I'm tired, But I have a novel in the works.

It's late, I should be sleeping. Trust me, I plan on it. I have to be up in just about three hours to drag my sorry carcass off to work.

This place certainly needed an update though, and I need to start keeping on top of it. If I ever want to be recognized as...someone who procrastinates less, consistency is going to be key.

Which is exactly why I'm taking part in NaNoWriMo. Which if you have NO idea what it is, stands for National Novel Writing Month. You can check it out here: http://www.NaNoWriMo.org

You can look me up on the site and track my word count, user name is Chromizone.

The goal is to write a 50'000 word novel in a month. Which averages out to about 1667 words a day. I missed the first day of the month so I have to write 1723 a day to make up for it. I've only just started but am plugging along steadily and excited to see how it turns out.

Keep your fingers crossed for me faithful few?

Cheers

Seeya later U of T.

So I up and quit school, crazy right?

Well, I really wasn't happy with my life. I didn't like how much of my time and money was going to an education that I didn't enjoy, and that hardly interested me. SO I spoke with an academic adviser to look at other majors and degree choices, turns out U of T offers almost nothing hands on, and their creative writing and film courses were all critical analysis and what not, there was very little "creation" that actually happened.

So I made the big call, took a deep breath and walked away from U of T. Which means that I have 2 years worth of credits earned, and if I ever want to finish the degree I was chasing I can always come back, none of what I spent my money on was lost really.

I couldn't stand the idea that I was only writing a few essays a year coupled with exams, and had nothing tangible to show for my efforts.

So I want to do something creative with my life and I'm looking into other school that will let me do just that.

I got a nice chunk of change back from the school because I dropped out fairly early in the year, and I have my accident settlement coming up this Thursday, so I'm hacking away at my debt too, which is always nice.

Since I've quit I've already started drawing again, started doing parkour again, and spent hours longboarding...I think this is the best decision I've ever made.

Means I'll likely work more (4 days a week?) and apply for start of next semester or next year depending on the school.

I can at least say life has been interesting of late. There's always that.

Thanks for reading faithful few.

I'll talk with you soon.

Cheers

I'm not dead, I'm not dead, I'm not dead...

Oh! I'm alive!

It could happen, right? So I told you last time I'd come back with cool stuff to show you and whatever...and then I caught the big bad flu. The kind that knocks you on your ass for a solid week, and it did just that. For a week solid I had shakes and muscle aches, night sweats, head aches, muscle cramping...yadda yadda yadda.

Finally drag my ass around to the doctor and he tells me that I had the flu and now I have strep throat.

Now I'm on antibiotics and that should clean me up.

So that out of the way, here's that cool thing I wanted to show you:



That's me in the middle of the board meeting... the annual gathering of longboarders in Toronto. This years count was something like 320...pretty damn sweet.

Anyways I hope to keep updating, still hoping to build a new site for my faithful few, to showcase new cool stuff. I hope it happens.

Until them I'll keep plugging the odd thing in here as always.

Cheers

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIA!

It's a tad late but I just wanted to send a shout out to my wonderful niece julia and wish her a happy tenth Birthday. Happy birthday hun!

She'll never see this...thought that counts right?

So I've been as busy as ever, I'm almost certain that I don't have "slow times" in my life anymore. Everything always seemed to be keyed up and in high gear.

I'll be uploading some cool stuff to show you soon.

Cheers faithful few!

Passed That Class.

Well I got my results, It looks like I passed my deffered exam and got a passing mark in the course (about 60%) which is of course below class average, but at this point who cares?

Nice to know I just saved myself the $1000 that would have cost me to retake. Really, with the mess this class has become you would think I'd be jumping for joy. It's hard to explain though, I'm pretty apathetic. I think I stopped caring the second I walked out of the exam room, it's nice to hear that it wasn't in vein, but it's hard to care.

I've been a little weird lately, maybe school does that to me I'm not really sure. I think a lot of it has to do with living at home again. I don't have an oppressive family but I find myself chafing under my parents already. I've worked six days a week for four months straight busting my ass to pay down my school debt, which of course has helped but it's not enough to keep me living out on my own. It feels like I'm moving backwards. I'm back at home, back in debt, back at school, back to part time, back to my single life...time rolls slowly backwards it seems.

