My Future as a Barista

I owe an exorbitant amount of money in student loans. This was the price of getting a doctorate from a very expensive (though not entirely terrific) school. By the time all my grace periods and deferments are over, I'll be paying more than $800 bucks a month in loan payments. And this is with a 30-year consolidation loan.

Enter financial anxiety.

Todd and I found a "handy" online loan payment calculator. One of its fun features was that it could tell you how much you would need to make a year to pay off your loans and still have a life. According to its wisdom, I would need to make about $250,000 if I were paying off my loans in 10 years. HA! Of course, it was a little less -- "only" about $150,000 a year -- if I'm paying off my loans more slowly, as I will be doing. These figures make me laugh, of course, because this loan calculator is ridiculous and inaccurate. Also, I have serious reservations that Todd and I could ever make that much money between the two of us. We are just not in the lines of work that will pay us what we're really worth. And I must jump through the hoop of professional licensure to actually be able to make real money. Thus, there will be a period of time when I finish accruing all the hours of experience I need in order to qualify to apply for licensure but before I am actually licensed. This means that there will be a period of time where it will be difficult for me to find a job that will pay me much, but in which I will also have my astronomical loan payments.

Luckily, I figure I can always work at Starbucks, just in case I can't find a job. Or if I find one but it doesn't pay me enough. I'm sure my doctorate makes me uniquely qualified to deal with the pissy customers as well as the bored high schoolers who work there. I should make sure to include that sentence in my cover letter. Although, I guess I wouldn't need a cover letter to apply to Starbucks. See? Things are looking up already!

And speaking of licensure, it's apparently a really good thing that I moved out of California. Due to a stupid error on a form by my supervisor and I (the form was dated incorrectly), the California Board of Psychology tells me that my internship (at which I was miserable -- yes, we're talking bold italic miserable here) basically can't count toward my licensing hours in the state. If you are reading this and have no idea what this means, that's okay. Let me put it this way: This is bad enough that you would hear me scream no matter where in the country you lived. If I was going to get licensed in California, that is. Which I guess I won't.

So, yeah, Starbucks. I'll probably look cute in the green apron.