Okay, I know you’d never frigging guess it from some of the ranting I do here, but I do try to be nice and help people out when I can. I do. But damnit people, I do have limits.

All right. I helped out a friend with her journalism project once, doing an interview for her. APPARENTLY you cannot do interviews over the internet or, really, even the bloody phone. And then, even when the first damn interview is done, you get harassed again for a follow up interview. Each of these take about an hour. And have to be in person.

I work two jobs. I’m on spring break now, but I have work every single damn day and I have projects to do for school. I’m being bothered again for another project and another interview. I’m tired when I get home, and I have chores to do so that I can, you know, have clean clothes to wear and food to eat. Then I have projects I have to do for my own classes. My point is, while I could go and try to find the hour in the day, it is possible, I really don’t feel like being probed again. I need that time to hunt for another job for the summer (one of my two jobs only occurs while school is in session) or just to finally have some time to myself. I’ve been nursing some form of a cold or flu for the past damn week. I don’t want to have to get up and drag myself to campus or wherever she wants to meet and then play twenty questions.

I’m writing because I feel guilty, I suppose. I’m that person that actually answers the grad students that need surveys for their projects in the psych department e-mails. I know people don’t respond and it screws these grad students– and I know that no one wants to be interviewed, and that there is, of course, the possibility that I’m this friend’s last hope.

The thing is, there ARE other people she can interview. I’m not the only college student in existence. And furthermore, what the hell did she do before I gave her that first interview? She should go back to those sources. For the last interview I gave her, it was on how little time I have due to school and my jobs. She cannot exactly claim that she figured I “wasn’t doing anything.” And then, on top of that, the last time I was interviewed, the “follow up” questions hinted toward her writing taking a slant that I did not appreciate, even if her professor is the only person reading her work in this case. It also doesn’t help matters that this project is another one on the subject of my finances, and frankly I feel very uncomfortable discussing my finances in any more detail with her. She went into some very personal detail last time. Mayhap it is because she goes into such uncomfortable detail she’s having problem finding subjects, but that is not my problem.

It’s a relief to write that. It isn’t my problem. My projects, my work, my health, those are my problems, not saving her academic ass.

What does it say about the strange wiring of my brain that I had to reason through this this way to relieve my guilt for something that was never my problem in the first place?

P.S. If you want to interview someone about their pets, it helps if you bother to remember their pet’s name and sex correctly. It just seems like a common courtesy to me. Especially when my cat’s name is Ginger and you decided she is male and named Chester. Otherwise, I might just feel that you’re using me.