What are you doing right now?

[EndOfTheEarth]

Besides posting on here and replying to this thread. Original credit for this goes back to Fate and Nathan on MX.

[Contradiction]

I just came back to this, I really appreciate it :)

I'm going to my first official counselor visit tomorrow morning (hurrah), which I'm hoping will help with the shitty feelings and the whole not-being-involved thing. I've wanted to get involved for a while but I get sort of socially anxious and I'm really good at talking myself out of doing things. Hopefully having someone supportively leaning on me will help...

And - aside from the insane amount of work I've had to do this past week plus transfer deadlines coming into view - I'm actually feeling alright.

[EndOfTheEarth]

Since it seems to be catch-up week, may as well give my story as well:

It feels like everything just sort of stopped in May, and that everything left has been rotting away, but I'll detail that in a moment.

There are three pluses; I have a car, I have a job, and my family seems stable. Thing is, these are facts, but each comes with caveats.

I do have a car, but I knew from the beginning that the claims of added 'freedom' were BS. It makes it so that I can go to the train, if I want, or to work, or to the supermarket, but beyond that everywhere else costs money that I'm not willing to spend. Once you begin earning a paycheck, you begin thinking of everything you do in terms of it, and it makes it really hard to open your wallet.

I do have a job, and it is sort-of in my field of study, but there's no orgainization and no deadlines for anything. The work itself isn't bad, but the lack of a deadline makes it so that there's no challenge, and I find myself increasingly boxed in by the fact that my ability to progress on assigments rely on the company's graphic artists, and I can't do graphic design myself. When I try to, I find myself trying to do it on my own (as if often the case) and the result is always blocky and gridlike, and which always results in my boss saying what a wonderful idea it would be if the graphic artist worked on it instead...you get the picture: it's a vicious cycle with no end. I can't leave because I need at least a year or two of writing under my belt before I stand a chance at being hired anywhere else.

My family is fine, but with my younger sister's bat mitzvah coming up my mother is completely out of her head and easily angered, and my younger sister just hit her teens and gets increasingly moody at everything. I've considered moving out, but as long as my parents will let me stay, I'd rather put up with them and put my money into more school--which isn't particularly helpful as an MFA in creative writing is fundamentally useless and I really don't feel like doing Law.

Socially, it's now been nearly a year since I broke up with my ex. We are still friendly, but I haven't actually seen her face to face since then (though it may happen at the bat mitzvah--her mother is a friend of my mother--which is tension I'd rather not have). I still run a writing group, but that's deteriorating as well; one of them moved to the west coast, one is going to move west in a month, one just got engaged and plans to move to LA, and the two remaining ones have been hard to get into contact with because they're still in school. I want to find a new writing group and/or a new girl, but the absolute boredom of work leaves me so exhausted that when I get home I just drop in front of my computer and can't move.

My creative products seem to be suffering too. I did complete NaNo, but what was an interesting concept produced a work that was horrifically dull to write. I still mess with the Minecraft thing, but it's obvious that they now have all the management they need, and with having to babysit 40 late-teens with pride issues it gets less and less amusing every time they start tearing at each other's throats. My options are to leave and watch years of work get destroyed within a few months, or stay and continue to put up with it. The novel that I'm working on is still being edited, but now it looks like I'm going to lose my editors, and the female protagonists, just to spite me, have gone women's clothes shopping in a scene structured so that I must write about an activity that bores the snot out of me, even though character development is going on.

To add insult to injury, I FINALLY had my graduation pictures taken last night. My parents insist that I take my glasses off--I look hideous without my glasses off because I inhereted my aunt's eyelids, which make me look tired and drugged out without something to cover them.

tl;dr--My entire life has been frozen since May, and what's left is deteriorating rapidly.

I know that, objectively, it isn't as bad as some of the things you guys are going through, but it's really awful to have to live it anyway.

[Xuut]

Your thoughts on the car is actually really interesting because my sister, as soon as she started making money, began to spend A LOT. Same with my older brother. I don't, but that's because I have a a very clear savings goal. Maybe consider something like a long weekend trip fund. You know, put like $10 every week or something away for a fun little trip.

In terms of the job all I can say is hang on. :/ a better opportunity is sure to arise. I feel you on being so bored you don't want to do anything though.

:/ can you save the Disney world into like, a different server and save it or something? Seems like watching that be destroyed sucks because it's so cool.

I read somewhere that like, the reason it might feel frozen is because we're all waiting for this great hallelujah moment when we graduate and suddenly have jobs and life and everything figured out and we don't and we feel purposeless because we don't have any more great life goals to achieve other than "don't die". Maybe that's why it feels "meh"?

[EndOfTheEarth]

Thanks for the reply!

