for those of you wondering, i'm alive. it just takes awhile for Time Warner to remember you exist. if you're wondering what happened to me, here it is in a nutshell:
As some of you know, this is when I enrolled at Urbana University (something I’d advise against doing). From January through May I attended UU pursuing a Sports Industry major. At the end of the semester, I finished with a 3.5 GPA. I also dressed, and practiced with the Blue Knights baseball team, though I was more or less a red-shirt freshman. I could practice, but I couldn’t play due to my enrollment timing. To this point, things were going well. Then the middle of May began.
First, after a year of work with no time missed, I was laid-off by Wal-Mart. Apparently when you project to make $20,000,000,000 and only make $11,000,000,000 that comes out as a loss even though your expense line is $5,000,000,000 (damn accountants).
Just before being terminated, Lady Raven had told me that she was becoming unhappy with the arrangement of seeing each other just twice a week (not that I was thrilled with it by any means). If this doesn’t make sense to you, let me explain; I lived in Piqua, she lived near Maineville. I worked full-time, went to school, and played baseball, she worked part-time and went to school full-time (18 credit hours). So after some discussion, we decided it would be most beneficial for me to move closer, and transfer over to her school (University of Cincinnati: Raymond Walters College).
Already being urged by me and several of our friends, we convinced Lady Raven to move out of the oppressive house of her family. So we sent our friends looking at houses, while her and I concentrated on other things…
Not long after this point (the last week of May), I got a letter from Urbana…or more appropriately, a bill. 10 credit hours, $2,175. Confused, I asked the financial aid department about the bill. To which I go the reply of: “We never received the promissory note, so you got no aid.”
That in of itself is frustrating enough, but when you put it in the proper course of events, it shows why I hold murderous rage toward Urbana and would laugh in joy if everyone and everything their died (or at least the administrators). You see, back in January when I enrolled, I filled out my FAFSA and UU’s student loan info. I qualified for $2,200 in loans and grants. In March I received a form to fill out from Great Lakes Bank (or Trust Company or something) to get my main loan ($1,850). I filled it out, and very specifically the form stated several times to give it to my school’s financial aid department. So I did. When I gave it to the woman, she said, “OK, I’ll take it from here.”
April came. I hadn’t heard anything about my loans. So I asked the aid department. “It’s all right Rob, everything is as it should be.” End of April, I ask again, because I vaguely remembered that form saying I was going to receive another form to fill out about repayment. Again I get “Everything’s fine, you’re financial aid is taken care of.” First week of May rolls around, finals are happening, I decided to personally go to the office and check in this time, again she said, “Don’t worry, you’ve filled everything out and we sent it all to the appropriate people.”
Three times I asked about my financial aid, three times I was told it was fine. So I get the first bill, told that I never filled out a promissory note (not that I received anything else to fill out), and told that because my account was 4 months delinquent (remember, I enrolled in January but didn’t get a bill til May) that if I didn’t start paying they were going to tack on an 18% interest rate. All this I discover the week after I’m laid-off.
To go along with that, I didn’t qualify for unemployment because I was a student-athlete and therefore receiving government money already. Whoever was governor in the mid-80s who didn’t veto that needs shot in the head.
The next month, the month of June, I spent unemployed, looking for a job. Ironically that was the most fun month I’ve had since becoming an adult. Seeing Lady Raven on any day she didn’t work, D&D every Friday night and Saturday night, fishing most every night, baseball workouts and watching nearly everyday, and job hunting all along the way. As well, I was enrolled in an online class through the University of Western Oregon for Sports Management Worldwide. For those who know what I’m talking about, yes, that is the class that is in part directed by Rob Neyer. Of course, at the time I enrolled in that $1,000 class, I still had a job…although there were only three days remaining in it (unbenounced to me, boy would that have been beneficial to know. Especially given that the store manager knew I was being terminated two weeks beforehand). I think I slept for maybe 10 hours total that month.
Finally, July gets here. Just after the holiday, I get a job through a temp service working at Cenveo (formerly Direct Graphics). They are a direct mailing company (read as, they send you junk mail). Unless you’ve worked in a letter shop, bindery, or pressroom, you really have no idea how much effort goes into filling that wastepaper basket by your door. I was a binder. The machine would fold the mail, it would come to me, I’d grab a handful, put it in a vice and tape a plastic band around it. I would put it on a skid, then it would be taken (usually a week later) to the stitcher to be put as an insert, or sent to the letter shop to be put in an envelope. This job was boring, but I somehow found it entertaining. In case your wondering, this is about the time my posting came very limited because I was working 50-70 hours a week.
