Staring Into the Cosmo(s)

Today is Friday, and it feels like it has been the longest week. I found out yesterday that my normal job responsibilities and duties for a company I was working with will no longer be. This is fine, just means there will be no more travel, and more detail drawing.
I went to dinner to celebrate J's birthday. He is claiming the whole month of January for his personal celebration. I thought my week that I usually claim each year may be thought of as a bit excessive. Ah well, all in good fun. We went out to dinner at Chilis tonight, and then were going to head off to Incredible Pizza for lights, games and unlimited ski ball. This has pretty much become a standard place of celebration for birthdays in the Thursday night crew. Unfortunately, we got out of dinner a bit late, so plans of trying again next week are in order. Its my last weekend of no homework before school starts again on Wednesday. I have already perused the syllabus, and the instructor is requesting we bring something to represent ourselves as a presentation for the class as a way to introduce each other. I could take my favorite pair of shoes, a drafting tool, a martini glass, or what I think may be appropriate, my large 16" round cake pan. I could discuss my interest in cake baking because it is similar to model building in a quarky way. It is the largest pan that will fit into my oven without touching the sides. It is the cake pan, that when I first attempted to dump turned into a big pile of broken cake and crumbs on the kitchen floor and had to be thrown out. It is a celebration of something that I enjoy doing to destress and to make others happy. I love to see the look on someone's face when they see a cake that I have made for them. So I think the cake pan is what I need to take in the class in order to introduce myself. There are only three semesters left, and this week I have discovered that the University sent my financial aid funds back to the bank because of excessive hours, and according to them, I am not a fine student since it is taking me so long to graduate. So I took some time this week to hunt down forms from my advisor and the graduate office, and to write a letter stating that my degree program is 60 credit hours rather than 30 therefore it is taking me longer to complete the program, plus the three prerequisite courses that I was required to take. Im sure things will be fine, but in the mean time I feel screwed. I feel that the university should first check to see what people are doing in order to determine the status before they automatically send the money back. They are probably going to tap on an additional late fee for tuition payment since the money will be in late should they approve my appeal... Then I will have to contest that too. I guess we as students do indeed need to endure through life a certain amount of bull shit in order to achieve something and to be a better person because of it. I think its time for a cosmopolitan to start the weekend off right.