Angry at real life/university again

[Itek]

Revenge.

Served COLD.

Graduate.

Get a great job.

Earn a TON of money.

Get call from alumni aSSociation...

Give $5.

Every year.

When asked for more....

Explain...

[Phabos]

Originally posted by Sanna
Strength disintigrated into passion without strength, which disintigrated into anger, which has/is disintigrated/ing into nothing.

Just a few quotations from people no doubt greater than I:


Weakness is a better teacher than strength. Weakness must learn to understand the obstacles that strength brushes aside.
-Mason Cooley

We do not lack strength so much as the will to use it; and very often our imagining that things are impossible is nothing but an excuse of our own contriving, to reconcile ourselves to our own idleness.
-Duc De La Rochefoucauld François

Few men during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used.
- Richard Evelyn Byrd

Patience and time do more than strength or passion.
- Jean de La Fontaine


Just something to think about.


Phabos Aphsion


The LORD is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation...
-Exodus 15:2

[Chenier]

/big hugs Sanna

How about having hindsight that I should have bought a house 10 years ago when I moved to California when I could have had an amazing, 1940's California bungalow house in a great neighborhood for 175K that are now starting at 450K...

My advice is just get through it and move on...and take Itek's advice...

Originally posted by Itek
Revenge.

Served COLD.

Graduate.

Get a great job.

Earn a TON of money.

Get call from alumni aSSociation...

Give $5.

Every year.

When asked for more....

Explain...

I love it when they call me; it's wonderful (but I skip the 5 dollah part).

I do, however, go back to my alma mater and invest in it with my time, speaking at events and offering moral support to the faculty of my major department. =)

[Lothay]

Sanna -

Many people have already given you good adivce and comments. Some based on current expeience, which is far more recent than my own.

I do want to say a couple of points;

* Despite the way it generally feels, administrative bodies are rarely, if ever, out to get a single person. The actions they take may seem capricious, ill-considered, or vile, but rarely are they aimed specifically at you.

* Depression is a self-defeating cycle. If you allow yourself to become angry, bitter, and depressed, you will continue to feel that way long after the real reasons for it have passed away. Don't do that to yourself.

* University education is something to be envied, admired, and for which you should be thankful. A majority of people will never have either the money, time, or previous education to enable them to attend a university. You're going now.

The world isn't fair. It isn't balanced, and it isn't nice. It's not going to treat you with respect, and life isn't going to make things easy for you. You get things in this world with effort, dedication, and drive. Any difficulties you suffer along the way serve to temper the steel of you.

"That which does not kill me, makes me stronger." - Fredrich Nitzche (perhaps mis-quoted, can't find my copy of Bartlett's.)

You're in the enviable position of having a place to live, food to eat, internet access, and education, and the lesiure to play something like EverQuest.

Compare and contrast to the people your own age in other situations. Some people your age work twelve hour shifts in the bottom of coal mines to support brothers and sisters. Some people work all day at 2-3 minimum-wage jobs to put food on the table and diapers on the baby.

I'm just saying that as frustrating and vile as things seem now, viewed from a a few steps back, you haven't got it that bad. So don't let the frustrations get to you. Revel in the fact that you're in the upper percentages of people in the world. You've got it pretty good.

[Tweedledea]

Ew. Sounds harsh.

In my Uni (Portsmouth, UK) we were lucky to get into university-run accommodation (Halls) in our first year. (I didn't) And there sure as hell wasn't any space for 2nd/3rd years.

Scummy, illegal, insanitary housing sharing with 6 psychotic / antisocial / unfriendly total strangers, anyone?

Oh wait, that was just the first year away from home...

Scummy, illegal, insanitary housing sharing with 6 psychotic / antisocial / unfriendly mates, anyone?

[Serenya]

/hugs
It often feels like the world is out to get you when policy changes are made. My mother oftens said that the one thing we had to learn to feel she had done her job, was 'life isn't fair'. It isn't. Get used to it, and learn to work around it.

Everyone has given good advice with their sympathy, I'm going to add one more. If you're not currently in therapy -- seek it out. Student Health should be able to refer you to a counselor, and if it's like my college was, it will be free. I know that in addition to the several friends who cracked during college, I crumbled my junior year. Therapy kept me sane -- I was the person my friends vented too when things went wrong -- my therapist was who I dumped on in return. I also kept a journal -- it was required by a class I was in, but I found it surprisingly therauptic, the only time in my life I've kept one.

[Itek]

Hmm...

The Ni-can-never-spell the name quote...

"That which does not kill me makes me stronger."

No. No. And again no.

Itek: That which does not kill me better RUN cause it's gonna be dead when I'm thru with it.

Itek: I used to have a rule about food. "Whatever doesn't try to eat me first." Now I have a new rule. "Whatever DOESN'T eat me first." Too many things had tried and failed and looked edible.



$5 .... give them $5 and they will never forget about you. Despite the fact that they pay the telemarketers who call you $5 or so an hour. Add in mailing fees. And bank check processing fees. And admin fees.

"If you feel that no one cares about you... miss a student loan payment."

Plane crash. Rich couple stranded on a desert island.
Couple weeks pass.
Wife: Did you make a donation to United Way?
Husband: WHHAT??!? Here and now you worry about the United Way? ... I'll have you know that not ONLY did I pledge half a million dollars I had already given them 250,000 before we left.
Wife: We're SAVED!!!
Husband: Huh? What are you babbling about now?
Wife: You owe the United Way drive a quarter of a MILLION dollars... they'll FIND US!!

