Yep. Still here.
Well, we're solidly into the second week of classes for the fall semester at Tech.
To be fair, 'we' is a misnomer, as I'm only taking research credits this semester. I do have to TA a class this semester, but it's a class I aced last semester and is meant to be fun and informational more than anything else. We'll see if I'm that pragmatic next week when the first set of homework comes across my desk to be graded...
As far as social life goes, there's nothing outside of forced social interaction in the form of games. When I realized that I was going to have things running seven nights a week, though, I realized that it was time to start paring back. LARP was the first thing to go - it eats the entirety of the evening and, truth be told, just isn't fun anymore. It's no fault against the ST, but it just seems that I'm always on the outside looking in there - and if I'm trying to escape reality, that's the last thing I need to be doing. Nic's BESM game was the second casualty - I was helping him out running it, but the group is smaller than we figured and as such I'm going to let him run with it. I have the utmost faith in his capabilities. Eric's D&D game fell next - it's a cool setting, and I might be interested in getting into the second arc of the campaign, but too many things have gone haywire and/or have been ignored for it to be much more than a pure dice-rolling contest. I get enough random numbers without social interaction at work, thank you very much. This leaves me with 5 games a week - my Amber game on Saturday morning, James' Imagine game Saturday afternoon, Allen's Amber game TBD, bridge on Tuesday evening and James' IOU game on Wednesday nights. And truth be told, I'll be happy when James gets to a point where I can get out without screwing up his arc - it's fun, but I get the feeling I'm along for the ride regardless of the in-character manipulations I'm pulling off.
And then there's World of Warcraft... You know, sooner or later I'll learn to do things I actually want to do as opposed to doing things that other people need done. I'm getting to a point where I'm really dependent on others to get progress made due to the lack of offense inherent to the holy/discipline priest class. I can heal myself for a damn long time, but I just can't outlast most critters my level with damage spells, which brings me down to stabbing it with my oh-so-massive strength. And of course, with all the help my guild has given me prior to about level 45, I feel guilty about working on a more proactive character at the expense of this one because the guild really needs healers. Damn catch-22 situations. I'd say I can't wait until I cap this character out because then I can start another one, but I just know how often my number will be called to help out others who helped me - which is fair, but won't leave me much time to get the other characters kickstarted. (To those of you reading this from the guild, this is not bitching and moaning at you. I really appreciate all that you've done for me; I'm just hating feeling so dependent on others to get shit done.) The scary thing is that the most fun I have all week - staring at a computer screen. The first time I realized that, I was depressed for a week.
While we're on the subject of being depressed, it just hit home that I'm two semesters away from the end of an era in my existence. I've called Houghton home for six years now, but by August 2006 (hopefully April 2006, but I'm allowing for the worst) I'll be done with my doctorate and will have to get out into the real world. The biggest problem I have is that it's a world I don't want a part of all that much. If I'd put my foot down seven years ago when I was applying to schools, I probably would have wound up actually pursuing a degree that I actually wanted - a BFA in theatre or music, something that I really enjoy doing. And if I'd have put my foot down three years ago when I was looking for programs after my BS in chemical engineering, I'd probably be somewhere else working on said BFA. And yet I'm still here. I'm here and resigned to the fact that I'm probably stuck with a career of teaching and research in chemical engineering. Granted, there's worse fates (I can't handle a factory environment with the noise and such, and research is relaxing and refreshing when things are moving along - and I think I'd actually be pretty decent at education), but I'm firmly locked into one of the suboptimal ones now. If I thought I could get into a BFA program on merit-based aid, I'd turn right around and get into a program now - but I looked at it hard last year and didn't see odds that looked favorable. And there's no way I can afford to pay that out of my pocket, what with 7 years of education and loans behind me already. If I took the time to repay my loans and build up enough money with the doctorate to go back to school for the BFA, in the best case scenario it will be five years after graduation - which puts me at 30 going back to school with teenagers. I don't think I can face that.
Notice how I didn't even get sidetracked by romance and companionship in that previous rant. I've finally come to terms to the fact that I have to write that off. I'm out of ideas, and I don't think I'll be able to put my heart together again after it gets broken. It's gotten harder and harder every time I've had to do it, and I think I'm at the point where the cost outweighs the benefits.
Let's see. Social and academic lives have been discussed. I don't know what else is on the list to be discussed, as those are the only lives I've had lately. I think I'm going to go curl up somewhere alone so that I can try and figure out a way out of this truly accursed mess that doesn't involve copious quantities of self-destruction. I don't like the odds of that, but at this point I'm truly at the end of the rope and counting the turns in it. If you have any ideas - any at all - please let me know...