I've been stupid busy having fun (trying), in the last week I've been to a convention, concert, three movies, two camp fires, two photo shoots, three large parties, four or five outings with friends, I've had people stay over, I've stayed over, I've been skate boarding, tricking, catching up with friends old and new...I've been to Oshawa, Little Britain, Toronto, and all over Pickering...

The problem is that nothing seems to be enough, the second I get home I'm in a blah mood again. I hate being like this, I hate feeling out of place.

I'm all about The Sad Bastard music right now too. Bob Dylan, Dan Bern, Ryan Adams... I'm one dead dog and a broke down truck away from a swam dive off a large building.

Nah I kid, I'm not that bad, but I still hate feeling like this. I'll take a page out of my friends book and try and to be more of a lightswitch. Flick me on and I'll be happy, just like that.

Thanks Faithful Few, I'll update you as I go.

Cheers,

Fan Expo and musings.

Just a quick update.

So I've been attending the Toronto FanExpo for years now, it's a massive comic/sci-fi/anime/horror convention.

For years I only went for the comic book side of things, I grew up during the Image comics revolution so comics were BIG when I was a little kid. Since then I've ventured into a deep love of Science Fiction, and ask anyone who knows me or who's ever taken a peek at my bookshelves and you'll know I'm a massive Horror Lit fan.

But Comic Books, THOSE were my first love.

The first comic book I ever bought with my own money (that I can recall) was an issue of a book called Pitt. I want to say it was something like, issue #14, but that's not 100%. I bought it based on the cover art, period. The art was FUCKING STUNNING. The man behind that art? A Toronto local by the name of Dale Keown.

So long story short, Dale was a repeat guest at the Toronto FanExpo. I met him (for the first time) at the ripe old age of twelve or thirteen.

His fantastic work, and the fact that he was super nice kept me coming back year after year to see him again and again.

He stopped coming though, for whatever personal reasons, and didn't show for something like half a decade.

This year, he was a last minute addition to the guest list, and I got to meet him again. Suffice to say I think he's just as badass as I remember he was back in the day, and I got a chance to talk with him for a while this year and I think it's safe to say that he made this years convention for me.

He ALSO just put out the first PITT book to see the light of day in a decade, so that got me super pumped, I bought both variant covers, and had them signed. He asked me to keep in touch with him when I left, and he's on my facebook and I plan to do so.

On a completely different note. I HAVE to stop putting off my female friends, I'm starting to think that "being me" has turned me into "that asshole" who offends, unnerves, and confuses the women that I appreciate the most. I used to think I knew what I was doing, anyone mind telling me what in the hell happened there?

I think I'm going to go draw, I need to go do something introverted.

Number Crunching

Well Ho Lee Shit,

Today my friends has been a day filled with exorbitantly large numbers, some good...some, stressful.

I've been working on a project at work for a little while now, lets say about a week in my spare time, for some of my higher end clientel. It's starting to pay off too, and big. I'm working on the sale of an entire home worth of hardware, which as it currently stands amounts to: $9'864.61 and there's probably a few small items to add to that running total. Really makes me wish I was on some sort of commission, but either way it will throw my sales numbers for the month through the roof.

On a slightly more distressing note, I was having a conversation with one of my co-workers who's entering her first year of university and we got to talking about school fees and registration.

Now if you've been following the soap opera that is my academic life you'll know that my deffered examination meant I didn't have the credit count to apply on the same date as the rest of the third years at U of T, which meant then when I did try to apply, many of my classes were full. I've been sitting in cyber waiting lines waiting to get into classes.

So, we were talking about the cost of tuition, and I decided to peak at my current balance owing, turns out I owe U of T a whopping : $5,147.38

But what's REALLY scary, is that the deadline to make my tuition payment? Tomorrow... Aug 19th

If I hadn't of thought to check as a result of my inter office work chat, and missed the deadline, I would have been revoked my place in all my classes and essentially given the boot.

Can you say Absent Minded, man?

On another (far cooler) note, I've recently moved out of The Big Smoke, and back to the sleepy town of Pickering. My bedroom has been accosted by my 9 year old niece and any relative that decides to spend the night Casa Ivany.

So I've moved into what I'm currently dubbing "The Bat Cave", my unfinished, dusty, dark, dank little basement. Why is this cool you say? Because I have plans you see...Big BIG plans.

I'll let you in on the news as it breaks,

Chase

Mommy, It's Over!

