I'm back from self-imposed exile.
You probably all know how I lost my job, how I lost my girlfriend and how I'm still unable to find work.
Well, misery is the gift that keeps on giving. Forget herpes. It's small time compared to the tendency life has to throw me (and most people) pile of shit after pile of shit just after I'm finally beginning to rise from the first piles of shit.
So today was the last day of the final week of what should be my final fucking semester in law, except I bombed the final exam of the last class I needed to graduate. I bombed it really hard.
On the midterm I had 85% (40% of the final grade). The final was worth the remaining 60%. I studied like a motherfucker. I must have studied 20 hours for the exam.
Day of the exam, I sleep right through my alarm clock. It's set at a neighbour-annoying volume yet I didn't even wake up. I woke up at 8:10, probably my subconscious going into URGENT!! mode. Exam was at 8:30. I rose up, quickly got dressed, packed my shit then bolted out of the door like Usain Bolt. I called a taxi. It's rush hour at this point. I arrive at university at 8:40. I go to the classroom that was indicated on the online schedule for my exam...totally different exam. I rush to the faculty to consult the printed schedule, the exam is not only not in this classroom but in another building altogether. Why not update the online schedule?!
I rush like a Spanish bull to the building, try to find the class, go down the stairs...the door to the level is locked! WTF! I go back up, take the elevator, go down to the level, find the class.
At this point I'm completely out of breath, I'm sweaty as fuck thanks to the winter gear, I'm stressed out of my mind and it's fucking 9:00. The teacher lets me come in the classroom, gives me the exam. I sit down, unbutton, at this point I'm starting to relax and I'm still convinced that I'm gonna be destroying the exam. Except that I look at the first question and I draw a blank. A huuuuge, long blank. I look at the question. Somehow it doesn't even seem like it's in French to me. It's utterly meaningless. I flip through the exam. It may as well have been written in Haitian Creole to me. It looks like French, I know it's French but it makes no sense. I try to conjure up my font of inner knowledge. I come up dry, completely fucking dry. I thumb through the relevant statutes hoping for an "Eureka!" moment, wishing so hard it'll just come rushing back to my head. Nothing.
At this point it must be 10:00 and I'm utterly desperate. I look at the questions and try to find keywords that I can link with the statutes. I abuse the index of the huge fucking caselaw book. Painstakingly, I begin to answer, but nothing seems right. Even what I'm writing makes no sense to me. Since I seemingly have no access to what's in my brain it takes a stupidly long time to answer the questions. I keep erasing (erasable pens FTW) because as I said, even what I'm writing is meaningless.
By the time it's 11:30 (the end), I have answered 1/3 of the questions. The answers seem terrible. I hand in my copy and GTFO as quick as I can.
I consider myself an excellent test taker. I do not usually feel pressure when sitting an exam. Usually I might as well be taking a piss or fapping, that's how chilled out I usually am. I'm pretty much always the first one out and I do usually get magnificent grades. For example, I had to pass an English test to fulfill the conditions for my graduation. Sat it, left 30 minutes before everyone else, got a perfect 990 score (if you're wondering, it was the TOEIC.) This is the first time that happened to me. I've never felt so helpless in my entire life. And of course, it had to be worth 60%. If both had been worth 50%, I could have winged it even with a really shitty grade thanks to my midterm score. But nope. It's pretty much guaranteed I'm failing the class.
Now if only it stopped there. To add insult to injury, as I was GTFOing suddenly it all came back. The questions finally made sense. I had the answers in my head. Answers that made perfect sense and weren't fucking written. At this point I'm completely dejected and I'm actually yelling "HOSTIE DE CÂLICE DE TABARNAC DE SAINT-CIBOIIIIRE!!!" in the streets (that's basically untranslatable Quebec French, but imagine someone yelling something like "FUCKING GODDAMN SHITTY MOTHERFUCKER!!!".
Digression follows. In Quebec French, words from the liturgy of the Catholic Church are used : "hostie" is the host, you know, the body of Christ thing; "calice" is the chalice used to hold the wine during Communion but we pronounce it câlice with a deep A when cursing; "tabernacle" is the cylindrical thing where the hosts are kept for storage but we pronounce it tabarnac with a light A and no L when cursing and "saint-ciboire" means holy ciborium : the thing used to hold the hosts during Communion. There's a lot more.
Anyway, so I can't take it anymore and call my mom. She comes to pick me up. I fall down in her arms crying like a baby, which is not something I usually do (either fall in her arms or crying).
