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Greek State of Mind

Should Achieve Two Separate Student Loan Repayment Milestones Any Day Now

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Any day now I should be achieving two separate student loan milestones. As you might imagine from the opening of this entry – yes, I’ve reduced my student loan debt once again. This time around my total outstanding debt has dropped another $2 thousand to go from $34 thousand down to $32 thousand. Again, considering that I began my repayment during the summer of 2006, I think that this much of a drop is pretty damn impressive – but I would think that about my own accomplishment, right? 🙂

Big news coming soon!

The real stories here, though, are the two big repayment milestones that I’m closing in on: repaying a total of $90 thousand in principal and breaking through the $30 thousand threshold. Both of these milestones are incredibly close to being a reality. For example, after my next thousand dollar payment I’ll have repaid $90 thousand in total principal and over $30 thousand in interest. Shortly thereafter (or possibly at the same time), I’ll break through the $30 thousand threshold and my student loan debt will be sitting in the $20 thousands for the first time since the end of my Sophomore year in college (that would be way back at the end of the Spring 2001 semester).

Pretty amazing.

Much like my last few student loan entries – there’s no major words of wisdom for me to impart right now. Like I wrote a few months ago – I’ve reached this point because I put the brain that the good Lord gave me to work in figuring out a solution to my student loan debt versus crying about how much debt I accumulated while in school.

Like Morgan Freeman says in the Shawshank Redemption – either you get busy living or you get busy dying. In this case, I could have gotten busy bitching about my debt or gotten busy working my ass off so I could repay it. After a few years of making the minimum payments, at the beginning of 2010 I chose to get busy working my tail off so I could repay the debt. And I’m clearly in a better financial place because of that decision.

If you’ve got a ton of student loan debt, then you need to make the decision that works best for you and don’t wait. Hopefully, my experience proves that getting busy repaying your student loan debt is the best choice.

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. Since I started repaying my student loans in July 2006, I’ve repaid a total of $89 thousand in principal to various lenders including the federal Perkins loan program, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, and CitiBank. I currently owe $32 thousand in principal to the United States Department of Education’s Direct Loans program – a loan which started repayment in July 2006 with a balance of $59 thousand. To date, I’ve repaid well over $30 thousand in interest to these lenders. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Movie Review: Batman – The Dark Knight

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Yesterday I had the opportunity to watch some movies that I’ve been meaning to see – one of which was the new Batman: The Dark Knight movie. This was a good movie that would probably have looked really good on the big screen, but for the life of me I can’t seem to figure out why the world went bonkers over Heath Ledger’s Joker. Yes, he played the role very well. Did he redefine the role? No, not at all. Was he a demented weirdo as the Joker? Yes! However, all I kept hearing from everyone was that Ledger was completely engulfed in the role and that he brought a new, sick twist to the character. Sorry folks, I didn’t see it.

What I did see were great performances from Christian Bale (Batman), Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon), and Aaron Eckhart (Two-Face) among others. When you have an ensemble cast like this (including Morgan Freeman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Caine…even Tiny Lister had an appearance) you’re bound to get a good movie put together. The various synergies between these actors and their performances made for a great movie.

Batman undergoes a bit of maturing in the movie as he has to deal with loss and the realization that there can never be a world without Batman because there can never be a Batman who doesn’t have a vengeance for retribution. On the flip side, the forces for “good” in Gotham begin to realize that they have multiple opponents including spies in their own ranks, the Joker’s men, the fears of the people, the mob, common petty criminals, etc. Not a fun situation to be in.

The movie kept a good flow, though it might have been 15 – 20 minutes too long for my liking. However, there is no wasted time in the movie so you won’t be bored watching. In fact, there are a lot of good chase scenes and a few good fighting scenes (and I generally hate chase scenes, so that should tell you something). I also liked the way Alfred talked for a moment about his background as a guy who chased criminals (in this example, he was in Burma). His words of wisdom to Batman when fighting the Joker: “Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with – some men just want to watch the world burn.”

Another one of my favorite quotes from yet another legendary actor comes from Lucius Fox (played by Morgan Freeman). One of the auditors or financial guys for Wayne Enterprises uncovers a bunch of blueprints detailing how the company has been making weapons for Batman. He threatens Fox with a request for $10 million per year to keep his mouth shut. Fox replies, “Let me get this straight: You think that your client, one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, is secretly a vigilante who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands. And your plan is to blackmail this person? Good luck.”

Ha!

If you get the opportunity, I’d rent this one (or possibly purchase it, depending on the price) as soon as it hits the stores. For those of you who are not hardcore fans of these superhero movies, I think that you’ll enjoy this one anyway.