There’s a long history to this story. You can read the start of it here. I’ve included a shortened version below, though.*

Mohela, which was my original loan servicer, has taken over managing PSLF for the government. Since I (re)filed for TEPSLF in April, I have been waiting for the DOE to transfer my loans and the application to Mohela, which will go over my payment history and decide if my loans can be forgiven.

I messaged Mohela before I came to Dublin, because the deadline for the TEPSLF application is the end of this month. While I have applied, I am paranoid that the application won’t transfer correctly. I need the agencies to be clear that I am asking for my original Direct Loans, the ones I’ve been paying back since 2007, be considered for forgiveness.

Mohela said they would get back to me with a tally of where I was on the PSLF payment calendar.

Yesterday, I woke up to a message that I had only made 14 qualifying payments on my small parent plus loan. In other words, Mohela still doesn’t have the loan information from DOE about the direct loans and that application.

So I logged in to DOE.

And it only said I owed my small parent plus loan.

This is either excessively good news OR excessively bad news.

Let’s take the good news first:

It could mean that my PSLF application has been approved and my direct loans have been forgiven. Under Biden’s new, small forgiveness plan, my parent loan would also be forgiven. I would be free, after paying back almost 68% of my original loan amount.

Here’s why I don’t think this is good news:

Mohela, the agency handling PSLF, never received that information, so how could my loans be forgiven.

Since I have paid more than 10 years, technically, the DOE owes me money for what I’ve overpaid. They’re supposed to tell me if that happened, but I have not heard anything from them in months (the last communication was basically “we got your PSLF application”).

The confusing loan history on the DOE site says my direct loans were zeroed out due to “consolidation.” If that’s what they think happened, then we’ve gone back to where I was last summer, owing the “new” consolidation loan: I’m worried that they aren’t acknowledging the de-consolidation.

And that’s why this could be exceptionally bad news.

If I’m starting over with a big consolidated loan, I could end up paying a quarter of a million dollars on that original 132,000 loan. I will never be free.

I’m also worried because Biden’s new, small forgiveness program is about to go through when I have no idea what my direct loan status is. If it’s in some weird limbo, if the DOE can’t see it for some reason, then I would miss out on the $20,000 in forgiveness I’m eligible for. (I would get the 3,000 parent loan forgiven, but miss out on the remaining 17,000 that could be applied to my direct loans, which, while I small drop in a large bucket, is still something.)

Here’s what I’m afraid of:

A giant consolidated loan will reappear after the TEPSLF deadline passes and after the new Biden forgiveness passes. The fact that my loans were de-consolidated will be lost, and I’ll be screwed.

Even though the DOE has been making my stomach hurt for years, there is a small ray of hope: if DOE thinks my loans are consolidated again, then my small parent loan shouldn’t be a separate thing I can see . . .

*In short, I paid back almost $90,000 of a $132,000 loan. For the first ten years, I was on the “wrong” kind of plan to get Public Loan Service Forgiveness (PSLF). So I switched plans. And then, the government temporarily expanded (TE) PSLF, so that earlier payments could count.**

Last summer, now owing $154,000 due to interest (yup–you read that right: after paying back about 90,000, I owe MORE than when I started). The form and someone I spoke to at DOE said to consolidate my small parent loan with my direct loans. I did. Then, I discovered that doing so made my loan brand-new, meaning the government would not count any of the 15 years of payments. I was starting from zero on the PSLF clock.

There was crying and vomiting and not sleeping.

I finally got the loans de-consolidated, which is a miracle, since that apparently never happens. Then, for several months, the DOE listed me as owing double–the original loans AND the consolidated loan amount.

When that got fixed, in April, I re-filed for TEPSLF. I’m waiting for an answer.

**Under the Trump administration, fewer than 1% of PSLF applications were approved. Those who were denied were not told how the decisions were made.

