The main plot of this book is that there is a worldwide epidemic that essentially ended civilization as we know it. The book follows a family that is doing their best to make life work out for them in the Yukon and, in particular, it follows the experiences of a young girl as she tries to live whatever life is leftover after civilization came to an end. Johnson goes out of his way to bring you into the desperation and seeming hopelessness of this new world and he tells this story though the eyes of these few remaining humans. It is a story that we sometimes see in movies and sometimes on television shows, but Johnson brings that story of despair to life in the written form.

While the family thinks that they are alone in the wilderness (with one big, burly, creepy neighbor living nearby), they soon find out that there are others who are still alive out there in this otherwise dead world and that not all of them have the most noble intentions. What struck me about Johnson’s writing on this theme is that he painted a very dreary, hopeless vision of the life that this family was living, but then when he introduced the outside world there were vibrant sparks of hope that glittered throughout the remainder of the remaining narrative. That’s the type of impact that Jax has on this story; for the family living in the wilderness, Jax is the beginning of the unraveling of their understanding of the end of the world. In other words, if Jax is out there (and the people hunting him), then maybe there is something, some bit of the world, that survived what they believed was the apocalypse.

Every once in a while, Johnson takes you back to the way the world was before the epidemic took over. As you might imagine, the longer the book goes on, the more the reader learns about some of the most compelling plot points that span from the pre-epidemic world to the post-epidemic world. We learn about how the epidemic spread, how the government tried to take control, how there was research going on into a vaccination and possibly a cure – all of the things that you might imagine in this genre and dealing with this type of content. What makes this all compelling in this story, though, is how the characters are woven into the larger narrative.

And that is what is fun about reading Johnson’s The Wolves of Winter. The story shifts from despair to action/adventure and excitement to, ultimately, hopefulness. Johnson does all of this by weaving the characters that you know (remember, these are likely the last people alive) into a story that starts as small as a log cabin and expands to, potentially, the entire planet. If your are into new writers and you are into well-told stories about the apocalypse, then check out Tyrell Johnson’s The Wolves of Winter!

Taking a quick inventory of some major events that took place during my 2013

Without further adieu, here is a brief review of my 2013.

And there’s a brief review of my 2013. I stopped making resolutions a few years ago because I realized that they’re all eerily similar to one another. Thus I don’t have much to write about what I want to accomplish in 2014. Among my own personal goals are the same old, same old including greater financial stability, becoming healthier, continuing to improve professionally, etc. I guess one item that I really want to focus on in 2014 is reading more. I’ve noticed that over the last 5+ years I haven’t been reading as much as I used to read. One of the greatest ways to differentiate yourself from the pack at work and in life is to read more; and as a guy who was an English major in college (i.e. I like to read and write), I should be reading a lot more than I do right now. I expect that this particular goal will obviously be helped by the fact that I just signed up for a library card (and Lord knows what type of stories I’ll have from visiting the local library).

That’s it, folks. I hope you each have a prosperous and rewarding 2014!

And that’s the end of my student loans.

And not only is there nothing due on the loan, but it looks like MOHELA actually owes me 15 cents! Ha ha!

In July 2006 I began repaying $120,603.31 in student loan debt. This debt was comprised of $106,070.00 in loan principal, $12,434.58 in capitalized interest, and $2,098.73 in closing and refinancing fees. I made the final payment on this debt in August 2013. My lenders included the United States Department of Education’s (USED) Perkins loan program, the USED’s subsidized and unsubsidized Direct Loan programs, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority’s NJCLASS program, CitiBank, and the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (the USED sold my loan to MOHELA in April 2012). In total, I paid $149,455.12 to these lenders including $120,603.31 in consolidated principal and $28,851.81 in interest. You can read my entire student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Before I started an aggressive repayment plan in December 2009 it seemed like today would be impossible to realize. Think about the situation that I was faced with (and remember that many current large dollar student loan borrowers are still in similar situations): How could a guy manage to repay approximately $121 thousand in student loan debt with a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in Public Policy? Further, how could a guy repay such an astronomical figure much quicker than the 25 and 30 year repayment plans his lenders put him on? Worse yet, how could anyone who worked at a nonprofit organization, did not rely on outside financial support, did not live at home, paid all of their own bills (on-time), lived in the most expensive state in the union, and who felt a moral obligation to annually donate at least 10% of his income achieve this goal? To say that the odds were against this day coming as soon as it did is an understatement! This goal was nearly impossible for anyone to achieve.

It's over!