1. Found out that at time-and-a-half, I was still making less money than all other bindery workers in the Tri-state were at regular hours.
2. My reflexes and hand-eye coordination disappeared. I couldn’t field, I couldn’t hit a 15’ wide, 5’ tall brick wall with a baseball from 20’ away. I could just barely hit off a batting tee.
3. In a month and a half, my mind deteriorated. I had trouble remembering things, I became slow at learning new things. Even speaking became a concentrated chore. The thing that absolutely frightened me though, and it was last Sunday this happened, I found about three pages of riddles I had written from about 8th grade to 10th grade, and I couldn’t answer them. Most of them I couldn’t even come up with a good guess. Damn monotonous job robbed me of my wits, which I’m slowly starting to regain.
My last day at Cenveo was September second. That weekend, I started to move to Cincinnati (in Clifton to be exact) into the house mine and Lady Raven’s friends had found. The house is myself, Lady Raven, and three of our friends. Four UC students, and one Cincinnati State student. Or at least that’s how it was supposed to work. Now it’s three UC students, and one CS student. The bastards that are Urbana University screwed me more than I had initially realized on my financial aid.
UC has not received a transcript from UU. Nor is UU sending one anytime soon. Urbana will not send a transcript until my balance with them is $0. Now between car insurance, deposits and first month <insert whatever here>, and sending $50/week to UU, I do not have the capability to give them the remaining $1,700+ on my balance. On top of that, the $10 I sent UU to fax my transcript ($5 to handle it, $5 to fax it or mail it) is garnished and doesn’t count for my balance. *twitch twitch twitch*
So I looked into abandoning the credits I had at Urbana. UC liked the idea. However, even abandoned, state law requires that UU send my transcript to UC. In the limited conversation I have been able to have with UU on the subject, not a damn one of them has any idea what I’m talking about.
The transcript thing I found out last Monday. I’ve been at this house for nearly 2 weeks (which, why does it take Time Warner three weeks to be able to come and install Road Runner?), because of having to wait on utility people, or land lords, or what have you, I’ve had one real day to look for a job. Last Friday. So I was able to apply at a few places. All about 25 minutes away driving…that’s about to get really significant.
You see, after having been informed about the joy that is my transcript and tuition, I got into a car accident (no injuries)…a car accident almost quite literally, in front of my house. The bloody school a block from my house was letting. I was going to be going straight on a street that crosses my own. The right lane of that road was congested to the point where no one was moving, the left lane had traffic flow. I’m inching out from the stop sign because no one in the lane I’m cutting off is going anywhere. When a medium build blonde lady in Dodge Caravan waves me through, I start to go, Lady Raven yells ‘STOP!’ I do. A little more than a full second later, boom. Car accident.
My 1997 Saturn SL1 met with a 2000 Volkswagen Passat which was travelling 20 MPH. Ironically, the lady admitted she could have stopped in time to avoid the collision if she had been looking forward instead of looking to left to find her kids, yet the officer cited me for failure to yield. The circuits to my lights were destroyed, my bumper demolished, radiator torn in half, and both sides of my frame bent more than 5” out of alignment. Estimated damage of $3,800…$600 more than what I got the car for. Her car? Not a scratch. Not even chipped paint or a mark on her bumper. The officer and two of the eyewitnesses had to ask me twice where her car actually made contact. When the officer asked me what my address was so she could make her report, I pointed and said, “that’s my house right there.” You see, when we moved out of the road after the accident, the lady unknowingly parked right in front of my porch. When the officer saw that she looked like she was about to cry, and then profusely apologized to me for having to cite me. It was nice that she felt sorry for me, but you know, what I need more is to not have to spend $104 on a citation.
The lady who waved me through bolted. She made a sharp turn around my car that I didn’t think a caravan had the ability to do to get on the other side of me and take off. I’ve watched for her, I see her everyday at about 3:15 or so.
So here it is Friday. I have to pay the tow truck for hauling my car to the body shop only to find I need to scrap it, unemployed, unable to go to school. Pretty much alone outside of the people I live with, don’t know the area, have no car, have less than $200 due in large part to deposits and because Wendy’s is pathetic, Lady Raven who is a devout Catholic couldn’t get any fish and had to have a cheeseburger.
There’s where I’ve been/disappeared to, this adult thing gets better, right? *pours another shot 151*
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Originally Posted by Crash Davis
