unraveling
Jun. 3rd, 2006 06:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
intjonathanIt's so hard to capture the final two weeks of a quarter. The conflict of "I shouldn't be doing anything but studying" conflicts with the "well, not much else to study, so I'll watch this TV show here..." reaches a peak. For two weeks one feels guilty about doing any one time-consuming thing, but spends similar amounts of time doing many shorter things, because the math doesn't occur to them.
This quarter is doubly weird, as I have moving to do in addition to studying, but with two weeks of moving time allocated, and less than a week worth of moving to do, it's hard to justify spending "study time" on packing. So then I think well, I'll do coursework, that'll chew up time. Then I discover that everything's on schedule and what little remains has time allocated for it this week.
And you know, it's hard to write poetry for several consecutive hours. The flame burns out real fast.
I'm sure everything will get done ok in the end, but I don't know how to shed this continual stress. What if I took a test I never studied for and passed? What if I didn't work on a program the day before the due date - because it was already done? Is that even possible? Could I have made it even better?
Crap like this leads me to circle the wagons wherever I can in order to maintain some semblance of control. For instance, I haven't packed up anything in my room. It's exactly the same as it was last week, and I intend to keep it that way until sometime next week. There ain't that much stuff in it, and in there I can forget about the emptiness outside my door and get down to the business at hand.
The stress surfaces in other ways, though. Got a lovely excema breakout on my legs for a few days. I had frequent headaches last week, and haven't been sleeping all that well. Even though I know it's all surfaced stress, it's really hard to channel it elsewhere. Control feels necessary, control of the situation, control of the stress, control of time. I feel helpless, but it's just uncertain, and when have life changes been certain? There's enough certainty in my life this month to choke a Scantron reader, but it's not very comforting for some reason. Like, I'm not going to fail my classes. I'm just not. The grades I do have are a comfortable C and a very high B, and senior project is practically a gimmie. And I'm not going to be struck with financial ruin, no matter how many more parts fail in my cars/computers. I'm moving home to $0 rent and a full fridge. Besides, I just got paid June rent, so it's not all bad.
Life is much better than it feels, I guess, but it's so hard to see. Who would believe that your last quarter would be fun, you'd pass your finals easily, you'd have no problems closing your lease, and you'd move for practically free with plenty of time to somewhere with no rent? I mean sheeit, I've even got a little work lined up before I leave for 3 weeks in Italy! I shouldn't even care that I don't have work when I get back, because the way things are going, I'll get a job while I'm gone. :) It's understandable that I would have a mental block against such good fortune.
So yes, moving is scary, and when I get home, things get harder. But I've really got to work on crossing bridges when I'm at them, not 20 miles hence.
This quarter is doubly weird, as I have moving to do in addition to studying, but with two weeks of moving time allocated, and less than a week worth of moving to do, it's hard to justify spending "study time" on packing. So then I think well, I'll do coursework, that'll chew up time. Then I discover that everything's on schedule and what little remains has time allocated for it this week.
And you know, it's hard to write poetry for several consecutive hours. The flame burns out real fast.
I'm sure everything will get done ok in the end, but I don't know how to shed this continual stress. What if I took a test I never studied for and passed? What if I didn't work on a program the day before the due date - because it was already done? Is that even possible? Could I have made it even better?
Crap like this leads me to circle the wagons wherever I can in order to maintain some semblance of control. For instance, I haven't packed up anything in my room. It's exactly the same as it was last week, and I intend to keep it that way until sometime next week. There ain't that much stuff in it, and in there I can forget about the emptiness outside my door and get down to the business at hand.
The stress surfaces in other ways, though. Got a lovely excema breakout on my legs for a few days. I had frequent headaches last week, and haven't been sleeping all that well. Even though I know it's all surfaced stress, it's really hard to channel it elsewhere. Control feels necessary, control of the situation, control of the stress, control of time. I feel helpless, but it's just uncertain, and when have life changes been certain? There's enough certainty in my life this month to choke a Scantron reader, but it's not very comforting for some reason. Like, I'm not going to fail my classes. I'm just not. The grades I do have are a comfortable C and a very high B, and senior project is practically a gimmie. And I'm not going to be struck with financial ruin, no matter how many more parts fail in my cars/computers. I'm moving home to $0 rent and a full fridge. Besides, I just got paid June rent, so it's not all bad.
Life is much better than it feels, I guess, but it's so hard to see. Who would believe that your last quarter would be fun, you'd pass your finals easily, you'd have no problems closing your lease, and you'd move for practically free with plenty of time to somewhere with no rent? I mean sheeit, I've even got a little work lined up before I leave for 3 weeks in Italy! I shouldn't even care that I don't have work when I get back, because the way things are going, I'll get a job while I'm gone. :) It's understandable that I would have a mental block against such good fortune.
So yes, moving is scary, and when I get home, things get harder. But I've really got to work on crossing bridges when I'm at them, not 20 miles hence.
