Adversity in the Face of Triumph

January was an interesting month for me. After an awesome new year's party, I spent about four to five days searching for an elusive copy of World of WarCraft, which I eventually obtained on a hope and a prayer and immediately set myself to playing during the last weeks of break. I pretty much moved into my friend Brian's room (who was staying on campus) and we did nothing but start characters that went from levels one to thirty-three in about ten days. Pretty good times. By the way, if you're interested, I have a level 43 Tauren Warrior on the server Cenarion Circle. Go Horde!

Literally the day I came home from that soul-losing venture, I got my walking papers from Lewis & Clark. My grades had continue to drop, and I being on academic warning already, lost all financial aid. Now, in case you weren't aware, a full year at Lewis & Clark runs to the tune of about $32,000. However, they give generously on both need and merit bases. However, if you fuck up (like I did) you're pretty much SOL. My immediate and current plan: I've taken a "Leave of Abscence" from LC, which means I'm still a student but I'm not attending classes this semester. I've returned to *shudder* live at home with my family and I'm currently working to get money up for a down payment on a loan. That loan being to pay for two sessions of summer school, which is much cheaper than regular classes, so that I can raise my GPA to more acceptable levels. This whole experience has been kind of surreal and terrifying, as dealing with my depression and anxiety has never been more important than it is now. In the long run, I don't know how I'm going to make up the credits or the grades in a more overall sense, but I figure I'll figure that out when I get back into school.

Speaking of work, the day after I got home, I already had a meeting scheduled with Express Personnel, a lovely Portland-wide Temporary Employee service that has had me working at a food production facility on Airport Way called Harry's Fresh Foods. Those of you who are in college and think that school is hard: real life sucks way, way more. I don't care if you have ten thousand hours of homework every week and your midterms regularly cause students to combust with demon flames and excrete motor oil from their pores, it's not as bad as being stuck out there in the blue collar working world. I very quickly realized I'm not cut out for this kind of work, at least, not a job involving so much food. College at its hardest was a breeze compared to the soul-crushing nature of looking at a futureless career at a place like this.

So, that's the long and short of it. I haven't been blogging for a month because it seems like everything was going crazy or I was too tired or I was playing World of WarCraft shifts, and I sort of forgot about this whole thing. I do have a lot more free time, as temps don't really get to work everyday, and if anyone wants to do something, shoot me and e-mail. I'm rarely on AIM as I don't have much to do online (besides the obvious). I spend every weekend at the Lewis & Clark, playing games with my friends until 1 am, when I get my weekly fix of ninja. By the way, those of you who were bugging me about a "ninja rule post," if you still want one, I'm sure I whip one up, otherwise, I want bother boring the rest of you with my clandestine activities.

Go infinity and beyond!