Thanks for your encouragement, Open Eyes. This has definitely been a year and a half of nasty curve balls. And I love baseball.

I reread my thread here on negative emotions as a reminder to use my current negative emotions constructively, to spur me on to finish my grad school course final paper so I can pass and stay enrolled in my program, while also putting up with being unemployed and jumping through all the county hoops put in place for job seekers, so that I can somehow strategically use those hoops to get access to a full-time job once and for all, and a plan to move out of my roommate's place when spring rolls around if I"m still living with her.

My roommate's sister texted me that she wants to "revisit" my imposed reduced rent in January, to see if that is still sustainable for her sister's monthly mortgage payment. My interpretation: she is tired of paying some of my roommate/her sister's mortgage payment and wants me to pony up half the mortgage payment like I initially did. Well, if I get another temp job in December, and I can stay enrolled in my grad program after passing this course, then I should be able to pay the rent amount I paid in July and August because I'll have my spring refund to help me move out once and for all.

I'm grateful to have a roof over my head, but it's definitely come at a cost to my own peace of mind. I never EVER want to live with a roommate again after this experience. I'm done with roommates...unless it's a Golden Girls re-enactment when I get enough money to move to FL in my 60s or 70s (if I'm still alive) and need to find roommates to live with. But from 48-65, as the great actress Greta Garbo said, "I want to be left alone."