Við Áttum Okkur Draum Áttum Allt.

I have a new method of trying to handle the collegiate grief: I'm actually trying, and trying very hard, to not care about school and grades. This doesn't mean that I won't be doing my work: I think it's probably physically impossible for me to not turn in an assignment on time. I think I would spontaneously combust. I also don't mean that I'm going to start turning in shite. Perhaps it won't be up to my usual standards, but those usual standards have meant that I haven't turned in a piece of work I've actually liked in about two years (I also blame that on external forces out of my control). I'm just trying to psych myself out by telling myself it doesn't really matter to anything. And it doesn't. Right now, when I have to write an essay proposal of 1,000 words when the actual essay I'm proposing is only 2,000 words long, this tact is about 75% working. Every time my brain starts to tell me that this is the worst, most unplanned thing I've ever written, I'm telling myself it has no bearing on the rest of my life. And it doesn't. It works for about five minutes, until the next wave hits. I think this whole complete "roll with the punches" tact is going to take some conditioning.

I also think I kind of deserve a break. I've put my schoolwork and my grades as my top priority for almost 16 years now. At Wooster, my motivation was to get into a good college. Not that Dickinson's not a good college, but it wasn't what I wanted at the time, and it wasn't what I wanted since, so that was futile, and I think that broke me a bit (my academic stride was further broken by the semester I took off, which I think I'll forever regard as one of the happiest times of my life). At Dickinson, I had no motivation other than habit of getting good grades and producing good work. That's gotten old by this point. Pair that with the fact that I still don't really have a clue of what I want to do, and the fact that everything I would like to do either doesn't require a degree, doesn't require a degree of this sort, or is next to impossible to break into, and my motivation goes into negative numbers. Sadly, what I'm looking forward to most in the long-term right now is not being able to secure any sort of real job after graduation and having to move back home with a job in a store or an office for a year so I can...have a break, but also figure things out a bit.

I don't really think my difficulty handling my current student situation has much to do with ability or lack of it: I think it has to do with not being bothered enough anymore. I think I'm perfectly capable of doing all this work to a high standard AND doing things I want to do AND travelling AND doing things like cleaning and cooking and shopping AND travelling. I think I'm actually quite competent. My problem is motivation and an overall feeling of time-wasting. I think my stress comes from feeling stifled by the things I don't want to do, which is most everything related to doing schoolwork, and how doing it prevents me from doing things that I care about. Right now, I should be sleeping. It's only 12:30, but I haven't slept past 9 for over a week, and I don't do well in this state. This is contributing to my current cycle of worry about this stupid paper proposal on the stupid Ku Klux Klan which will in no way progress me any farther down the road of life. What I need more than anything is to go to bed, but I can't, since I have to finish this thing tonight in order to right another useless proposal tomorrow on a topic yet to be determined. These stupid busywork exercises are what I feel are keeping me from having the time to sufficiently figure myself and the world around me out, which I feel like I'm actually pretty good at doing when left to my own devices. That's what I want: to be left to my own devices to figure what's in and around me out (which I regard as the most important thing in life as of right now). That's where I do best. I feel like in the past three years, institutions have kept me from being at my best, in direct contrast to the previous thirteen years of my life, where an institution brought out and created my best. Perhaps it's still separation anxiety that's frustrating me. In some ways I believe that and in some ways I don't, since I think upon being released from Wooster's hills, I've progressed a huge amount, and I don't think any of that has been learned in a classroom or by BSing something vaguely academic sounding on Microsoft Word in my bedroom at night.

My mom thinks everyone feels like this about university at some point. I think she might have a point, but then why does everyone else around me seem to get so much enjoyment out of it? I honestly think sometimes I'm the only one I know that utterly hates this whole experience. Obviously, I like being in England and I like the friends I've made by going to university. Hell, I even like some of the things I've been forced to read over the years, and that's fine, but my point is that I treat my education more like a Wikiventure than something sticking to a rigid syllabus: I like my interests and subsequent research about them to be sparked off each other randomly, rather than being told that we're studying this and then this and then that. I feel like I'm the only one that sits in class and is not only uninterested in the material, but wants to jump out of the window and run to the nearest bookstore/cinema/broadband connection so I can learn about things I consider worth my while at this stage.

Anyway, this is just an incoherent, self-indulgent rant further keeping me from finishing my work and going to bed, which I'm considering taking my chances with doing. Maybe I'll procrastinate less tomorrow if I don't do laundry, which I'll attempt to do on Thursday. But I'm definitely allowing myself to sleep as late as I want. That always makes everything much better.