And so this is Christmas / And what have you done / The old year is over / A new one begun...

Aside from seeing my first year with my girlfriend, I can say nothing much. I 'm thankful that I'm alive - despite all the misery and unexpected that comes with living, it sure beats being dead. Living dead, perhaps, but still alive - and being alive is what counts.

My prospects for the future look grim. It's not that I'll go insane once my girlfriend leaves the country to study abroad - never fear - but I ponder on what will become of me once I fail my family once more. I've no desire to test how tenuous the string called family ties are - in my case, it's almost a certainty, though.

No thesis = no place in the family and house. I could point out that neither my mother nor my aunt-godmother had college diplomas, but then I'm not exactly cooking meals or cleaning the house or washing laundry or being helpful to the family in anyway. Put that way, why would anyone want another mouth to feed, another source of dirty clothes, a non-deductable from the income tax return?

I could find work, I guess - though the chances of a college dropout finding decent jobs is slimmer than for college graduates finding decent jobs in today's market.

Staying to run with the computer shop isn't an option - we close down this coming October, thanks to the greedy bloodsucking landlord who doesn't do anything about spark-spewing wall outlets, faulty toilets, and water and electrical outages. AND HE STILL HAS THE NERVE TO RAISE THE RENT! Madness!