College is supposed to be a fun time, where you have the time of your life and make memories that you will look back to so often when you grow older. College for me has been both eventful and uneventful. I feel as though my life is both colorful and colorless.
We always advised one another to take breaks and hang out with friends, but how can you afford to have a social life when you have so much on your academic platter? And what do you do when those plates of assignments, readings, and exams pile up so high that you can’t even balance the tray anymore?
That’s how I’m feeling right now. This past weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to recreate one of the most exciting and influential moments of my first-year experience in college: the Leadership Oxford program. This retreat lasted all weekend, and it was jam-packed with activities throughout the day that would tire out all its participants by the end of the day. Therefore, I did not get any work done. Like any lazy student, I did not get ahead of my work before this weekend and it came back to haunt me this week. I thought that this weekend would have been a fantastic refresher and much-needed break away from the academics and the constricting environment that Oxford can sometimes be. However, I only returned to Oxford even more overwhelmed and exhausted than I had been before. Don’t get me wrong, the weekend and the experience was amazing, but I became so fatigued and my brain was not ready to start grinding with the thoughts of schoolwork again.
This week, I found myself really lacking the motivation to do anything. I didn’t even have the motivation to drag myself to class, let alone type up a 1200-word inquiry essay. It sucks when your motivation goes down the drain because you have all these deadlines floating around you, poking at you, suffocating and drowning you. And you know what? Sometimes it feels like you just can’t breathe. You can’t escape either. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in your head, or why you have zero motivation to do anything — these deadlines and expectations are still an ever-looming presence in your life as a college student.
Currently, I have the approaching 11:59 PM deadline for my extended inquiry essay. I’ve written about 350/1200 words. It is currently 9:27 PM. My head is currently throbbing and all I want to do right now is sleep for about a week until I’m well-rested. But I can’t. I just have to force myself to type up an essay and submit it before midnight. Wish me luck!