Alas,

Poor Yurik (alternately spelt Joreg, depending on what country you're from...not to mention the fact that I'm too lazy to make it over to the bookcase and find out how Shakespeare actually spelt it) I knew him well....
(ok well, maybe not so well, but it's always fun to quote Shakespeare and I try to whenever I can....he appreciates it, I'm sure)

I have reached a very important conclusion: Life is too short _____________________ <------ fill this in like a mad lib (you remember mad libs, right?). Alternately, there really could just be a period at the end of that sentence (fragment) and it can stand all by its little old self just fine.

Life is too short to bumble through it with no direction. In the rare case that you are under the mistaken impression that in fact, you have no direction, you inevitably find something that you so completely and utterly did not count on, which then leads you into doing something else (thus you are now not on your same directionless path as before) and **POOF** there, now you have direction! TA DA!!! wasn't that cool? ok ok it wasn't really, but humor me will you?
anyway......I have been so miserable lately and I wonder if it wasn't something in the water (the horrendous, slightly green, probably radioactive, certainly chlorinated, delicious, upstate mountianly purified (is that anything to do with computerly generated?), lead-ridden, toxic waste laden, sparklingly polluted New York City water) but alas, it isn't something in the water; rather, it was something in my heart (blackened like chicken<-----what's with the recurrent theme of chickens recently??) that was pulling me under. I have managed to figure out an excellent way to relieve myself of a psychically oppressive situation recently: I have been released (thankfully) from my services at my former "job" (though admittedly, it was more like a year-round day-camp for idiots).
This is simultaneously liberating and terrifying. I will be able to get SO much done now! I will be able to concentrate on school (from which I am on holiday Monday coming), I will be able to concentrate on making things (like I did today), I will be able to look for a job that will potentially further my actual career (which had nothing to do with what I was doing), I will be able to not develop any further weird allergic reactions or other health issues (I've discovered that exposure to toxic chemicals on a daily basis is not healthy, did anyone else know about this?), I will also be able to dedicate my energy to the things that really matter......
One of my famous quips about work (after actually having worked in an emergency room I felt completely justified in saying this) was that no one is waiting for a vital organ, a pint of blood, or the operation that will save their life: whatever it is, no one will die if it doesn't happen right at this instant. My job was famous for "catastrophes". Everything was tragic; a calamity; and wrong. Happily, I have a relatively thick skin, and thus was able to tolerate a lot (but I mean a lot) and upon reflection, I really wonder why I stayed there so long. I mean, I really wonder......
But, the nightmare is well behind me and the only two thoughts I have about this are:
Onward...........and UPWARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here's to new beginnings, folks...........................................