Or: "Fáilte go hÉirinn"

I got to Dublin almost a week ago, to start my almost three months here. 
My first challenge was confronting my weird little room. I'm in StayCity, which bills itself as a cross between a hotel and an apartment. In terms of size, it's a hotel room, but it has a range, a microwave with delusions of grandeur, a tiny and somehow messy sink (the water splashes everywhere), a kettle, and a dishwasher.
I'm on the first floor, so I feel weird opening the curtains. While few people use the alley behind the hotel, I don't necessarily want to be seen in  my jammies (or my nothing).
The weirdest thing about my room, though, is that I don't know what to do with my clothes. There are places to hang my coats and umbrellas, but there are only five hangers sharing a narrow space with an ironing board. There are no drawers, however. I've folded my sweaters, pjs, and trousers: my suitcase has to live on the floor as a makeshift drawer. My undies and socks are in a grocery bag.
I'm not sure how the designers of this building expected us to store our clothes, but the staff assures me drawers are definitely not provided.
Still, the location is great. It's central to everything, in a vibrant immigrant neighborhood; there are stores around me specializing in foreign food, including Spanish and Moldovan.
I do hours of work every day on my head, as is typical of hotel living. It's probably not the best for my neck. As the boy and I used to do when traveling, I find Law & Order to have on in the background (it's on all afternoon). Sometimes it's MASH instead--they show it without the laugh track, which is wonderful.
The staff at CEA, our partnership organization, are wonderful and welcoming. Our orientation included a walking tour, which luckily included the grocery store with viking settlement remains below it, and a look at Bram Stoker's office window and the view from it.
My students are a joy. I'm hoping we'll be able to stay in person the whole term, but my first student tested positive at the end of the first class. We've all been in close quarters, and it's likely that we'll get it. That said, I would rather it run through us at the beginning of the course than at the end.
Denise is coming to visit this Thursday, though, so I hope I can fight it off long enough to enjoy our time together instead of having to quarantine.
I've eaten at Nandos three times so far. My grocery store tv dinners have been saving me money at night, but none have been appetizing. One was so tasteless I thought I might have Covid. 
The one thing I forgot at home was my cane, which I will inevitably need at some point (cobblestones and overflexible ankles don't mix well). I got an umbrella cane, but it's not sturdy enough if I really hurt myself. I'm going to have to shop where the discerning gentlemen do.
I didn't bring my favorite hat: my bowler. I wanted to get something new. A morning of looking yielded two: a fedora and a paddy cap.
Last Friday's was Ireland's annual culture night, featuring free events everywhere. I went to a comedy club a few minutes from my place. Two of the comics were great (one was a California transplant, like me). Only one bombed, but the audience was still nice. Since my mom doesn't want me to get up on stage while I'm here, I'm looking for a way to get up ASAP.

I leave for Dublin on Tuesday.

Not surprisingly, I’m losing my mind.

In the past, when I’ve gone abroad for a while, I’ve packed just one big suitcase to check & then end up having to buy another bag to come back with me. This year, I’m skipping that step. My checked luggage will include a big suitcase and a duffle (how else could I actually pack warm clothes?), but I will have some room for what I buy there, after taking all the supplements and eating all the grits that are coming with me.

In the midst of all the panicking and packing, I’ve been googling my future neighborhood. There’s a Nandos just a five-minute walk away, so I may not be able to lose weight this Winter.

My greatest challenge right now is that my insurance told the pharmacy that I couldn’t have a 90-day supply of my medications. I spent several hours on the phone the other day, resulting in a request for an emergency authorization. We’ll know tomorrow how that went.

If they don’t approve it, I will have to pay out of pocket for two months and then fight them for reimbursement when I get back. Without insurance, it will be over 700$ to take the meds I need.

This has been your reminder that American healthcare is mean and dumb.

The recent news about Biden’s plans have a lot of friends contacting me. They’re familiar enough with my saga to hope I will finally be free.

A lot of them are hoping this new TEPSLF thing will work, so they suggest I apply.

Y’all, that was the program I applied for last summer, the one that advised me to consolidate, which screwed everything up!

