For anyone who feels like I've flaked out on them, I am so sorry. I can't really properly express this because honestly, I really dislike when people flake out on me and it's not fair I do it to others knowing

how frustrated it makes me feel.

I know words on some random tweet can't possible properly convey how I feel about this, and it can't make up for how high potential frustration may have been with me at any given point.

From here on in, this tweet is going to be about recapping my year and the clusterfuck it's been since I haven't really done that anywhere yet. Heh.

Stepping back a little further, I graduated from my masters degree June 2011 and then I was struggling to find work for 4.5 months. I ended up landing a temp gig that went until Jan 2012. Then I liked who I had

Worked with and wanted to continue with the org because of that. The drive wasn't bad, I liked my coworkers and I liked the work I was doing. Not to mention, I was in a shit money situation as I live on my own.

This made me take a position I was painfully over qualified for simply because (1) I could get the job and (2) It was with the same org I had been tempting with. The Org claimed there was lots of room for

internal movement and I found that exciting. I love the idea of getting onboarded with a company and really growing and stretching and moving around in that org. That's exciting to me, as dorky as it sounds.

Well, there was my first mistake.

This org was not the place for that, which I started finding out around Marchish, as information started cropping up about the fact that the company was bleeding money and was scrambling for solutions.

I was working 8hr days, having a 2hr round trip commute (driving) and wasn't going anywhere. Sure, everyone patted me on the back for doing a great job and going above and beyond what I needed to do but...

It didn't matter in the end. In May, my car started having problems and I ended up having to to choose between trying to fix it and junking it. While I was making up my mind, I was enduring a 4hr round trip

commute via public transit to and from work on a daily basis which was... Exhausting at best. Not to mention this was around the time that my job really started taking a heavy emotional toll. There's a reason

why anti-domestic violence orgs have a high employee turn over rate. It's good work, you're helping people, but it's brutal some of the stories you hear and things you see.

On top of this more rumors started circulating regarding what was going on about the budget cuts. This continued into June when the company started talking layoffs. Which was a mess. I had just enough money to

pay my basic expenses and had very little in the bank. So, of course this stressed me out. Then there was the person I was sort of almost dating and the emotion yank around mess that all of that was.

Also, in June, the game that I had started writing Fang for back in 2011 finally opened and I got in. It seemed like a really cool game but there was so much going on in RL and work that haha, yea. Not so much.

I think I nearly ignored the game for the first month. Not to mention I had AC'd out of Mayfield at that point which was both intentional and accidental at the same time. I hadn't MEANT to miss AC but, I had

been strongly considering dropping the game since everyone I had sort of joined for had dropped out but I loved how Fang was pulling people together and had this gloriously meshed network of people. I loved

my interactions and I SUPER LOVED some of her relationships like with Heather, Erim, Goku... Crap, I'm forgetting character names. The "lazy girl that lived next door" and I'm sure I'm forgetting some. May-June

basically just an RP sinkhole for me last year is basically what it comes down to.

Well, actually May-July as I got laid off in June but they gave us 30 days notice so I was scrambling to find a job which l o l #Nope.

Aug-beginning Oct I was out of work and it felt stingingly familiar to 2011. Thankfully, this time I had a better idea of what to expect and how to handle things. So, I was trying to find work and just tossed

myself into the one game I was accepted in. I also got accepted into Luceti around Sept I think it was

Which is awesome! I really love how advanced and in depth and detailed out the world of Luceti is.

However, depression is a hell of a beast and I started hitting RP sink hole again around that time. Plus there were some lags around my application that got me really confused at first. Then admittedly, I

dragged my feet a bit too which didn't help that whole mess.

The beginning of Oct, through a series of rather peculiar events I got offered another job (I applied for Job 1, I interviewed for job 2 and when I got a call back for reference check they offered me job 3)

In edition my "main game" (a game over on IJ) was causing me all sorts of frustration due to RP politics and tomfoolery that is basically just.. A mess.

Anyway, so due to the new job (& the 10 different hoops I had to jump through before official starting it, they had a CRAZY lengthy background check procedure) Oct was basically blown for me b/c l o l new job.

Which, I really love my job. It's just the right mixture of responsibility, power and duties for where I am professionally and it's bridging the gap between what skills I have and what skills I want to develop.

However, as it is a corporate position with a nation wide non-profit at the end of an 8hr day it often leaves me brain dead.

I feel like I finally started being able to balance things out again in Nov, I got all of two weeks reprieve before the holidays started up and sort of threw my world into a tizzy all over again.

Personally, I'm just glad to hear that you're doing OK. I was wondering what happened to you

^ same

I think I'll just stick to my original theory: You left on a whirlwind adventure

Aww. <3 Unfortunately the story's not entirely done. :/

L O L whirlwind adventure would have been bamf as hell.