It's done and dusted, dead as a door nail, finito, finished, kaputz. I'm wiped (and Staaarving) so I'll talk about it more later, suffice to say I think I passed it, and therefore *should* have my credit and *should* have saved myself the $1000 or so dollars it would have cost me to take another year long class instead.

I'm off to...eat, or get drunk..or skate or play pinball or something.

P.S. I can FINALLY return to the tower, The Wolves of the Calla call and I shall answer them.

-Chase

The End is Nigh.

Slowly the bell tolls, and the time of reckoning casts its shadow upon me.

So having read the better part of 1200 pages of works that are now 100 years old in the last week, I'm reaching the end of my literary educational sprint. At least the 100 meter dash that is my exam prep. I've tackled 6 novels, and I'm now trying to get a full fledged review of the works under my belt before my exam at 9 am tomorrow in some building in Toronto that I've never been to before. There's a decent amount of planning involved tonight, I'm about to have dinner, then try and make my way to the library to print off plot synopsis and character overviews for the six works I've read. Some I haven't read since last years school term so this bit is desperately needed to jog my memory.

After that? I have to plan a route to get to said building and find the room I need to write the exam in. I plan on catching the 7:22 train to Union station which will land me around 8AM, then I have an hour to get to where-ever it is I need to be.

Do I feel prepared? Well, to some degree I do, I've read the works and understood them. Do I feel I have an intimate understanding of the nuances of the novels and their characters...well...to some degree I suppose. I'm concerned I'll get bogged down by quotations and references that wont catch in the mesh of my memory. That I'll know everything but the questions that are asked of me. This I'm sure is the norm for exams, and being someone who has a traditionally shitty memory, I've certainly found myself in that position before.

Where do I stand, what do I need to achieve with this exam? It's worth a third of my grade, or 33.3333333% if you're a mathlete, and I have currently a 43% in the course. Being an English major and having avoided math for the latter half of my life, I'm not sure the EXACT percentage I need to achieve a 50% in the course, but I think it's probably safe to say I need to aim for a 60% as a bare minimum.

We shall see how it goes, at least it's early tomorrow and I wont have to dread it all day, exams always make me feel (to some degree or another) sick to my stomach.

I'll pass on my impressions of how it went tomorrow, we shall see...

Life on other fronts is a bit all over the place, work is of course steady but my social and romantic life never seem to find their adequate balance these days. I'll update you as it happens...I miss writing this, I know I have a "fanbase" or "readership" of like...four people...but I don't mind.

I might have a new site coming soon, we'll see what happens.

Thanks for following along, and caring to read.

Take care of yourselves faithful few, I appreciate that you're here.

-Chase

On The Run.

Typos be damned, I'm writing this on my way out the door.

just letting the Faithful few know that I'm still alive and kicking, if you've been following along in your textbooks you'll realize my exam is only in a day or two, I'm cramming like a mad man, and will give you a full update of how things go later on.

I've seen a cool concert, been to a few parties, made a few friends, lots has happened since we last spoke, and I might be in the works of building a new site.

But we'll talk about this later. for now I must bid you,

Adieu adieu

-Chase

Time Lag

So I'm lagging behind, sue me.

I've got some important news, my school actually approved my petition... How nuts is that? You want to read the university jargon included that essentially calls me a moron and says this will never happen again? Read on!

"NOTE: This examination was scheduled to be written on Friday May 1st PM 2 - 4. The official Arts and Science examination schedule for S/Y courses was made available to all students on February 13th 2009. Examinations are scheduled for 9:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m., and or 7:00 p.m. only. The Faculty expects student to be attentive to information that is given and do not wait until the last minute to contact the instructor for examination preparation.

Timetable Misread - Your illness began AFTER this examination was to be written. Under no circumstances will the Faculty grant special consideration for a missed examination due to your own error again."

See that? They think I'm slow! Ah well, all is well that ends well. I suppose I just have to pass the bloody thing and get it over with. This however means lots of reading I really, Really, REALLY don't want to do.

ALSO! I have to go apartment hunting again, and this time on less of a budget and without a viable room mate! My line of credit isn't nearly as paid off as I'd like, so this is going to be a little tough to say the very least. Do eight month (ie: school year long) leases exist in the city? I'll get back to you.