I did, however, get the loans de-consolidated, which was a miracle. How do I know? Because every servicer I talk to doesn’t even believe that it happened.

For many moons, the DOE information wasn’t updated properly, so it said I owed the de-consolidated amount and the consolidated amount: double, in other words.

When only the de-consolidated loans appeared again, I filed for TEPSLF again. (UCD has to fill out part of the information–in pen–and everything has to be mailed in.)

In the months since then, I have received a letter from DOE saying I “may” have loan payments that qualify.

Since the TEPSLF final application deadline is next month, I’ve recently emailed my servicer to see if the application is at least logged on their end.

Will it work? Who knows.

I AM eligible for the 20,000 dollars off, though the total I owe will still be higher than what I initially borrowed, despite always making my payments on time. The form for that money isn’t up yet.

I’ve heard that the Biden plan is supposed to stop what happened to me: that if a borrower is making payments, their total owed shouldn’t go up. I haven’t seen verification of this, but that alone would save many future borrowers from suffering the way so many of us have.

I’m starting to go a little bit insane. It’s occurring to me that I leave for Dublin in exactly four weeks–and I’ll be gone for almost twelve weeks!

There’s so much to do, including the last half of my fast-paced summer pre-med writing class & and WorldCon in Chicago (I’ll be there for a week).

I know, intellectually, that I will get enough done to make it to Dublin. I always manage to.

But that doesn’t mean my mind isn’t spinning. It wakes me up in the middle of the night to remind me that I have to get some paperwork from my allergy doc to try to get my xolair injections while I’m away–and that I don’t really have warm socks. And I don’t know how to buy warm socks, since I’m mildly allergic to wool and I honestly don’t know what other fabric is warm, since I live in California and, and, and, and . . .

I have also decided to shift from trying a couple of new recipes each week to making all the summer recipes I most love. And in between all that cooking, I want to see some of you, too.

At some point, I’ll finally write about the last of my Spain trip.

And I should also note that I’m really broken up about two very special women dying.

For now, send me wishes for endurance and a good night’s sleep.

When I was working out what I would do in Spain between my two conferences, I came upon a brief mention of Peñíscola in a guidebook. I did my k-12 education in Pensacola, FL. Most people believe the FL version is a misspelled version of the Spanish one (misspelled ’cause Florida), so I wanted to check in on my namesake. Would their high school mascot be the Tigers too?

It should have been fairly simple to get to Peñíscola–a regional train could move me between stations, and I was assured there would be plenty of cabs.

But my regional train was delayed–and then the train went slower than usual, so I ended up getting to the train station 5 hours later than I should have. A station agent called a cab for the group of us hanging out by the station, and then each cab driver who arrived said they would radio in for another one, until the group was whittled down to me.

The station is not scenic, unless you’re into graffiti, and it was by an industrial plant with a weird smell.

After 45 minutes, it was finally my turn. My cabdriver was distressed when he learned my hotel was on the castle hill. Cabs don’t go there at night, when all the tourists are out. I had to listen to him complain about having to drop me off outside of the castle walls to his boss. “No,” he said in Spanish, “I can’t talk to her; she’s English.”

I was super cranky when we finally got there; navigating the steep little walkways didn’t help.

But the staff at Hotel Joanna was excited when I finally arrived. They showed me to my adorable room, and I ventured to their restaurant for food and this view of the moon over the Mediterranean.

Things were definitely looking up in the morning. First, there was this breakfast for hotel guests:

Second, I had realized I didn’t pack properly for Spain. All of the other women were going around in either shorts or sun dresses. Even women my grandmother’s age were rocking hot sun dresses! Naturally, I thought about how my culture wants women of my age and curviness to cover up. But when in Spain . . .

In Zaragoza, right before I left, I picked up a sun dress in a boutique by my hotel.

It wasn’t my usual style. The question I asked myself while shopping was “which one would my new boyfriend want me to wear.”

I put it on for my one full day in Peñíscola.

It was very hot, so I sweated all through my clothes, but I did manage to go to the Museum of the Sea and the Castle.

