Pie-Full of Truth Part IV.

I am in a lot of debt. More than US$50,000.

The state of education funding in America is pretty bad. New Zealanders have it a lot better. They get really inexpensive tuition and a weekly student living allowance. Being a foreigner, I have to pay 4 times the cost that a domestic student has to pay. Even so, after the exchange rate my entire course costs only a few thousand dollars more than one semester at Boston University. Unbelievable.

But I had most of my undergrad covered through scholarship and financial aid (thankfully, because I never would have gone otherwise). But I did take out loans for room and board and other expenses. So here is the breakdown of why I am in so much debt.

NHFC is Natural History Filmmaking and Communication. My current schooling. Is it worth it? Only time will tell.


If you are interested, Other Debt is my car back home. There is under $500 left to pay on my auto loan, and it accounts for less than 1% of my total debt.

Number 3

I bought a new car. A 1989 Toyota Corolla hatchback. It is the third Corolla I’ve owned. The first was one I inherited from my mom who had to get a new car after I drove her maroon 89 Carolla sedan into a guardrail. I pulled the dents out and filled it in with copious amounts of bond-o and painted it myself, from then on it was my car. Until my brother came home from college and needed it for work. Later my dad drove that same corolla after I crashed his car into a tree at very low speed.
What happened was, I was turning out of a convient store parking lot and I heard something crack, then I couldn’t steer. Before I even realized that I was out of control I was up on a curb and stopped by a young maple. Getting outside I noticed that practically the whole undercarriage of the vehicle was dragging on the ground. Luckily I wasn’t traveling fast, or I and probably other people would be dead. Anyway, my second corolla, and the first car I ever purchased, was a blue 1990 sedan that I found advertised on the internet and bought for US$1550 from Mexico Auto Sales in Van Nuys California. I still have the “Mexico Auto Sales: You’re Numero Uno with Us” key chain in the shape of a number 1. I drove that shitbox all over LA county for 5 months and sold it, sight unseen, to a girl who was moving to LA to do the same internship program I was on at the time. She sent me a check, I sent her the papers and keys and left the car in the parking structure at the apartment complex for her to find. She paid me $1500. After moving home I broke the streak and bought a 1993 Honda Accord that wasn’t even paid for when I left to go to New Zealand. Now my dad is making my payments on it and my sister is driving it to school and work, but I’ll get it back when I go home. Now I’ve found this red 89 corolla hatchback. It’s a manual (my first) and has 260,000km (161,500mi) on it. But the motor is new and only has 80,000km (50,000mi) on it. It cost me NZ$1350 (US$900) and it runs really well. I'd been thinking about what to name it since I agreed to buy it. Then, driving home with it for the first time, I was thinking I wanted it to have a first and last name. The flatmates and I had just been talking about Kiano Reeves movies a couple days before and it came to me: Johnny Utah. The ex-star-quarterback turned undercover FBI agent/surfer from Point Break. So here you have it, ladies and gentleman I present to you Johnny Utah: