The piece of paper I've been using as a running tally of in-game objects for myself has become a giant gradeschool math workbook.

"Let's see. Athena has $18,500 in loans from Lender A, $9,500 from B, and $4,000 from C. If she's a waitress making $5 an hour, how long will it take until she's living in a cardboard box?"

Too many zeros.

I'm hungry and crampy and cranky. Where's my damn period? I'm sick of extended PMS crap.

And who put Eeyore's rain cloud over my damn head? Get that away. Shoo!

Seriously, though - the depression (yes, I'm "depressed", and no, I can't shut it off, and no, a therapist won't help) - er, the depression is eating away at my physical health. I feel nauseous multiple times a day. Stomach cramps make me think I'm getting an ulcer or something. I'm exhausted. I get headaches regularly. I get lightheaded.

It's trying to shut me down.

And it's working.

---

I have little work to do at work.

I am purportedly waiting on a license for Maya (a 3D modelling program.)

[Heard in my cube right now: "That's when monkeys fly out." Referring to concept art. Great. Everyone loves monkeys.]

Getting a license for Maya would be terribly exciting, for several reasons:

* Learning anything more about the program might make a switch to an animation career easier.
* Maya is cool.
* Having people buy software for you means you're actually useful and marginally important.
* It would give me another task to own.
* I wouldn't feel so fucking useless.

But the way software purchases go here, I'll be lucky if that clears before I leave in 5 weeks.

Sigh.

Spent much of the day applying for jobs, posting resum�s, etc. as much as possible. I don't have time at my office desk to write full-fledged cover letters for each job, though, so I'm fucked on that account.

This job search is so damned depressing.

As noted above, I also did a little math and reconnaissance, trying to figure out how much money I'd be throwing to the financial gods to keep the loans from eating me.

Long story short, it looks like a bare-minimum of $230/month will keep the dogs at bay, but that's with my rudimentary understanding of interest reprocussions.

But that's on top of rent and food and whatever else.

And since I have a lease in PFunk until April - well, that sounds like I need to find a job in PFunk.

But where the hell would I do that?

On the other hand, my school is weird - and though they're not done processing my financial aid app, they posted $3k of Perkins loan to it. Which means I probably got approved for $6k.

Which means, after Staffords, that I'm $4k short on tuition, sans living expenses.

It's little enough that one might almost think that I could pay-as-I-go...but how would I afford that? How much will it cost to live this year? How much will be left after this summer?

No matter how much information I get, it still seems like I'm back where I started.

I emailed my program director about the situation last week, on Reagan's urging, but he has not replied at all yet - not even to say "That's too bad - I'll see what I can do."

If that's how much they care about their students, I have half a mind to just walk regardless of how tuition turns out.

But then last year would have been a waste.

I feel so trapped. Not having a job or something lined up makes me feel worthless.

And there's no way I can hide from it.