Onto my job! My best friend is gone and I have a loudmouth co-worker who likes to complain about me to my immediate boss when I'm not around, life is grand aint it?
Mind you, this same co-worker likes to talk smack about everyone and is generally an all round complainer...so it's not really like he's singling me out, but come ON man, knock it off.

The love life! What love life? Things were momentarily up, with a nice swift kick in the nuts to bring me back down. Lovely.

Osap! Tells me my parents make too much money, even though I pay all my own tuition...perfect... I might be able to get something out of them, but that's more debt on top of my student line of credit. At least I won't have to pay it ALL back, and it's got a nice tax kickback though. This is assuming any of it works out though, and right now it's kinda sketchy.

The Tower! Just winding down with Wizard and Glass, 630 pages in and counting, Rolands tale of youth is almost over and I likely wont be able to move on in the series until after my differed exam date, which will be sometime in Aug but remains TBA.

I don't have time for a social life, and I've got too much on my plate without it, but it's the only way I can stay at all sane. I'm feeling really lost at sea for the time being.

As always faithful few, I appreciate that you bother to read. One of these days I hope to do more than periodically rant.

Chase

Anomalies and Forgotten Instances.

I was riding the subway today from Yonge and Eligible to Union, and noticed a fair number of good looking young people on the platform with me. Some hipster, some just eccentric looking, all of them looking pretty cool and friendly.

Didn't think much of it, what's a dozen good looking people? I just figured they were friends or a group or something and that was as far as it went mentally. I won't play innocent, the girls short shorts and gorgeous legs caught my eye (I love this city) but again I didn't think too much of it.

It wasn't long that I was on the train that I noticed one of the cats was dancing in the isle of the sub car, rocking out to his Ipod, seemingly oblivious of the looks he was getting but dancing none the less. An middle aged guy beside me made a loud noise that took my attention momentarily and with a dip of my head I was back with Roland and his Ka-tet as they approached Blaine's cradle.
Falling in and out of my novel is something I'm quite used to.

When I bounced back in reality I noticed the cat with the fro wasn't the only one who was having their own personal dance party, a VERY cool chill looking girl was doing ballet. At opposite ends of the sub car I didn't think they were with one another, but in hindsight I should have known.

One by one my sub car stood and started dancing. Turned out to be almost 80% of the riders were in on it, each with an Ipod or MP3 player, each in their own world of music that was inaudible to everyone else.

Looking behind me I saw the car behind me was also full of dancers, I have to say it was pretty cool sight. I watched silently, smiling to myself and to the dancers when I managed to catch their eye.

Once we reached Bloor I heard an audio announcement informing my fellow TTC riders that unless this "jumping" stopped the train would not continue and that they would clear the trains if need be.

Talk about your ultimate kill joys right?

Out danced the dancers, in walked the new riders, and on went the train.

One lady beside me made some bitter comment to the effect of "at least someone came to their senses" , suffice to say I thought this lady needed to take a very large stick out of her ass.

Just like that the event had come and gone, my fellow riders who joined just a stop later had no idea what had taken place, it likely won't be documented in the paper, so I thought I'd capture the memory before it leaves my consciousness.

Wish I'd taken video... I hope to see it again.

Thanks for reading Faithful Few

Tower followers, Blaines slo-trans engines are running full tilt, onto Wizards and Glass.

The Tower.

Recently, The Tower has been calling to me.

It's like a dull ache behind my eyes, throbbing insistently, thudding endlessly. It is the urge to tongue a cut on the roof of my mouth that can't seem to heal. It feels like standing of the deck of a ship that's just hit troubled water and started to take them on... the slow sinking feeling you have in the pit of your guts that makes the hackles on the back of your neck stand on end. Fear washing over you in a cold wave,long before the icy sea ever reaches your feet. Crawling it's way menacingly up to your knees before surging forth and hitting your belt line. It is the knowledge of what is to come that instills this anguish, this NEED.

I Know that I won't be able to resist the murky depths that await me. The sea of pages laid forth by a King over tumultuous decades. The Violence and Hardship, The Heart Break...The Rose...it's all there for me. I've been cast along the path of the beam, tossed into the street and under the wheels of a Cadillac by a priest. Or just a man who claims to be.

I stand in The Way Station.

I travel under The Mountains, the slow mutants beckoning.

I will palavar with The Man In Black.

I stand before a door, with hinges that connect to thin air, and open it.

