Tag: stress

Grind don’t stop

Grind don’t stop

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

What have I been thinking recently?

Not a whole lot if I’m honest. I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts. Pretending the sun is way warmer than it actually is. I went oUt oUt on Thursday; that was exciting. I watched The Little Mermaid yesterday.

I’ve been kind of tired.

We’re in the very last stretch of the university year and intellectually, I’m exhausted. I’m not walking around like a zombie, sleeping 15 hours a day – though I do generally need 9-10 hours of sleep a day to function, but that’s besides the point. I’ve been having a great time over the last couple of weeks, seeing and spending time with my friends and family and getting excited about restrictions easing. But during all the laughs there’s still this constant nagging in my head reminding me that I’ve got work and deadlines, and it’s making me really tired.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy my degree, because I honestly do find researching and writing essays, and speaking foreign languages incredibly fun. But this last academic year has been so taxing and I’m just bored of looking at screens. I don’t want to have to open up my laptop and sit for at least 5 hours a day doing vocabulary, or grammar exercises, or researching and writing essays. I look at the blank digital pages where my 2,500-word essay should be and though I’ve never struggled to have opinions, I feel like I have nothing worthwhile to say anymore. So I avoid it, but that only makes the process longer.

It’s just that the sun’s coming out, and restrictions are finally lifting after the most stressful year of pretty much everyone’s lives, but those deadlines still beckon. (!!) And I know that it might sound like I’m complaining about nothing but my friends and I have had a year of online university-learning and it’s been really hard. Just last term, we would each walk around the house letting out short screams or hysterical laughter or mantras of ‘can’t be arsed, can’t be arsed, can’t be arsed, I can do it, I can do it, don’t wanna do it, have to do it, gunna do it’ from the kitchen all the way back to our laptops, on our desks, in our rooms. And whilst it was always kind of funny to hear who was ‘losing it’ today, the stress and lack of motivation have been rEAl this year.

Nonetheless, even though we’re all burnt the fuck out, there’s really not that long left now: last push and then we can spend a day not studying, without feeling guilty about it or reaping the consequences the next time we sit down at our desks.

So, back to the laptop screens we go, but just for a few more weeks this time kids. Deep breaths.

Xx

Exam season is gross and degrees are difficult

Exam season is gross and degrees are difficult

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 3 Comments

My experience of University so far has been a mixed bag. Luckily, the overriding emotions are positive, but there are also elements that I really don’t love that much.

Last Thursday I cried when I read some feedback given to me by my language teacher about a practice paper I’d spent hours on. I’d done the paper the first time, received the marks and was disappointed. So, I spent around 8 hours this week translating every word of Japanese on it with my textbooks and notes. Then I redid my answers and rewrote the essay because I wanted to make sure that I knew how to do better. So I cried at the second lot of feedback my teacher gave me because after all of that time and effort, it was better but it still wasn’t right.

Oh and don’t think that I don’t know how pathetic it is that I do that hahahah. Trust me, I’m aware.

I know I have issues with being a perfectionist: I’m way too hard on myself when I don’t understand things straight away. I definitely need to try and ease up when it comes to my work ethic. But I don’t cry because of my ego, I cry because I want to love my degree and because I try really hard to improve. Plus, it didn’t help that at school we’re absolutely overwhelmed with feedback sheets. Whether it was a bullet point list, or ‘two ticks and a target’ in green pen, we were always given the correct and very specific direction. I hated the whole peer marking thing at the time, and now I’m realising just how much it made the work easier.

I absolutely don’t want to be spoon-fed answers. It just comes as a bit of a nasty shock when all of a sudden I’ve gone from thinking I was pretty decent at languages, to thinking that I’d chosen the wrong degree. I won’t change my degree because I don’t want to, and I did kind of throw myself in at the deep end with Japanese…so it’s sort of on me.

