Loans up to my eyeballs

Just when I thought I had all my student loan details hammered out...
I consolidated all my grad school loans through the US Dept of Education. HOPEFULLY getting in on some sweet forgiveness goodness, should that pan out. OR so I thought. I get a notice from one student loan lender who says they will cheerfully begin my repayments soon. I just logged on to their website and one of my loans didn't get consolidated! I am now shuddering about taking the extra money left over after tuition for living expenses. My monthly payment is going to be gross, once this last loan gets lumped in there, which I reeeealllly hope it still can be, it said I have up to 180 days after the first consolidation went through to add other loans. The crappy part though, is that the interest rate is actually higher than it was on two of the loans I consolidated. If I really pay the standard monthly payment, I am going to be paying thousands of dollars in interest.

I know that there are Public Service loan forgiveness plans in the works. I also know there is a new Income Based Repayment plan. Does anyone have any experience with it yet? I am going to wait until this last loan gets processed and consolidated and then probably try and apply. It certainly couldn't hurt and hopefully I'll stay in the non-profit field long enough to qualify for the forgiveness!!

Ouch

So in an absolute Ben Stiller movie moment in my life, I decided to get my eyebrows waxed this morning on the way to the beach to meet some friends. As I was leaving the place, I was thinking "Hmm, it seems to be burning more than usual. It's probably just because I was out in the sun yesterday." So I get in my car, go to Happy Harry's to get a couple things, come back out to my car and look in the visor mirror...and my eyebrows are ringed by searing, red welts. It was horrendous. I'm going to the beach for the first time this year to see some friends I haven't seen in ages and I look absolutely ridiculous. I considered canceling but didn't want to be flaky. So I ran back into HH, bought some witch hazel and went back to my apartment. I took a benadryl, in case it was allergic reaction and put a bag of frozen Brussels sprouts wrapped in a towel on my face. The icing helped a little, so I was encouraged. I kept putting witch hazel on them, which burned terribly. All in all, didn't solve it and I still had a blotchy, red face when I got there.

Fortunately, they were nice people and if I did look terrifying, they didn't let on. And I did have a really good time at the beach. I think I might put the sprouts back on to go to bed.