AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH..... lol
Yes yes, it has been a long time. Is that really such a big surprise. LOL
Things have been annoyingly difficult for me lately. Everything from problems with my school not teaching us effectively, to the city screwing us around and wasting our time (which in turn has made getting stuff for school done near impossible).
Honestly I'm beginning to wonder if the world is out to destroy me. BUT, then that would make me a crazy person cause it would mean I'm completely paranoid. LOL
Just to give a big clearer of a picture I am adding to this messege something that I wrote quite some time ago and had intended on posting. Keep in mind that this was written about a week or two ago, when I was absolutley frustrated beyond belief (writing is a great means of releasing your frustration... wouldn't you agree), and a lot has happened since then in order to "stir the pot" further, so to speak.
Why is it that we strive to please each other, yet continually are let down. If not by failing to do (or not do) one thing, but another.
These past two years have been a real test. Of what, I have yet to determine.
When we moved here I thought things were finally going to start getting better for the two of us. I had hoped that my family had changed, that we would all finally be able to get along. I had hoped that school was going to be an ejoyable experience and that I would come out of it with the knowledge I was seeking. I had hoped that without the influence of certain.... things.... that Nancy and I would have a better relationship, that we could communicate more easily with one another. I had hoped that we would both be able to start "careers", and not have to go back to having "jobs".
I had hoped for a lot of things.....
Now, school is done. Nancy and I are no longer living with my parents. She's working (though not in the area she went to school for... but we won't get into that), and I'm.... well... I feel like I'm right back where we started.
I spent years prior to going to school in order to know what is that I REALLY want to do for the rest of my life. When I finally decided, I went school shopping. I chose CATO for a number of reasons:
- The school taught more than just some basic classes... *sarcasm* "Duh... This is what HTML is".
- It allowed students to retain the copyright of the work they created (no other school in canada... that i could find... offers this).
- The fact that my parents said if I decided to go to CATO that we could move home and not have to worry about the bills and that they would help me with whatever I needed to get through school.
- Among a few other minor little details.
Before I get into what happened with school, let me point out that moving here, wasn't exactly a cup of tea to begin with. 4 adults, crammed in an SUV that's packed to the hilt, driving for 14 hours straight... not fun.
When we arrived, we thought things were going to be great. Then, as time started to pass, I started to see how wrong I was. Let's just say... my family really likes their heated discussions and debates about non-sensical shit. They also REALLY like to express their opinions (esspecially when it's not welcome)... and they all feel they are right about everything. GAWD... it often reminds me of the bitchy cheerleaders you see in the movies... it's quite pathetic at times.
Anyways... Over dinner one night, my mother turns to my father and says, "So... should we tell them." (You can imagine what I was thinking when I heard this) What the deal was is my sister (who I DO NOT get along with under the same roof), her boyfriend and his 5 year old daughter, were moving in. Something they decided not to tell us because they figured I wouldn't have moved back to Kelowna had I known they were. (Which my family is OH SO RIGHT about... and the sad part is they still don't understand why that would have been the case)
Now let me point out that at this time, the house was essentially a 2 bedroom. So I was like, "Where?". And the answer was, "Were going to finally finish renovating the basement." (The place that had become nothing more than a giant storage locker, harbouring about a million useless possessions for the past 9 years). And guess who the crew was... you guessed it! ME! (and dad of course). So for the next 2 and a half months (which started out with dad projecting 3 weeks... and me laughing of course), dad and I worked on the basement. Framing, insulating, drywalling... etc. It wasn't a fun task. And with my sister and her boyfriend doing nothing more than bitching about how long it was taking (rather than putting in more than a days effort trying to help), things were less than pleasent.
Ok, so now the basement is renovated... prolly cost my parents about 10k. Oh, I should mention that the basement is not totally finished because my father never finishes anything. There are no doors, and unfinished, unpainted wall. And no baseboards. Not to mention the gaping hole under the stairs, and no railings or rungs to protect someone from falling down the stairs. So now what do my parents do, rather than waiting a little bit in order to let the funds start to accumulate, they decide they are going to open a pizza joint.
I won't get into the reasons of why, or the gritty details of what happened. I'll just mention the highlights. Like the fact that neither of my parents know anything about pizza (hence why they asked me to manage the place... that was a big mistake). The company had NO company history. No financial records for us to work from. Head office tried controlling everything from where they were, but had no real idea what each location was doing. My father proceeded to push my mother out the door, not really letting her have any involvement. He didn't listen to a thing I said or suggested. (only to turn around months later and state what I had.. but only as if he had come up with it). One thing after another led to another, and with such a huge labour shortage, Vern's was shut down. (and a year later...still has not been re-opened). This eneded up being a HUGE financial hit for my parents, and with the previous renovating, they were really feeling the crunch.
Now, things start popping up around the house. Like the toilet in the upstairs bathroom leaking and destroying the floor. (Can we hear the money going down the toilet again). Or how about the fact that dad never sealed the hole where they cut out the window in the basement. So when you water the back lawn, it floods the basement, ruining the new carpet. So as you can imagine, my parents stress level is going through the roof and they are starting to really fight with one another. Dads sleeping on the couch (and still is a year and a half later). Moms stressed to the max and fighting with everyone. My sisters being the usual bitch that she is to live with. And all this is resulting in my girlfriend retreating to the room to avoid everything (which i can't blame her) and me feeling like shit for having subjected her to this (and myself for that matter).
