When a professor tells you that you look exhausted, it’s probably not a good sign. I have barely gotten any sleep this week, and the only thing I have to show for it is a half-assed, 12.5 Times New Roman double spaced 8.5 page paper on a topic I could care less about. Sadly, I still have a research paper, a paper on a film we’re supposed to watch in class tonight, a paper for my thesis, and some other paper or exam I’m sure I’ve forgotten about. School is not a game. I am dead tired and I wonder how I can stay upright these days. Red Bull is one of my best friends. Starbucks Double Shot Espresso is the other.

Why did I think this school thing would be easy? I saw other people who have gotten the degree and though, “If they can do it, I definitely can do it,” but maybe I was wrong. It’s only the first semester and I’m feeling burnt out. Four more weeks and maybe I can relax. I know I must be stressed, because I forgot all about the Maxwell concert this Friday. I’m doing schoolwork at home, schoolwork at work…if I could figure out a way to type papers on my blackberry, I’m sure I’d be doing that too.

Have I taken on too much? Everybody keeps telling me “Oh, you can do it. You can write an 8 page paper in your sleep.” Really? ‘Cause it didn’t quite work out that way. To have a professor tell me that if I’m complaining then it must be hard…”You’re feeling like that? You’re the star of the class, you can’t feel like that!” Seriously? You’re just adding more pressure on top of the expectations that everyone else has of me, and the expectations I have of myself. Yes, I want to make the Honor Society. Yes, I want to get straight A’s. Yes, I want to make the people who put in a good word for me not look bad. But it’s a lot of pressure. I guess that’s why I liked undergrad. Because no one knew who I was, or who my family was….I could just do me and not have to worry about how it would reflect on anyone else.

I am stressed. And I really just want it all to be over. And I can’t even register for the next semester of torture because I never did what I was supposed to do (hand in my transcripts) because I kept forgetting about it and never even sent the checks to the schools to ask for them…and now the time is drawing near that I need to hand in the stuff I forgot to hand in or else I won’t be allowed to register. I. Am. Stressed.