This and so much more I WILL do, because it is Ka, and you my faithful few will follow my journey, as we are Ka-tet.

I walk, somewhere Charlie is sounding off his steam whistle, smiling that smile...

I don't trust him, and that's the truth.

I'm afraid, and that's the truth...

The Tower calls me forth into The Wastelands...and I'm helpless to resist.

And that's the truth.

Lost in a Sea.

So I've not been keeping this up in the fashion I might have liked. I do have a number of interesting stories and photos to share, and they've been piling up on me, but I've been running around so desperately that I've yet to dump them here. They don't call me The Absent Minded Man for nothing now do they?

I'm still working a 45 hour week, and probably spending a solid 5 hours a night out with friends. I'm sleeping an average of 3 hours a night currently, it's interesting how much you can get accomplished in a 21 hour day.

I have a small story I'd love to share that was originally going to be a little longer, but I need a transfer cable for my phone that I don't own, and uploading the photos to go with the stories is a bit of a Macgyver-esque job. So I'll do what I can, here we go:

Catto Houghton, an amazing young Toronto artist invited my good friend Zach and I into her studio to take an insiders looks at her new showing before it became open to the public.

Zach and I were out skating around Toronto late at night, as we often do, just to check things out, clear our heads and see what our city has to offer. On the night in question we were skating down Queen St. West and checking out the galleries when I stopped to snap a pic of a brightly lit little studio with some amazing portraits.

After seeing Zach and I, the girl inside who was cleaning up started towards the door. I thought she might be locking it, in case she was worried we might try and walk in on her, after all it was already after midnight. But to my surprise, she invited us in to take a private look around.

Pictured is Zach and Catto, and my longboard, all in the reflection of the glass looking out onto the street while giving you an idea of all the work we were checking out, it really worked out neat. Click to enlarge.

She gave us a wicked walk around, discussed her gorgeous oil paint portraits and shot the shit for probably a solid half hour, It was really a surprisingly cool little adventure, here are a few close ups of her portraits:

Please check out Catto's Site here : WWW.CATTOSTROPHE.COM

Yack yack yack. Get a job!

So I'm back at work again,

Scheduled for forty + hours a week. This means my massive unrelenting school debt doesn't quite scare me as much as it otherwise might have, but it also means that my time is now devoted to work.

Getting to and from work means either an hour and a half on the cab/train/bus, or an hour drive in with one of my best friends and co worker. Easy pick right? Take the ride with your buddy, the conversation, the rock tunes, inside jokes and all the rest of it.

The only downside is that this means I'm going to come and go from Pickering every day and night five days a week, and I still have my apartment and life in Toronto to attend to. It's strange cause I don't have a lot of ties to the city, but it offers a life style I really enjoy and the few ties that I DO have, are ones that I'm going to miss the hell out of.

I don't know how to straddle my two worlds. It's something I'll have to learn to do though, cause there's no way in hell I'm spending rent money on a place I never go to.


GOOD NEWS:

That longboard down below? The one that's tragically shattered in two? The one and only creator Ivan "Danger" Frasier got wind of it's demise and sent me a message saying he'd build be a new one free of charge. Suffice to say I'm buying the man some beer. Not sure if he's going to blow the dust off another older piece or make one from scratch. No idea if he's re-making the one I lost or a totally new design.

The really cool part? I could care less what he does. Of course it will matter when I ride it, but I'm entirely confident I'll love whatever he throws at me. I feel like I won a mini lotto, and am totally stoked.

Also stay tuned for an exclusive article on a wonderful Toronto artist I met, who let me into her studio after midnight to check out her brand new pieces.

Looking up

-Chase

The Tower Calls. 165.

Meds

Just a quick update.

It's just shy of 6 am and I can't sleep. My throat has a familiar sting to it and I'm a little worried.

I just had strep throat about a week ago, was taking antibiotics for it, and it was almost unnoticeable.

However, I left my pills in Toronto and am now back in Pickering...the thing about antibiotics is that you HAVE to take them all... my body is noticing that I haven't and I'm really hoping it doesn't get infected again.

Still riding the crazy train

-Ivany

The Tower calls. 135.

Lost Longboard.

And...the good times keep on rollin.