I've always been a conservative spender, but when I got the car and saw the price tag that comes with it and considered it in comparison with how much I was earning each month, I panicked. I'm used to thinking of expenses in terms of $8 books, $12 train tickets and $60 video games, so a $12,000 car loan is scary as balls, and the idea of another $50,000 degree in the future is terrifying. Assuming I work at my current rate for two years, without spending a dime of it, I might be able to afford both...barely.

The Disney thing is a little better since I posted that, but it isn't something I can just copy and run elsewhere--it's a massive collection of files--we're talking the size of a TV season in HD. I've set myself to only go on there from time to time, but whenever I do come on I usually get handed the Crisis of the Week and spend more time dealing with that than doing things that are fun. Two weeks ago the server owner showed up essentially high on painkillers with sixty teens on listening, and I had to drag him into a different room, shut him up in that condition, and then convince the rest of the management team not to freak out and shut the whole thing down for good in frustration.

Have you ever been on, btw? I'd be willing to give a tour.

That's a good point. I need to set something up regarding my books or something.

Thanks again for replying Xuut.

Also, we need to have another webcam meetup with everyone. It's been almost a year since the last one.

[Xuut]

Aha no worries. :3 I miss you all and replying to your life updates is fun.

I'm guessing school was mostly paid for you then? Did you get a new car or a used one? I'm sadly, already calculating how much I'll be in debt in 4/5 years. ;_; But I feel like you can definitely get some scholarship funding and stuff right? Probably not for the very expensive car (insurance gets cheaper as you get older if that helps) but at least for school and what not. Or does the government not give out aid for master's degrees? I can't remember how the financial aid system works in the US.

Aw that sounds super lame. :( I'm guessing the server owner shows up and pays for everything yeah? Kind sucks that you have to act like a parent and deal with whatever insane crisis is going on.

No. I watched the YouTube video on it though, which was ultra cool. I don't play mine craft and my internet connection at home is so bad that I don't think I could XD

Yeah. You can try to get your books out there, send queries and what not. It won't hurt to try and get something done, even if work bores you to tears. :)

Yes! A meetup is required. Preferably on a weekend so I can go to a place with decent wifi (hello university with free wifi).

[EndOfTheEarth]

Temple University was slightly befuddled by the grades that I showed up with, so they agreed to pay half my tuition if I kept the same good grades. The rest was paid for by every check I'd ever received ever. No joke, any check that I recieved for a birthday, graduation, holliday, from age 1 to age 22, all of it went into a college fund. Growing up, I was only allowed to keep the money if it came in the form of a gift certificate or actual cash (assuming negotiations with my parents went well enough). Long story short, I don't have any student loans to worry about, but it enfoced a mentality that school is expensive.

The car is a 2013 Hyundai Sonata with a few extras. We knew the salesman, so we were able to get it under $20k at the offset. I pitched in a grand and a half, my parents pitched in a grand, and I negotiated with them a system so that my parents set up a three year loan and support me through it while I pay them back over a five year basis, that way I'm getting a five year loan at the three year interest rate, which is a good deal. And then my grandparents got involved; neither are particularly nice people and we knew that it was a ploy so that we could always be reminded about it at reunions and holidays, but after talking it over with my parents, we agreed that money is money, and this collectively brought it down to the $12k that I have been paying since July. WTF? I sound like a fricking adult. What happened to me?!!

Actually, the server owner now only pays for half of it. One of the other managers is well connected and manged to get a massively powerful server for the main map, and it was this manager that I had to spend the most time calming down because I was nervous that he'd pull the plug.

I'll go dust off the old thread. Thanks for replying!

[Xuut]

It's not a mentality. XD School is incredibly expensive to the point where it physically hurts. But it's good that your parents invested into the college fund like that. In the long run it really pays off (as I say while weeping over these loans...)

But buying a nice new car like that (I'm assuming you don't use it too much) it's probably going to last you quite a long time. Plus Japanese cars tend to retain their value very well so if you didn't need it anymore in say, 5-6 years I'm sure you could easily sell it. I still think it's a pretty good life decision. That being said, I do live in an area where if you don't have a car you're screwed so. Next thing you know you will be doing adult things like paying rent. We can all be terrified together.

:| Why would he just pull the plug though? How important do they need to feel... Goodness.

[Fate]

I keep thinking to myself, "One day I'll come on here and reply to everyone's long life updates," but then I realize that I have no idea what to say and that thought makes me really sad, because a few years ago we all would've like... talked out the issues or offered tea and hugs and maybe it wouldn't make everything better but at least we had that and I just... I feel like I don't even know how to say hi anymore. That being said, I offer tea and hugs to all of you and I'm sorry for not doing so much sooner.