During my last “major announcement” post back in December 2010 I happily reported that I was done repaying the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA). The NJHESAA’s series of smaller NJCLASS loans were – after consolidation – one of the two major student loans that I was obligated to repay after graduating from a master’s degree program at Rutgers back in 2006. The other major series of smaller loans – also consolidated into a single loan – were from the United States Department of Education (USED) and their Direct Loans program. Ultimately, the USED sold my loan to the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) – the lender that received my final payment earlier today.

I also had loans from two smaller sources including $1,400 from the USED’s federal Perkins loan program through Monmouth University and $7,000 (plus an additional $1,071.52 in interest) from Citibank’s student loan program.

Just as I reported after paying off my NJHESAA loan, here are the stats as they pertain to repaying my USED/MOHELA loan (these figures include both the amount of the loan and the capitalized interest; also, these are my figures and may be a few pennies or a dollar or two off from what the USED/MOHELA keeps on file).

The list above shows the various USED loans that I consolidated into the final $59,020.15 loan that I began repaying in 2006. If you study that list above, there are three lines that will probably bounce out and hit you – my summer session in 2002, my part-time graduate semester in 2004, and my first year in graduate school as a full-time student in 2004 – 2005. The first two of these line items probably stand out because I did not incur any USED loans during those semesters. Why didn’t I take out any loans, you ask? Simple. As an undergraduate, the USED would not advance me any loans if I was a part-time student – that eliminated me from potentially getting a loan during the summer of 2002 (I made up the difference from NJHESAA that summer). And in the spring of 2004 I was still deciding if I wanted to apply to the Rutgers graduate program where I was a non matriculated student. Again, being a part-time student didn’t allow me to take out any loans from the USED.

Of course, I did wind up applying to the Rutgers program on a full-time basis and that first full-time year of graduate school is the other line item that stands out in the list above. This line item stands out because it is so much higher than the rest of the line items at a whopping $19,156.45. What in the world could I need that much money for in a student loan?! Again, the answer is somewhat simple: somewhere along the line I figured out that the USED would advance loan funds to pay for my “living expenses” while I was going to school full-time.

If there is one thing that I can point to that inflated my total student loan debt more than anything else it would be the ability to add my “living expenses” to my student loan requests. Even though I worked part-time at two different jobs during my undergraduate years and full-time during my graduate years (in addition to owning and operating a small business), I still included my living expenses in my student loan requests. Those living expenses including my monthly rent payments, cell phone payments, food money, automobile payments, and Lord knows what else. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you the exact amount of my student loans were allocated to these living expenses, but let me put it in perspective this way…

Pretty much all of the tuition I was charged during graduate school was paid either by me, my family, or scholarships. You read that correctly – I did not need to take out student loans to pay for my tuition at Rutgers. In other words, if you look at the list above and add up the line items titled Graduate Year One (2004 – 2005), Summer Session (2005), and Graduate Year Two (2005 – 2006), then you’ll have the total dollar amount of student loans that I requested for reasons other than tuition. After doing the math, you can see that this amount equals $32,043.37. Just to be clear, of the $120,720 that I took out in student loans, at least $32,043.37 were for expenses other than tuition. I won’t set this number in stone as the definitive total amount of loan funds that I received for non-tuition expenses because I also applied for and received living expenses (primarily rent costs) from the NJHESAA’s NJCLASS program, too.

However, to estimate that approximately a third ($40,420) of my total student loan debt was for living expenses and not tuition would be a pretty good guess. Pretty frightening, I know.

And yet today still arrived. From an above-the-fold cover story in USA Today in June 2006 to fully repaying my NJHESAA loan in December 2010, to a nice mention in an online story on USA Today in May 2011, to the milestone of having repaid $100,000 in principal, to today – it’s been an incredible ride. If you’ve been following my student loan story from the beginning, then I offer my heartfelt thanks for your patronage and willingness to read my repayment story to the end. For those of you who have added comments to these blog entries from time to time, I thank you for being a part of the conversation. If you’re one of the many folks who’ve e-mailed me saying that I inspired you to take a more aggressive stance in your own student loan repayment, then I wish you luck.

Quickly and efficiently repaying a student loan is possible; even if that student loan is $120,603.31 on day one and you wind up paying an additional $28,851.81 in interest over the life of your repayment. The great truth that I learned over these past few years is that if you want to do something, then you will find a way to achieve it. In other words, no one can stop you – except you.

And if you’re trying to repay an enormous student loan, then contact me and share your story. Good luck!

