Saturday, December 17, 2005
On the Fifth Day of Christmas....
Wow, this is turning out harder than I had imagined...but that's ok, I'll finish this thing up yet!
Here we go....
On the fifth day of Christmas my memory brings to me....
A tough Christmas...
It was winter of '99 and I was a young Purdue student on my winter break. I really was going through a tough part of my life right around this time. I believe that everyone has to go through some trials in their life in order to appreciate what they have later on. My tough part lasted from around the end '98 to mid '00. I wasn't the jovial person that you know today...I was really in a dark place. Life was really throwing everything at me that it could, and I was trying as hard as I could to keep afloat in life and in school.
In '99 I moved into my first apartment with 2 friends. The year started out headed in the right direction, which was a nice change because the previous year had been really hard for a variety of reasons. I move into my new apartment and things went from ok to worse! Amanda and I were together at this time, although we were still in that new part of our relationship (under a year). She was in Indy going to Butler and I was at Purdue. I enjoyed being on my own but money was super tight because I didn't have a job and student loan money would have to last me a long time.
Luckily a week or two into the school year I found a job doing telemarketing. I was so glad...now I could make some money and get a little better off. I was working about 25 hours a week and going to school full time. My typical weekday was go to school until 3:30 or so, go to work at 4 and work until 9pm. It wasn't fun, but it was money. The problems started on Amanda's fall break.
She wanted me to go to Indy and pick her up and then come back to Lafayette. It was 12am or so on a Friday and I wasn't doing anything...I was pretty bummed out because I was all by myself in the apartment and I would gladly drive and get Amanda not to be alone. I had just burnt my first CD ever and decided that I would bring that with me. The drive to Indy wasn't very fun...we were having one of those torrential October storms that we get. Rain was pouring down and 65 was covered with water. I made it to Indy and picked up Amanda. Amazingly that I found her since I didn't know Indy at the time! We then are headed back to Lafayette.
The rain is coming down harder now...and as a result I'm driving about 45-50 instead of a lot faster. We were around that car auction place that is next to the Zionsville/Brownsburg area when I was passing a semi and hydroplaned. My little Geo Metro didn't weigh very much and it was sucked under the trailer of the semi. It dragged us for a little bit and then we spun out and hit a guardrail in reverse. We were both ok, but my car was toast and we only had liability on it. I was then car less with no means of buying a new car.
Amanda's mom let me use her truck to get me around and to work. Around the beginning of middle of November I had to give it back so that they could use it. I was suddenly without a car again. I still managed to work by taking the bus, but it wasn't fun. I also had $800 of expenses suddenly come up towards the middle of November. Then there was Christmas coming up...I didn't know what I would do. I would spend the greater part of November and December eating oatmeal and Jacks pizza's ($2.50) every day. I believe that I was getting by on about $3 worth of food a day. I managed to pay that $800 off that I had to and save up enough for Christmas.
Amanda and I even managed to find an artificial tree on clearance for like $15. We bought lights and some ornaments and put up our first tree together. One evening we both went to the mall to do our Christmas shopping. I spent all the money that I had budgeted on gifts for Amanda. Afterwards we went back to my apartment and we locked ourselves in different rooms and had a wrapathon. Soon our presents were wrapped under our new tree and we were so excited! We couldn't wait to give our gifts to each other, so our newly wrapped presents only stayed wrapped for mere minutes!
Amanda opening up her gifts
I was so happy that I managed to save up enough to buy Amanda a variety of gifts! I was worried that I was not going to be able to, but thankfully things worked out. There is another memory with this one that will be shared later....but this is it for now. Christmas of '99 was great and added a bright spot to a dark year!
Oh yeah, I added a pictured to my Wednesday entry!
Wow, this is turning out harder than I had imagined...but that's ok, I'll finish this thing up yet!
Here we go....
On the fifth day of Christmas my memory brings to me....
A tough Christmas...
It was winter of '99 and I was a young Purdue student on my winter break. I really was going through a tough part of my life right around this time. I believe that everyone has to go through some trials in their life in order to appreciate what they have later on. My tough part lasted from around the end '98 to mid '00. I wasn't the jovial person that you know today...I was really in a dark place. Life was really throwing everything at me that it could, and I was trying as hard as I could to keep afloat in life and in school.
In '99 I moved into my first apartment with 2 friends. The year started out headed in the right direction, which was a nice change because the previous year had been really hard for a variety of reasons. I move into my new apartment and things went from ok to worse! Amanda and I were together at this time, although we were still in that new part of our relationship (under a year). She was in Indy going to Butler and I was at Purdue. I enjoyed being on my own but money was super tight because I didn't have a job and student loan money would have to last me a long time.
Luckily a week or two into the school year I found a job doing telemarketing. I was so glad...now I could make some money and get a little better off. I was working about 25 hours a week and going to school full time. My typical weekday was go to school until 3:30 or so, go to work at 4 and work until 9pm. It wasn't fun, but it was money. The problems started on Amanda's fall break.
She wanted me to go to Indy and pick her up and then come back to Lafayette. It was 12am or so on a Friday and I wasn't doing anything...I was pretty bummed out because I was all by myself in the apartment and I would gladly drive and get Amanda not to be alone. I had just burnt my first CD ever and decided that I would bring that with me. The drive to Indy wasn't very fun...we were having one of those torrential October storms that we get. Rain was pouring down and 65 was covered with water. I made it to Indy and picked up Amanda. Amazingly that I found her since I didn't know Indy at the time! We then are headed back to Lafayette.
The rain is coming down harder now...and as a result I'm driving about 45-50 instead of a lot faster. We were around that car auction place that is next to the Zionsville/Brownsburg area when I was passing a semi and hydroplaned. My little Geo Metro didn't weigh very much and it was sucked under the trailer of the semi. It dragged us for a little bit and then we spun out and hit a guardrail in reverse. We were both ok, but my car was toast and we only had liability on it. I was then car less with no means of buying a new car.
Amanda's mom let me use her truck to get me around and to work. Around the beginning of middle of November I had to give it back so that they could use it. I was suddenly without a car again. I still managed to work by taking the bus, but it wasn't fun. I also had $800 of expenses suddenly come up towards the middle of November. Then there was Christmas coming up...I didn't know what I would do. I would spend the greater part of November and December eating oatmeal and Jacks pizza's ($2.50) every day. I believe that I was getting by on about $3 worth of food a day. I managed to pay that $800 off that I had to and save up enough for Christmas.
Amanda and I even managed to find an artificial tree on clearance for like $15. We bought lights and some ornaments and put up our first tree together. One evening we both went to the mall to do our Christmas shopping. I spent all the money that I had budgeted on gifts for Amanda. Afterwards we went back to my apartment and we locked ourselves in different rooms and had a wrapathon. Soon our presents were wrapped under our new tree and we were so excited! We couldn't wait to give our gifts to each other, so our newly wrapped presents only stayed wrapped for mere minutes!
Amanda opening up her gifts
I was so happy that I managed to save up enough to buy Amanda a variety of gifts! I was worried that I was not going to be able to, but thankfully things worked out. There is another memory with this one that will be shared later....but this is it for now. Christmas of '99 was great and added a bright spot to a dark year!
Oh yeah, I added a pictured to my Wednesday entry!