So, as I live in California and the rest of my family lives on the East Coast, I spend the holidays with friends since airfare is horrendous that time of year. I've gotten into a tradition of spending

Thanksgiving with one of my best friends of and her family for the past three years now. Which is good, I like spending it with them, unfortunately, this year we had a talk after dinner and she told me that she

(at the time) had thyroid cancer. Which, basically turned my world on its head since she's one of the people I care about most.

Well, let me correct myself, she had a cancerous tissue at the time. So, the next several weeks was dedicated to us putting our heads together, her with her biotech background knowledge and me with my health

care administrative knowledge to try to figure out what she needed to do and how she needed to do it as to assure she was the least screwed possible, because take it from me, Health Care in this country is

a fucking nightmare.

The insurance companies will try to fuck you over every way they can so that you can't cost them more money in the future.

Thankfully, some of that is getting negated with the health care reform measures but... It's still a tricky and complicated maze of fuckery that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

So, she went through the proper channels and found out what she thought was stage 1 cancer was actually stage 2 cancer and had her thyroid removed along with several of the surrounding lymph nodes.

And I checked my phone every five minutes since I couldn't be at the hospital with her.

She went in for additional follow up and found out that she is biologically predispositioned for reoccurance of tumors and generally basically will need to be in treatment for years to come to keep this shit

in check.

So... That was Thanksgiving through the new year.

Not to mention what little attention I could pay to gaming, I was trying to make time for Luceti and also trying to keep up with the game over on IJ that I started writing Fang for in the first place because

That game was due to close in Jan.

Wellllll.... The IJ game? Yeah, that's a fucking disaster that basically every player I've talked to is mucho not happy with.

I mean, and I don't say this lightly, but the game basically was the mods little in group getting all the plot and interesting interaction arcs while the rest of us scrambled to get something out of it for our

own characters.

Which well... No one was happy is pretty much what it comes down to. And the mod was getting super stressed out of the general air of unhappiness that was going around and honestly, pretty much everyone stopped

oh, heya

posting and paying almost any attention at all to the game around... Geezz. End of Oct? Middle of Nov?

Anduin: Oh hey! I've been meaning to ping you.

aahhh yeah, same, tbh

I should apologize

I'm on aim if you want :|a

I was just going to say the same thing. >.<

So, to continue this ungodly long story. My friend got her tumor out, I lost another RL friendship over a turkey Sandwich (I kid you not, the full story is ridic) the last week of Nov, the cluster fuck of

helping my friend through Dec with her surgery mess and then finding out that my office (which I like) is going to be moving to a new location.

And the new office's location? It's close to the old org I was working at last year which makes me very uncomfortable as it seems like things have gone pretty sour and downhill with that org. Not to mention I

found out after I left that someone threw me under the bus and ruined all the work I had done while I was there. Which is just... Uncomfortable and awkward at best. I keep getting afraid of that coming back to

my current job and someone smearing the reputation I've been building there. Even though everyone seems to like me and I've heard nothing but good things being said about me.

The other downside to the new office? As it's close to my old office, this also means, since I don't have a car right now, I'm going to be going back to that old commute. Which means working 8hrs & commuting

for a 4hr round trip every day on the train, walking and buses from my house to work (2hrs) and back (2hrs). So... I'm looking into options for getting a car, but none of the options are looking very promising.

So... In the new year, I have the bad taste in my mouth from a game ending early which is being called "a 7 month waste of time" by my friends that were also in that game, 13hr work day & commute to look

forward to and waiting to see if my friend can keep her cancer in remission or not.

Happy 2013.

Plus there's awkwardness around the work stuff because I asked if I could stay in the current office or work from home some and instead of just giving me a "yes" or "no" answer, they offered me the ability

"to apply" for another position in the org. Not they could move me to a new position but I could go through the whole interview process all over again for a different position that would be...

Less pay, less responsibility, I wouldn't be corporate anymore, the position they were talking about me interviewing for isn't even in the career pathway I want... It was just really... Awkward.

gonsai: kbrighton: I've missed you guys. <3 How have you both been?

Can't complain, myself. Started a new job.

kbrighton: It's going well I hope?

Yeah, they're pretty happy with me thus far.

kbrighton: And you're enjoying it?

starting school again, myself

gonsai: How's school been going?

Yep! Good people, good work, etc.

Good! it's always nice when you can enjoy the work and the coworkers. Makes the work environment that much easier to deal with.

well it hasn't started yet

gonsai: ahh, okay. Well, is it looking to be a busy semester/quarter?

nah, I'm only doing 12 credit hours. half of which is online

I always loved online classes, they made life so much easier.