Waste

So I just got done reading the FAQ booklet for the Vet Tech program at Madison. And now I know for sure that I don't even qualify. Because my grades in high school weren't good enough. Also, the program is highly competitive and I should have applied on the 1st, as all spots are likely to be filled already (they only accept 64 students per semester). Well, I suppose at least now I don't have to bother with the hassle of getting everything sent and paying the fee.

I just feel like I really dropped the ball on life. If I'm being totally honest with myself, I know that there's a 98% chance I won't return to college. I wish I could go back to 9th grade me and yell at myself. I wish I could tell myself to just suck it up and do well, because when you're 20 you'll be sitting in a tiny bedroom in your parent's apartment crying because your GPA was .001 too low for you to get into a program you really wanted to go for. I wish I could go back and tell 18 year old me not to move out of the house so soon, because when you do get accepted to the nice, expensive school in Iowa, you won't be able to stay because you'll be too financially tied to your apartment. I was told on graduation night that from this point on, nobody cares what your high school GPA was. What a load of shit. Actually, a lot of people care what your high school GPA was. And how many extracurriculars you participated in. And whether or not you volunteered. I didn't realize any of that was important until oh, senior year. Too late.

But I can't go back and warn myself. So I'm stuck, basically. I didn't do well enough in high school. I didn't do that well in college. I see a long stretch of low paying retail and food service jobs splayed out ahead of me and I just want to shoot myself now and be done with it.

I honestly have no idea how to proceed from here. Do I keep going to school for nothing? Wasting time and money, and not really learning anything of value, just to be in school? Do I just give up on school and try to find some sort of job that will sustain me? Do I just keep working my 3 shitty jobs and hope that somehow I'll be able to make ends meet? I have no clue. No direction.

I feel like a reject and a failure. I don't know what to say to family either. I keep saying I'm taking this semester off to work, but really, I've taken the last year off to work. And its gotten me nowhere. And when I say I'm not in school I get that sad, pity look. That look that says "I don't know what to say because all my conversation points revolved around you being in school". Then they talk about some other family member and what they're in school for and I feel even worse.

I'm not sure what else to say. Goodnight.