Fraying (In)Sanities...

Robert recently went on a bit of a rant about how his past is catching up to him, and how things sometimes seem to be in a constant transition from bad to worse. Well, I can safely say that I feel the same. No, I don’t have a past that’s catching me. I have a future that seems to be doing it’s best to elude me.

I really want to go to Grad School. I’ve realized, after six months of life in the “real world,” that I’m just not cut out for this sort of thing. So I need an Academic Setting for my life. Robert said he can feel the crack beginning to develop. For me, it’s a little different. After a mere six months, I can feel myself beginning to atrophy. My skills are diminishing. I once could BS my way out of anything. Now, I’m not so sure that I could. I can feel the quickness leaving me. My academic reflexes are losing their speed. Where I once was well trained in the art of academia, I am now a wayward pupil lost in the havoc of the real world.

I’m beginning to feel as though I have nothing left to give. My job search has been less that fruitless, my sanity is fraying in a very obscenely slow manner, my bank account is dwindling, and I’m realizing that there just aren’t enough smart people around me. I’m not being pushed anymore. I’m in the real world, and the mental competition is essentially over. At least in college I was being continually pushed by those around me to strive to do better. Not anymore.

In short, I need to be somewhere else.

Currently, my sights are set on Appalachian State, in beautiful, scenic, Boone, North Carolina. App State came with great recommendation from Dr. Jespersen, Dean of the School of Arts & Letters at NGCSU. It was already on my short list, and was one of the four schools that my GRE score was sent to.

I want to teach, preferably at the collegiate level, and I want to teach History. Yes, I graduated with a degree in English, so what? I minored in History and let’s face it, which sounds more fun: a) this a verb or b) so let’s talk about what cause World War II?

There’s only one problem. I have no money. I can’t find a job. It’s getting ridiculous. Over the last two weeks I’ve been to fifteen different places, and each place told me, rather resoundingly, that they’re not looking for help. I’ve even been to places that I was told was looking for help, only to be told by said place that they were currently overstaffed.

The problem continues to get worse. I’m down to 20 hours a week where I work. If you figure in car payments, car insurance payments, health insurance payments, and cell phone bills, along with the other various payouts you have to make to survive, well, I’m nearing the point of negative gain. If my math is right, I’ll run out of money sometime around January 24th.

And it will remain that way unless I can get a job, or at least find some other way to make money. Let’s see, you only need one kidney to live. You can make it through life with half a liver. I don’t use my left arm all that much. You can technically get by with only one eye. Hmmm… What do you think, angry baby?

Truth be told, I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a precipice. From this point on, there is no middle ground; the resolution of this problem will be epic. You got it! I’m poised for either epic win or epic fail. I’m either going to pass Timo Glock and regain P5 and the World Championship, or I’m going to set a bowl of corn flakes on fire. One way or the other, there will be a resolution.

So that’s where I stand. I have nothing left to give… except a kidney, half a liver, an eye and my left arm.