Friday, March 30, 2007

stress induced coma

It's been about two an a half weeks since my last blog. It's not that I have nothing to write about, I feel I have nothing important to say. After all I have maybe four loyal readers I don't want to disappoint by writing about something trivial (I guess it's ok to break the fourth wall in blogs).

For me, spring break started about a week ago when I came home late Thursday evening. This was the most I ever felt a break a was necessary. It wasn't the college spring break MTV conditions you to believe spring break it like, however. I spent a wonderful weekend in San Diego, got a little sick Monday, went to Long Beach to visit my best friends Tuesday and Wednesday and since I have been back I have been trying to enjoy my last few days before having to head back up to Berkeley where the month of April literally has me in a death grip. I have five presentations in three different classes, two papers, two field trips (one of which is overnight that I am in no way, shape or form looking forward to) and a midterm. Unfortunately these things couldn't have been scheduled prior to spring break, but whatever.

At the end of any trip home I get the same feeling. It's like nervous mixed with sad and a liberal pinch of excitement. I feel like maybe I didn't get out of spring break what I had hoped. Or maybe I just feel overwhelmed because I know I have a handful of crap to do before I can start summer. Getting an email from one of my instructors reminding me of a small assignment due next Tuesday certainly doesn't help. Or I just don't want to pack all the stuff I brought here because I am just that lazy. I am excited to go back to Berkeley though. To have my routine back. It's weird how something so new can now feel so comfortable that you're halfway calling it "home". I think a lot of my feelings stem from the fact I look too far forward. I know I will go seven weeks without seeing certain people so when I do see them I feel like it has to be something ridiculously special. Even though the thing that makes these people so special is that I enjoy doing nothing for the activity of choice.

I have less than seven weeks until my last final. It's been eleven since the middle of January when I started what I then called "the slowest semester ever". I hope that April allows me to get everything done with minimal stress levels (haha, yeah, right) but fast enough so all that crap just gets over with. It will probably be how it always is, one day at a time then I'll look at a calendar and say to myself "oh, it's the 30th already?"

Monday, March 12, 2007

sunglasses and flipflops

It's that time of year again. The days are getting longer, the nights are getting warmer, and people are trading scarves for sunscreen. The azure sky is complimented by the white flowers sprinkled on the lawn. Frisbees are threatening to smack us in the face and the squirrels are creeping around looking for the nuts they buried months before. Books and papers are being ignored for an afternoon basking in the sun and class time is being taken up for midterm reviews...

Wait a minute, midterms ‽ And all this time I thought summer was just around the corner. The past two weeks have been characterized by perfect bay area weather. I chose to wear shorts yesterday, not just because all my pants were dirty, but because the weather told me to. A few warm days and the populous here acts as if summer in a week away. I too fell into this mind trap. I felt as though there wasn't a care in the world and that soon I will be able to spend my days in sunglasses and shorts sipping lemonade on the porch perusing whatever smut I felt like. Then reality hits when I step back inside and look at the Monet calendar by my desk. It's the middle of March, memories of last winter break are closer than summer.

I am lucky to be less than two weeks away from spring break, but the general apathetic attitude of my fellow university students wants it to be summer already. I finished my first round of midterms last week and only have a short paper due before spring break. As I said in the previous blog I am just going through the motions until spring break happens to find its way here. It doesn't help that daylight savings time makes it feel like I should be calling my friends as soon as it gets dark so we can go out to Barnes & Noble and drink frappuccinos until the sun rises. The world tells me summer is here, but my mind reminds me it's a week until just the first day of spring. I don't want to go to classes at all, I just want to turn in my papers and go out and do youthful irresponsible things. Incase anyone is wondering, I have 66 more days until my summer officially begins. Damn it.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Radical Apathy

Today in class I experienced what is best described as "vegging out". It was the last class of the day at 12:30 and I already had two prior, but at this point I was done with listening and trying to comprehend the soil depth and moisture content of the Californian mixed Evergreen forests. I plopped my butt in the classroom seat and waited for the ninety minutes to pass. I started daydreaming and thinking about life. I thought about how I got to where I was, from high school back to kindergarten. I played a game with myself trying to come up with a memory for every class I have ever been in. I succeeded in remembering the time I first played Oregon Trail or when I earned the coveted title "Berry Important Person" in kindergarten. I thought about the past and the distant past and I even thought about how I would never get these ninety minutes back.

This is the first time this semester where I felt apathy towards a subject or lecture. I couldn't even trick myself into being interested in the subject. I tried with the pictures of baby trees even mumbling under my breath "how cute". It's not just that it was boring, but I felt like I was just done with it. This is the same class I had a midterm last Thursday that I probably performed quite poorly. Eventually the hour and a half passed and I started walking to work when I actually saved a small dog from being ran over by what I assumed to be a crazy nobel prize winner (as they are the only ones with parking spots on campus.

The past seven and a half weeks have gone by slowly, but looking back it actually has been a lot faster than I expected. Everything has settled in and everyday goes by as expected. Nothing too exciting, but quite predictable. It's all mundane, the bright side is I am currently fifteen days away from spring break and I think I can hold out from going completely crazy until then.