All ye who indulge in schadenfreude, gather round.
It’s not mental health awareness week/month/whatever, but alas, not everything is restricted to a particular time of year. I talk about this now because, as a third year student, the pressure when you have looming deadlines and a dissertation that will basically determine whether or not you just wasted £27,000, is crippling. In addition to everything that crippled you before university.
So understandably, a lot of us are faltering in the mental health department. I’m not saying that a lot of us suffer from mental illness, because a lot of us don’t. I have already spoken about how too many people claim ‘depression’ or ‘bipolar’ when they don’t actually suffer from these illnesses, but that doesn’t mean our mental health doesn’t suffer. Much like physical issues, our brain sometimes suffers
It often comes in many contradicting forms. Maybe you stay up until dawn, downing red bull and coffee for hours until you’re seeing shapes dancing around in front of you, telling you it’s time to go to bed or you’ll collapse. Maybe it’s rejecting all invitations to go out, go shopping, relax, because you have too much to do and you couldn’t possibly deal with the guilt you’ll feel when you get a horrible grade, because it’s obviously due to that one day you took off. Maybe you consistently study because it’s the only thing to distract your mind but at the same time it’s burning you out. Maybe it’s the tendency to sleep all day and all night because you have so much work to do that your brain and body just can’t deal. Maybe it’s going out all day everyday just to avoid the 5 deadlines you have next week. Maybe it’s people telling you you look sallow and tired and that you’re working too hard. Maybe it’s the fact that you can’t remember a time where you had the energy to be genuinely happy about life because life itself is begging to leave you.
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Tag: university
Thoughts I've had mid-dissertation
So..my dissertation is due in exactly 2 months and I’m only now attempting to pick up pace; I only really work well under pressure. And when you’re really under pressure you start seeing things and hearing things. Those little kids laughing at 3am last night? Not real! Those shadows creeping behind the door? I hope they weren’t real! Hearing a song on repeat and sounding like it’s playing from inside your head and ears? Amazing! The dissertation engulfs your life. In sixth form your teachers will drum it into your head that a levels are harder than a degree. Ha.
This is false. You go from sixth form to first year of uni and WOAH. I’m doing 6 months worth of A-level work in 2 weeks here. And I’m expected to have PRIOR knowledge! But then you get to year three and hahahahhahaaahahahahahahaha
Honestly. It’s so hard. An English degree has to be one of the hardest and most time consuming, most brain-frying, most rewarding degrees ever, I’ll fight anyone on this. It’s not multiple choice and it’s not the application of facts and equations. You actually have to DO STUFF. LEARN STUFF. RESEARCH STUFF PLUSSS HAVE YOUR OWN RELEVANT OPINIONS! Like you need to create new arguments and approaches in a world where there are already 1000 opinions on any given topic.
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Like a rat in a cage
Wow, a whole month. I am sitting here with a headache, an eye ache, a neck-ache, a backache, leg pain, ringing ears, depleted motivation and a blow to my energy. I’ve been off uni for a good few months now and I would love for someone to give me a fat kick up the ass and tell me to get my shit together. Alas, my ass remains comfortably seated on a sofa. In front of Netflix. Where it always is.
However, some clouds have a silver lining. In my dissertation research, I’ve had difficulty in finding a novel that contains ALL the things I need, and finding a critic that shares ALL the same views as me. I have found nothing so far. But you know what the silver lining is? An increase of motivation by approximately 0.005%; if it hasn’t been written, you gotta write it.
LOL
Yeah, I lol because it took me a whole month to summon the energy to write another post and here I am slapping a few photos on a page and calling it a day. As you can tell, I throw all my energy and talents into my words, leaving none for my photography skills. But sometimes we don’t take photos for artistic purposes. Sometimes it’s for memories, and sometimes it’s just to show you the shit I’ve done. We got our old photo albums down from the loft, dating back to the 50s/60s? And I realised two things. One, to spend as much time as possible with those who are important. And two, that it’s the real and in-the-moment shots that we appreciate. Not the artsy ones that took 12 different takes in perfect lighting. This is memory lane, not a gallery.
Ridicule is nothing to be scared of, girls and boys.
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What I’m Reading [July]
I’m hoping there are other people like me, because I am an idiot. Throughout my first two years of university I, once an avid bookworm and arguable favourite of the English literature department at school, began to loathe reading. I even subscribed to TWO analysis websites [yes, I paid for them] just so I wouldn’t have to actually read the books and do any work. And then I realised that we actually had to do work in preparation for class, so I just didn’t turn up. What a role model I am.
Anyway, I’ve always been a stubborn mule and the summer holidays are proof of this, because I’m now currently reading four different books. Or I was at the time of writing this.
It’s like this: tell me to do it and I won’t. I’ll do it if and when I want. The books that I’m currently reading are WILDLY different to each other, and I like to do this so that I can move onto something different; when non-fiction gets too heavy I can move onto gothic to give me a drastically different setting, and then onto crime to bring me nicely back into the real world. Here’s what I’m reading.
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Arts
Today I finished a gruelling essay that, although made me want to die, I really enjoyed writing. The subject I wrote it on is something I am extremely passionate about and the only reason I regret not starting it weeks ago is because if I did, I would have had more time to to completely destroy whoever is marking my work (unless they’re voting Britain First…in which case they’ll fail me instantly). But I’m lazy, and that took control of me. So I have a bone to pick with those people who talk shit about those of us who study arts subjects at university. You know – literature, philosophy, religion, theatre, music, photography, social sciences etc.
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Bleached out eyes from the valley sand
Hello you poor souls who are actually reading my blog,
I’m usually quite passionate when it come to politics and political climate. I have been known for both my apathy and my strong opinions (there is no in between), the latter of which has gotten me into trouble a couple times and the former of which has annoyed a lot of people. I guess there’s no pleasing everyone?
However the only thing stopping me from ranting about the multitude of problems occurring in the world right now is a lack of passion. Read more