New Adventure: college scholarships. overwhelmed is an understatement.

When i went to school the first time, i did absolutely nothing, and i mean nothing by ways of looking for scholarships or grants. this time around, i'm using my head, and being smart about this. i have gotten myself into a massive sink hole of debt. i owe salliemae more than i'm worth (that's debateable). so, i decided that this time around, i would be wise.

let me start at the beginning. and i do mean, the beginning.
Growing up, i was always the automatic piggy bank. I saved, nay hoarded, every penny i could get my grubby, chubby little hands on.
I was also a highly intelligent, curious-minded little girl.
Need a prime example of my money saving abilities? As a preschooler, i purchased my very own, child-sized violin for $75. I didn't get it as a gift, it was mine because i used my money, that i had saved, as a 4 year old.
Think i'm exaggerating my own intelligence? Well as a wonderful family friend has recently told me, "Of course you can do anything, you were reading the newspaper as a 5 year old". I also read the dictionary for fun when i was in kindergarten.
Fast forward a few years. As a highschool senior, i went through a short period of trying so desperately hard to break into my own life, while living with parents who didn't understand or know how to make it an easier transition.
Having said all this, you must know then that i was more concerned with gaining freedom, and leaving my house than i was getting good financial aid. i figured, "i'll get loans. i can always defer until i have to pay them back. then i'll just pay them back."
I always tell people that the benefit of being young and dumb is that you get to be young and dumb. And boy did i take full advantage of that statement. Hence i am paying on my student loans, have been for 4 years, and will continue for the rest of my life. I spent 3 years at a terrific college, but at some point my life was meant to move on, and i simply refused to do it. I learned some hard life lessons, some hard lessons in trusting God and the ones He places around us. However, now i am financially paying for the lessons i had to learn emotionally.
At some point this past january, i realized that i am too smart for the job that i have been working for the past 2 years. Its a decent job, the pay is so-so, but it pays the bills. Then for a couple months, i struggled with the idea on going back to school, considering while i am intelligent, and have a great capacity to learn, i did poorly at school. most of that is due to my heart just simply not being in the class work the way i should have been.
then finally, after months of going around and around this issue in my head, i decided to go back to school. past schooling aside, i know i will do just fine, because i can. and because my complete sanity rests on me doing something other than garbage for the rest of my life.
fast forward to tonight. i have been looking for college scholarships since about 11 pm, last night. I typed scholarship into google and clicked on fastweb.com. after doing a brief membership application (not truly an application, but we'll use that here for lack of better words) i was then sent a list of 22 scholarships/grants i was eligible for. so i went back to my account and finished setting up my account and got another 9 scholarships/grants. after looking through all of them, i marked several as favorites, and started to go back and clicked on the websites of the individual scholarship pages.
why would it overwhelm someone? well, to put it simply, while clicking on adjectives that describe people, i saw several that said "height" or "clinically obese" and "vegetarian". I thought, what about us average joes that aren't vegetarians, that might be chubby but not clinically obese, or medium to short in height? then i thought, that's discrimination against the normal person.
but just the types of scholarships that are out there. i just want to scream "WHY DIDN'T I KNOW ABOUT THESE YEARS AGO!?!?!?!" as i sit here typing this blog, i'm trying desparately to get a decent essay so i can send it to people for some cash. i probably won't get it, but it's still worth the effort...
now that i've rambled forever about nothing in particular, im going to fight to stay awake...as i have to be at work at7 (aka little over 2 months).
goodnight/day all :)