the deserving poor

I have now THREE TIMES in ONE WEEK filled out an application for a grant or scholarship for school, only to be told at the end that I don't qualify because I am too old, or too normal, or too late because we've decided not to give out grants any more because "there is so much other money available to students these days."

That's a quote.

Are you serious?

It's all because I'm not a young and nubile college senior any more. They were LINING UP to give me money back then, I'll tell you. Now the only way they would be interested in me is if I had flunked out of college to have many babies and possibly marry an abusive spouse and perhaps have a very sad story. Then I could get a few bucks for school.

This is seriously annoying. It is also seriously undermining my ability to write earnest little paragraphs about what an awesome little person I am and how hard I will work for the community and give back and pay it forward and mentor the youth and blah blah blah when I keep getting slapped away like this.

Maybe I'll just start quoting my new hero, Jane Eyre, in my essays:

If you think that because I am poor, and plain, and obscure, and little, that I have no heart!

I have as much heart as you, and as much soul!

And then Rochester will propose and we will make out and eventually I will be rich, but only after almost dying from wandering the moors, disconsolate and alone.

Goddammit.

Jane Eyre had a killer sob story, too.

I gotta stop being so goddamn well-adjusted and normal.

It is totally not paying off for me.