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Ember Seaman
7503-K Ashby Lane
Alexandria, VA
22315
(703) 850-4396
eseaman@gmu.edu
May 4, 2005
George Mason University; Domicile Appeals,
As an addendum to my appeal, I would like to
submit a statement about why I did not appeal the out-of-state charges that I
was being charged last fall until this semester. During the time of enrollment
before each semester, I signed up for classes over the phone. Since I don’t
always have enough credit available to make full payments, I usually pay in
installments. Last semester, after I had made payments, I got a bill in the
mail stating that I owed Mason what seemed to be a lot of money still. I
thought that I just thought I had paid more than I did, and so I sent in a
check. Later I got the same bill for the same amount, which I paid again,
thinking that I was mistaken about having paid it. Later, it turned out I did
pay it and I received a refund check for approximately $2,400.
Now, let me interject with an explanation as to
why it seems that it was hard to mentally keep track of the payments I was
making at the time. My father was put in the hospital, as I said in the
original appeal. During this time, I was paying his bills, meeting daily with
contractors to fix up his house to sell it in the event of his death, and
dealing with daily problems that were coming up in dealing with several
companies over orders of countertops, appliances, tile, carpet, a new roof,
cabinets, light fixtures and paint. I was constantly trying to keep track of
payments made for supplies and to contractors for work done in the house. The
housing project alone come out to more than $70,000, a lot of which accrued
through small purchases for things like vents, tiles for backsplashes, light
fixtures and hardware, as well as large sums for items such as granite
countertops, a new roof, payments to contractors and differences in prices
between appliances. Because of this, I was trying to keep track of a lot of
numbers in my head, as well as my file cabinet.
It seemed that almost everything
that could go wrong did, from delivery and installation of the wrong appliances,
to having to reorder the cabinets, a bad electrician’s work resulting in
fixtures crashing off the walls and the tile company delivering the wrong order
several times in a row and eventually shutting down (we are still trying to get
the last tiles) to plumbers messing up the pipes and a stove that still won’t
fit from a company that doesn’t want to deal with it.
I felt that there was no way I
could deal with it all myself. This project lasted several months, and since I
was the only person dealing with it, it was a huge strain on my emotional state
and sleep schedule as well as my memorization and organizational skills. During
this time, I was keeping daily to-do lists, which regularly contained more than
30 things to do in one day.
On top of refurbishing the house,
keeping track of my father’s house bills, office bills and medical bills, and
trying to help out at his office as much as possible before ultimately having to
sell it, I was working with lawyers in a malpractice suit, gathering information
for it and appealing large medical bills. I was also helping to get my father’s
will written, which in itself is an enormous emotional burden and distraction
from other daily activities. I was trying also to make enough time every day to
drive to the city of Arlington to visit with him. Since my mother died several
years ago and we have no other family in the state, I was left to do all of
these tasks myself every day.
I watched him slowly deteriorate,
with only bad scenarios predicted by his doctors. His red blood cell count
dropped to dangerous levels requiring regular blood transfusions, he began
getting infections of various organs which had to be removed, and the biggest
problem – the organ which the doctor originally cut which caused his lengthy
stay in the hospital – wouldn’t heal even after several failed surgery attempts
to correct it, and it seemed there was nothing anyone could do about it. I
watched him lose most of his hair and over 70 pounds in the hospital due to the
fact that he could neither eat nor drink for over a year. This alone is a hard
thing to witness. On top of that, the painkillers and lack of exercise
deteriorated his brain and he often suffered from memory loss, not knowing all
that I was dealing with at home and slinging insults at me that he didn’t
remember the next time I saw him, only adding to my frustration and desperation
in the situation.
On most days, I didn’t have time
to eat any meals, eating only whatever I could get my hands on between errands,
and my daughter suffered my same schedule. Being a single mom, I had a daughter
to deal with on my own as well. After picking her up from school, we ran
errands until after 7 pm, leaving just enough time to visit my father. Then we
headed to Arlington for a short visit, and headed out to run more errands. We
almost never had time for dinner, and rarely made it home before 11 at night,
when she had to start an exorbitant amount of homework. The private school she
goes to prides itself on producing star students. In doing so, they assign
large amounts of schoolwork. This year she graduated to upper hall, more than
doubling the amount of homework she had. We were regularly up until 2 or 3 in
the morning finishing her homework, often resulting in crying and fatigue, only
to get up at 7 am and do it all again.
At the time, I was working two
days a week on Ft. Belvoir, worked as an administrator for George Mason’s
Science, Engineering and Technology camps through New Century College, and
worked as a grad TA at Mason to earn credits toward my Master’s Degree while
making a minimal amount of money to pay my bills. This schedule lasted for over
14 months.
During this time, a former friend who became
infatuated began breaking into my house. Not knowing who it was, I became
afraid in my own home. I knew that this person somehow had a key and had
something more sinister in mind than stealing my TV, since nothing ever seemed
to be touched or out of place. I knew it must be someone who house-sat for me
or kept a key in case of an emergency. Knowing it was someone I knew, I was
angered and wanted to figure out who it was that was doing this to us. I stayed
up at night watching TV on my couch, letting my daughter sleep, so that in case
this person became bold enough to enter while we were home I would be awake.
Since this person was someone that was in my house regularly, I figured
fingerprinting would do no good since fingerprints of this person in my house
would not be out of place. I expressed these fears to a few people, one of
which turned out to be the person doing it. He never let me know it was him, or
offered any apologies about not meaning to scare anyone, and so it continued
until I figured out who it was, bought a new deadbolt, and confronted the
person, who, of course, denied it. After that, however, the break-ins did stop.
So you see, I was trying to take care of more
than just my schooling at the time. It was hard for me to remember what I had
and had not paid. At the time, it seemed I was paying a lot of money, but I
thought perhaps tuition had raised and that I had not already paid as much as I
thought I did. With my only parent dying in the hospital, and with all of the
countless responsibilities it entailed to someone dealing with it on their own,
researching Mason’s tuition raises and checking up on a system that I thought
was working properly was put on the back burner. Never, at any time, did I
think that Mason’s automated billing system had a defect with my account, since
it would have to be my account alone. I didn’t hear anything about the system
overcharging students regularly, so I trusted that Mason was billing me
correctly. It never occurred to me that Mason might have defaulted me to
out-of-state status since I had been going to Mason for several years prior. It
was not until this semester when I happened to express my wonderment to one of
my professors about how much money I felt I had already given George Mason that
we actually looked up my transcript. This was when we saw that I was listed
with out-of-state status, and I set the appeal process in motion. That is where
we are today.
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to
submit this addition to my appeal.
Ember
Seaman
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