Rdr. Seraphim Pardee

It’s been a long 3 months since I’ve updated on all this education stuff. When I wrote the post, I had reached my low point and I wasn’t sure where I was headed afterwards.

But now, I’m back.

When I wrote that blog post, I had dropped out of the online school I had chosen and made a small effort towards getting my GED. It wasn’t working so I just started playing by ear and seeing where life takes me.

I was going to counseling appointments bi-weekly and eventually seeing a psychiatrist to give me the final verdict on my depression. Turns out, I did enter a depression (which I’m still in process of fixing). The medicine is helping so I just kept playing by ear, since the school year was over and I didn’t really have much to do. The GED wasn’t something I wanted and was a last resort thing (if that wasn’t apparent).

The appointments were starting to get a little bit annoying. It’s different when it’s a routine, but when it’s every other week it starts to get a bit repetitive. My insurance only covered so many appointments and I ended up having to spend these next 4 months with only 2 appointments.

It’s partially a good and bad thing. Good as in, I’m on my way to healing and the medicine is helping to where the appointments aren’t necessary. I don’t think I’m done yet with the medication, as my mood has a definite change when I fail to take them on a day. It’s bad in the sense that if I was to ever slip back, I’d be screwed. There wouldn’t be much I could do and I’d just have to survive. The plus side is that me slipping back seems slim now.

A short time after I had my appointments spread across the months, I received a phone call from an online school that I applied to back in January when I had signed up for the other one. The benefits of this online school being:

1. It’s in my area.
2. I go to an actual school, despite all of it being online.
3. Partially oriented around people like myself. They inquired about me wanting to join, and I said yes. It was the only good thing I had going for me and I took it. Since it couldn’t get much worse than nothing. So, skip a few months later (because I didn’t start until September). I go to school, and it is pretty direct and simple. They give you classes oriented around you (in addition to keeping state requirements) and making school less of a nuisance (I haven’t received a piece of homework).

I started school on September 15th (last week) and I was on my way. They start everyone with a math strategies elective class just to bring people up to speed on basic math and pre-algebra concepts. I finished the class today (September 22nd). I spent less than a real full school week (since we don’t get Fridays and the school year starts on Tuesday). Granted, there was stuff that I had to learn, but I had about 30-40% of the work like the back of my hand, and I was able to finish the rest quickly once I was taught.

I’m also the first one to finish a class in this school year.

I think I’m starting to get to the top, like I should’ve been. I’m also at the point where I’m looking at the present and very near future and I’m not looking back on the past. That’s over.

Hell, if I finish classes within weeks, I’d be out sooner before my normal time.

So, my friends and family, including the strangers on the internet (who supported me regardless with no doubt), thank you. If it wasn’t for the support I had received, I’m not sure why I’d bother trying for my education. So (1000 * “thank you”) to each and everyone of you to motivated me to get to where I needed to be,

Thank you.