I can honestly say that 2009 has probably been the worst year of my life. It started off okay, but I think it just went all to hell after that. Here's a month-by-month breakdown:
January: In January I was busy teaching Honors Alg.2/Pre-AP Pre-Cal/AP Calc at a small, private select high school, in addition to teaching part-time at the local Sylvan Learning Center. Things seemed to be going well except for the fact that I really wasn't making any money at all, and I had medical bills out the wazoo. I got a temporary job as a hotel night auditor in order to bring in some extra cash to be able to retain a lawyer for bankruptcy, as I already had over $120,000 worth of medical bills and no way out. Then you have the man sworn in as the next President come into power, and that set us up for a couple of financial blunders, and eventually some new healthcare legislation that is sure to break me financially. So all-in-all, not a great month.
February: Still working all three jobs, I was able to completely pay off my legal fees, and I officially filed for bankruptcy. My teacher training/certification courses started this month (you can teach at a private school without a state certification), so every Friday afternoon and Saturday all day I was busy with this. I thought teaching was what I really wanted to do, so I gladly coughed up $1,000 to enroll in the program. Little did I know this plan was about to fall flat on its face. Relationships with my parents began getting extremely tense, and that added an all-new dimension of stress to my life.
March: I turn 22 years old. Of course, 18 days into the month, but you get the idea. I start getting a little bit of readership on my Xanga site. Not a lot, but a little bit. I gain some wonderful Xanga friends that are still regular readers of mine. I go to court to finalize the bankruptcy case and attend the 341 meeting. That was about all that really happened, except for I had to miss a day at all three of my jobs because of it. That was not fun at all.
April: April brought about a lot of false hope. I take the Texas teacher exams preparing for what I think will be the career of my choice. They were not cheap tests, running me at $120/piece, and there were two tests to be taken. Well, little did I know at the time that was going to be money wasted, and my plans were going to completely fall apart. Still in financial ruins, I pick myself up and trudge on every day, only to get offered a $50K+ teaching job from Fort Worth ISD as an AP Calc teacher. Things were really looking up. Other than things with my parents getting much worse, life was OK this month.
May: School's over and I have a lot of free time to myself. I resign from my temporary job and get ready to head out to FW to start a new life, live out my dream, and even adventure out and really start to enjoy life. My parents were giving me so much hell at this point, even to the point my mother would not invite me over, speak to me on, or let me cook for her for, Mother's Day. My best IRL friend committed suicide. That really hurt. I also finally got a computer of my own again (after selling my other one to help with legal fees) so I could update Xanga regularly again, instead of only sporadically from the library.
June: My bankruptcy case was closed in a discharge, finally. I got the worst news I had gotten all year. After I had resigned from all three of my jobs, FWISD said due to budget cuts they've had to lay off thousands of teachers, and had to retract thousands more job offers. This left me in such a bad, bad situation. I now had no job, no money, and no way to make it. I start searching frantically for teaching jobs, only to discover by this point almost every teaching position had been filled. I have a nervous breakdown, and for a short period of time I slip back into my old self-injury habits. Determined to find something, I trudged on in a fruitless battle.
July: July brought about its ups and downs. One of my Xanga friends (one I had met IRL just a few weeks prior) and I had a huge falling out (only to recover the very next day). I was able to hang out with dad and my youngest sister some, but that wasn't too long. I started getting some more readership on Xanga, as I was now a regular fixture on Autisable, and had been featured on Healthkicker and Mancouch also. I was still not very well known, however. I got into fights with a lot of Xangans for my controversial posts on these three sites, which was to be expected, then again, a lot of my opinions on such things are very out-there and controversial anyway. In other good news, I brought Rhoswen into my household, saving her from sure death and destruction.
August: August comes around, and at this point, there's no hope of securing a teaching job. So I had to come up with other arrangements. I was offered a position back at the hotel for two nights per week, and as I needed at least some income, I reluctantly took that, in addition to signing up a substitute teacher around all the local school districts. Sucky jobs, let me tell you. Working terrible hours, I felt miserable most of the time. My beautiful, beloved doggie passed away from complications due to Lupus. However, things on Xanga began looking up. Trunthepaige subscribed to me, and recced a few of my posts, which brought a lot of traffic my way. I was no longer a nobody on Xanga, and I actually had readership. That was nice. However, Xanga seemed to be the only thing going right for me.
