jessicalum.com/blog

New York Times published an article today on rising college tuition. How wonderful! English majors bleed make money–for universities.

From Jane Wellman, executive director of the nonprofit group Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity and Accountability:

An English student, however, is generally a profit center. “They’re paying for the chemistry major and the music major and faculty research,” she said. “They don’t want to talk about it in institutions, because the English department gets mad. The little ugly facts about cross-subsidies are inflammatory, so they get papered over.”

Wow,  I wasted money paying tuition for other students an could have gotten my tuition’s worth by majoring in something that can actually make money after college too sure am glad to see my money put to good use.

But at least I managed to have 4 day weekends had a great learning experience as an English major! That’s all that really matters, after all.

I just received a bill from UCSF today.

Yes, you read correctly. The final tab for my treatment at UCSF was $74,310.44.

They charged me for each little vial of potassium iodide, a medication essential to coat and protect my thyroid from damage from the radiation treatment. And with a family member who has thyroid cancer, protection and prevention is deeply necessitated.

Add on to those necessary costs, the cost of my actual treatment, $20,000, to buy me a few extra years of life, hopefully good ones, and a couple thousand more per day stayed in isolation at UCSF (more or less to protect the general public from being irradiated by none other than yours truly), you get almost as much as my dad makes in a year. He’s a teacher.

Thank God for insurance. I had to pay $0.

My mom said that our house cost $40,000 in 1977.

Yep.

Well, I have to figure out something soon for insurance. I lose coverage under my parents in a little over a year when I turn 23. Unfortunately, I can’t just have any ol’ insurance…I need someone who can authorize a referral to a specialist. I also need to find an employer/someone to marry me who has Kaiser insurance, otherwise I will probably be rejected for coverage with my pre-existing condition.

Other options…go into debt to save my life? Refuse treatment and accept the inevitability of my death to save money?

There are some less extreme options out there, but they really require a lot of $$$ which I personally don’t have, and my parents are on a fixed retirement income now. Not like we were particularly affluent to begin with either; my mom was a stay-at-home mom and my dad was a schoolteacher.

Ugh…as if having stage 4 cancer wasn’t hard enough already.

Fortunately, I’m pretty asymptomatic right now. No more stupid fevers, no more medicine at the moment (YESS!!!!). I’ve been feeling well enough to get depressed over other things, like the lack of jobs that I’m finally well enough and qualified to hold.

Debbie Downer, Wah-Wah.

Ubisoft is opening up a new studio in Toronto.

Read about it here.

Hire me? Ah, I’d be so down to move to Canada. If I could get citizenship/marry a nice Canadian boy, all of my health insurance worries would be but a thing of the past.

Speaking of insurance worries, my birthday’s soon. One more year and I lose medical coverage under my parents, which means if I can’t find a job with benefits, I will have to pay for that $8000/28 pills for chemo or that $72,000 radiation treatment out of pocket. That certainly takes the happy out of the birthday.

Yep, that’s my cost of living.