Stress.....and......stuff

Okay..........I'm tired....it's 6 am....and I've been up for just about 2 days straight........and now I'm mad.

MAD AS SHIT!


Ugh.........I'm seriously working on thin threads here. I don't think I've been THIS mad.........for a very..........long.......time. I'm actually seething on the point of tears I'm so mad.

And those of you who know me can vouch that it takes quite a bit to even get a reaction out of me as far as even getting the slightest bit annoyed.

UGH!

First and foremost I'm STILL dealing with a bunch of personal issues.

I'll start with the beginning of the landslide.

First and foremost I grew up in a family that was never the most financially or emotionally stable.....way more stable than some that I knew then and still know now, but still.......it wasn't a very positive atmosphere all the time.

So I guess it's no guessing matter that I'd end up the same way eventually.

I've had several jobs. I started with babysitting as many do, and then did 4 years at my local church operating sound equipment (very fun to do, but had some biased people against me because it was while I was between 12-16 years and the older members who ran it before didn't want to be done in by someone 1/4 their age or better......which I did, I won't lie and try not to boast, I was damn good at what I did, that was indeed MY operation there.)

Anywho, got a little side-winded, but I've had A LOT of job experience even for my young age, and that is partially due to moving a lot, another unstable issue about me. I move an average of every 4 years, but over the past 5 I've switched houses and/or states at least once every year......not good. Even now I may be moving yet again in the near future because my dad is looking for a house, and I am apartment hunting.........for whenever I can finally afford it that is.





BUT on to the real topic.........god I hate getting side-tracked.....my mind wanders a bit too much. *long heavy sigh*

regardless of whether or not I've held one or even two jobs at a time, I still have always managed to find myself STILL financially needy, which baffles me to no end. I do all of my schoolwork online, and I have almost no social life outside of the internet and a phone line because everyone I know lives on either the other side of the state, or in another state, and some even in other countries entirely. So my ability to interact with people face to face on a regular basis - is terrible. I find I get nervous even with telephone conversations now which is rather upsetting. It should NOT be that bad for me......but it is.
So I do schoolwork pretty much endlessly, or when I'm not in school between semesters it's always something else. Endless piles of housework that build up because my dad and I are almost never home to do it ourselves, errands, the rare occassion on which I sleep now, and above all - work.

work work work work work.

I bust my ass off trying to bring in enough money to where I can not only pay my bills on time and get them rid of one by one, but I either get screwed over at work on hours at some point, or some other expense comes up.

The real bulk of this deep depression that I've hit started to landslide around early May of this year. I had a full-time job but it was eating away at my school hours, and as a result I had failed and been forced to drop several classes because of me being so tired and busy all the time I just never got it all done or it was just lacking.....not good.

I almost got dropped from the Academy. I am so very thankful to still be attending.........I had to work my ass off to make the margin.....and I barely made it in - by mere tenths of a grade point........so close.......so very close. But I did it. And I am NOT letting THAT happen........EVER AGAIN.
And as it stands I have been delayed in graduating until I'm 23 or even 24.....another upsetting issue. 5-6 years for a bachelor's instead of the standard 4-4.5. Buh.

But this past May I was employed at the time at a place called The Doll Market, and it was decent, with the exception that it was just non-emotionally condusive, and very draining. The manager, and just about every other employee there were all very opinionated and gossipy like I'd never before witnessed, it was like a soap opera it was so bad, and they constantly ragged on people because they'd been there longer and it was their way or the highway. I got fed up with it and on a spur decision turned in a two-week notice, enough time for me to find a job. I had Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point all in my backyard, so there was more than enough chance that I'd get something by the end of that week even.

Not so.

I found out just how much hatred they had for me, and I hadn't even crossed them once is the thing....odd.......but I came in the next day, not even 24 hours after turning in my notice, and the manager told me that they were hurting on hours to give to people anyways (and that was true, they'd begun sending people home dialy to make even on their hours budget). So I was essentially let-go.