The Castle was built, centuries ago, by Templars, on the ruins of a Moorish temple they destroyed. After hiking up through the castle and not falling over, even though I and this sign were worried about it, I thought about going to the garden, but I just didn’t have it in me to make it down there. Both the castle and the garden have been featured in Game of Thrones.

I took a nap and graded my students’ work. Then I headed back out for souvenirs and a walk down to the Mediterranean, to finally get my feet in.

I had yummy fish for dinner, house-made strawberry and lemon ice cream, and a serving of a rice-based digestive.

Although I looked all over, Peñíscola just doesn’t have postcards. I guess they’re tired of the jokes?

The next morning, I had my last breakfast there, read the warnings about the extreme heat wave (they said trains might not work, since the tracks could warp, in addition to the regular awful things that heat does) and then left for Valencia.

I got to the train station early, only to discover that the station was arranged weirdly. In most stations, platform 1 is right beside the terminal. Here, the signs all said that Platform 2 was–and then you got 1 and 3.

I asked the station agent if indeed the layout made no sense. He confirmed the weirdness, and I spent my remaining time there explaining, in Spanish, to Spaniards, how the station worked. It was standing-room only on the train for a few hours, but at last I arrived in Valencia, which I’ll write about next.

As you might remember from the last post, I was only able to head to Tarragona after mostly getting over my rotavirus.

Navigating the train was easy–well, as easy as it can be when one travels alone with enough luggage for two weeks abroad and a bad back.

Arriving and getting to the hotel was a different challenge. I ended up waiting about forty minutes for a cab. At one point, I considered figuring out the buses. I asked a fellow traveler about them, since he was waiting there.

Me: “How much do you think it costs to get from here to the Tarragona bus station downtown?”

Him: “You’re in Tarragona.”

Me: “I know. This is the train station. I need to get to the bus station, which is near my hotel.”

Him: “The bus station in which city?”

Me: “Tarragona.”

Him: “But you’re in Tarragona.”

Each of us thinks the other person is an absolute idiot.

I checked into my hotel, located in the old part of the city, within the old defense walls. My room overlooked a plaza.

I was hungry, so I ordered tapas, only to discover that Tarragona tapas are not in fact small plates, since each was designed for me and four or five of my closest friends.

(Note on ordering in Spain: no restaurants will serve paella if you’re single. Paella is about 25 euro a person, and at least two people have to order it. However, each place would initially think I was ordering an entire bottle of wine when I requested my verdejo.)

A short walk took me to a Roman circus: where animals and gladiators would compete and perform. My favorite parts were underground–long hallways with small rooms, where the competitors were kept.

After exploring the underground, a guide pointed me to the way up.

It’s a good thing that I was on my own, because about halfway up to the top, I started to freak out. When I was little, I wasn’t afraid of heights. In fact, I would hide from my mom and stepdad on the roof. Something’s shifted, though, and I don’t like heights anymore, and I am crazy afraid of certain stairs: mostly the old ones in Europe, that are not made for modern feet, and/or that are open, allowing you to see how many flights you’ll fall if you trip like the clumsy chronic pain woman you are.

I am certain that there is security footage of my panic attack. And of me talking to myself, explaining that probably no one has died on those stairs in a couple hundred years.

I did make it to the top.

But I was so flustered that I went down the wrong way, exiting instead of finishing the route. And then I was too embarrassed and exhausted to go back, so I went in search of wine. I had my usual verdejo, but then tried a xarel lo, a sort of cross between chardonnay and sav blanc that is usually used to make champagne.

That night, I had an amazing dinner at my hotel: gazpacho, the best lamb ever, and catalan custard (aka creme brulee). There were also fireworks.

Each night, I had to take a shower before bed because Spain in the summer means you’ll sweat through your clothes all day–that kind of sweat where you can feel little rivers flowing on you. The shower head was a problem, though. The water pressure was high (great!), but it was SO high that it would turn the shower head until it was aimed outside the tub.