So basically that's what home life was like with my parents for the last 2 years. We finaly decided to move out. But I'll get into that story here in a minute.
For the time being lets discuss school. The place where I thought I would get professional training in a professinoal environment. The place that said would teach me the things I wanted to learn. Well, lets just say the school didn't really keep their word with me. I learnt maybe a third of what I went there to learn. This is dude to a number of reasons. The lack of curriculum being the biggest, with the poor instruction followed closely behind. Though I do want to mention that there were a number of instructors that actually could teach.
Now, when I say professional, I don't expect the students to be in full business atire. I just expect the instructor to take control of the class, not let the students talk all class, play videos games, come and go as they please, answere their cellphones in class, or even carry on conversations that are not appropriate for public display. Unfortunetly this is how my school is. I was stuck in a class with immature individuals who have no respect for others, didn't want to be there, and had no intrest in the material (if they even remotly understood it to begin with). This resulted in my constantly fighting to hear the instructor, twiddling my thumbs an unbelievable amount of the time waiting for people to catch up with the stuff they were supposed to be studying but weren't, or having to fight with the instructor to get clear project requirements.
Personally, I think this school needs to completely re-think their game plan. I mean, I've got marks that, while they look great, don't truly reflect what I'm capable of. And considering the digital media industry is all about what others think... you'd kinda expect some kind of feedback to your work so that you know you did what was expected, not just some mark on a wall that doesn't seem right in comparison to the work being produced by others in the class.
But, I digress. I don't want to start hacking on the schools inadequecies. I just want to state that I now have a bunch of really cool skills, just non of which I enjoy enough to want to make a career out of. I'm going to more than likely have to go to another school and spend another 22k on an education, all because the school I originally chose is more about making money, than producing results.
So by now, you know about the renovations, the arguing, the financial setbacks (which resulted in my parents not being able to give me the support they stated they could). You know about school with it's un-proffessional environment, lack of curriculum, and poor teaching. The only thing left to discuss is the moving out.
Well, Nancy and Alie (a close friend of Nancy's) decided that we should all move out together. (in my last month of school........) Alie was going through some things that resulted in her needing a roomate (or two). And Nancy being sick of living with my family, jumped on the opportunity. (without really consulting me much about it).
Now, there were a number of issues that popped up in my head. Non of which seemed to occur to ether of the girls. Like, my life is my computer, as in, that's how i make money. Does this house have properly grounded outlets? (a problem we ran into with our last house in Saskatoon). That for me was my only real concern. But, at no point, when the city bought the house did they find a problem. Though when I asked, they sent an inspector and found that my suspicions were correct. So i asked them to ground a couple outlets for my computers. SOmething that i felt should not require a great deal of effort. WELL, was I WRONG. (Let me just point out that I am about to quickly gloss over the details... and that there is a number of fine details that I'm leaving out)
It took us 3 days to move in, and on the 4th, I woke up to an electrician, in my house, at the top of the stairs, yelling to wake me up cause I was asleep on the couch. And before I had even had a chance to have my morning coffee, or even for nancy to get out of the shower, the city had cut the power to our place and said we had to move out while they re-wired the entire place. So the city found us a place to stay for the time being. A place which is half the size of our other one (and more crowded than my parents). Great timing, and thanks for the advanced notice like i asked for. Anyways, the city paid for movers and such which is great, so all we had to do was move the cable and internet. Well, I called shaw, and what they told me was that it was going to take 2 - 3 weeks before someone could get out to do that. By that time I was done school. So for someone who is studying web design, not having the internet is a real pain in the ass!
So because of all this moving, I'm now two weeks behind on my final projects which will determine if i graduate or not. Classes are done, but i'm still workin!!!!
Oh, and I should mention that we just found out the other day that the city also has to fix some plumbing in the place, so were going to be out a lot longer than was originally quoted, and considering it's already been 3 weeks and they have just stared on things, it looks like were going to be here for quite some time.
So that's pretty much the last 2 years in a nut shell (with one major omission that I try not to talk about... Goliath was put to sleep almost a year ago for bullshit reasons... so that just kinda adds to everything).
And yeah, as you can see, things haven't been that great for me here.
I demand a re-deal or something!!!!!
Uhhh... so yeah. That's pretty much how things have been for the past while. (i'm sure some of it is repetative from my last post... sorry bout that)
The silver lining is that I have at least been able to get my base website up and running. There are still a large number of things that I wish to do to it... but all in due time. (www.bradgroat.com) My current plan is to finish some more things on that, get to s'toon for Crissy and Steve's wedding, then be back here to apply for a boring coding job at a travel company... hmm.. can we say possible yearly cruises... WOOT
Anyways, I'm not sure what else I can say other than we are finally pretty well settled into a place, even though it is cramped, it's somewhat cozy.
Here's to the future and whatever it may hold. I'm still kickin and fighting. I won't stop it, even when I'm old
Peace
P.S. Miss all of you in S'toon