Its semester by semester. I'm not on a loan although I tell everyone I am so they don't freak.
I'm going to give some unsolicited advice here. Don't tell anyone your age, don't ask anyone theirs. Don't tell anyone about your financial situation, don't ask anyone theirs.
Stop worrying about what everybody else thinks. I think you are wasting valuable 'think space' by allowing everybody else's 'stuff' to affect you and worrying far too much about what others think of you. Who cares what they think.
You're living a goal that you set for yourself a long time ago...revel in that, because for many, it will always be just an unfulfilled dream. So far, that's a pretty good accomplishment in itself. It would be an even better accomplishment, if you could allow all of yourself to be available for the task at hand, instead of giving bits of yourself away.
