I Made It Through February (Sort Of)
February - or hell month, as I have come to think of it as lately - is officially over and I am thrilled. Or as thrilled as a tried and ill individual can be about anything. Here in the home stretch, someone seemed to decide that it wasn't enough that I was stressed and under mental pressure alone, so why the heck not throw physical uncomfortableness on top of that?
So this is me on this first day of the frist spring month where it feels like arctic cold outside with strong winds that made the -4° feel a whole lot colder. My nose has been running since Monday and on that day I also felt like someone had hit my head with a sledge hammer and flipped my stomach around. It's been getting slightly better day by day but not by much. I missed two classes that day but to be fair one of them was completely irrelevant. I'm still sad about missing the second one though. And I'm also slightly bummed because it ruined my very nice attendance, even if attendance isn't measured in anyway and it's just for myself.
But at the same time, I was physically unable to make it out of bed - trust me, I tried numerous times - so I suppose there wasn't much I could do about it. And I've been to university for the last three days, even if I have to take steadying breath when I first arrive. It usually clears up a bit when I'm here and engaging with fellow students and I managed to stay on top of the readings, despite this stupid illness or whatever it is.
I wish that I could have made it out of my hell month without becoming ill at the end, or having a panic attack mid-way through, but all in all I did make it through the month. I attended almost all of my many classes, I read everything and I worked the hours I had to at my receptionist job and as a university instructor. My horse, my writing and my third student job has been put on the back burner for a little while and that sucks but it was necessary. A lot of my weekends and some of my time during the week has been taken up by all the hundreds things that involves moving.
Man, it's a lot of things that need to be scheduled for everything to work out. But I think (*fingers tightly crossed*) that almost everything should be in order with the flat at the time of writing this. And it's the plan that I will move in on Saturday. I wonder if that plan will be upheld with me feeling like crap and Mum equally getting sick but we'll see.
I just checked my total hours spend on university this month and it amounts to 104 hours, which means 26 hours a week. It might not sound like much but I can assure you that it is. I've poured so many hours into it and frankly, it scared me a bit to calculate it and find out that despite everything it's still not the 37 hours of a "regular" work week. Will I ever be able to handle that when I'm bending over backwards to meet all the university deadlines? Obviously, work comes on top of that and then all the things I do in my free time too, mostly riding and writing, but still.
But one good thing that has come out of this very busy week has been what I mentioned in the last blog post. I have a new profound appreciation for my university and it has been a beat since I felt like this. It's so easy to take for granted everything we have just because it has become our everyday life. But that's exactly the reason that we shouldn't. We need to acknowledge our privilege.
And then there's the whole thing about negotiations breaking down between the unions and employers and the strike that will probably be happening. Selfishly, I can't help but hope that my university stays untouched by it but on another level, I know that this is such an important thing to do to assure that employees are working under fair conditions. A strike might sometimes be the only solution. I just hope that they can work it out at the negotiation table.
March will undoubtedly still be a busy month while working on making the project with my other three group members and attending Bridge Building events and having to pull some more hours at the job with flexible hours that I had to push back a bit this month. But I still share hope that it will not be as busy.
I miss having enough time to visit Money without stressing about making it back in time to catch a lecture or having to read something before bed. I also miss writing so much. I just want to have a couple of hours, where I'm not exhausted after a long day, to just sit down and get lost in the massive fictional universes that I have made. I also have those two long stories that I need to finish and I refuse to rush them because I love them too much to fuck it up here on the finish line. So I'm hoping that I'll be able to find a bit more time here over the coming weeks to do some of the things that I have had to compromise on during this month.
I have still been working on my writing every single day, even if only for like half an hour. I have also taken up journalling again and it has been fairly successful so far. I write with a time limit now, so I don't just ramble on and on but instead, I have to get my thoughts out in just over seven minutes, which seem to be a good amount of time for me to write somewhere around 400 words.
I think it might be really interesting to look back at all of those entires and gather of a vibe of how I was feeling. I missed out last weekend and I started on the 2nd instead of the 1st like I had planned but I think that's still pretty good going for someone who usually flops entirely when doing these sort of daily things.
Another thing I had promised myself to work on every single day was university in some capacity. Mostly, it would be reading the assigned material and attending the lectures, workshops and exercise classes but on days where I was so worn down, it could also be something like downloading texts so they were ready to be read or compiling future readings from all of the different course plans into my one reminder list.
I think that is part of the reason that I have liked being a university student at the moment, despite the stress. It's been present in my life every day and I have used my brain to university related stuff so much. I'm also getting to the point where I've started to notice things we talk about in lectures in my actual everyday life, like how a blacksmith apprentice is learning tacit knowledge from the experienced blacksmith. And you know what? I think that's a cool thing.
I have been sleeping horribly over the past couple of days through and I think this is a warning from my body, as well as feeling very poorly and sniffling, that I might need to slow things down a little. No one can go full throttle all of the time. You'll break and I think I've been putting my mental health a little too much on the back burner this month too. So I'll work on finding a better balance in the future and trying to plan it so that things don't get piled up one after another like they have this month. We'll see.
