I am such a punk.

How am I going to break down and blow up at Bob tonight, followed by almost a half-hour of uncontrolled crying?

It rendered me useless for a good hour, and I still cried even while I worked on Comp. Arch. before starting the Thorn.

The problem?

There ain’t one. There is absolutely nothing fucking wrong with me other than a little fatigue that I can’t even justify in terms of sleep or stress.

So my schedule is busy. It’s not undoable. Hell, I’m doing it.

So my research is taking a lot more of my weekday time than I planned on. We all know that life is what happens while plans are being made.

So I’ve been waking to the buzz of my alarm clock for twelve days straight with no more than seven hours of sleep at a time. Whoop-de-fucking-do. A whole seven hours?! Perish the thought.

So I’ve moved forward about twenty pages in Harry Potter in an entire week. This leisure time has arisen only during meals. I have no problem with living a fairly active lifestyle, being fairly constantly on the move. Better yet, I signed up for this. I went in with eyes open: three jobs, two research spots, four classes, NSBE, the newspaper. I have absolutely no right to bitch right now when I’m a little fatigued. I’m not fixing the problem by dropping any of my activities, so I need to shut the hell up and keep moving.

I was knocked off my little surfboard a surprising amount by Aaron’s death. Icing on the cake o’ shit, this week. I don’t feel comfortable e-mailing my mother about it because of my uncle’s death just a couple of weeks ago.

When Luke tried to get me to talk, I didn’t know what to say. I have no right to pile my schedule up like this, then blow up at people over little shit because my day isn’t going so well. All of my bitchiness, my lack of running and discipline in eating, my fatigue, my growing lack of sociability–all of these are my problems, caused by my choices, that I need to deal with.

So I’m reminding myself of the rules. Reaffirming my resolve, so to speak.

I chose this (Rose, schedule, jobs, newspaper). No caffeine when I’m in this state. No “checking answers” after an assignment is done or getting further explanations from friends or profs or tutors. Tough it out, stretch my brain, take the grade hit if I’m too dumb to figure it out. Run at least three hours a week no matter the loss of sleep. No pawning off work on Luke or Bob. Just walk away when a possible altercation arises, despite the oddness of that response. All homework is to be done before going to bed. No missing class unless I am physically incapable of making it to the classroom. No more dumping my problems on friends who have problems of their own. Don’t spend money unless it’s an emergency. Don’t dump problems on Mommy. Use leisure time to write blog posts or sleep, in that order if the catharsis is needed. Food… *sigh*. Eat it or not, but don’t abuse the body too heavily. One of these days it won’t recover so well.

I guess my one secret little fear arises from the fact that this week’s schedule is exactly what I’d planned for the entire quarter. This isn’t going to stop for ten more weeks, so I just need to learn how to deal.

7 Comments

Jenny

9/10/2004 at 07:11

it’s not too late…

you could drop one of the jobs… it won’t make THAT much of a difference but sometimes a little is all it takes. college is supposed to be fun. socializing is IMPORTANT too. it should be on your list of rules.

also, i think the poo icing definitely provided a shaky foundation for the week emotionally. things will get better…

love you

Lissa

9/10/2004 at 07:47

But I have need of the money…

… hence the three jobs.

Socializing is good, and I do it. Folks bug–I mean, sit with me at meals, and there are few things more social on my calendar than Thorn nights. It’s not something I’m going to directly set aside time for right now (I *do* have my priorities straight), but some socializing does happen. Besides, my friends here haven’t really set themselves up as the “let’s go do something” types with me, so scheduled fun would be weird.

It’s not such a big deal. I’m just being lazy and pissy about things not being all shits and giggles right now. I think I’ll survive. [:)]

Luke

9/10/2004 at 11:19

You need to chillax.

Thanks for the word. I think you need to relax just a little bit. I’m sure you’ve heard “you’re being too hard on yourself” far to often, but have you considered backing off just a little bit? Trust me when I say you can only be so high strung for so long before it triggers bad things. I’m not suggesting you stop anything, but that you relax the requirements a little bit at least until you have had time to handle/deal with/whatever you do for emotional turbulence.

And stop worring about the rest of the quarter…be mindful of the present young padawan and everything will work out.

