Bored dude
New member
Welcome, ladies and gentleman. Please, if you would, turn your attention to the center ring where you will see a young college sophomore struggling to determine what it is he should do with his life.
As many of you know, I'm enrolled at the university and doing pretty well. Sure, I'm coming off my worst semester yet, but it was nothing terrible, by all means, it was good enough by any general standard. The problem is, however, that good enough by the general standard isn't good enough to fulfill my desires.
I want to be a professor, and if I keep pulling semesters under a 3.5 doing that in a tenure-track position will become a fucking pipe-dream. It's basically a must that every PhD seeking student who hopes to work in academia needs to get into one of the top 15 programs. In other words, I need to pull my shit back together. This brings me to my next point: my personal life has been a fucking mess.
To make a long story short, my mother is unfairly pursuing my father for back child support that was paid. I don't really want or need to get into the semantics, only know that my father never missed a payment. I mean, my mother has never held down a job, and I sure as hell never went hungry, so who does the state suppose was feeding my siblings and me? Gee, I wonder.
This puts my father in a rather tight position. In fact, he's barely making enough to scratch by, and it's killing me. The man is 50, he has an artificial heart valve, and he's worked 70-100 hour work weeks for as long as I can remember in order to make sure we boys had everything we needed. Sure, there wasn't much in the way of excess, but, we survived because of him. There's no way around that.
I've tried talking to my mom. She knows it was paid, but, she feels she's entitled for certain bullshit reasons that I don't need to delve into. It seems that there's no convincing her. I mean, we went so far as to cut off contact with her to show her how serious we are about her fucking our dad like this, and still, no change in status.
It's a rather bitter reality, you know, that my mother would choose money over a relationship with her boys, but one that wasn;t unexpected.
There's nothing else I could do in my current state. I wish I could give him some money, or whatever, but I can't. I barely cover my college expenses as is. I mean, I have everything covered, food, shelter, tuition, etc. I have scholarships, and grants, you know, that pay for all of it, loan free. But, it's not any extra, you know?
It would be heartbreaking to see my father work himself to death before I'm in a financially steady enough place to insure that he gets some rest.
Moving on, this last semester, I seem to have lost what friends I did have. I'm not sure what happened, really. I mean, I've been too busy to hang out as much. I simply have had too much work to do. I thought they understood, but the few times we've hung out, it's become confrontational. The worst part is, that the bullshit they're getting mad at me for, is the same exact thing they do to me the rest of the time. "I ditch them to hang out with my girlfriend." This is only half true. Sure, I spend most of my time with her, but, we're both pursuing the same degrees. We had the same homework loads, and as such, studying together was an easy way to spend time together. I don't understand why they would be so mad at me for that, but whatever.
It's not like we were just fucking around.
Speaking of my girlfriend, I thought everything was good on that front, the only thing that I wasn't fucking up, somehow. I thought we were getting along marvelously. Then, all of a sudden, she busts out "I'm not sure if I actually love you." "Why," I ask. We talk about it, or should I say, she talks about it, and I listen,trying not to cry, and failing miserably.
The only thing I can gather over the course of this talk is that things don't "feel the same as they used to." I ask why not, of course, you know, trying to find some way to fix this, and she says she doesn't know. She can't think of anything that's changed, as far as our relationship dynamic goes, it just doesn't feel the same.
This is frustrating to say the least. I love her so much, you know. Like, I thought I knew love before her, in some previous relationship or two. Those relationships though, I had always had these lurking thoughts of "is this it? Is this what everyone is talking about? Really? I guess this is fine."
With her, though, there's no doubt. Just this overwhelming sense of certainty. I love her. It doesn't need to be any more poetic than that. I just love her. This certainty is intoxicating and terrifying. It's like carrying a painful, painful burden, that I want desperately to keep. It feels great, because it hurts so much. I really don't know how else to say it, other than it hurts in the most extraordinary way. It's a fucking paradox.
This was a few weeks ago. Things seem to be smoothing out, but, then again, there's this constant anxiety that plagues me. Even if things seem ok, are they really? If I keep asking, will that make it better or worse? should I act differently? Should I act the same? blaragagauhwifhaoawefhj.
It's that same anxiety I get when interacting with any human being, only worse because there's so much more at stake here.
