In Which there is a New Year

Dear Reader,

I have had a hard semester. I've worked seven jobs (approximately 20-30 hours a week), completed 14 units (4 classes), continued research, began my position as co-president of the Chem Club on campus, choreographed for and participated in my dance studio's Christmas production, and started grad school apps.

There were days, weeks even when I wondered if I could make it through. I seriously considered why I was doing this to myself. I wondered if I would fail. I wondered if I wanted to do it. I questioned my motives, my goals, and my current state of possible burn out.

And it took it's toll. When I was done with finals, I was happy but I didn't feel...done. Something was unfinished. I think I was almost in a state of shock. I smiled and did (mostly) all the right things. I bought Christmas presents (all on time this year!), wrapped them (in four hours no less!) and sat smiling through the wonderful ordeal of my family's Christmas. Well, mostly. I broke down half way through. I'm not sure what the trigger was, but I ran out under the pretense of "needing water".

I've had a few breakdowns since, of varying degrees.

Why am I putting this out here? Because as we all know, the Internet is forever. I could just put this in a word doc and forget about it for a couple years and open it later (Oh, yes I do that too. ). Well, one thing I've been trying to do all last year is be more real. More transparent, so that (selfishly) I don't feel like I'm the only one going through this and so (not so selfishly) other people will perhaps gain the courage to speak out too. I haven't had the best success with this, but I'm determined to try.*

This post is for the pre-Ph.D. student, or really any student (or pretty much anyone who relates), who is going through a tough time of burn-out. If that's what this is. I haven't spent too much time diagnosing it (only about two or three months), but here's my symptoms:

1. Advancing to Expert Level on Procrastination (I'm procrastinating on the projects I created so I could procrastinate on the little stuff so I could procrastinate on the big stuff. You know, the stuff that will help me graduate and move on with my life. No biggie.)

2. Lack of appetite (Seriously, one day I literally only ate two pieces of chocolate. And I'm known for my love of food. Half of my presents consisted of food. {given and received}).

3. Love of sleep (After school ended, I slept for almost 24 hours straight, got up for one meal and then slept again for 12 hours.)

4. Dreams (Literally all night and so I don't wake up feeling rested at all. It's a pain. I get some fun stories out of it though. They're not necessarily nightmares.)

5. Bouts of enormous hunger (I know this contradicts #2, but seriously again. I ate a 4" piece of cake, a bowl of Mongolian BBQ, a chicken pot pie, 6 pieces of chocolate, five cups of tea, two spoonfuls of Nutella, and lots of water all yesterday. I'm weird, I know.)

6. Enjoying cleaning the house ( I had a lot of fun today washing the floor and vacuuming. I dislike vacuuming, ever since the incident**).

7. Crying almost every day (or maybe every day)

8. Thoughts of quitting (serious thoughts about what kind of excuse I could make up that would work on both my parents and professors).

9. Skipping class ( okay, I only did it once this semester but that was a new one for me. And it wasn't like I took the time off. Nope, I was sitting working on the practice test. But still, intentionally skipping when I wasn't sick, so weird.)

10. And lastly, my normal nerd things not making me happy. (Don't get me wrong. I still smiled as I washed hundreds of test tubes. I still marveled at the colors of the reactions. I still squealed {inwardly and outwardly} when I found a particularly wonderful book. But I wanted to be outside more. I wanted to read silly books. I wanted...a break.  A break to do nothing but sleep. But turns out, that's not so awesome either.)

Whatever all this means, I know I've gone through this before. Just not this intensely. And I've made it through with less of a promise to be done than I do now.

And I have so many things to be thankful for.

To be continued...

*New Year's resolution.

**I ran over the vacuum cord when I was eight. It was traumatic.