Quitting School

[ishte]

For the time being anyway. I've been weighing my options and reasons and the reasons to stop for now by so far outweigh the reasons to continue struggling forward that I can't even find a pro school reason right now. These are in no order of importance... in fact, the last things might weigh the heaviest right now because some of them are the reasons for the first things.

1. I don't know what the hell I am doing, and I'm now way to scattered to figure it out. I wrote a letter to wright state asking them for guidance in my field of study and got a very generic email back that suggested that I could pick from any of a variety of courses they offered, with no suggestion what would make me most employable in the field I wish to enter, nor even a suggestion of where to look. I'm thinking that I'm not going to transfer to Wright State even forewarned as I am by the horror stories I have heard from some other people I have known who attended, even graduated and found themselves unemployable because of the mismanagement of their studies by the school.
2. I am exhausted to the point of illness. Pardon the pun here, but I'm really sick of being ill. I am missing work because I'm so stressed out it makes me ill. I have a good job an I am ruining my chances to move up in that job. It is often all I can do to get myself out the door to go to work, much less continue on to class straight from work. I have since winter quarter started dropped from being the number one agent in my entire call center to 59th. That's unacceptable. I have been in the top 20 ever since I went on production.
3. I'm frustrated. I'm very very frustrated. I'm spread too thin and can't do well at anything right now. When get angry about trying to force myself to go to class, something is wrong. Don't even speak of trying to find time to do homework when I can still brain at the end of the day.
4. The materials provided for my online (which I did not want to take online but which was ONLY available online) class are a joke. Seriously. The quizzes have nothing to do with the materials, then after I go and look up all the quiz questions, (most of which are not directly in the book) the Pretest has little or nothing to do with the quiz for any module it covers. Even after taking the Pretest (read: practice test) multiple times to get the widest sample of questions possible from which to study, generally, if I gather 100 different questions from the pretest and commit them to memory after spending hours researching NOT in my book, but on the web) then on the actual test of 50 questions, less than half of them were one of the 100 I gathered from multiple takings of the pretest. That's not right. It might become right if the teacher were actually interacting with us in any meaningful way, however she is not. The ONLY interaction we get is an email reminder that we're about to hit a deadline for a test, or if we directly question her about something. Sad fact: most of the material that I do find, I find on the websites for other colleges on the same subject right there open to the public for viewing.
5. I have not written anything of note outside of my English class since I started school. The stuff I wrote in English may have been A++ material, but it wasn't anything special to me, and had no meaning at all. In fact, two of my subjects I wrote in direct opposition to how I actually felt about my subject just to make it a small challenge. People now think I like autumn, and that I think it's right that Pluto is no longer a planet. Writing is very important to me. I have wanted to work on Chasing the Trail (yes I know it's fanfiction, not serious, but people like it and I want to finish the story) and get Gaias Song back out. A couple of years ago, brokenbrawler, my erstwhile coauthor gave me some very heavy food for thought to digest on that subject. I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but much of it I do. But I have no time to even consider it. At the very least I have got some serious work to do on the opening. I have learned a lot since I wrote that, not the least of which is that cutting out 90% of the scene setting ruined the opening for me. At the same time, I need to bring Daniel into the story more actively. As it stands, he's to sweet and gentle. No I mean he is sweet and gentle, but Daniel is also far more driven than he comes off and I need to demonstrate that right away, so that what he shows on the exterior doesn't soften him too much. I'd also like to work on A Switching Tale. I had loads of fun with that during Nano 2008 and haven't looked at it since.
6. I have no social time at all. If I AM free on a day when someone else is, either I'm too tired, or too depressed to do anything about it. This in an of itself is highly depressing. I'm a very social being, hurt a lot recently by one of my oldest friends who has once again pushed me to the side in favor or newer more interesting friends, so that now I am only contacted occasionally when something is wanted or needed, or when guilt requires it. I'm not sure when I became so uninteresting anyway. I think she's forgotten who I am. My other friends? We used to have coffee pretty regularly at the very least, but not any more. Though I hear things that indicate that some people are having gatherings, I don't hear about them usually until after the fact, probably because it seems like I'm always going to say no, so they don't ask. That in and of itself saddens me.
7. I have no time for my music. NONE... the most I have picked up any instrument in the last 6 months is for some very brief tootling on one of my flutes. Anyone who knows me knows how important my music is to me, even if it's just playing with some friends, or playing by myself. I want to relearn the violin. I plan to buy one so I can. I want to have time to actually practice, maybe visit my friend composer2005 sometimes and play with her, get a pointer to remind me of what I once knew, since she is a teacher now. Maybe I can even pay her for a random lesson once in a while.
8. Ohio failing to produce OIG grants for this school year made it impossible for me to consider maybe talking to my boss about working part time while I'm in school and full time when I'm not. Our call center manager is actually pretty cool about working with people in situations like this, but I have no room to even think about it because there was no OIG money this year. Why? because Ohio failed to produce a budget. I rarely slam my own state because generally speaking I do love my state and am genuinely hurt when I hear other people deride it so harshly, but this complete failure at a time when more and more people are going back to school due to the economy was a real big fail for Ohio.
9. I have no time for physical activity. This makes me ill and depressed. I got a new bike in 2008 which I really loved. We had no summer to speak of so I hardly got to ride it. Then in fall when the weather did straighten up a bit, every day that it was warm and sunny enough to ride I had class, and by the time I was out of class, it was too late to ride, and certainly nobody else was going to want to go. I 100% plan to buy that new Trek FX 7.2 I was lusting over a few days ago. that's 100% decided now. What I do with the other bike, is not decided yet. I'll either keep it or sell it for $400 which is a fair price for a 2008 that cost $550 and only has about 300 miles on it. Knowing that I'm definitely going to buy that red bike, I am not going to spend the entire riding season cooped up inside.
10. I am gaining weight due to stress. Or at the very least, I have gained weight and am struggling to keep from gaining more, which I can't do without physical activity, while stressed out to the max. Stress freaks out my blood sugar and makes it extremely hard to diet. This is 100% unacceptable. I want to bring my bike upstairs and put it on the trainer. right now that's pointless because I don't have time to spend an hour or two on the bike watching a movie when I get home, or by the time I get home I'm too drained (or at present ill) to bother even though I know it would help me.

So there's 10 good reasons. At the moment, I can't even think of a reason to continue at this time other than that I really hate failure, and this feels like a failure to me. A failure to complete something I set out to do. However, having said that, I still mean to complete it, but not until I actually know how to do it, and actually have the time and energy to devote to it. Right now, I need to get out of this house, I need to get it sold or make the very very sad decision to abandon it and let them foreclose, and I need to get my own financial situation into a better recovery. So as much as it makes me weep with disappointment, I think it's the best choice I can make right now. I think I have to make the choice NOW while I can withdraw gracefully with W's and go back to it later when I'm more prepared. The 26th is the last day I can do it. So today I made the choice. I'm no longer a student. At least for the time being. I need to regroup.