I was now unemployed.......and I got my last check that following week.....just enough to coast me through the month.

A month was exactly how long I was unemployed. My finances were starting to feel it.

And as if matters could not have even begun to get worse..........the Direct Loans company that disperses my Student Financial Aid, decided to up the payment on my student loan to almost double what it was. I was paying about $180-$190 a month, and I even called them and they said it was a permanent change, and that since the loan was a parent loan in my dad's name, even though I've been cutting the checks for over 2 years now, he'd have to be the one to change it, and even then it's not guaranteed the rate will stay.

So now I'm stuck with a $350 a month tuition payment. And I haven't even tried to bring my dad in on this, and have gone so far as to snatch the statements out of his hand every month before he can open them, because it's addressed to him, but he knows I pay it.
He can't afford it.
Now neither can I.
WTF.

I finally got a job working at the drug store a block from my house. A lifesaver I thought at first. I won't have to drive unless it's raining or something like that. And although they couldn't give me 40 hours a week, it was $8.25/hr, better than I was earning, and they promised - I will quote - "I can definitely promise you that you'll get no less than 25 hours a week, closer to 30, and even then we may move you up to full-time closer to school year starting with some of our employees having to attend an actual campus". Oh yeah, you read it, no less than 25 - I could manage it....but only barely.

Not quite so. Even they began hurting for hours with the steep decline in customers due to summer vacation and the gas prices that had been climbing at the time to ungodly amounts.....it was maddening - that 25 hours minimum dropped to a personally sickening 18-20........I was going bonkers.

My expenses per month total about $600 in bills.

On my part-time hours, if they STAY at a MINIMUM of 25-30/wk, I get about $350. My ENTIRE first check every month goes straight back to tuition. the following paycheck gets divided into my car payment ($150), and my cell phone and credit card bill, in which both vary in costs totaling about $70-80.

That leaves me hurting with barely $35-50 if that in my pocket for personal expenditure every month.

Tuition costs, along with me having to get my car inspected - and later fixed....cost me a nice penny, along with preparation for a few conventions (luckily I broke almost even, but maybe it wasn't the wisest decision at the time to go.......nothing I can do now and it's a lesson learned.

And now I have to go pay a speeding ticket on wednesday, and then I have to mail out a bill for tuition.........my accounts are officially drained.

I had TONS of money in 2 separate savings accounts. I'm talking hundreds saved up from loan refund checks that I hadn't used yet, and save every semester for future school expenses, and any extra I can earn on the side.

I have a personal limit to not go below $250 in my savings accounts, and not below $100 in my checking.

My checking limit has been broken so many times because of this to the point of where I've had to consistently take funds out of my savings, slowly whittling them down to almost nothing.

And I don't count my savings in this, because that's exactly what they are - savings, my true money count comes from strictly checking
So......in essence with that in mind......
I'M BROKE. And I mean............BROKE. I never thought I'd cry over money situations but I'm seriously in ruins now.

And emotionally I've been drained, not only because of that, but many other things as well.

I haven't had a strong vibe from anybody I know.

My dad has been consistently irritable over the past several days, and he went so far yesterday after I passed a message along to him that my Uncle Scott wanted to see if he could at some point use a diagnostic tool on his car so he could figure out what was wrong with it before he took it in to a mechanic.
Dad I suppose misinterpreted me trying to tell him this, and he fuckin' blew up all over me. He hasn't done that in over a year almost 2.
And he said something to me that just.............well it really hurt. And it still does.
He hasn't gotten along with many people lately, and he constantly complains that they're being condescending and this-that-the other.
He told me directly to my face, or more like - yelled/spat the words bitterly at me - that I was "acting JUST like everybody else, not taking him into account and being (this-that-the other)"

Then admittedly I've been upset about my friendships, and current relationship.

I've been feeling blown off.