I am, and have been, a skateboarder for quite a long time now. It's something I did as a kid to initially fit in with some of my friends, it was what I then considered supremely rad. I sucked of course, especially compared to the guys I skated with, but I loved it. I soon figured out that I liked the feeling of cruising around more than attempting to do tricks. I say attempting cause I was a short uncoordinated fat child who couldn't ollie to save his life.

But I digress...

When I hit university I very quickly got sick of paying for / riding the subway, and started looking for an alternative. I considered biking and rollerblading but I'd have no where to lock up a bike and I'm straight, so those two options were out. I decided to pull out an old skateboard and ride the distance from Union Station to my U of T campus.

It was fun, I really liked it, it felt good to be on four wheels again. Dodging pedestrians gave me back that slightly edgy feeling I used to like so much as a kid. Suddenly I wasn't cattle anymore.
I was a missile.

There was a slight problem though, I still couldn't ollie if you paid me, and there were a fair number of street car tracks in the way. With tracks so deep they could swallow your wheels whole...they posed a threat, and I was painfully chucked into traffic on a few occasions.

I noticed some guys riding longboards on campus and decided that was the solution. Larger wheels, longer wheelbase and more momentum should do the trick right? Within about a week I had hunted one down on Craigslist and was truly becoming a side walk force to be reckoned with.

That was almost two years ago. Something like 20 boards later and what has to easily be hundreds of K's under my wheels, well it's safe to say it's becoming something that defines me.

Not too long ago I was given something pretty special by a friend of mine. He used to make longboards in his garage a few years before and had a few decks left over from his previous efforts. I always thought it was awesome that he'd made his own, and upon some requests we struck up a deal and I took (what I thought to be) the nicest deck he had left.

That was only a few months ago. Yesterday that board was run over in the street and cracked clear in two.

It had quickly become my favorite board, with it's odd shape, birch construction, almost non existent grip, and complete and utter lack of concave...well I was surprised how much I loved that board.

The strange "fish" like shape allowed me to dig in my toes and heels while carving to make up for the lack of concave.

The birch construction made it light, flexy, and easily to carry around.

The hand applied sand grip allowed me to ride barefoot without shredding my feet.

It was a thing of beauty.

I was in the street when I noticed a silver SUV behind me. Pulling onto the side walk I hit a piece of raised concrete that caused my board to shoot out behind me. Into the street.

Like a basketball rolling out in front of a car, so my board rolled slowly and painfully under the front wheels of that SUV and with a sickening crack was run over. I told the lady not to worry, it wasn't her fault...hung my head, and carried what was left of my Longdex back to my Toronto apartment.

Life's peachy aint it?

R.I.P

The tower calls. 65.

Best intentions, worst possible outcome.

I am, the Absent Minded Man.

I'd rant and give you some critical history on my inability to keep track of dates, times, events, names, keys, glasses, money and paperwork...but we'd be here all day. Suffice to say I have the memory of a goldfish. I hate it, it lands me in all kinds of trouble, and I kick myself every time I seem to forget something important. No amount of self loathing for my memory and inability to plan my time seems to change me however, and I seemed doomed to forget important crap.

Today I petitioned the University of Toronto to let me deffer an examination due to illness. I got strep throat during my exam period, and was told I was contagious, and couldn't write it.

After jumping through all kinds of hoops to get doctors notes, university medical forms, writing a letter to the petition council, and dropping all my documentation off, did I realize that I had the original exam date fucked up... This, will cost me dearly.

You see, the course in question is taught by a VERY oldschool professor who doesn't seem to use the internet. So unlike all my other courses, whose information is easily accessible on the internet, this class required me to keep track of paperwork with important information on it. You see the disaster waiting to happen?

I was informed by the professor that I could request a exam prep document if I e-mailed him and requested it, which of course I did. Said document had an exam location, time, and date on it that I took to be the information for my OWN exam... This is where I start kicking myself.

It turns out my exam was a few days prior, and my illness didn't befall me during that time, so my petition is likely going to be thrown out, and I'll likely have no recourse what so ever. The document he sent me was the exam for the previous year...with the previous years information on it. Meaning my times, dates, and locations were all off. So while I was busy being sick and studying, everyone else in my course had already written their exam.

What does this mean, Absent Minded Man? It means I'm out the cost of the course (About $800 before books, so over a grand), the credit, and the years worth of class time and study. It also means I'll likely be on academic probation next year...

Shoot me?