Like Swimming Upstream

[Ninjabob27]

'Sup, fellow Dudes?

(TL:DR)- "If not for my Dudely desire to keep a cool head, I might have pulled my hair out a couple weeks ago while doing everything in my power to get back into college. It's been a rocky experience and a lot of it has made me pretty pissed, but I keep doing what I can to abide with every curve-ball the universe has thrown me this year. My summer class starts this Monday and I still don't have a place to live because the people running the apartment have been doing a lot of thumb-twiddling, leaving me in the dark most of the time. If anything, I've seen many people in my life who get pissed easily and always sweat the small stuff, so I'm thankful that I'm well-adjusted enough that I don't have an ulcer right now. Here's hoping the apartment people get back to me tomorrow and I get moved in before Monday (because right now, it's my cheapest option and I have literally no time left to shop for others). If not, gotta wait until Fall to take classes again. Abiding as best as I can, Dudes. I'm almost amazed by how not-pissed I am, even right now. Makes me feel pretty Dudely." l-)   


(And now, here's the long version for anybody who wants to read a novel) 
   
    Been a while since I stumbled into this particular forum but I gotta say, life for me has been pretty Dudely for quite some time. But of course, all that glitters is not gold.. Like the Dude, I manage to live a relatively comfortable life while doing little to no work to keep my creature-comforts. That's what happens when you're unemployed and still living with your family. The difference is that I'd been trying like hell to get myself a job for a couple years. I have a high school diploma and one year of college under my belt, but financial issues made it so I had to put college on the back-burner..

    I live in the middle of nowhere. Didn't used to live in the middle of nowhere, but the family thought it would be a good idea to move here back in 2009, so here we are. Living here sorta made me unproductive by default. No matter how many job applications I'd send around, I'd always end up with nothing to show for it in the end. After searching for 3 years with no results, I gave up the search. Just too much damn nepotism in the area. I decided the only thing I could do was abide in my living space, just doing my best to help out around the house and be a good son while waiting to deal with whatever the forces-that-be decided to throw at me in the future. And what happened? A lot of nothing. Luckily I have a ton of hobbies and interests to keep me occupied, but it can get pretty lonely here. I didn't go to school here, so I have no social life to speak of. If not for the internet, I'd have little to no contact with many of my friends.

    But circumstances changed this year, man. It was finally brought to my attention that there was room in our budget to send me off to college again. I decided to just start off with a couple summer classes, keeping it cheap. And Dudes, the moment the decision was made, it was as if the universe had an alarm go off! "He's trying to make progress and get traction in his life! STOP HIM!"

    Suddenly the appliances started dying and needing repairs, same goes for the cars, and Dad decided this would be the year he'd take a long and expensive trip back to his home-state for a high school reunion. Then there was the fact that getting the answers I needed from the offices at my college was taking way longer than it should because of employees that (I swear) are terrified to give you a straight answer. Getting my advisors to pick up their phones was like pulling teeth. And through it all, I kept telling myself, "Be cool, relax, take it easy, don't flip you're shit, man. Blowing a gasket isn't going to get you there any faster. Don't let these rug-pissers get the best of you!"

    The process of getting signed up for two lousy classes took a couple months. And then came the new issue: I needed a place to live. And if I thought dealing with the incompetent office-folk was a chore, I had no idea what new hell awaited me dealing with the students in off-campus housing.. Communication really is one of our greatest feats as a species, but I was dealing with students who wouldn't call you back if your life depended on it. And of course, in order to move into an apartment, I have to win the approval of all who live there. Each one has to email the landlord and give me the OK. Well I'm sure you can guess how efficient that system is. My class starts this Monday and I'm still not moved into a place. Keep in mind that I started trying to get moved-in back in March 

    Actually, I thought I had a room confirmed back in April, but the roommates just couldn't keep their stories straight, and one of them seemed dead-set on me not getting in. But they kept me dangling for a couple weeks before I finally got the picture that I wasn't getting in after all.. Seems there was serious conflict going on in that house, people were moving out to escape the torture. A couple of the escapees called me up to offer sympathy and even encouraged me to send angry emails to the roommates responsible for my exile. But again, I heard the Dudely mantra in my head: "Can't be worried about that shit, man." I told all who called me that I was grateful for their sympathy but that sending angry emails wouldn't get me any closer to an apartment. I was pretty pissed a few times, but I'm not going to put that shit in writing and send it off to somebody who might be petty enough to try to sue me for harassment or some shit like that. And so the search continued.

    Power to the office of student housing though, they've been helping me along the whole time. Bummer is that they can only call up the students living in the apartment and remind them to approve me, they can't straight-up order them to let me in. For a "landlord" of sorts, that seems like a serious lack of authority in my opinion, but eh, I just kept trying and so did they. So now I'm dealing with my last hope. There's one apartment that keeps telling me they'll move me in, yet they seem to have neglected to tell the housing office to let me in. So I've been playing telephone-tag with them all day, trying to work out exactly what they need from me to get that approval. Each of them claimed to have given me the approval I need, but I won't know for sure until I'm able to call the office again tomorrow. I really want to be gone by the end of the week because, like I said, class starts Monday and we're down to the wire, man!

    Hopefully shit gets taken care of and I sign lease papers asap. I realize this is a super-incredibly-long forum post, so I seriously won't be offended if nobody reads this far. I'm basically blathering at this point anyway, spewing my woe onto a forum for it's therapeutic relief. I doubt even I would have kept reading if this weren't my post. But I think that if anything, the reason I'm still sane after all these shenanigans is that I uphold the Dudely calm in my mind that made me want to join this church in the first place. No matter how many times I was pushed to the breaking point, I didn't give in to rage. I found ways to vent here and there, or I just sat back and took a moment to calm my brain either through meditation, music, or "enjoying the greenery" if you know what I mean, lulz.

    So yeah, that about wraps'er up. Thanks to all the Dudes who let me vent my frustrations and give my Facebook friends a break from my troubles. Nobody likes reading excessive griping. Well, unless you actually stuck with me through this whole ordeal that is, haha.

Peace, Dudes. 

[jgiffin]

Wow, man, those guys are really throwing a lot of shit at you. It's cool you're able to deal with it and not let it gutterball your dreams. College is a gamble nowadays. I hope you're majoring in something vaguely marketable and not racking up major student loans....and if not, well, I hope you're living shit up and having fun!

[Ninjabob27]

Wow, man, those guys are really throwing a lot of shit at you. It's cool you're able to deal with it and not let it gutterball your dreams. College is a gamble nowadays. I hope you're majoring in something vaguely marketable and not racking up major student loans....and if not, well, I hope you're living shit up and having fun!

I think Mechanical Engineering should be plenty profitable, though I think my passion for the subject is what's more important (psh, who am I kidding? Gotta feed the monkey, lol)

And for what it's worth, you'll all be pleased to know that I was able to get into a much, much nicer apartment than the last dump I was looking at. I'm back in class again and having a pretty good time l-)