First I think I need to put everything in to perspective, I graduated from college with BFA in studio art back in December 2011. My plan was to get a job for months, work, apply to grad schools and start school fall. I applied to several to graduate programs in my field of printmaking, but things didn't necessarily go to plan. Every school I applied to rejected me. I wasn't crushed; I flattened by steam roller in to a little pancake. To add insult to injury, I watched a good number of my friends move off after graduation and go on to start successful lives in other part of country.
I was jealous, depressed, and most I just felt like a big fucking failure. I worked at my office job for over a year and it got the point where Id often consider ramming an ice pick into my orbital lobe rather than going in to work. I applied to smaller schools the following December and promptly went back to my woe-is-me life.
In June of this year I received notification that I had been accepted in to Georgia Southern University. It isn't on the top Art schools in the nation, but it is 45 minutes away from the top art school in the nation *cough* SCAD *cough*. You’d think I’d be more excited than what I was when I found out about it, but the school was not going to offer me any form graduate assistance. Basically I would have to take out loans to cover the base tuition and out of state tuition and I was already in student loan debt from my undergrad study. When you get a degree in the liberal arts, just bachelors isn't worth it anything, if you want to stick in the field you need to a Master’s degree and hope you can get a job in academia, but there is not guarantee that you will. It’s a lot like gambling, and I decided to go all in.
I also began to realize how much fool I was being jealous of my friends who left home. It’s not easy to leave all your friends and family behind and go in to some alien territory. The hardest part for me was leaving behind the guy I had been seeing. It took a long time to find someone that really meshed well with my personality. All I ever wanted was someone that I could sit around and drink beer while Star Trek and Mystery Science Theater with and that person it was a lot harder to find than I thought it would be. I am struggling with the thought that maybe I have blown my chances for a successful relationship.
I had to take this position though. I know couldn't have survived in cubical land much longer and if I had passed up on the opportunity I could never live with myself, so here I am.
The thing I hate the most about the move is my apartment. Back home I had a nice one bedroom apartment, newly remodeled with nice furniture, and lovely back patio. Here in Georgia the price gauging on apartments is completely insane. For more than I paid a month back home Tennessee I have 300 square foot efficiency that is a total shithole. The apartment complex performed a bait and switch on me; they showed me a display model and said that my apartment was currently available. The day I moved in my apartment was completely trashed. The complex didn't even bother to clean the unit after the previous tenant moved out. My new apartment has a giant gap between the door casing, and the door were mosquitoes come in, the wash cloth bar in the bathroom had ripped off the wall and was just lying on the back the toilet, there is no freezer door in the mini fridge so everything in fridge freezes, the bathroom floor sags, stains all over walls, roaches and silverfish, and the thing that simply just kills every time I use it, the kitchen sink handles are reversed so the cold water tap sprays out hot water and the hot water tap sprays out cold water. This is the closest I have ever been to camping and sometimes I think I would be better off sleeping outdoors. As of the day I write this, I have only managed to get my apartment complex to spray for bugs, nothing else has been repaired. My grad program is three years long, but when I lease I can assure you I won’t be living here.
So here‘s to strange new adventure in strange new place.
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