Even figuring out this problem, I was powerless to stop it. I just couldn’t have the shower head in my hand the whole time I was getting in and out.

The next day, I wandered around for a long time and ended up at the old Roman wall. It was 11 a.m., and I shouldn’t have been outside. I quickly realized that I was about to get heat stroke, so I did what I used to do in London heat waves: I lay down under a tree and read.

(In London, I would sometimes fall asleep. I have also slept in the “secret garden” at Churchill’s estate.)

When I recuperated, I finished the route and left. I ran into a Scottish woman on the way, and we commiserated about the heat. She also told me her kids were not into their trip: they didn’t care about Roman ruins and didn’t want to eat Spanish food. They kept asking for McDonalds. When we parted, I told her to stay cool.

Her: Think of the gladiators!

Me, suggestively: Oh, I’ve been thinking of the gladiators . . .

Her, laughing: Oh, get on with ye, girl!

Most afternoons in Spain, I used the afternoon siesta to grade.

That night, I went to the Roman amphitheater. I couldn’t go in, but the views were wonderful. I particularly liked the moon over the sea as well.

Back at my hotel, I tried to have the same dinner as the night before, but the main kitchen was closed. I had an okay dinner at a nearby restaurant, while writing postcards. The waiter kept going to every table around me, offering free champagne, since they had opened a bottle. They only offered it to couples, though, not to me.

Tarragona: the woman eating alone, writing postcards, needs the champagne most of all!

Then it was back to my room for some sleep before heading to Peniscola the next day.

Parting thought: Tarragona was beautiful. Also, strangely, I was always able to find my way back to the hotel without a map.

Those who have traveled with me know how insane that is. Maybe one of my previous lives was at the Roman circus.

Karlissa got into two different conferences in Spain this July. Melissa couldn’t go, though, because of family issues, so I undertook the adventure alone. The first conference was in Zaragoza. The second was in Valencia. There were six days in between, so my plan was to do two days in Barcelona, two in Tarragona, and two in Peniscola.

Today’s blog is about Zaragoza:

Getting there took a long time.

This is a very tired me:

On the train from Madrid to Zaragoza, I noticed how much the landscape was like Northern California. The heat was the same, though Spain had more humidity.

I checked into the lovely Hotel Sauce, located just a few minutes from my conference and, as would become important later, next door to a pharmacy.

I presented the morning after arriving. When I woke up, my stomach was upset. I didn’t think anything about it, really, since my stomach is almost always upset. I’ve been having a lot of loose stools lately. So I took some immodium and headed to the conference.

Where I had diarrhea right before and right after my presentation, while the next presenter was getting her computer ready. Did I still pretend I was feeling well and do a good job with my talk? Yes.

I fled to the hotel afterwards to rest, thinking I would get better.

Instead, it got worse and worse. I was basically trapped in my hotel room. I didn’t make it to the bathroom twice. I did stagger out at one point for more diarrhea medicine and electrolytes, but decided after four days that maybe it was time for the ER.

Since I was traveling for work, I had travel insurance. They told me which ER to head to, and off I went, hoping for an IV. The intake nurse and I had to use our phones to communicate about the billing (high school Spanish just didn’t prepare me for that).

The doctor confirmed that a) I was severely dehydrated and b) I had a virus.

No IV, though. Instead, I just got a prescription for more electrolytes and probiotics.

I was supposed to head to Barcelona at this point, but didn’t think that would be a good idea.

The Barcelona hotel tried to be bitchy about me deciding not to come (they wanted to still charge me), but when I sent them pics of my ER visit record, they agreed that I shouldn’t get on a train and show up.

So I healed more. I graded my students’ work, held sickly office hours over Zoom, read a lot of books, and caught up on Stranger Things and Disenchantment.

My Zaragoza hotel was wonderful: they brought me more toilet paper, offered all kinds of help, and were happy when get-well roses arrived from my boyfriend.*

They also had an amazing breakfast–perfect Spanish tortilla and pan con tomate.