In July 2006 I began repaying $120,603.31 in student loan debt. This debt was comprised of $106,070.00 in loan principal, $12,434.58 in capitalized interest, and $2,098.73 in closing and refinancing fees. I made the final payment on this debt in August 2013. My lenders included the United States Department of Education’s (USED) Perkins loan program, the USED’s subsidized and unsubsidized Direct Loan programs, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority’s NJCLASS program, CitiBank, and the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (the USED sold my loan to MOHELA in April 2012). In total, I paid $149,455.12 to these lenders including $120,603.31 in consolidated principal and $28,851.81 in interest. You can read my entire student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Honestly, it’s gratuitously boring and not worth getting into the details on the text itself on this blog. However, the Minding the Campus website did make the following comment in its article:

Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) is attempting to force faculty to take an ideological oath to “diversity.” Promotion and tenure will depend on a willingness to embrace the vague but militant ideology dear to the left side of the political spectrum.

And the article goes on a little bit more with a quote from a critic of the policy. From my view – which is admittedly the 10,000 feet above the issue level – I never really liked the concept of a forced diversity in terms of developing a curriculum or a pedagogy. In other words, I think history should be taught as it was, I think the great works of literature that influenced the world should be taught as they are, I think that testing should be provided based on the minimum levels needed to succeed in society and not include any type of cultural or socioeconomic bias.

It’s a tough thing to write about in this type of blog entry format, but maybe an example will help. As an English major in college, I was forced to take a class called African Women’s Literature. That’s cool – I like to study up on new topics within the realm of what I “like” and English was obviously a subject that I liked. However, the class was so far out of sync with the rest of the curriculum that it was truly an awkward (not educational) experience. I know why the course is included in the curriculum at the time – to increase the diversity of study for English majors. However, most if not all of the concepts, readings, and discussions from that class are completely gone from my mind now because they have no bearing on anything around me…and this is coming from a guy who frequently volunteers his time in black communities.

And that’s just it…that’s the point. When a university is trying to integrate “diversity” into its foundation, they generally wind up missing the point entirely. If my alma mater wanted to be sure that its English students received worthy instruction on topics related to the black population or are historically famous in black literature, then there are any number of excellent American authors, politicians, and activists that could have fit that bill, but within the context of non-racially segregated themed courses. To say it another way, why couldn’t we cover W.E.B. DuBois when we talked about early 20th Century literature? Why couldn’t we talk about Frederick Douglass when we studied war-related literature?

As it turns out, my old college canceled the course in African Women’s Literature (thank God). I guess someone with some stroke over there had the same thought that I had and the same thought that Minding the Campus has regarding the situation at Virginia Tech.

The applications of the Google Book Search are almost endless. The first things that pop into my mind are the English classes that I had to take in college. Well, not the classes themselves, but the hundreds if not thousands of dollars that I spent on books. Take Shakespeare – I had to buy two different anthologies of Shakespeare titles. In the mean time, Google Book Search has the entire works of William Shakespeare available for full download. Full download! Come on!

I could easily be in a few thousand dollars LESS of student loan debt if this service was available ten years ago, damn it.

Since I know a lot of college students (and those who talk to college students) find their way on to my blog, I’m making the strong recommendation that you check Google Book Search for the texts needed in your literature and English classes before you go spending hundreds of dollars on anthologies. Speaking as someone who is in a great deal of student loan debt, trust me – every little bit counts when trying to save money in college!

Here is a brief review of one of my more annoying stories which relates to the unnecessary complication of the day…

I was an English major. I loved every bit of being an English major because I love books, reading, new ideas, old ideas, etc. All of the corny crap that an English major likes – you get it. Due to scheduling conflicts, I had to take an English course during the summer to graduate on time. The only course I could fit into was African Women’s Literature. I figured that at the very least, it would be awesome to read new material from a topic area that I never studied before.

Then I walked into the classroom on the first night of class and I knew I was doomed.

I was the only white male in the room. That didn’t bother me, but when I looked at the professor she gave me a look that would have stopped a charging bull right in his tracks. If looks could kill, I wouldn’t be here right now. So I quietly went to the back of the room and endured a summer of writing A-quality papers and receiving D’s on them, being treated like a third class citizen, and generally being disliked by my professor. For example, I was literally told that all of my opinions were wrong because I had no basis for them (the woman actually said this to me in front of everyone). Meanwhile, a female friend of mine in the class would wait a while and say the exact same things (word for word) and she would be praised for them. Talk about a sexist professor…

It’s probably worth mentioning that this woman is an African (actually born and raised in Africa) and that she generally despised everything I did in class (including when I would show up early to review notes). I couldn’t win with this woman because I was a white male. Hey? What can you do, right? Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. With this woman, I had no chance. I was fine with it…because I filed a complaint against her after I graduated (she controlled the internships for the entire department so you didn’t want to piss her off as an undergraduate).

