Chapter Five

     I cannot remember when I first began using Facebook. I think it was shortly after I bought my house. I know this because my first picture on Facebook was of Frankenweenie wearing doggles.

     I guess I was posting more on MySpace and Yahoo. At some point, I was only posting on Facebook. It’s quite possible I began using social media because everyone I know is on there.

    It’s really weird because most of the people that I use to work with vanished from my friend list, but my high school friends and family are in my friends list. It’s probably better that way because it could make in the negative impact of your employer knew that crap we post online. None of the business either.

    At the time there were things that were happening that I was oblivious to. I was a first-time homebuyer with no experience or knowledge. My education and self-awareness just sucked. I was easy to manipulate and lacked self-worth.

    A few months into owning my house, I lost my job. So many people lost their homes in it and had to cancel their DirecTV. This was terrifying to me. I never had to worry about this when I was renting ad I certainly did not want to go back to renting. I was dating this low life at the time.

    When he should’ve been applying for work, he was snooping through my things, selling things he bought from big lots, taking narcotics obtained from Taco Bell, and playing Farmville. I also played Farmville.

    Farmville was one of my ways of escaping. Where else can you grow candy on trees? I was back to spending hours doing something mindless. I would  grow different crops at one time, grow one color only, make designs with my crops, and rearrange my farm to my liking. I visited my friend’s farms and I had different farms.

    I also played Yoville. It really wasn’t that exciting. It was kind of like real life. I had different houses that I got with my coins. I was always redecorating my houses. I always changed the appearance of my character. I don’t remember how I got coins. Yoville isn’t as free as it was before.

    It just played games on Facebook. I started to play Mafia wars and some vampire game just like it. I liked the vampire game more. It was kind of a steam punk and I could dress my characters.

    The downside was that my friends were not really playing that one. Everyone was playing Mafia wars. I wasn’t thrilled about that one.

    I started to get bored with it when they started to add new towns and countries to travel to. Eventually, my friends ventured off to other interests. I was kind of playing on my own with people occasionally sending me an energy park.

    Soon, I was doing other things as well. After the recession took my job for me, I looked frantically for another job. This was a scary time for me because I’ve never been never dealt with this before.

    I applied for so many different jobs and failed one personality test after the next since I was never educated on critical thinking. I had no idea knowledge of how to answer complicated questions that made me look like a bad person. I did not understand rhetoric and manipulative devices.

    During this uncertain time, I fell victim to this. University of Phoenix was targeting this crowd at the time, but I didn’t realize this. While I was training for my new job, my classmate from school was there talking about University Phoenix.

    I found it interesting because I knew she was popular in school and I never knew how much she struggled in school. I found the concept of distance learning appealing because I would never see anyone.

    So, I just gave them my phone number not really realizing what I was getting myself into. I only wanted to know if they had anything to offer to offer me. They really didn’t. They were just a business college that was profiting from enrolling as many people as they could.

    This was a bad time for me and bad timing. This lady name Mabel began calling me. She called and called. She acted like she was my friend. Around this time I ended up in the hospital with food poisoning. I missed one day of training and I was not doing very well. I knew I was going to lose my job.

    I told her that I cannot go to college, I could not afford it, and I was going to be fired. She persisted, “How come you don’t want to change? How come you don’t want to better your life, Jennifer?” This happened over and over. She would not leave me alone and she was manipulative.

    Yeah, I wanted a better life and degree would make my life better. Did I know any better? Yes. Did I know how to ward off someone harassing me? No, I didn’t. I ended up enrolling. She told me I had nothing to worry about.

    Mabel took me through orientation. She said nothing about how long I would be in college nor was cost ever discussed. I told her so many times I wouldn’t be able to pay, she said I had nothing to worry about because, “It would be taken care of.” During orientation we came across the math material. Verbatim she said I wouldn’t have to worry about any math class. I only saw a few classes and was under the impression that college would be like maybe six months.

    I was so wrong. As it got close to what seem to be the end, algebra classes appeared. This was after I lost my job.I was livid because I was betrayed and lied to. I was misinformed or actually not informed at all. Mabel avoided this information. She ignored the information that I needed.

    I spent so much time yelling at these people only to get, “life is hard.” It’s already hard! I lost my job because of the recession! My life was hard before going to college.

    They dropped my classes which made me angrier. This would’ve meant a loan with nothing to show for it. I yelled at them because of this. They go through so much trouble to badger people to enrolling and then leave you alone after they make their sale.

    While I went to college, I played game games on the side. It wasn’t in an ideal situation so I played games to escape. I got into playing cooking games. I played Café world and some other one. I would sit in bed and fall asleep while playing. I ended up breaking a laptop, so I had to buy another.

    Escaping didn’t make it any easier. My clock was off and I woke up terrified thinking that I didn’t turn anything in on time. I was in Mountain Time. Since Arizona does not have daylight savings, I always had to adjust my adjust by either mountain or Pacific Time during the time change.

    Despite playing games and running away from college, I got straight A’s. I guess before, I wasn’t really ready for school and I had less distractions. I didn’t have classmates or teachers bullying me. Nobody was there to subject me to experimental meds.

    Things did change, but not much and not necessarily for the better. I still work at call centers and I have no career. I did dump the low life that I was dating and I have more opportunities at various jobs that I can get into. Already had a super opportunity, but now I have a debt that I can’t pay.