I'm in a seemingly impossible financial situation - all sorts of bills, my stipend is far less than I thought it was, and I'm having money stolen from me by the U.S. department of education, who decided today to ignore that my student loans are in deferment and to take 50 dollars out of my account anyway. Problem is, I had 38 cents. So now I have substantially less than 38 cents. I was already going to have to borrow more money from my mom - now it might have to be even more than I want to. Of course, as soon as I decided I wouldn't get a part time job down here (which I couldn't do anyway - I need to be around from 10 am to past 9 pm every Monday-Thursday and need to be able to see Amy) everything that could need fixing on my car decided it would blow up on me.

This is really rough on me. It's driving me nuts.

A. Bob

I'm back in Muncie. I don't really want to be. But I'm locked into the assistantship and the apartment for the next year, and in any case it's a better situation than what mine was, so I don't have much recourse but to give it my best.

Leaving Amy tonight was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I hated seeing that look in her eyes that seemed to be begging me not to go even though she knew I had to and didn't actually tell me not to. This was the best weekend of my life, and she was the reason. I have never, not once, been as happy as I was with her all weekend.

Now I'm back, and I'll live, because I'll get to talk to her all the time and I'll be busy enough that I won't be able to concentrate on how much I miss her...but I still will.

9 days until I am back.

A. Bob

Well, I have another reader. I broke the news to my mom about me and Amy today and wonder of wonders, it turns out she already knew, from Megan. Oh, well. Probably better that I not shock her with the news anyway. She reacted just as I (and Amy) expected her to - a little apprehensive, considering how everything ended and considering one of the biggest issues of our first go-around was me being here. I would hope that she gets that I wouldn't have gone back to Amy if I didn't know she is what I wanted, if I wasn't sure she is what will make me happy. I think she will get it.

I'm so bored...even if I had anything to do or anyone to hang out with, I have no money to do anything with. I need to make some friends. I'd been hopeful that Joe, the 2nd year GA who seemed intent on getting all of us GA's to be friends, would organize some activities, but he hasn't yet. I think he's been gone both weekends so far, though. I don't know.

I should really be working tonight, but of course I am not. What I have left to do for this week is: a 10-page reaction paper (to a book that, thankfully, I finished), leaf through "The Prince" by Machiavelli and find 15 quotes that relate to public relations and write paragraphs about each of them, and read 9 chapters of a big-ass book that no one seems to have and that I can't buy until Monday anyway. As compared to what I had to do five days ago I think that's manageable, and this week's assignments are going to be a cakewalk by comparison. I can't wait to see Amy. I really, really can't. That's why I'm going up late Thursday, instead of saving myself a car trip and going Friday after the football game. I need to see her that soon. That may or may not continue to be the case on future weekends but I knew it had to be this time.

Anyway, I'm really just wasting time until it's time to go to bed. Hopefully Amy will talk to me before she is done hanging out with her best friend and family, but if she doesn't I will live somehow. There's always tomorrow.

A. Bob