As you may or may not be aware of, graduate students to not make much money. After all of the years in that pay bracket, though I have managed to keep things in balance. Recently, and by recently I mean September of 2008, the university was mailed a check from the American Chemical Society’s Division of Organic Chemistry to pay my salary for a year because of an award I won. Fortunately, in the Fall I was employed as the instructor for a class and so when the university failed to get the account set up properly the lack of a payment didn’t put a financial strain on me. Now, however, I am no longer teaching, and didn’t get paid on January 30th as anticipated.

It is so incredibly frustrating that after so many months, those in charge couldn’t figure out how to get me the money I am owed, and now it is putting a burden on me.