But since we're on the topic of life updates: I'm officially cancer free. Which everyone thinks is great, except it feels like nothing has changed at all to me. I don't have chemo anymore, sure, but for the next two years I'm on three new medications and it's just all such a hassle and I'm so annoyed by everything about it. Sometimes it feels like it's never going to end. My doctor's are like... taking it one step at a time and I just sort of feel like 'Fuck that'. I wish they would just tell me everything up front because every time I think it's going to be over, it's like I get punched in the face with something new which is annoying and frustrating.

I wish I could say, 'At least I like my classes' but Latin 102 is kicking my ass. At least I'm not alone. My entire class is struggling and I've had a longer break than the rest of them, so I feel a bit better about feeling so lost. My fiction workshop class is set up strangely and I don't see this group of students meshing well at all, which is sad. I want to be wrong, but we'll see. We're not actually workshopping until the last month of the semester (which is so very strange to me), so maybe we'll have bonded or something by then. I'm taking Politics and Culture in European Short Fiction (english class), but my teacher had a family emergency so we haven't really gotten to experience that class yet, so my opinion is neutral. I'm taking an online class, so that sucks balls. Lastly, 19th Century British Poetry is the only class I have that I like, but I'm actually making friends in it and have some friends in it and it's just really nice. Although I have it immediately after Latin so I can't tell if it's awesome because it's awesome on it's own or if anything would be great after the hell that is 102.

I have a car now, so that's... expensive, but it's also really great. I went to visit some friends last weekend and while I should've been doing homework the trip was a blast. My roommate and I suddenly realized how much we love to travel. We both need to get jobs because we plan on visiting GermanSam, who's doing the Disney College Program in Florida. She can take us to Disney World for free if we can get ourselves to Florida, so we sure as hell are going to try.

2014 has been a pretty 'meh' year so far. Maybe our expectations were too high, although I don't think so. My main hope was for no deaths this year. Unfortunately, Jess has already been to two funerals this month, so that's been shitty. She's doing alright, though. It's tougher on the rest of her family. Denise got health insurance though, so that was great. And Sam's in Florida, having the experience of a lifetime. And I guess I'm cancer free, so maybe it's been better than I feel like it has, upon reflection.

tl;dr-- I miss you guys; I'm cancer free; classes suck; life is 'meh'.

[Xuut]

Your cancer free is pretty rad. I mean kinda shit because you still have to take medication and what not but chances of dying get lower and lower which is good.

O.o "No one dies" is a really frightening "uplifting year"....

Hugs and tea for you Fate seriously. ;_;

Also Disney world for free is ultra rad.

[Lamp Post]

I have really appreciated you keeping up that FB group, so we're not just idly sitting by.  Very happy you're cancer free!  

Hang in there with Latin!  It gets better!

I told some of my super-Disney friends about Sam.  She's quite the envy over here. XD

You're going to rock 2014.

[Lamp Post]

Joining in on update week!

I just feel like I'm drowning in midterms and applications right now.  For field school, for a major I've already found and been accepted into the back-up for, job, etc.  I don't want to just complain about school, but. . . yeah, every non-study thought going through my head is generally complaining about school.

I think things kinda got tossed out of control last year, at about this point.  Stopped doing well, stopped talking to a lot of my friends, even cut off like, 14" of hair, which was ridiculous  - and it feels as though it's only starting to come back together, if only everything else in the world wasn't so insane?  Except Pyro, I don't know if you guys remember him from here, just recently stopped talking to me, so that kinda sucks.  I feel like there's still this position of helping me process thoughts that's been left vacant and I need to fill, but without the time or motivation to develop a relationship with anyone to fill it.  

The only other change I've had is getting a proper phone that actually works.  I've never had anything that did pictures or group texts or could internet.  And texting was a pain.  Now I have something that works beautifully!  And it just sits there all silent, a silence of rejections from every media and social platform I know about, kindly saving me the time and efforts of getting rejected by them all individually and manually.  I'm still in that 'text everyone I know everyday to make sure they're still alive' phase and my friends think I'm ridiculous, so that's kinda lame. . . .

I've amped up crocheting.  My needlework is really nice and it's the highlight of weeks, recently.  Other than meeting Jake Bugg which was frankly amazing.  So if anyone needs any knits. . . .>.<"

But really, 2013 was a horribly crummy year, a late good riddance. I'm just trying to dominate 2014 and praying less gets in the way that gets in the way of that.

It's so weird, whenever I return to this site, I end up looking through old stuff.  And I see me and my icon and recognize it as being me.  And then it shows up next to something I post currently and looks out of place.  XD

tl;dr - Anyone in need of knits?  x.x

[Xuut]

Based on my understanding of uni, it's awful everywhere so complain away. It's the only time you get to. XD

O.o wait you didn't have a proper phone? I always wonder how people function without those. Like even in school it got to the point where for ECs I communicated with a lot of the teachers via text...

XD What kind of knits? I can see sorta, crocheting looks too intense and patient for me to even attempt.