| Confessions of a Broke College Kid | Let's Talk Textbooks |

Here's the funny thing, I haven't even started college yet and I've already made a few mistakes.  Now, if you're gonna make mistakes in life you might as well use them to your benefit and learn from them.  If you don't learn from them, well, you keep making them over and over again and in my case that might prove quite costly.  My college tuition was due this past monday so when I made it home from work I immediately started making sure all my ducks were in line.  Tuition, check.  Talk on phone with Financial Aid Office for 20 minutes, check.  Wait on hold with Social Security Administration for 40 minutes, check.  Oh wait, better check my student email like they've advised us to.

Books required for Accounting 101.

Textbooks, not check.  Oh brother.  Of course this doesn't surprise me, If there were any special skills I had acquired over my past years of schooling it would be procrastination.  What I should of done was checked my student email about 3 weeks ago, got the list, and then proceeded to call mom so she could search all of her trusty sources for some cheap college material.  Nope.  I like a challenge. I also like having no money, apparently. I call Justin: "Hey I need to go by the campus bookstore today and get my books."  "I can just go pick them up for you."  He's so sweet.  One hour later I'm on my way to Columbia with twenty dollars in my fuel tank praying that will last me until Thursday.

"Do you know how much those books were?"  Oh, shoot.
 "Uh, a lot?"
"389 dollars"  Oh man, that's worse than I thought.

389 dollars later I'm left with a meager 25 dollars in my checking account.  Moral of this story?  Check used book stores,  check Amazon, check Ebay, check ANYWHERE ELSE before you decide to buy brand new books for classes. (Amazon.com has this cool feature where you can rent college textbooks for a semester, and it's about 1 million times cheaper than buying brand new.)  Oh, and don't do all of this two days before your classes start. Of course, the bright side of all of this is, one, it's funny. . . who needs money anyways? Two, I can resell them back to the school when I'm done.  So that's nice.

My parents tried to tell me, but I didn't listen.
Okay, no, always listen to your parents. They usually know best.  Or just take this guy's word for it.

Quote of the Day:

Regret looks behind, Worry looks around and Faith looks upward. 

Yes, I know this sounds somewhat philosophical, and for the sake of intelligence, I will say it is.  But if you really stop to ponder what this means you will realize how truly simply it is to comprehend.  Let me be the first to say this quote does an outstanding job of pointing out my humanly flaws.  First, I am one of those people who likes to cling to the past, although I shouldn't, I tend to find myself regretting one thing or another.  And when I regret things in the past, it normally changes my attitude for the future.  I also have a habit or worrying, OR maybe I just over think about things way to much? Anyway, the point is, worrying does not add a single day to your life.  The only thing it really does to you is either make you 1) really paranoid or 2) Mr. or Mrs. Negative.  And neither of these are very attractive character qualities.  But what about the last part of this quote?  Faith looks upward.  Notice, faith doesn't worry, faith doesn't regret, faith doesn't try to make something from nothing; faith simply looks upward.  I think there are two realizations that we need to come to. First, the past is called the past for a reason, the past is to help you learn from mistakes, not make you constantly regret them.  Instead of worrying about and regretting the past, we should be living in the present and anticipating the future.  Also, we need to remember that GOD holds the present and the future. . . why worry?

"Who of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to your life?  Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you. . ."

God is in control.  So what do we have to worry about?  Now, that we have canceled regret and worry, we are left with the last.. Faith looks upward.  Let us look upward with faith!


On Saturday I had a really close friend of mine come over and we sat on the trampoline talking about "Just girl stuff"  And as we kept talking, the conversation began to evolve into something more deep.  We talked about the past, and how we both have serious issues with 'Just letting go'.  The past is an awesome thing.. but it's the past for a reason.  We can't do it over, so why spend time thinking about it constantly?  We both agreed that we needed to let it go and anticipate the future as a field for accomplishing God's will.  Don't regret.  Don't worry.  Simply. . . Look upward.