Lissa

9/10/2004 at 14:14

Relaxing the standards

What standards do I relax, though, Luke? Do I start cheating? Start taking a drug to stay awake? Stop caring care of my body by not running? Become a slacker and push off even more Thorn work onto you and Bob, who are just as busy, if not *busier* than this little sophomore CS? Become an even whinier biz-natch, just because my po’ li’l schedule is full and I don’t sleep much? Bah.

If I just relax too much in general, things will slip. I will forget homework assignments or meetings or interviews I need to conduct in the bliss of aimlessly surfing the Internet or reading Harry Potter. Then I’ll either have to face crunch-time to get things done (even more stressful) or let my grades/job performance slip.

Worse than that, if I stop, I may not gain the momemtum to do it again for another couple of years, which wouldn’t do good things for me at Rose. I’ve had trouble with this in the past.

It’s a choice between crummy (highly punctuated levels of stress) and crummy (more constant, lower levels of stress), yes, but in the long run, I’ll probably look back on this and lau–well, I may still shudder, but only very slightly.

Thank Michael for the word. I’m just a sponge when it comes to dialects and word usage.

Lissa

9/10/2004 at 14:15

Oh, and…

What’s a “padawan”? This sounds like a Star Wars word.

rackrent

9/10/2004 at 21:45

You can do it Lissa! I know you can. And you can whine and complain sometimes too.[|D]

Bob

9/11/2004 at 03:55

That is because it is a fairly well known word from Star Wars. Note I am still not telling you what it is, although I am sure you can infer the meaning if you do not look it up [:)]

Jenny

9/10/2004 at 07:11

it’s not too late…

you could drop one of the jobs… it won’t make THAT much of a difference but sometimes a little is all it takes. college is supposed to be fun. socializing is IMPORTANT too. it should be on your list of rules.

also, i think the poo icing definitely provided a shaky foundation for the week emotionally. things will get better…

love you
Lissa

9/10/2004 at 07:47

But I have need of the money…

… hence the three jobs.

Socializing is good, and I do it. Folks bug–I mean, sit with me at meals, and there are few things more social on my calendar than Thorn nights. It’s not something I’m going to directly set aside time for right now (I *do* have my priorities straight), but some socializing does happen. Besides, my friends here haven’t really set themselves up as the “let’s go do something” types with me, so scheduled fun would be weird.

It’s not such a big deal. I’m just being lazy and pissy about things not being all shits and giggles right now. I think I’ll survive. [:)]
Luke

9/10/2004 at 11:19

You need to chillax.

Thanks for the word. I think you need to relax just a little bit. I’m sure you’ve heard “you’re being too hard on yourself” far to often, but have you considered backing off just a little bit? Trust me when I say you can only be so high strung for so long before it triggers bad things. I’m not suggesting you stop anything, but that you relax the requirements a little bit at least until you have had time to handle/deal with/whatever you do for emotional turbulence.

And stop worring about the rest of the quarter…be mindful of the present young padawan and everything will work out.
Lissa

9/10/2004 at 14:14

Relaxing the standards

What standards do I relax, though, Luke? Do I start cheating? Start taking a drug to stay awake? Stop caring care of my body by not running? Become a slacker and push off even more Thorn work onto you and Bob, who are just as busy, if not *busier* than this little sophomore CS? Become an even whinier biz-natch, just because my po’ li’l schedule is full and I don’t sleep much? Bah.

If I just relax too much in general, things will slip. I will forget homework assignments or meetings or interviews I need to conduct in the bliss of aimlessly surfing the Internet or reading Harry Potter. Then I’ll either have to face crunch-time to get things done (even more stressful) or let my grades/job performance slip.

Worse than that, if I stop, I may not gain the momemtum to do it again for another couple of years, which wouldn’t do good things for me at Rose. I’ve had trouble with this in the past.

It’s a choice between crummy (highly punctuated levels of stress) and crummy (more constant, lower levels of stress), yes, but in the long run, I’ll probably look back on this and lau–well, I may still shudder, but only very slightly.

Thank Michael for the word. I’m just a sponge when it comes to dialects and word usage.
Lissa

9/10/2004 at 14:15

Oh, and…

What’s a “padawan”? This sounds like a Star Wars word.
rackrent

9/10/2004 at 21:45

You can do it Lissa! I know you can. And you can whine and complain sometimes too.[|D]
Bob

9/11/2004 at 03:55

That is because it is a fairly well known word from Star Wars. Note I am still not telling you what it is, although I am sure you can infer the meaning if you do not look it up [:)]