Self Control

Out of desperation I've scheduled a week's vacation at the end of the month. The job is eating my life and sucking my soul, but in a year I'll have student loans to worry about, so I must press on. For years I've let work dramas cripple me with frustration and paranoia and I think I've finally hit my limit. I quite simply have no more energy for bull crap of any shade or scent. Let the company close. Fire me and leave me begging on the street, I don't care. Just don't involve me in any more drama because I'll tell you what I really think, and that isn't pretty.

This week, after two months of interviews, we finally made an offer on a crucial position, only to have the "perfect" candidate freak out when I told her that we were going to do a background check. So, I'm back to square one interviewing candidates and pretending to be enthralled by decades of management experience. Combine this frustration with the weekly lectures I recieve about only hiring bilingual prom queens and I've come to the realization that I need some time away before I hurt somebody.

And then I came home to find my student loan check in the mail. Now that I have a real job, I don't need these checks for living expenses, and I have a bank account in which to safely store them. But then, on the other side of the globe there is Paris beckoning. But I'll be good and stay in Chicago. I really do need to see my family at Christmas, and there are some renovations I need to do on the condo. Still, a week in Paris...would run me nearly three thousand dollars, and I just can't do it.

I'm on a five-week break from classes. They start up again mid July, and then with the exception of the winter break of three weeks, I'm back at it full swing until graduation in a year.

And the student loans loom. I checked my balance and the number is so large I can't even comprehend it. I checked into loan consolidation, and I can have the life of the loan extended to twenty years. It will literally eat up every tax return and bonus from work for the next five years. But I'll have a masters degree.

And so I sat down to exercise my new found intelligence by trying to bang out a draft for a short story, but I think I'm just going to crawl into bed with a book. It's unseasonably cool this evening for a June in the middle of the global warming debacle and all I want to do is sip tea and turn pages.

I promise to be more faithful in posting.