When I was finally feeling a bit better, I went to the nearby Ebro river, on a windy day. My family home in Florida is near Ebro.

Before I left, Piero, the author of the Secret Breakfast Newsletter, got me some personalized recommendations for dining in Zaragoza. Due to my stomach problems, I didn’t get to try everything, but I did get some good lamb and had meatballs at a Michelin restaurant.

(One thing to know about Spain: they have excellent and affordable wine. At most restaurants, a glass was between 2.5 and 3 Euros. (Beer is 2.) Even at the fancy place, where I paid 18 Euros for four meatballs, my wine was only 3.5.)

I was also finally able to explore Zaragoza’s Roman ruins. Discovered only a few decades ago, there are the Roman Forum, the Roman baths, and an amphitheater. (The video at the Forum is narrated by the Ebro river.)

Zaragoza became a Roman outpost a long time ago and named Cesaraugusta. It was such an important city that it was exempt from the usual colonial taxes.

*That, former students who read this blog, is called “burying the lede.” That’s right, I’ve found the Gomez to my Morticia.

I got my final grades in today for Spring 2022–it’s the end of my 23rd year of teaching.

My 24th year begins on 6/20, starting with class 316. Over the next week, I need to finish putting the course page together.

And I’m starting to panic: in addition to teaching both summer sessions, I have to get ready to leave the country twice. I leave for Spain in three weeks: I have two conferences back to back there.

And it’s official: I’m going to Dublin at the end of September.

I need my brain to shut up about it all, though, so I can sleep. It’s especially worried right now about how to pack for over two weeks in Spain (while working) and almost three months in Dublin. It keeps reminding me that I’m not supposed to carry anything heavy.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve introduced the senior comedy show, been to Jacob’s goodbye show, and hosted the extraordinary stand-up class final performance.

I got all dressed up for the senior comedy show: the theme was black tie, and I didn’t have an appropriate outfit, so I had to get a new one. I pulled some black heels out of the very top of the closet. The bottom of both came off before I made it out on stage.

Saying goodbye to my graduating comedy students is breaking my heart.

Last weekend, I saw three plays: a workshop of a new musical about Houdini, Henry V via National Theatre Live, and The Lifespan of a Fact at CapStage. I was especially interested in the latter, since I’ve met its subject, John D’Agata. His aversion to fact checking (and the play about it) is mentioned in Melissa and my sources textbook. One of the authors of the play and I got to chatting on social media after I posted about it.

I’ve recently started dating again. In fact, I was a very sweet guy’s first date from the internet ever. He seemed genuinely surprised when I told him how common it was to find someone there. I had an awful second date with someone too.

Dating is always anxiety producing, and I think of Margaret Atwood’s quote in Cat’s Eye: “I’d been reading modern French novels and William Faulkner as well. I knew what love was supposed to be: obsession, with undertones of nausea.”

The boy and I saw Bob’s Burgers: The Movie, which was great.

My colleagues and I got together at the park–someone missing how I used to spoil them at the grading sessions I ran asked me to make something, so I treated them all to rum cake.

My son’s new girlfriend gave me farm-fresh eggs, and I made quiche, scrambled eggs, and pound cake. She also brought me a new whiskey: so good!

I’ve also been writing a lot of letters of rec, I got a dental cleaning and filling fix, did my yearly eye appointment, and ordered new glasses. I also wrote a furious letter to UCD, after a shot nurse there decided she was done giving me the asthma drug I desperately need, without telling me (I was still on the schedule and still showed up for my appointment, though she was nowhere to be found), and without making sure I could get the shots with my new allergist. So I guess I’m just going to miss this month’s doses.

I watched the first day of Congressional testimony in the January 6th investigation and cried.

I didn’t get Covid, though I feared I would. It’s a matter of time, I know. It’s just too contagious to avoid it forever.

In closing today, I’ll leave you with the best compliment I got from a graduating student: “Yours was the first class at UCD that I couldn’t bullshit my way through.”