Wow... it's been over a year since I posted last in this thing. That's pretty insane. To be honest, I thought that this blog was dead and gone; for a long time, I completely forgot about this blog entirely. It served as a way to make myself seem important in my own eyes and opened up a channel for me to vent about the problems I was having. The first nine months after my breakup with my ex, I became very bitter and not so much depressed as pessimistic. Reading over my old posts now, I realize that this was very evident in every single post I published.

A lot has changed in the past year. For one, I'm not quite so bitter and pessimistic (but still just as sarcastic). This is a very minor, but pleasant change compared to some of the other changes. Do you remember a guy named Chris who helped me get a role in Sears Fest in high school? Well, we've been dating for almost a year now. We'll be celebrating our one year anniversary on the 27th of May. He's absolutely wonderful. Another big change is that we both graduated from high school and are now finishing our first year of university. Chris had a wonderful first year experience at Laurier. Sadly, I can't say the same for me. I chose to go to York University and it's been nothing but misery since day one. In the first six weeks, this horrid place has seen several fire alarms, a bomb threat and a strike that lasted for three months and now the students are forced to go to school until June. I've also been living my grandparents, aunt and nine-year old spoiled cousin. That has just made everything worse. There are two options for me next year. 1) Move out of my grandparents' house next year and look for student housing near campus, which I'm doing, or 2) Leave York University entirely and transfer to Guelph.

Pros and Cons

York University
Pros

• Will not lose credit for any courses I've completed by transferring.
• I have a friend at York (yes, one but still that's a pro)
• Will get to experience living on my own completely next year
• Will save money on TTC metro passes since I'll live beside campus
• Will get to go to more school events since I'll be living within walking distance of campus

Cons

• Toronto is a miserable city and I hate it here.
• I only have one friend here, so I'm not leaving behind a lot.
• I don't think I can handle another year of being two hours away from Chris and only seeing him twice a month (if I'm lucky).
• I'll be living dangerously close to the ghetto.
• No one at York is nice. They're all too consumed with their brand-name designer shit to care about anyone but themselves.
• No one in Toronto is nice. Period.
• The campus is modern and cold and ugly. It's so depressing.
• I'm so lonely there.
• There are no good clubs there. All of their 250 clubs are just segregated social justice clubs like "Muslims against deportation", and "Jews against racism". I'm so fucking tired of listening to all of their "hate the white man" bullshit every day.
  

Guelph
Pros

• Guelph has a beautiful campus.
• It's a small city, so people are generally friendlier.
• Again, because it's a small city, I don't hate it quite as much as being in a large city like this giant toilet bowl.
• Guelph offers the same program that I want to take at York and not many other universities offer this program.
• I'd get to experience residence life, which I've always wanted to do and been a bit envious of other people who have gotten to experience it.
• Everyone at Guelph are hippies who care about the environment. I'd fit right in and not feel like an outcast.
• There's a huge Pagan club I'd fit right into, among other clubs that are actually normal and fun.
• I think I'd have a much easier time making friends there.
• It's only a half-hour away from Waterloo so I'd get to see Chris more often, plus he could could come and visit me more often.

Cons

• It's kind of scary moving somewhere you've never really been to before.
• The added cost of residence, which surprisingly is significantly higher than renting a room in student housing near campus (at least in Toronto, it is. Not sure about Guelph. I haven't checked that, yet).
• They smoke a lot of pot there.
• I'm taking a huge risk by leaving York and going there, assuming I'll be happier and more successful; however, anything has to be better than the situation I'm in now.

Yeah. Clearly leaving York and going to Guelph is the best way to go, but I need to sell my parents on the idea. They seem to think York is the be all and end all of universities and they have no idea how depressed this place has made me since they don't live with me and see me every day like they used to. I really think going to Guelph is the best option for me. My mom tried to argue that Guelph has terrible academics and is like the worst school in Canada when anyone who actually knows anything about the school knows that that's complete bullshit. Guelph completely slaughters York in everything.

As much as I think Guelph will be a great improvement for me, I'm terrified to tell my parents about it. Of course, I am a legal adult and could just flat-out tell them that I'm dropping out of York and going to Guelph. That wouldn't be a problem... IF I funded my own education. My parents pay for all of my schooling. I'm only working this summer to make money for rent next year. That's the only thing they won't pay for, and with my shortened summer, I don't even know if I'll be able to make enough money for that, let alone rent plus tuition and books. Really, they have me trapped into doing whatever they say because of money.

The only option left to me is to refuse their money altogether, drop out of university completely and spend a few years working until I have enough money saved up to go to school again on my own terms, but if I did that, I know Chris would be so disappointed. He'd support me no matter what I chose to do, of course but he'd still be disappointed. I don't think I could handle that. I can handle my parents hating me for the rest of my life, but knowing that Chris was disappointed in me would kill me.

I really hope I can convince my parents to let me go to Guelph; otherwise, I'll just have to settle for staying at York and hoping that living on my own will improve things for me there. I'm sure it will, but only marginally. I really think Guelph holds much more satisfaction and happiness for me.