Who Is Anthony Stephens?

The Life and Death of a College Grad

125-127

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Interview with Dr. Aileen Parks: Part 5

16 July 2011

– No, sir. Tuition costs are only a small portion of the actual costs of getting a university education.

– The average yearly cost of room and board in the ’09-’10 school year—remember, you’ve got to live somewhere—was $8,200. For books and supplies, $1,100. If you didn’t have a laptop—a necessity in this information age—add another $700 to that, minimum.

– Combine that with tuition and you’ve got over $13,000 a year for college-related expenses alone.

– Throw in health insurance for good measure, transportation costs, miscellaneous expenses, and what you’ve got then is an average American college student who could choose to work a part time job during their tenure at Whatever-State University, to supplement expenses, and still would end up leaving school with more debt than they could handle.

– Add that all up and what you’ve got is a generation of people—children—who are victims of the most profitable system of legal American slavery since the pre-civil war era.

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Interview with Graham Baker: Part 3

16 July 2011

– Listen, the basic gist of it all is you’ve got to make a decision when you’re getting involved with making a new life for yourself.

– There’s two types of disappearing acts: pseudocide, and just plain disappearing.

– The former produces a death certificate and is illegal, makes people think you’re actually not a part of humanity anymore and is a pretty big undertaking.

– But if you just can’t take shit anymore, if things are just that bad, then that’s a different story. There’s no laws against just packing up and leaving.

– If you don’t want to be found, though, pseudocide’s the most convincing. People have a tendency to leave you alone when they think you’re dead.

– It’s a process you have to go through, though. I’ve seen the process fulfilled, and it takes work. Work and lots of research. My book will tell you, pick it up when you get a chance.

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Interview with Catherine D’Amico: Part 20

28 June 2011

– No problem. Just glad to get it all off my chest.

– It’s not as hard as I thought it would be, I admit that. Not anymore, at least. I love Frankie, our baby. I see a lot of Tony in him sometimes. Other times I see a lot of me. Both make me happy.

– He’s too young to understand it now, but I promised him the day he was born—lying in the hospital, holding him in that huge blanket they give you—that he’d grow up to have everything I could possibly give him. His father left us enough, what with the money in the mail and the exhibition and all.

– Yeah, a few days after he died I got a package, no return address. It was his handwriting, opened it up and there’s—let’s just say it was enough to take me through the pregnancy and those first few months.

– Found out a few days after that Tony had put me down as the benefactor on his contract with my aunt, so we got all the sales from his paintings too.

– It’s not a fortune, not enough to live off forever. But it’s enough to give our son a semi-normal upbringing, minus any hardship.

– And, I mean, I’m back at work now obviously. Gave up bartending for a full-time position at my aunt’s gallery as her assistant. Pay’s good, I get to be around a lot of art, and my boss is a family member so it’s fun. Most of the time. When she’s not being a Nazi. And, to tell you the truth, I think things are as normal now as they’ll ever be.

Click For Parts 128-131

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Written by AutonomousEntity

July 23, 2012 at 9:00 am

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