Last night, I dreamed that I was back in Chicago and looking for an apartment. On an apartment application, a potential landlord wanted to know where I got my college degree. As I don't have a college degree, I was at a bit of a loss for what to do and was worried that I would not be able to get the apartment.
Okay. My dreams are officially becoming too obvious.
I'm starting to really like my job. I mean, sure, some of the customers really give me a hard time, but I'm learning the best way to deal with them and focus on the ones that really want to be helped, and do as much as I can for them.
I'm really starting to like most of my co workers, too. I guess there's a big difference between initial impressions in training, and how you get along with someone when you're actually handling stuff at the job. Rob and I went out with some of them earlier this week, and since then, have actually been mingling with them. They aren't bad folks for co workers, and actually having relatively interesting folks to work with makes living the town more bearable to live in.
That's the good news.
The bad news is I took a long, hard look at my finances last night. I actually calculated what I need per month, including being able to pay off my credit card bill, restore my credit and actually get a car. It's really starting to look like anything I save by living here more than gets eaten up by the cost of needing a car. So, that means I need to pull some extra hours at work. I don't mind, really, except that with my school load I'm not going to be able to work more than twenty hours a week my first semester if I want to do well.
Sigh.
Sometimes it seems like forces are conspiring for me to postpone it a year.
I have been trying to find a reasonably priced private school, where I can get enough financial aid to cover the actual cost, without too much success. I have a couple of leads, but they're kind of iffy. It still seems my best option is to go to Harold Washington College when we move back, as it now seems inevitable that we will do, and then transfer to UIC, and never give up my Illinois residency.
I was willing to go to school and risk not being able to transfer the courses, just to learn stuff that interests me, but this look at financial obligations has sort of changed all of that. I still really want to go back, but I know we can't stay here. There's too many limitations for Rob career wise, and we're realizing that he needs to be closer to a major airport than we are, for all the times that he has to travel. So I have the option of cutting my courseload in half, or really struggling financially. At this point in my life, as badly as I want to be in school, I have been out long enough that I may as well wait. It will be more dehumanizing if I go and do badly because I'm working too much than if I simply wait a year and go back when I'm in a better situation.
So that's the deal on that.
Yesterday, it was slow at work and I was reflecting on stuff.
I thought of everything that went wrong in Chicago before. I guess I have been scared to go back. Not because I worry about what will happen if I run across the people that things got a little weird with for whatever reason, because I know that they would be civil enough, but because it's hard for me to come to face with face with how weird the shit got for awhile, and how I contributed (and in some cases, instigated) that. I guess realizing this in an odd way has made it easier for me to go back. In most cases, I realize that whether I see them or not, I can still have a lot of respect for them as people and wish the best for them. Maybe at some point things will get better than that, and things will be restored but I don't have any expectations either way. All I want now, is to figure out how--when something happens that really upsets me--to put a healthy distance mentally from those situations long enough to actually get some sort of coherent grasp on what happened. This isn't to be confused with bitter avoidance, or the fight/flight impulse as I think it's safe to assume I am quite the expert on these things, but to actually be able to step back from the situation a bit.
Well I'm off to the anime con in Grand Rapids to visit with my brother.