It is the week before midterms, and I find myself completely stressed and lacking time to study, finish projects, and sleep. As time is a rare commodity of mine, I substitute the hours I should be sleeping for the hours that I study. I thought I'd be used to this hell week by now (fifth semester of college), but I am not. I spoke with my nutritionist last week, and she told me I need more sleep. I explained to her there was no room in my schedule for that, but I would consider moving some things around. I lied. You see, I have two jobs and a full load of sixteen credits. Everything I eat is in my car on my way to somewhere that I need to be...if I could somehow sleep while being transported to class and work that'd be awesome! As I only have six hours at night to study and complete assignments (I get home from work at nine, and I try to study until two or threeish to get four or five hours of sleep) I do not have time for the twenty minuets of studying and short breaks. I do a few hours of power study followed by a power nap.
Sometimes I wonder if too much is expected of me as a student, employee, sister, daughter, girlfriend, and woman. But whatever...I don't have time to think of the future implications of my life now. I have to make through yet another midterms week: I have three more to go. (I am trying not to count finals week, because that is a different ballgame.) I almost feel as thought eating, sleeping, and bathing are all a waste of time, and I need to GET BUSY studying, working, earning a degree, and starting a career. I just want time to be a young college kid, but I feel guilty going to parties, shopping, and even going out with friends. Yet, I feel expected by my peers to do those things too.
It's like I'm being pulled in one hundred directions, but I know everyone else is overwhelmed by their lives as well. So, I suppose I take solace in the idea that being this stressed out is normal.
--Nikki
Yes you can defiantly take solace that there are quite a few people in the same boat as you are. I for one am one of them. This semester however, has differed quite than some of my past semesters. For one, I took a 100 class for those random credits we need to graduate. It’s a relatively easy class thank goodness, I took it to ease me work load this semester, since I’ve been killing myself the last couple of semesters to maintain if not get my gpa even higher. The other classes I’m taking though are quite different in that two of them have the work load spread out throughout the semester, and not a huge ridiculous amount of weight on a midterm and final.
ReplyDeleteThus far, I’ve found it to be a relatively effective way to conduct a class, spreading out the assignments out and not having an exteme weight on a few particular things on the all consuming information that they have been teaching thus far in the semester.
But anyhow, one of the classes still has a crazy amount of reading per week. Approximately 50 pages or more, which sometimes may not be so bad, but if I have an essay to write and a test to take that week, the readings definitely get pushed back for a later time. The worst part is we have to do a close reading of them to analyze them rhetorically in class in these brain ninja-ing discussions, so if I cant even read them closely what is the point of reading them at really.
Altogether I have to say your post made me feel a bit better. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who thinks the teachers are crazy with their work loads. I feel like sometimes they forget that we have to eat, sleep, and do other things for other classes, and oh yeah possibly trying to have a life! Geeze! I hate when teachers give the smeal about this amount of hours for this many credit hours. Frankly, I want to tell them fuck that. I guess I should give up my life and not eat or sleep. I think teachers should consider the students and remember that they have lives and other classes to worry about. The instructors can be very selfish with the importance of their class. I want to learn from them, really I do. But honestly I gave up a couple semesters ago trying to kill myself over it. Or at least I try extremely hard not to.
Oh, I feel for you Niki (and Jen). Graduate school does not get any better, let me tell you! I completely sympathize with the way in which you feel pulled apart by different demands (as a student, daughter, worker, etc). Sometimes, when I feel like I am going to "freak out," I take a breath and think about my grandmother. She is a retired teacher who spends her time reading books she wants to read, gardening in her backyard, visiting with neighbors, and calling old friends. We will all (hopefully) get there one day . . . that is if we don't push ourselves over the edge with this stuff.
ReplyDeleteYour blog is fantastic. At some point you will need to return to the first post and put a little introduction to what readers can expect, but I like that some of your entries acknowledge the patterns of past entries. You create a dialogue in this web space and most certainly have a unique voice. The use of pictures is effective. I cringed at the female body image ones.
One of the most thought-provoking posts, for me, was the entry about the teacher who made a comment about God being a woman. I think you're right to question the tone of the comment and the response of the class; I hope that, in retrospect, you have gotten something out of the troubling experience. As teachers, we are always "on" and sometimes can say downright disrespectful things. However, these moments are often great inspirations for original student thought (as evident in your post).
Keep up the writing! I will be reading!