amw

I just got an email from the open university provider in Australia, over two weeks after i initially contacted them about the four fails i have listed on my academic record. One of these (in math) is a legitimate fail, but the other three (one philosophy subject and two IT subjects) are courses i withdrew from - initially to change majors in 1998 and then later when i dropped out in 2000. I was hoping to get these marks amended to indicate that i withdrew. After a second email to prod them for a response i was curtly advised that they had no record of me withdrawing from said courses and that unless i could provide proof of withdrawal my fails would remain. Dude, it's been over 10 years, how the fuck am i supposed to have "proof" still hanging around? Isn't it proof enough to see i picked up two of the same courses 4 years later and went on to ace them? And then just to top it off the fucking clownshoe told me that my degree will not be mentioned on my academic transcript, as that was awarded through a separate institution. This, after specifically asking an advisor before ordering my transcript whether my degree would be mentioned on it (the answer back then had been "yeah, absolutely"). So according to my academic transcript not only do i have four fails in spite of earning my degree with distinction, but apparently i didn't even earn a degree at all. And if i contact the university that awarded the degree they don't have a record of any of the courses i took from other universities that were credited toward my degree. So i'm fucked either way if i want to have a complete academic transcript available to be included in a potential Master's application.

What frustrates me the most is how goddamn fucking useless this degree has been. It cost me a fucking fortune - i paid everything up-front rather than get government loans. It didn't get me a job because i already had one. It almost killed me with stress through 2004 and 2005. Most of all it never got me to America, which was the whole fucking point of completing it in the first place. It makes me so, so angry when i think about all that time i wasted, all the energy spent trying to study and work full-time, all that work only to end up stuck in Australia for a further 4 years and even now still no closer to moving to America. And now when my only fucking tiny vanishing hope of making it there is tied to even further study i can't even use the work i did as a solid basis for entrance into postgraduate work because the fucking fly-by-night open university operation can't get their shit together to properly represent my marks. I might as well be using that diploma to wipe my ass for all the good it's done me. It's still fucking rolled up in the same tube they sent it to me in back in 2006. Fuck this bullshit, fuck it all to hell.

I don't even want to do a fucking Master's in IT anyway. But i already looked into my other options and pretty much everything else requires me to do even more undergraduate work before even considering it. The last thing i want is to go back to school again and rack up debt (because i sure as hell can't pay it up-front now). Seriously, i am shaking just thinking about it. It's hard enough thinking about having to sit through that bullshit, having to get graded on work i don't fucking care about... And then adding even more undergraduate work on to it? I feel sick. I hate that this is the only path forward i can see. I hate that i still can't fucking immigrate after all these years and all this work. I hate i wasted so much time. God there are so many things i would have done different.