Rising Up From The Ashes

I am so irritated it isn't even funny. I have an important group project I have to do for class this semester and next fall. I thought I was going to have a pretty decent group but it seems that I was WRONG!!!

The guy I was supposed to work with seemed like a nice guy and had some good ideas. I didn't really know him but was looking forward to getting to know him. He seemed smart which is a big plus - I have a hard time working with people who cannot think logically. He is also a 'non-traditional' student and is studying both chemistry and forensics. We were able to joke around easily and I thought I lucked out.

So anyway, I was looking forward to this project and thought this would be fun since it is in a subject I enjoy and was working with someone who seemed to be on the ball. NO! Apparently not - or if he is, it is a completely different ball... So the guy has not shown up to class all week long. I was not too worried about it early in the week since attendance is not required and we still are not really covering anything challenging.

Tuesday evening, the guy shot me a text message in the afternoon asking if I would help him with part of the Challenge Problem that was due the next day. I let him know that I was not busy and he could call me whenever. I didn't hear back from him and arround midnight shot him a quick message letting him know that I was going to bed; I figured he must have figured out whatever he had be struggling with earlier. He replied with a quick message letting me know that the due date had been pushed back to Friday so he quit working on it for a bit and was doing his other homework instead. That was the last I heard from him.

He never showed up for any of the classes all week. No biggie. But he also did not show up for lab nor did he come to our group meeting where we were going to finally decide on a topic for our research. No phone call, text message or anything. When he hadn't shown up for lab, I shot him a quick text thinking that maybe he fell back asleep but he never responded.

Not a peep later on Thursday or on Friday. By Friday afternoon, I was really starting to wonder. It seemed unlikely that this guy changed his entire life around to go back to school for this and all of a sudden, without warning, chose to drop out--especially since it is still early in the semester, it isn't like he is failing his classes and decided to give up. I decided to call him and see what was up. If he is quitting, I want to know so I can go ahead with the project on my own ortherwise, he needs to get his act together. His cell phone was "temporarily out of order." I don't know if that simply means that he is broke and hasn't paid or if his is dead. I have had seven deaths in my life just since Thanksgiving, including 2 suicides, so it starts to seem like a perfectly logical conclusion. I didn't necessarily think that he was dead but it did seem possible. (frankly, it makes more sense that just blowing off the education you always wanted!)

I ended up shooting e-mails to all three of his known addresses and ask him for some sort of response. I didn't care if he responded that I should fuck off and die, at least I don't need to wonder if he is rotting in his house somewhere (I have no clue if he has a significant other or not.) No response. Now I am the first to realize that this seems rather dramatic on my part - I can only blame it on all the other deaths I have experienced recently.

Anyway, again I hear nothing. Of course, by evening my imagination and all the gory pics of dead bodies start running away with me so I ended up looking up his work phone number online. He never gave it to me but I did know the name of the place he worked. I intended to call and see if he was in but managed to accidentally dial his cell phone number instead - this time it was working so I left him a phone message. I am sure by now I look like a damn stalker! I tried to explain myself in the message but am not sure that I did much besides ramble.

He still did not call back. Before I went to bed for the night I did end up calling his job. A nice woman answered and when I asked if Brent was there she said "yeah, he's down in the office" and transferred the phone. I just hung up while it was ringing. I didn't really need to talk to him just wanted to know that he was okay.

Anyway, the whole thing just really pisses me off and makes me sad at the same time. I am pissed that he blew our meeting off and could not have the common curtesy to let me know. I am also irritated that what was a good group now seems to be pretty much non-existant. I don't mind working by myself - often I am better at that - but I was looking forward to having someone smart to bounce ideas off of and to help me with the tricky stuff. I am even more angry that when he knew I was worried about his sorry ass he could not take 2 seconds to send a text telling me to leave him alone or whatever.

What really has me bummed is that I don't even know what the hell happened! I am not nearly so self-centered as to think that he is dropping out of class just because of me (okay, I guess I am self-centered enough to have at least brought it up but not seriously, I just have an active imagination...) but it seems that if he were quitting for some other reason - like he decided that he HATES chemistry - then he could have taken a minute to contact me when I first tried to reach him. I could understand if he is irritated that I contacted him numerous times but I did give him quite a bit of time between each method before trying something new. I did not just go on a blitz and send him a ton of phone, email and text messages all in the matter of an hour.

anyway, I guess I thought I was going to get to work with this new person on a cool project and maybe even become friends and instead it seems that I am on my own in both ways. Bummer.