Now she went home for three weeks. I worry that any progress I've made to counter her feelings of doubt will be lost to this time apart. It's largely an unfounded fear, but, I'm a freak, and I worry about everything. I'm so sick of worrying about everything, and everyone.
So, I stand on a precipice it seems. The people I love the most are suffering, I'm friendless, and soon, I may be isolated again. I love college, and I love the subjects I'm studying, but, I'm afraid this might be too much to take.
So, I've been thinking: In the event that I lose everything I cherish here, I could take a break from it all. Let those elements finish their time here, rather than continuing to be a painful reminder to me of what I lost(may lose, for the time being), and, in the mean time, I can help my family get by a little better.
As some of you may remember, some time ago I considered joining the military rather than going to college. Lately, and given my less than exemplary performance this semester(at least, considering my long-term goals) I've given this particular career choice more thought, though, in a different way.
I've been considering joining the Air Guard, or similar, in a non-deployable position(those don't exist, technically speaking, but there are non-deployable units I could join) like a communications squadron, or something similar. If I went this route, I could earn some money to help my folks out and get back to college in only a year or two, tops, to finish the second half of my degree.
On the other hand, I could just straight out enlist. I would earn more money this way for various reasons, larger bonuses, greater benefits, etc. It would be more demanding of my time, but, all I have is time. Plus, I could probably finish my remaining two years of school in the downtime of my four years in. Hell, if I joined as a linguist, as I've been considering, that would eliminate one semester of shit for me automatically.
This way, when I finish my degree, my resume will look better, and I'll be more competitive for top programs, etc. etc.
Then again, If all of my worst fears came true, I could just tough it out. I don't know, really. I've been in touch with a recruiter, and it seems I have the semester to decide/see what happens regardless. Even if I start processing now, I won't be able to ship until summer. This is fine by me, as it, as stated above, gives me time to see how things will go.
I hope, sincerely, that they go for the best. I know that I'll be trying my damnedest to make everything better. What else can I do?
Fuck, I just don't know what to do other than take it all one day at a time. It's so fucking frustrating.
I know this is poorly composed, but, I didn't really think about it. I just wanted to get my thoughts out there, and even then, looking over it, it's not even complete. Bits and pieces of information are missing, though, they aren't incredibly relevant.
Life would be so easy if other people would stop complicating it.
As many of you know, I'm enrolled at the university and doing pretty well. Sure, I'm coming off my worst semester yet, but it was nothing terrible, by all means, it was good enough by any general standard. The problem is, however, that good enough by the general standard isn't good enough to fulfill my desires.
I want to be a professor, and if I keep pulling semesters under a 3.5 doing that in a tenure-track position will become a fucking pipe-dream. It's basically a must that every PhD seeking student who hopes to work in academia needs to get into one of the top 15 programs. In other words, I need to pull my shit back together. This brings me to my next point: my personal life has been a fucking mess.
To make a long story short, my mother is unfairly pursuing my father for back child support that was paid. I don't really want or need to get into the semantics, only know that my father never missed a payment. I mean, my mother has never held down a job, and I sure as hell never went hungry, so who does the state suppose was feeding my siblings and me? Gee, I wonder.
This puts my father in a rather tight position. In fact, he's barely making enough to scratch by, and it's killing me. The man is 50, he has an artificial heart valve, and he's worked 70-100 hour work weeks for as long as I can remember in order to make sure we boys had everything we needed. Sure, there wasn't much in the way of excess, but, we survived because of him. There's no way around that.
I've tried talking to my mom. She knows it was paid, but, she feels she's entitled for certain bullshit reasons that I don't need to delve into. It seems that there's no convincing her. I mean, we went so far as to cut off contact with her to show her how serious we are about her fucking our dad like this, and still, no change in status.
It's a rather bitter reality, you know, that my mother would choose money over a relationship with her boys, but one that wasn;t unexpected.
There's nothing else I could do in my current state. I wish I could give him some money, or whatever, but I can't. I barely cover my college expenses as is. I mean, I have everything covered, food, shelter, tuition, etc. I have scholarships, and grants, you know, that pay for all of it, loan free. But, it's not any extra, you know?
It would be heartbreaking to see my father work himself to death before I'm in a financially steady enough place to insure that he gets some rest.
