Thank you for the academic advice. > I am also puzzled by you dropping out halfway through a semester and failing multiple classes. OK, I omitted something (n

Thank you for the academic advice. > I am also puzzled by you dropping out halfway through a semester and failing multiple classes. OK, I omitted something (not deliberately. It's interesting how we unconsciously cut out the more painful parts of our lives). Being a young fool, I got into some legal trouble at the time and had to make money to hire a lawyer. I also had a court date set for the summertime, which ruled out my Spanish teacher's generous offer for me to stay with her family overseas that summer. This meant that I was about to be homeless, not to mention lacking any way to afford the legal fees. I was very lucky to get a good job offer as soon as I started looking. It meant that I had a three hour commute from my dorm, but I was able to save up enough money to land on my feet in two months. Otherwise, I would've been homeless. I did everything I could to complete the courses at first (studying and writing essays on my stolen two-hour commuter rail ride, for instance), but I simply lacked the energy and perseverance to make things work. After a month of trying this, I had to stop so that I could at least do well at the job. Most of my teachers were devastated when I told them that I could not continue with the coursework because I'd done very well to that point and was more engaged than most other students (it was well past the deadline to drop a course). Looking back on it, I'm amazed things went as well as they did. I do believe that this story would have gone quite differently for a person from a more privileged background than my own.