<p>I’m just going to get this off my chest and check back tomorrow. I took a year off from doing much of anything because I had no other choice. After 21 years of military service, my dad decided to move to California for a new job because he was retiring. I was pretty sick of moving around my entire life and I had gone through a rough life in high school going without friends for first three years of it. However, I wasn’t a bad student. I got mostly A’s because I could just care <em>that</em> much and sunk into other pursuits. I took a business class my senior year and every day we’d have to research an article and write up a report on things. Yeah, well, 2008 wasn’t such a good year for the economy and my parents knocked on my door to tell me that they couldn’t afford college. But I couldn’t take no for an answer and hounded on my dad to find a way and we did: community college. Only a year later did I have enough money to start my education and it’s weird because I still have no social life since I was 13 outside of my long-distance girlfriend I’ve been with since I was 18 (it’s not just online). </p>
<p>But the summer of 2009 something really clicked with me. I never had a prior interest in mathematics at any point during high school, but I had read a book by Richard Feynman and was delighted at the read. It inspired me so much that I became deeply interested in solving problems. I didn’t have much going on for me class-wise because I was at the bottom of the barrel as a newcomer, crashing classes like crazy. I finally got into 3 math classes: Statistics, Pre-Calculus, and Trigonometry and was so excited to be doing so well with A’s in all my classes come the end of the semester. I had never received above a B in high school in a math class. I had taken 12 units, though, so I submitted an application to join the Honors Program here. I got it. I also joined the Honors Society. And then, I got sick. It started in the spring and what seemed like a great undertaking soon turned into a nightmare. I was working overtime just to pass my classes. I put in an unreasonable amount of 10-15 hours a day when I had the time to study chemistry because I got a 21% on my first exam, due to having a fever that day. I had never felt so crushed. The rest of my classes I gave what I could. I didn’t make very good grades. B,C,C,B. Two C’s in 5 unit classes. </p>
<p>And the summer of 2010, I had signed up for Calculus 2 during the summer. My health had been rather poorly still and I soon learned that I had pneumonia (the first appointment I had dismissed me with just inhaler. the second appointment was a whole other ballgame) but even the details on that were sketchy. But I took the class and passed it with a C. And my memory has been deteriorating ever since on things in class.</p>
<p>I’m taking classes now. I’ve been in the hospital about 10-15 times for things and have another appointment next Friday. They tell me I have this, that I have that, and that they don’t know what. I dropped Linear Algebra. I’ve got a 62.5, second lowest grade in my Diffy Q class, and I love mathematics. And I’m getting very sick. Everyone comments on my health. What do I do? What can I do? I’m sporting a 2.75 GPA and I feel like it’s only getting worse. I don’t want to drop my major, but my girlfriend is also another stressor in my life. I was supposed to go to her LAC and she always cries (literally) now because I’m not getting any better, that I’m not remembering as well as I used to, and I’m failing at something I love and cherish. And I have to get a recommendation form and hand it to the dean, who is going to see how I’ve done and I don’t have many things to offer. And all this time I don’t want to give up. I had this goal of getting into UCLA, UC Berkeley, or her college and I literally broke down this past weekend realizing I’d never get into any of those anymore. The medicine hasn’t helped. I haven’t shown how scared I am to my girlfriend, but I’m so scared for my life. I feel like it’s been ruined and that there’s nothing I can do anymore about it.</p>