#weeeeeek twoooooo

[redrackham87]

soooo university is absolutely kicking my butt around the block and back again. 

i just needed to pop in super quick and put out a psa: 

because of this, i will not be doing the annual christmas graphics to my followers. i’m so sorry, guys - i love doing that so much, and i literally look forward to it every year - you guys put in such a fabulous variety of requests and i get to play in photoshop and go nuts and i love it. 

but considering i currently have had to pretty much cut off my entire social life, spend 6-7 days at school working (tho i only have classes on 3 days), and have three times now forgotten to eat and shower on certain days because of project overload, i cannot fit a single other thing in. :(

and if my queue runs out - which it probably definitely will because i have no time to fill it back up - just know that i’m not dead, i’m just studenting as hard as i can, and i’ll see y’all in december when the semester is over. XD

(for more specifics/me taking a moment to vent, continue below the cut)

the workload is psychotically insane. i am legit doing homework and projects every day, all day. the school preaches about self care and good sleep habits and taking time for yourself, but they’ve literally made it physically impossible to do all of those things. it’s a joke, honestly. i know these things are important and i just am doing what i can, when i can, how i can. which is largely not enough but i’m managing.

i’ve pulled more than a few all nighters (two by the SECOND WEEK), i’ve cried a dozen times at least, i’m living on caffiene and sandwiches. my fellow students have cried when we were given a two day extension on one project, are choosing which projects to or classes to fail in order to do better or finish “more important” projects. this should not be a thing.

i met some people at a wedding in the summer who told me that first year is a total miserable nightmare you have to just somehow survive, and i honestly think they were vastly under-selling it. since the first week of september, i have been so exhausted, daily, that i am physically aching. every day.

i overheard the librarians at the school having a vent session of their own, about how extreme and unfair the school was to first years - one lady actually yelled, “IT’S SATURDAY! LOOK HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE HERE ON A SATURDAY! THIS ISN’T RIGHT!” and the other guy went on a long rant about how the school is doing something “fundamentally wrong” because so many people drop out during and after first year. (i wanted to go into their office and give them a hug for understanding how insane this all is. XD) the free therapists offered by the school are booking more than two weeks out after one month of classes. 

the teachers seem to largely act like they are the only ones giving you work, while also off-handledly saying “i know you’re busy”, but then acting shocked when half the class doesn’t finish a project on time, or that the ones handed in are largely subpar. one class i am super struggling with (and hate): i’m doing hours upon hours of extra work (tutorials, exercises, seeking help from the teacher, other teachers, other students, books, etc), and barely scraping by marks-wise, and the teacher still is all visibly disappointed in my work (note: so far, i’m doing well enough in the other courses, it’s just this one technical/perspective drawing class and i suck and i don’t get it and i hate it and i’m trying so. effing. hard. and i’m just a link park song - “i tried so hard and got so far and in the end it doesn’t even matter”. -_- ) 

if i hear one more person say “time management”, i will explode. i’m not sure how it’s a time management issue when they want you to make something good enough for your portfolio, yet give you a very limited time to do it, while you have 8 other hugely time-consuming things going at the same time. like, guys, i literally have classes on just 3 days a week which is not much. i have 5 courses total. i am spending 6-7 days a week at school doing projects, from like 7 or 8 am to 9 or 10 pm at night. if i’m not at school, i’m at home working on things from 7 or 8 am to 1 or 3 or 4 am. it’s not like i’m procrastinating or taking huge extended breaks or being flippant about time - i’m working as hard as i physically can and then some. it’s not time management. 

and the projects are relentless - we have so many due per week, and literally as soon as one is done, it’s immediately replaced by another, in every class. so there’s no relief, no stopping for a second because you don’t have anything due. there’s always something due, and it’s always large and time consuming as heck.

i literally cried about “having” to take 4 hours out of my day for thanksgiving dinner with my family, because that was 4 hours of lost work time. i only made it to bible study last week because i had portable homework that i could do at my friend’s table while we did it. THIS SHOULDN’T BE A THING.

my writing has come to a grinding halt - i haven’t OPENED a doc since august. i did not sign up for yuletide (I AM SAD), and i have no signed up for any new bangs - there’s a couple i had done/signed up to do art for in the summer, and i will be throwing those up on my ao3 on posting day, but they won’t come to any of my sites until sometime in december. i have no time to edit or think or literally do anything but school. 

anyways - i’m okay, i’m surviving. (i know this all sounds really bad and it is but i’m surviving.) lots of tears and stress and super long days and way too short nights and i am literally living project to project, but i’m doing it. mostly. there’s no chance i’m dropping out, and no chance i’m giving up. i have no clue how to make it december but i’m going to. i basically just need someone to periodically bring me starbucks and give me a massage and bring me food and water and also make my teachers stop. XD

SO ANYWAYS if you basically don’t hear from me at all for a few months, this is why. XD 

i’ve used up too much time - GOTTA GET BACK TO IT. BYE LADS. SEE YOU IN A FEW MONTHS WHEN I AM AN EMPTY SHELL AND BITTER, SCARRED WAR-HARDENED VETERAN OF SEMESTER 1. XD