I ask one thing, and my head gets fucking bitten off for no reason. I express concerns, and then get snapped/yelled at because it's either not so much of an important issue as I personally thought, or I don't know what.

And I know I'm not the only one understress.......but still. The silent phonecalls haven't gotten anybody anywhere. And it worries me to no end.

I feel like I'm slowly but surely losing everybody. It's not a good feeling. It's something I really don't want to go through...........again.

And it JUST gets better.

Oh yah......it fucking does.

I recently had to shell out a nice chunk of money so that I could get the necessary programs for my graphic and illustration classes this semester.......Painter X, and Photoshop CS3. Upon recieving them in the mail I then found out that I needed to upgrade my ENTIRE system from Mac OSX.4 Tiger to OSX.5 Leopard........another unwanted-at-the-time expense.

I then needed to back up my harddrive, and what better than to get something I could still make use of in the long run instead of another USB chip. I got an external. I found one for $90 that had 250 GB of space, which I can use for pretty much the next 2 years if not longer as far as storage space goes. And regular price it was near $200+ because I took greedy advantage of Circuit City's Labor Day Sale.

For one, they pissed me off saying that my check wouldn't go through. It was stupid really, but it upset me in the longrun because I'd never written a check out at a store before, I'd always just written checks for my bill I have to mail out. So I decided to try it because I'd never done it and they accepted checks.
They wouldn't accept it because they said there may be a limit on how many checks I can dish out per given time.
For one.....I haven't written a check in over 2 weeks. There SHOULDN'T be a problem.
Two......since they wouldn't take my check I tried my card. It went though. WTF. It all comes from my checking...what gives?
Three.......I checked my banking when I got home. I had money in there so it wasn't bounced or anything.
Retarded......and momentarily upsetting.

But anywho.

So I'm all happy go lucky today. For once this week. And I'm playing around with it re-setting up stuff and whatnot.

I then got carried away and started doing a bunch of drawings......all of which I was pretty damn proud of and couldn't wait to scan in and upload.

WRONG.

Something just HAD to piss all over my parade again.

The way I scan in my images is through Photoshop. Just as I started it up after installing CS3, it had a shitsworth of system updates that took 2 WHOLE HOURS to install. WTF? So I get that all fixed and everything's running just smooth, no problem right?

Wrong again.

I go to import the images from my printer.

It turns out that my printer/scanner is not recognizing the USB ports now, and vice versa. And everytime I try to import through photoshop......IT CRASHES! I just got this damn program and it's crashing more frequently than CS2 did.

So I uninstall the damn printer and load up the installation disk to just start from scratch.

I've been through the installation process 5 times now and counting, and it installs everything, but it never shows up on my computer. It says it's installing hundreds of tiny little things (which I believe shouldn't even be there.....ftw) and it doesn't even dent my harddrive in the way it should after downloading. Hmm....Odd.
So now I've gone through HP's site and downloaded their setup assistant for my printer in the hope that it'll fix everything. I can't afford to even take it up to Staples or anything cuz they'll charge me a damn service fee like last time. Seriously. I ask a couple questions and get charged out the ass. WTF?!?!?!? Not doing that again.

And school starts on Thursday............I rely almost entirely on my printer/scanner to be able to submit my images for class because I take ALL my classes online and I have to scan in everything I do.

This is getting ridiculous..................why am I having all this horrible luck all of the sudden.

If kharma is trying to bite me back for something I did recently or in the past..............NOW'S NOT THE FUCKING TIME!

If I can't find out how to fix this I don't know what I'm going to do. I have one other printer, but it's very unreliable and I don't even know if I have the setup disk for it anymore.........and it always scanned in grainy images......which is not something I need.

And my commissions.

I can't scan anything right now.........and I had the lineart for Rael Bunny finished too...........

damnit.

This totally fucks everything out of proportion. And I can't afford a new printer, or anything for that matter.


I don't know what to do.