Outside the Internet, I'm a very secretive person : I don't mind sharing details of my personal life online because you guys don't know me and most of all, nobody here has any expectations regarding me. What I mean is that I don't feel like I have to be a glowing success when I'm posting here. However, I've had a special upbringing with a very loving, but ultimately overprotective single mother who was quite old (she had me at 44) and my similarly very loving, but quite more old school grandmother. I had no masculine presence in my life, and I've been raised by both my mom and grandma because we all lived together. I like to say that I had two mothers because of this (my grandma died almost 2 years ago). I was the last kid, pretty much a miracle due to my mother's age and I was really bright to boot, so all my life I've been told that I'm special and that my parents were both so proud of me, etc. I had no friends when young, especially not in high school and my parents' pride was basically the only thing I had that made me feel good, so the way I reacted to all of this is that I stopped attempting anything harder than the minimum for fear of failure and losing my parents' love/pride. Also, whenever I failed at something, anything, I wouldn't tell them, although that came later.
Anyway, my mom knew a bit about my problems (job and gf) but there's a lot she didn't know, like the fact that I missed 3/4 of my classes out of heavy depression (isn't it funny how this work, you have no energy to do anything, so you don't, so you feel worthless and then you have even less energy to do things, so you feel even more worthless and so on. I got to a point where I wouldn't even get out of bed all day except to piss) or that I'm in debt over my head due to being refused UB because "ur a studnt l0l ask ur rents" and needing to borrow to pay everything for 4 months, plus another 3 months 2 years ago after leaving home unceremoniously, to say the least. I was crying already, so I decided to just empty my whole sack. That's where I discovered she wasn't angry with me for failing, she still loved me and was proud of me, all that stuff. That did make me feel better. I spent the night there, never slept better, it was like the last 4 months didn't happen. When I returned to my flat I instantly felt oppressed by some dark energy and I've noticed I don't function at all when I'm there. It's like my misery's been pooling in here and it's choking me out.
It made me feel so much better that I just asked if I could come back home because I couldn't take it anymore and she said yes. So what I'll be doing this week is cleaning up the flat and all my stuff to a pristine state, then I'm going to give the slip to my landlady in the middle of the night without a forwarding address (I obviously have a lease). I don't want to be sued for breaking the lease or leaving no notice (2 months' notice by law lol), I don't want to argue with the landlady that yes, I have to move out without due notice because I'm broke as shit and I have no choice, and that no, if she threatens me with legal action and wins, I won't be able to pay anyway, and that yes, she should at least be happy the flat will be sparkling clean when I move out (and she's a humongous bitch too). I have no outstanding rent fees. Then, because I owe money only to banks and I hate banks, because I'm an asshole and because the debt is definitely what gives me the most worry, I'm gonna declare bankruptcy. They relaxed the conditions and the subsequent terrible credit rating because everyone's bankrupt these days with the terrible economy, so why not? Some people are forecasting another huge dip in 2015 so it's not like I'll be the only one. With zero interest on anything to pay and living with my mom, I'll be living well even on minimum wage. It'll allow me to focus on myself, do things I quit due to apathy and depression that I used to love, like Judo, and basically just make myself happy to live again.
But I'm not done yet!
See, I also was admitted to a master's program in Translation, which requires me to have my bachelor's by January, which I won't because I failed the last class I needed to graduate. Now of course I can play the depression angle, I'm being followed by a therapist and I would see a shrink if my sun card (Quebec free health care ID) hadn't expired this very fucking month and yes, despite my huge reservations, I'd get medication (I've had really bad experiences with anti-depressants). I'm not asking for a free handout, I'm asking to be able to continue on my master's while retaking the class I need to graduate, with the full expectation that if I fail a second time, which I won't, I'll gladly show myself out. It's not like my undergrad has any link at all to my graduate program, I've passed the admissions test with a great score, I have a perfect TOEIC score, I'm there and I'd be damn good at it, even my classes are already chosen. They allow "preparatory classes" for people who didn't quite make the cut at the admissions test, so why not? I didn't fail because I'm dumb, I failed because what I had built as a life is pretty much fucking ruined! I'm rebooting here, please let me!
You might say "but Seroim in the worst case scenario just retake it next semester!" I will counter with the following : I'm poor as shit, my mom is poor as shit, ever since I got into translation I realized that I fucking despise law, they don't give grants for just one class and even if they did, I'm at the time limit. The master's would reset the time limit, so to speak, if I were allowed to have a law class as my "preparatory class" so I'd be fine. So basically I won't even be able to afford a single class and I'll have to drop out with 96 credits out of 99. Nice.
So I'm not out of the water yet but with my decision to move out of this place, I'm already breathing a bit easier. I literally cannot wait until I get to abscond in the middle of the night, not only is that the coolest thing ever, but it's also a pretty fitting symbol of a new beginning, just saying "fuck you!" to all this shit. There are a few problems left to fix, and I hope it'll go well, but honestly at the moment I don't think it will. I don't think whatever's been pissing on my head all this time is done with me yet.
tl;dr : fuck you, just read