[Sanna]

Well, er, this is going to be longer than it probably should... plus it's gone through about 4 incarnations, so i've probably snipped things i meant to say.

revenge: heh. it would be funny to do that, yes. But it would have no real effect. So an alumni complains. They still have my $5, which are lining someone's pockets.

bike: my $200 bike had the lock broken into, it got taken jumping, then placed back on the rack where it came from with over $400 of damage done to it (handlebars and brakes, back wheel-frame, pedal-gearbox-thing). And I've never been able to keep my balance on skateboards. I tried to learn when I was younger, I figured it would be a good skill to have, but apparently my class/race combination does not get to train in Skateboard Riding. ^_^ just don't have the balance.

weight: that Freshman Fifteen they talk about? Mine was 20. And that's with the cafeteria 15 min away. Now that everything is close, I don't walk so much, so i'm not so hungry, so I eat less. Plus, any 'meals' I make in the dorm are either ramen, or rice-based. In the past 3 semesters (when I have lived close to things) I have lost ~12 pounds and a pant size. Backwards from what I'd expect, but, there it is.

therapy: i do keep a diary, and reading it again only makes me as angry as i was the first time around.

And no, they're not out to get me and only me (hence the reason why I thought I had something legitimate to scream about this time). But there are other people who think just like me. Like the 130-or-so non-graduating people currently living in Gregson who are being told they have to move out. They're pissed, and rightly so. The NWQ rooms are $2.5k a semester, $5k/year. Gregson is $1.5 or $3 for a year, and my dorm is a hundred less. If you're already on an established scholarship, it's not going to pay for R/B/Tuition increases (the uni said so recently, in regards to the exact subject). And I doubt any upper level college student just HAS an extra $2k to throw at a 9x8 room where your closet is not even behind your own door. I like general privacy, but I'm trying to get /out/ of the cells.

You're supposed to move /up/ on the social ladder as time goes on and you age. It's why people get pay raises and respect their elders. There is no longer an 'up' for me to go to. And those 130 are having to move 'down', while mere freshman get the best rooms on campus. So much for established order.


Why not move off-campus? Scholarship wouldn't cover it. ("Yes, we'll pay for your college for 4 years, but we pwn your soul.") Yes, I'm going to have a job during the summer, but I'll be paying for an apt and food and carstuff during that time frame.

(snipped the stupidarse idea about marrying quartic 'just' to get gov money ^_^)

the /hugs are appreciated.... thanks....

(the text that went here underwent about 10 revisions, and finally got edited out completely.)

There was supposed to be a meeting just now. See that word, 'supposed'? Yeah. Housing reniged like the pansies they are and sent a student representative with a message.

The 130 current residents of Gregson will not be ousted, as was the original plan. there will be a floor of freshman and a floor of upperclass. as the upper class graduate, they will replace with freshmen.

at least they have a sense of decency, if not honor.

I am now taking a formal break from the boards. I will be back on March the first, and probably not much sooner. I excell at making an ass of myself, even when i have what i percieve to be legitimate complaints. At least I got told this wasn't a legitimate complaint. Thank you all for being very kind. I'm sorry any of this happened.


-- Sanna

[xaanru]

Put this whole thing in perspective.

I boggles my mind, that you would complain about having a dry, secure place to live, that is being paid for by a scholarship (so free to you), and that you are upset about having SO MUCH food that you have put on weight.

You do realize that 85% of the human beings on this planet would change places with you in a heartbeat?

And thats just for the living conditions. Lets add in the fact that recent studies show that the average impact of a university degree on lifetime earings is over $1 million US.

I had some friends in college, who were foreign students, and in order to make ends mee,t were bunking 4 to a room, in a 3 bedroom house. Yes thats 12 people, and 2 bathrooms. The funny (or sad) part about it was, one of them told me it was the nicest place he had ever lived (it was an older 1930s house, near the university, in some disrepair).

[Aanna]

I just couldn't leave this thread on that note. Yes, everyone on this board is extremely blessed: if you have computer access you probably have a roof over your head and enough to eat. We are all way ahead of the game.

However, what this really comes down to is disappointment over a change beyond Sanna's control. I think, despite our blessings, we've all been heartbroken at one time or another over some similar loss.

Not all university administrators are good at what they do: my head of graduate housing couldn't understand why I called her in tears. They had informed me they would be tearing out my beautiful wooden kitchen cabinets and installing fiberboard ones the week before finals when all my papers were due. "All you need to do is remove all your belongings from the kitchen and then do some dusting after the demo is finished." (Did she really believe this?) Oh, this is the same woman who, without even warning me, gave my apartment key to an unescorted male prospective student so he could "see what the apartment looked like." (She was furious I changed the deadbolt) This isn't the half of what this woman inflicted on us, but I don't want to bore you. No, not everyone in a position of power is professional. Yes, this will continue throughout your life.

Whether your housing department is inept or in a genuinely tight spot really doesn't change the fact that this is extremely disappointing and possibly financially hurtful.

BUT, as so many people have said, there are good things to look forward to. Your very own home, for instance. Daydreams of my own house helped me through those really tough times. Pin your hopes on the things you can control.


-Aanna
Ganbatte, ne?