Poker is a brutal game

I don't even know how to summarize the last three days' worth of online poker grinding without sounding like a donkey. Maybe that's exactly what I am.
So here's the raw, unvarnished truth. I began the month of August on a modest $100 upswing, which I promptly liquidated with a $500 downswing.
(Spoiler alert: This story has a happy ending. No, not that kind. Get your mind out of the gutter.)
What does a $500 downswing look like? Try not cashing in NINE single-table sit-n-gos in a row. Five of those were $50 buy-ins, and the last one was a $100 buy-in, which I'd never played before on PokerStars. Sometimes trying to recoup all your losses in one fell swoop isn't the best idea.

In evaluating my play, I can honestly say I was playing pretty well for at least six or seven of the nine SNGs. I ran horrendously bad all the way through - I probably lost about 80 per cent of my coin flips, which is just a function of the cruel variance of poker. If that's an exaggeration, I can say for certain that I didn't win a single flip in a crucial spot, ie. the money bubble.
I was pretty happy with my play at the start of my brutal run, but as the losses piled up, I started to tilt a little bit. I probably gave away two or three tournaments in the middle. Towards the end I was focused again, but the deck just seemed to hate me. One tournament, I busted holding AK vs. KJ, all in preflop. In the $100 SNG, I put myself in a great position to win. I got my stack up to 3800 with four players left, but busted with a string of rough beats on the money bubble.
(Here's the part where things start to turn around.)
On Tuesday evening, mentally bruised and battered, I decided to enter one of those 180-player, $10 turbo SNGs. I don't play those very often - they're fun to play, for sure, but the uber-aggressive blind structure can tend to throw off my rhythm for regular tournaments. I figured changing things up couldn't hurt at this point - plus, it offered an opportunity to win all my money back with minimal investment.
I ended up finishing second for $398, which put my bankroll right back to where it was at the start of the month. Talk about craziness. These turbo tournaments basically amount to a run-good contest, and I managed to finally find some luck. Maybe the PokerStars software felt guilty after hoovering all that cash out of my bankroll.
Whatever the case, I'm pleased to be back on level ground. I'd like to get back to gradually grinding my bankroll upward, rather than riding this rollercoaster.
Lest everyone get the impression I'm an incorrigible donkey, I've posted my earnings graph (courtesy of sharkscope.com) to remind everyone (and myself) that I can play this game.
Bankroll = $4,800