But the level of difficulty in my degree this year has made me feel stupid on many occasions. I don’t mean the ‘omg lol I’m so dumb’ jokey version of stupid, I mean straight-up ‘I’m actually just not clever’. And it might sound like a totally woe is me, first world problems lamentation but feeling that way for the first time is really awful. There have been plenty of things I’ve not been good at in my life but I’ve always liked to think that at least I’m clever. So when I’ve been thrust into situations where I really doubted that, naturally, I get upset about it.

University is meant to be really challenging, because if it weren’t then there would be little point in attending. So I recognise that I’ve got some catching up to do and I just have to keep reminding myself that even though I’m not doing as well as I’d like to, I know I couldn’t be working any harder. I’m not stupid, and eventually I’m going to be good at this language; just not yet.

So I’d like to finish by wishing all of the students reading this: good luck in your online exams!! Also, you’re not stupid if you’ve found this first year really difficult – specific shout-out to my fellow Durham students. And finally, thank you for using my blog as one of your many methods of procrastination. I’m honoured x

Chill out mate

Chill out mate

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Thankfully this week was a lot nicer, and a lot less stressful than the last.

My last blog was obviously a huge rant, but it might surprise you to know that after writing it, the situation didn’t bother me much. Instances such as the one with that delightful traffic warden aren’t that big of a deal for me because they kind of happen all the time. That being said, it’s never a highlight.

I’m pretty sure that the main contributor to my terrible week was just being ill, and it’s only when the illness leaves that you can realise just how much being full of cold can mess with your state of mind. Already feeling run-down, I was just overwhelmed by everything piling on top of me.

For years now I’ve been so excited about going to University and what it would bring to my life. Plus, I’ve always been pretty independent and self-sufficient so I thought that I would be absolutely fine once I actually moved. And all in all, I am absolutely fine and love it. But I do think that there’s a lot to be said for just how difficult starting University really is.

Not only have I moved to a totally new place, but I’m experiencing so many more pressures than I could have ever envisaged. One of the most stress-inducing being the academic pressures of my course. I mean I’m taking a degree in a language that I’ve never had any exposure to, and I really really struggle with not being good at something. First world problems, I know.

I’ve been telling myself that I’m really bad at Japanese when I stumble over translation or spontaneous speech, and have already cried in frustration at least a handful of times. But in these moments all I’m thinking about is why I can’t remember everything straight away, and I really beat myself up about it. But Japanese isn’t like French, and I need to fully accept that I’m not going to get it straight away, because on a base level: it’s just proper difficult.

I like to think that I’m a pretty self-aware person, so whenever I’m having these explosions of stress and exhaustion I know exactly what to attribute it to. I know when I’m tired, or stressed, or upset about some boy, or am emotionally volatile because I’m ill or on my period, or am missing home. I know that I work really hard, and that it’s okay for me to not understand everything straight away. But no matter how self-aware I am about why I’m being a cry baby, I also know just how stubborn I am.

It’s obvious that I need to not beat myself up about things, but it’s also really clear to me that I always will: I’m just wired that way. People talk a lot about bettering themselves in some sort of self-care scheme, and those schemes are clearly very worthwhile in many instances. But I also think that people should probably talk a little bit more about the parts of themselves that they don’t necessarily like, know aren’t good for them, but know are parts that they could never get rid of.

If I removed my strive for perfection and work ethic, then I just wouldn’t work as hard. And yes, sometimes I wouldn’t be as exhausted or as emotionally wound-up, but I’d also be bored out of my mind because I wouldn’t be doing anything. You can’t really have one without the other.

Plus, this intense part of my personality doesn’t just pop up when I’m in academic settings, it rears its head in my relationships with people. I just care a lot about everything.

I try really hard to always be kind and loving to those around me. Yes, sometimes it ends in unfortunate emotions, but most of the time it helps me to be surrounded by incredible people. And luckily, some of those people are there for the times when I get overwhelmed and just need someone to rant to, give me a big hug and tell me to stop being dumb. *shout-out for Richard last week, thanks buddy xo*

Sometimes I’m stupidly mean to myself…and I should try to not waste my energy like that.