School starts next week. That dreadful countdown between when I have all the potential that comes with having lots of time and having my time constantly absorbed by classes and the overwhelming extracurriculars that have me pulling my hair out near Thanksgiving. The countdown is by no means made less stressful by the necessity to attend to matters other than the ticking of the clock. It's almsot laughable to me that my fretting at the moment is in anticipation of what will happen when I "really" get busy.
I have a job. Significant things have changed as a result of my having a job. I'm eligible for food stamps, which may just be the determining factor in whether I graduate college shoulders deep in debt. I get a paycheck, which will eventually allow me to spare cash for frivolous expenses (like Zaxby's!) during the school year once my financial aid kicks in. I have consistently had goals and responsibilities set throughout this summer in addition to the arbitrary ones I set for myself, for which I'm never held accountable. I am blessed enough to have an occupation on campus which I can reach in under ten minutes by bus and which is not only financially sound, but mentally rewarding. These are all good things. These are the reasons I love my job. These are the matters of which I've had to constantly remind myself over the past week as my "break" before classes start has come to be the source of mounting anxiety. It took four separate painstaking attempts to make my work schedule feasible around my class schedule and I'm still waiting with baited breath to find out whether it will be approved. After all of my efforts, the best I could manage was a work week saturated from the morning (as early as 8:30) to the evening (as late as 6:30) with either work or classes.
I was, at least, fortunate enough to have my class schedule finalized before classes actually started, a first in my college career. (It's a testament to my own insanity that I was first dissatisfied when I saw that my schedule would only allow me to take 16 of the maximum 18 credit hours per semester.) As grateful as I am for those classes, I'm well aware of how gruelling they are going to be. I wouldn't mind this rigor (on the contrary, I'd embrace it) if it weren't for the fact that I'm not going to be finished when I finish my work day or my school day. There will still be homework. There will still be rehearsal. There will still be LSATs to practice for and papers to write, trips to plan and applications to fill out. At present, there's not a break in sight. The only break that I'm seriously looking for is between now and Monday. It would eb really great if I had a day with no pressure, no auditions, no appointments, no deadlines. That's not going to happen. Between generals starting up this weekend and the arrival of this new resident, it seems my interim will be break free. Therefore, I am freaking out.
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