But I did definitely make it through the month, even if I feel a little battered at the moment. I conquered the month with just a few scraps and now it's time to heal a little but I also need to keep moving. Bring on March.
So this is me on this first day of the frist spring month where it feels like arctic cold outside with strong winds that made the -4° feel a whole lot colder. My nose has been running since Monday and on that day I also felt like someone had hit my head with a sledge hammer and flipped my stomach around. It's been getting slightly better day by day but not by much. I missed two classes that day but to be fair one of them was completely irrelevant. I'm still sad about missing the second one though. And I'm also slightly bummed because it ruined my very nice attendance, even if attendance isn't measured in anyway and it's just for myself.
But at the same time, I was physically unable to make it out of bed - trust me, I tried numerous times - so I suppose there wasn't much I could do about it. And I've been to university for the last three days, even if I have to take steadying breath when I first arrive. It usually clears up a bit when I'm here and engaging with fellow students and I managed to stay on top of the readings, despite this stupid illness or whatever it is.
I wish that I could have made it out of my hell month without becoming ill at the end, or having a panic attack mid-way through, but all in all I did make it through the month. I attended almost all of my many classes, I read everything and I worked the hours I had to at my receptionist job and as a university instructor. My horse, my writing and my third student job has been put on the back burner for a little while and that sucks but it was necessary. A lot of my weekends and some of my time during the week has been taken up by all the hundreds things that involves moving.
Man, it's a lot of things that need to be scheduled for everything to work out. But I think (*fingers tightly crossed*) that almost everything should be in order with the flat at the time of writing this. And it's the plan that I will move in on Saturday. I wonder if that plan will be upheld with me feeling like crap and Mum equally getting sick but we'll see.
Managing my calendar, sniffling into tissues and drinking vitamin drinks has been my life for the past couple of days
I just checked my total hours spend on university this month and it amounts to 104 hours, which means 26 hours a week. It might not sound like much but I can assure you that it is. I've poured so many hours into it and frankly, it scared me a bit to calculate it and find out that despite everything it's still not the 37 hours of a "regular" work week. Will I ever be able to handle that when I'm bending over backwards to meet all the university deadlines? Obviously, work comes on top of that and then all the things I do in my free time too, mostly riding and writing, but still.
But one good thing that has come out of this very busy week has been what I mentioned in the last blog post. I have a new profound appreciation for my university and it has been a beat since I felt like this. It's so easy to take for granted everything we have just because it has become our everyday life. But that's exactly the reason that we shouldn't. We need to acknowledge our privilege.
And then there's the whole thing about negotiations breaking down between the unions and employers and the strike that will probably be happening. Selfishly, I can't help but hope that my university stays untouched by it but on another level, I know that this is such an important thing to do to assure that employees are working under fair conditions. A strike might sometimes be the only solution. I just hope that they can work it out at the negotiation table.
March will undoubtedly still be a busy month while working on making the project with my other three group members and attending Bridge Building events and having to pull some more hours at the job with flexible hours that I had to push back a bit this month. But I still share hope that it will not be as busy.
I miss having enough time to visit Money without stressing about making it back in time to catch a lecture or having to read something before bed. I also miss writing so much. I just want to have a couple of hours, where I'm not exhausted after a long day, to just sit down and get lost in the massive fictional universes that I have made. I also have those two long stories that I need to finish and I refuse to rush them because I love them too much to fuck it up here on the finish line. So I'm hoping that I'll be able to find a bit more time here over the coming weeks to do some of the things that I have had to compromise on during this month.
I have still been working on my writing every single day, even if only for like half an hour. I have also taken up journalling again and it has been fairly successful so far. I write with a time limit now, so I don't just ramble on and on but instead, I have to get my thoughts out in just over seven minutes, which seem to be a good amount of time for me to write somewhere around 400 words.
I think it might be really interesting to look back at all of those entires and gather of a vibe of how I was feeling. I missed out last weekend and I started on the 2nd instead of the 1st like I had planned but I think that's still pretty good going for someone who usually flops entirely when doing these sort of daily things.
Another thing I had promised myself to work on every single day was university in some capacity. Mostly, it would be reading the assigned material and attending the lectures, workshops and exercise classes but on days where I was so worn down, it could also be something like downloading texts so they were ready to be read or compiling future readings from all of the different course plans into my one reminder list.
I think that is part of the reason that I have liked being a university student at the moment, despite the stress. It's been present in my life every day and I have used my brain to university related stuff so much. I'm also getting to the point where I've started to notice things we talk about in lectures in my actual everyday life, like how a blacksmith apprentice is learning tacit knowledge from the experienced blacksmith. And you know what? I think that's a cool thing.
I have been sleeping horribly over the past couple of days through and I think this is a warning from my body, as well as feeling very poorly and sniffling, that I might need to slow things down a little. No one can go full throttle all of the time. You'll break and I think I've been putting my mental health a little too much on the back burner this month too. So I'll work on finding a better balance in the future and trying to plan it so that things don't get piled up one after another like they have this month. We'll see.
But I did definitely make it through the month, even if I feel a little battered at the moment. I conquered the month with just a few scraps and now it's time to heal a little but I also need to keep moving. Bring on March.
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