. I have been chugging away at it all this weekend though not producing as much as I would have liked to. I am hoping to have the literature review and the introduction done by the end of this upcoming week. The reason I had not posted this yet was twofold. I have not spoken with my parents about this (I will discuss it tonight before they read this) and I did not want them to be rudely surprised by the entry. The second reason is that I was still deciding whether to take the temporary position or not. I obviously have made up my mind.

In conclusion, I would like to say this to everyone in any position of responsability in the educational community: Please do not shaft students. We are already poor and completely at the behest of the puny little stipend that you provide. Unlike losing a real job where you might have had some backup or might have a spouse to help out, losing the “$400 every couple of weeks” could mean dropping out of school for a lot of kids. International students are even worse off, but they dont count because they choose to come here. Thankfully, I am not out on the streets yet and will continue to face the stupid, assenine, farcical and riduculous music till I am done.
Heh…..Peace