Then I became an Adjunct Professor at the school last fall. She taught a course that ended 10 minutes before my class began. She routinely kept her class in session until about two or three minutes before my scheduled start time. I don’t know why – I didn’t care, but I just wanted to get into my classroom to get set up for my class.

Last night I arrived at campus at 7:05pm for my class, which begins at 7:25pm. Guess who is teaching before my class again? That’s right! At 7:05pm, her class was still in session and since her scheduled end time is 7:15pm, I decided to go take care of some paperwork. At about 7:12pm, I heard a shuffle of students leaving the classroom, but I just wanted to finish reading a quick memo that was in my inbox. After I read the memo, I looked around the corner from where I was standing and I saw my students now sitting in the classroom. As such, I walked over to the classroom and put my pack down on the front desk. This was about 7:14pm.

Turns out the woman was still “packing up.” Let me explain “packing up.” She had logged out of the computer in the front of the room such that the log-in was the only thing on the screen and her bag was packed, zippered, and buckled. She was literally standing there with one hand on her bag and the other hand on her mouse making circle motions around the log-in prompt. CIRCLE MOTIONS! I’ve never seen a scene like that before in all my years in the classroom – like she was daydreaming.

Anyway, I popped open the buckle of my bag and took a sip from my water bottle and she looked at me and said, “Are you teaching a class here now?” To which I replied, “Yes.” So she gave me that same look I got all of those years ago and said, “I still have the classroom.”

Shocked (literally), I turned to the clock in a deliberate motion and said, “For another minute?!” And she said, “Yes.” So I tried to play nice and I said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll go wait outside.” To her credit, she quickly said, “No, no, it’s okay.” She said this in a mean voice, no less. And I replied, “Are you sure? It’s no big thing.” And she replied, “I just feel rushed is all. I don’t like being rushed out of the classroom.”

The woman’s bag was packed. She was logged out of the computer. She was literally making circles with the pointer of the mouse around the log-in prompt. At that point…YOU’RE DONE IN THE CLASSROOM! LEAVE!

Bear in mind that 5 or 6 of my students are now in the classroom watching two Professors have a brief, yet awkward argument. I try to constantly be the good guy in the classroom so I said, “No rush, please take your time. In fact, you can stay – we’d love to have you!” I said that last part in a joking voice trying to break the awkward tension. She only replied, “No, I’m being rushed. No.” Then she glanced at the clock, saw 7:15pm, grabbed her bag and left.

I was literally left standing with my mouth open, shocked at the unprofessional conduct that I just witnessed. As a student, I knew that this woman hated me and all those like me, but I thought as a professional colleague she would at least have the courtesy to make some small talk and send beginning-of-the-semester greetings to a fellow professor. Nope. I was treated like garbage.

For me, that seals the deal. This woman is an atrocious professor both in the classroom and professionally. She should be fired on the spot. Her ratings at RateMyProfessor.com are abysmal (not that they should matter, but they do) and her conduct towards a colleague she did not know was vicious, full of contempt, and confrontational. That is unacceptable.

And worst of all, she did this in front of my students. I then had to explain to my students that she was a rough professor even when I was an undergraduate and apparently that hadn’t changed much over time. The real shame of it is that she made herself look like a fool in front of a few students who will now likely never take her course (I might not have properly captured how awkward and distant she was during our brief conversation, but she came off like a person off of their medication).

Plus, she ruined my night and ruined my day. I had a great day at the office, a great day preparing for class, and a great class after she left. But her arrogance and downright rude demeanor really put a damper on a great day for me. So I’m going to be mad about this for the next few minutes before I go to bed and then wake up tomorrow and ask for a classroom assignment change. I’m not trying to fight this woman who obviously has personal issues – I just want to teach my class and continue to have fun while doing it.

September 11, 2001 Update: I asked for a room change and when the room assigner asked why, I simply mentioned this Professor’s name and she said, “No need to say any more – I know what the problem is.” The room assigner went on to tell me how this Professor causes problems each semester and that the issues regarding this Professor range from arrogance to intimidation to completely off-the-wall antics. The woman also mentioned that there are more complaints filed against this Professor each year than any other teacher at the university. What fun!?

I’m not going to get a room change, though, as the options didn’t fit the needs of my class. I’ll just deal with Professor Arrogance and continue to make a paper trail in case I need to file a complaint at some point. What a shame that people like this are employed as teachers…