It\u2019s one of those weeks, guys. The three weeks between Thanksgiving break and winter break are always hard\u2014Thanksgiving break is only a tease, then suddenly you\u2019re thrust back into an emotional warzone, final exams and final essays coming at you like grenades, or whatever better fits this war metaphor\u2014but this is worse than usual. It\u2019s only Tuesday, and I am so exhausted. I got four hours of sleep last night, and tonight was supposed to be my night of recovery, but it\u2019s looking like I\u2019m going to have to put that off for a couple more nights, because I have so much still to do tonight and tomorrow.<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t bore you too much with the details, but let me just say that I thought I had a lot more time than I did, then my WiFi abruptly stopped working and I spent most of my night fighting a losing battle to download complicated drivers and fix the problem. Riveting, I know. But to me, this simple, small conflict felt like a potentially world-ending one.<\/p>\n
Tonight is the kind of night that makes you jaded about college. It\u2019s one of those nights when you have to decide whether to prioritize your own mental health or your grades. It shouldn\u2019t have to be one or the other, but the reality is that sometimes it is. Sometimes getting good grades means you don\u2019t eat, or you don\u2019t sleep, or you don\u2019t have a social life, or you don\u2019t consume any of the art you\u2019ve been wanting to. (Tonight, I made the wrong choice and watched an episode of Jane the Virgin<\/em>, thinking I had all the time in the world.)<\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure exactly what my point is with this post, except to say that sometimes school is hard, and it sucks when it has to get in the way of the things you\u2019re passionate about, because school is supposed to be about doing what you\u2019re passionate about, isn\u2019t it? Right now, my dream day would consist of ten or 11 hours of much-needed sleep, then a day to just catch up on TV and watch a movie and journal, because I\u2019m way behind on journaling.<\/p>\n Sometimes, when I\u2019m having an apocalyptic week or day like this one, I like to open up my journal and just write a short post to myself to pump myself up. Something reminding myself to calm down, reminding myself that when it comes down to it, whether I get a B+ or a C+ on tomorrow\u2019s exam won\u2019t really matter in the grand scheme of things.<\/p>\n So let me do that right now: Ben, and anyone else out there who might be going through a similarly terrible week, it\u2019s all going to be okay. It feels long right now, but in a few days\u2014and, even more so, in a few weeks\u2014you\u2019ll be done with it all and you\u2019ll be able to take a breath. The end is in sight; in the blink of an eye, you\u2019ll have all the time you want to relax, binge-watch whatever TV you want, catch up on your 2016 movie list, and, oh yeah, start actually reading for fun again. You\u2019ll have time to journal and explain all the things that have been going on, and you\u2019ll be able to hang out with all your friends, or just be alone, if that\u2019s what you want most.<\/p>\n Hang in there, everyone. This is hard for everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s one of those weeks, guys. The three weeks between Thanksgiving break and winter break are always hard\u2014Thanksgiving break is only a tease, then suddenly you\u2019re thrust back into an emotional warzone, final exams and final essays coming at you like grenades, or whatever better fits this war metaphor\u2014but this is worse than usual. It\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2178,"featured_media":7956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7954"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7955,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7954\/revisions\/7955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}