Nobody panic...

...but I think I just paid off my student loans. Most of them, anyway.

Every month I get a letter from my university telling them I owe them a few thousand dollars, and every month I cut a check for some constant amount: $74.44, or something like that. After a few years, this number dropped to something else I don't remember, but it was certainly familiar. This month, I see an altogether new number, one that is lower still. And after checking the figures, this number is very much the difference between "what you owe in total" and "what you've paid so far".

Of course, my mother is probably still paying off her lion's share of my expenses, and I don't even think about how much the DOE takes out of my bank account every month, except in March when I pay my taxes. So this is a minor victory, but a victory nonetheless.