The "Rantiest rant I will ever rant during my entire ranting career" Rant

Okay, seriously, let me say a few things before we take a trip to Rantsville.

First off, Hallmark is amazing and offers more than I ever hoped for. The other thing is that I'm usually not so negative, but it was a bad day.

Onto my bad day!

So I commuted in from NY this morning because I was too tired to last night and late dinners don't help. Also be aware that on Saturday I fell down icey steps and hurt my leg pretty badly, so its been stiff and sore ALL DAY. Got a nice shot though, so I'll share that at the end to make it all better.

Anyways, MA got the same amount of snow as NY, but APPARENTLY they keep their gas prices low by spending tax dollars not on snow removal, but paying off the oil monopoly companies. I say this because they could not even keep the highways clear. You KNEW you had crossed the state line because suddenly the highway was SHIT. If I were grading MA on snow removal, I couldn't even be kind enough to give them an F.

Then some tanker got in the fast lane where I could do their cutesy 40mph limit, AND SLOWED TRAFFIC DOWN TO 15MPH! All because it was 10mph in the right hand lane! BULLSHIT!

Now I had allotted an extra 30 minutes to get to school. But because people in MA can't drive, and can't plow, I spent all my extra time with slow traffic. It took me 20 minutes just to go two miles from exit 26 to exit 27.

Classes didn't start until 9am today because we had a guest speaker (whom I didn't care for at all), but I had gotten two lenses out of the equipment room that had to be in by 8:45am.

Now, my journey from my home to college is about two hours and fourty-five minutes. It's only two and a half if I'm going to my apartment. So I left at 5:30am to be there by 8:45am at the latest.

According to Joey, we were in the middle of a Nor-Easter and accumulating 2" of snow an hour. People, it was flurrying and after three hours there was barely half an inch of snow on all parked cars. Not only that, but visibility was a good 500ft. That's flurrying, not a Nor-Easter. But even though they knew in advance that this was coming, they couldn't get their asses in gear and be prepared. So there was pretty much no schools open today in Western MA. Honestly, MA folks, never ever EVER move to NY, because we will kick your ass SO HARD with our winter cleanup and driving skills.

But of course, since it's Hallmark, the equipment was late anyways and I get nailed for it. So over-cautiously plan if you go here, they take no prisoners.

AND YET IT GETS BETTER!

So then we had the boring beyond boring Jay Maisel come speak. He's probably a really great guy, but his presentation was so boring that I couldn't even sleep. So I played solitaire on my iPod through it.

After that it was an extra half hour for lunch. And I drove again. Mind you, the snow has let up, the sky has cleared quite a bit, and it's been three hours. STILL NO PLOWS! And of course a Masshole decided to brake in a turn, so I had to too, and I lost control of my rear end. I don't know how I managed to stay in my lane and not spin out. It was a miracle if I ever saw one.

Got lunch though, and got back. Ate, then went and found Andi in the DL. Calmed a bit.

But then we get nailed with all 18 of our assignments, plus two others for a total of 20... all due in 6 weeks. Plus we have a few assignments from Phase II that rolled over into Phase III. We switched groups, and we're starting a whole new system for using the studios.

At least half of these assignments require models as well. Four of which must be shot in the studio. And we can not use the same model in two different assignments. Nor can we use our fellow Hallmark students as models, or the faculty and staff.

On top of this, I missed an assignment that was due at 7:45am, along with about 3/4 of the school. Who the hell makes an assignment due at 7:45am when classes don't even begin until 9am!? And I almost missed turning in two others at 5:15pm because I had to get them off my laptop, onto the school computer, and print them plus make PDF files to drop onto the correct folder on the administrative server. So I probably screwed something up there too.

All this, only to come home to my apartment, lug my heavy suitcase and stuff up an icey hill (no one believes in salt here either, my landlady included), into my apartment...

And then it really hit me that Mizu is dead. It was comforting to walk in and see him swimming around, and to talk with him, and just plain take care of him. It was a stress relief in so many ways that I never noticed until now. You really can't notice it until it's gone...

So I'm a shaking, crying mess. I'm freaking out, I'm stressed, the road rage is not leaving, and today was just generally a very, very, VERY bad day.

If I can walk tomorrow, it's going to be a miracle because my leg is already throbbing from the sitting and then rushing I did today.

Days like these make you wonder if it's really worth it. But quitting now would just make it my biggest regret, and it'd let so many people down who are cheering me on. So lets switch to good stuff.


So on the good side, I sold a print on DA, and I took a pretty picture. Here's the pretty picture:

Stepping Along Thin Ice by *Saknika on deviantART