Hang it up
I have a well established history of never knowing when to get out of a bad situation. Bad jobs, dysfunctional relationships, Los Angeles, you name it... I've probably stayed in a lot of things much longer than any reasonably functioning person would. I simply cannot accept that things don't always come down to success or failure. If I don't stay long enough to get promoted, give a doomed relationship every possible chance, if I don't see things through to their horrible, bloody conclusion, I feel like I failed.
So I'm quitting the Art Institute. Again.
It's long past time for me to get out of there, graduating or otherwise. I've been trying to nickle and dime my way through, going part time and not turning in assignments that I couldn't afford the materials for, but this is not the way to go to school. I've spent three years getting 2/3rds of the way through a two year program. I suspect that if certain family members had come through on the loans that would've allowed me to buy materials and go to school full time, I probably would've finished by now. I also know that I'm being petulant in this regard. That situation fell apart a long time ago, and the decision to quit now is ultimately mine.
I'm not giving up on school altogether, which is what I'm going to tell my dad when he loses his shit upon learning that I'm quitting. I'm pretty sure this whole "march or die" attitude that I got about quitting came from him. Not because he's so successful, but because I've always had a hard time with the idea of failing in his eyes. Then again this is a man who, at 47 years old, gave up a high profile advertising position so he could go back to school to learn how to do something else because he hated what he had been doing for the last 25 years of his life.
I don't want to be that guy. I don't need to wait until my 48th birthday to realize that I've been wasting myself on this. I've wasted too much time already.
So I'll keep going to school, just not this one. And for a degree in something that actually interests me.
...
I rather enjoy writing.