Moving on, this last semester, I seem to have lost what friends I did have. I'm not sure what happened, really. I mean, I've been too busy to hang out as much. I simply have had too much work to do. I thought they understood, but the few times we've hung out, it's become confrontational. The worst part is, that the bullshit they're getting mad at me for, is the same exact thing they do to me the rest of the time. "I ditch them to hang out with my girlfriend." This is only half true. Sure, I spend most of my time with her, but, we're both pursuing the same degrees. We had the same homework loads, and as such, studying together was an easy way to spend time together. I don't understand why they would be so mad at me for that, but whatever.
It's not like we were just fucking around.
Speaking of my girlfriend, I thought everything was good on that front, the only thing that I wasn't fucking up, somehow. I thought we were getting along marvelously. Then, all of a sudden, she busts out "I'm not sure if I actually love you." "Why," I ask. We talk about it, or should I say, she talks about it, and I listen,trying not to cry, and failing miserably.
The only thing I can gather over the course of this talk is that things don't "feel the same as they used to." I ask why not, of course, you know, trying to find some way to fix this, and she says she doesn't know. She can't think of anything that's changed, as far as our relationship dynamic goes, it just doesn't feel the same.
This is frustrating to say the least. I love her so much, you know. Like, I thought I knew love before her, in some previous relationship or two. Those relationships though, I had always had these lurking thoughts of "is this it? Is this what everyone is talking about? Really? I guess this is fine."
With her, though, there's no doubt. Just this overwhelming sense of certainty. I love her. It doesn't need to be any more poetic than that. I just love her. This certainty is intoxicating and terrifying. It's like carrying a painful, painful burden, that I want desperately to keep. It feels great, because it hurts so much. I really don't know how else to say it, other than it hurts in the most extraordinary way. It's a fucking paradox.
This was a few weeks ago. Things seem to be smoothing out, but, then again, there's this constant anxiety that plagues me. Even if things seem ok, are they really? If I keep asking, will that make it better or worse? should I act differently? Should I act the same? blaragagauhwifhaoawefhj.
It's that same anxiety I get when interacting with any human being, only worse because there's so much more at stake here.
Now she went home for three weeks. I worry that any progress I've made to counter her feelings of doubt will be lost to this time apart. It's largely an unfounded fear, but, I'm a freak, and I worry about everything. I'm so sick of worrying about everything, and everyone.
So, I stand on a precipice it seems. The people I love the most are suffering, I'm friendless, and soon, I may be isolated again. I love college, and I love the subjects I'm studying, but, I'm afraid this might be too much to take.
So, I've been thinking: In the event that I lose everything I cherish here, I could take a break from it all. Let those elements finish their time here, rather than continuing to be a painful reminder to me of what I lost(may lose, for the time being), and, in the mean time, I can help my family get by a little better.
As some of you may remember, some time ago I considered joining the military rather than going to college. Lately, and given my less than exemplary performance this semester(at least, considering my long-term goals) I've given this particular career choice more thought, though, in a different way.
I've been considering joining the Air Guard, or similar, in a non-deployable position(those don't exist, technically speaking, but there are non-deployable units I could join) like a communications squadron, or something similar. If I went this route, I could earn some money to help my folks out and get back to college in only a year or two, tops, to finish the second half of my degree.
On the other hand, I could just straight out enlist. I would earn more money this way for various reasons, larger bonuses, greater benefits, etc. It would be more demanding of my time, but, all I have is time. Plus, I could probably finish my remaining two years of school in the downtime of my four years in. Hell, if I joined as a linguist, as I've been considering, that would eliminate one semester of shit for me automatically.
This way, when I finish my degree, my resume will look better, and I'll be more competitive for top programs, etc. etc.
Then again, If all of my worst fears came true, I could just tough it out. I don't know, really. I've been in touch with a recruiter, and it seems I have the semester to decide/see what happens regardless. Even if I start processing now, I won't be able to ship until summer. This is fine by me, as it, as stated above, gives me time to see how things will go.
I hope, sincerely, that they go for the best. I know that I'll be trying my damnedest to make everything better. What else can I do?
Fuck, I just don't know what to do other than take it all one day at a time. It's so fucking frustrating.
I know this is poorly composed, but, I didn't really think about it. I just wanted to get my thoughts out there, and even then, looking over it, it's not even complete. Bits and pieces of information are missing, though, they aren't incredibly relevant.
Life would be so easy if other people would stop complicating it.