September: Something goes horribly wrong at my night auditor job. Basically I was physically threatened by a disgruntled guest. Panicking, I dialed 911 and summoned the police to the situation. The police get everything calmed down so it seems, however, since there are no cameras at the ghetto hotel I work at, it was his word against mine, and I guess the customer is always right. I lost my job, and since Texas is a right to work state, I had no legal recourse. Sub gigs had not picked up at all, and I was placed on two schools' exclusion lists for things beyond my control. Here's where things really started to look bleak.
October: October comes around and by this point I'd pretty much ditched the idea of a teaching career and began exploring other options. One of my newer Xanga friends suggested grad school, but how the heck was I going to pay for it? That's when I was made aware of the GTA (Graduate Teaching Assistantship). It was such a fresh and great idea, I decided to really start looking for these. I came across several schools that offered some, however I would have to take the GRE, which I couldn't afford to do. I set up a PayPal donation button on Xanga and received several generous donations, and made lots of new friends in the process. I will forever be grateful for the generous gifts given to me during this time. My family life, however, turned to utter shit, resulting in complete excommunication from most of my family members. I was emotionally broken, but trudged on anyway. My financial life continued to suck, in addition to my social life. An old college friend was killed by a drunk driver. Things were so bad, I seriously contemplated suicide myself, only to be talked out of it by several great Xanga friends. They (you) truly kept me going during this challenging month.
November: I take the GRE test and get the ball rolling toward what I thought at the time would be a Fall 2010 entrance into graduate school. I receive several solicitations from random schools, and begin researching graduate schools, which ones best fit me, and applying to those. With some help, I was able to apply to my #1 and #2 choice, and got so much support from everyone here. Your support has been much appreciated. I was starting to realize what a huge mistake a high school teaching career would have been, and I started slowly discovering what I was really destined to do. My father had been a dick, though, and my mother essentially took herself and my youngest sister and moved in with me. It's better for her to not be with him, honestly.
December: December brought about the opportunity of a lifetime, and I was working hard to make it a reality. Idaho State University said that they could try to work me in starting in January. I start busting my ass, only to have the postal service work against me and lose a lot of the stuff I try to send. I was getting nervous and was "this" close to saying screw it, when a Xanga friend encouraged me to continue on and press on. I think it may have been worth it, as the chair of the math department said he will recommend me for admission with a GTA. Things were pretty great with my home life too, I was able to enjoy a nice Xmas with mom and sis, and getting/giving some neat gifts in the process. My Xanga life, however, turned to hell when I inadvertently started drama with a list of overrated/underrated Xangans, and was doing said list not to offend anyone, and even being somewhat facetious. Well, that's when Paul_Partisan turned half of Xanga against me. Now two other Xangans are trying to turn some of Xanga against me, however, they can't do any more damage to me than what Paul did (after all, aside from Dan, he is the most popular individual on Xanga). People who are feeding into this latest wave of drama (which I didn't even start, and was brought into it, I should add, but I decided not to feed it and it still blew up) were already against me anyway. I've already really secured my position on Xanga anyway, getting featured on the frontpage and creating quite a following, and a larger one than either of the people who are trying to destroy me will ever dream of having.
So, 2009, probably the worst year of my life, I bid you a fond farewell, and don't let the door smack you on the ass on the way out. As I look into 2010, it will bring many new adventures, trials, tribulations, and hopefully achievements to my life. As I look to start grad school in mid January, I will be able to start really living out my dream. I look forward to another great year on Xanga, this time with a pretty large following (I've net gained nearly 200 friends this year), and despite all this drama, I will always have my fairly good-sized, loyal readership base. Readers come and go, but there will always be that certain group who loves what I have to say. I may not be on Xanga as much, but you can expect much of the same great, intellectually-stimulating content I'm known for (albeit I may have to write 3 or 4 blogs at a time and use the future post option to keep them coming on a daily basis). So, my Xanga friends, what would you like to see more of on my site in 2010? Do you have suggested topics? Please mention them in the comments or send me a message.
Thanks for all the loyal readership, and the countless eProps and comments you've left this year. Looking forward to a great 2010 on Xanga, and I hope to meet even more awesome people on Xanga.
mathematicalbagpiper
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I have decided that you can change your beer review site to----THEEPICAWESOMEBEERSITE or THEBEERSITE...creative, lmfao I know
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