You know what? I so rarely write what I feel here. I'm always objectifying myself, distancing myself from my feelings and replacing them with thoughts... and, well, right now--at a time when I'm not supposed to have any time for frivolous activity because I should be preoccupied with school, school, school and all its dictates and obligations and deadlines and schedules--right now I just want to rant.
How do I feel? I feel tired. I feel exhausted by 13 years of education. Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful for the opportunity; in fact, it's an incredible privilege that I've had such consistent schooling. It's just that right now, 25 days before school ends for me forever, I feel the weight of all those years on my shoulders. I feel the weight of the hours I would spend after class being tutored in Chinese, and Math, and Filipino, back in my early grade school years. I feel the afternoons I'd spend doing homework in our apartment in Cupertino. I feel the struggle of trying to fit in a new school and still do well in class; I feel the frustration of not understanding an algebra lesson; I feel the stirrings of competitiveness as I strove to finish as high as I could in my high school batch.
I feel four years of college weighing me down, four years that I spent "doing my best." I've spent all my life doing my best. I've studied for every quiz, reviewed relentlessly for every exam, furiously taken notes in every lecture in every class--almost without exception. I read the readings. I recited in class. I kept cuts to a minimum. I'd give up potentially awesome nights out with friends to prepare for a test.
And now it's all coming to an end. I know that all that effort just means that I shouldn't stumble at the end, but I suddenly understand the concept. Of stumbling at the end, I mean. Of choking. Honestly, I'm sick of being all about school, I'm sick of the endlessness of it all, sick of homework and oral tests and midterms. I am itching to fast forward to March.
But I'm also terrified of what happens after. Haha. I feel a little a crazy. I feel like, Okay, cool, you worked your ass off to get high grades your entire life. Now what? A big part of me feels like it all meant nothing. Just pushing paper around for some kind of personal gratification that I developed over the years. Truth is, I just want to curl up in a ball and sleep. Haha.
Not the biggest of problems, I know. But hey. Whatever. Happy graduation to you, too. :p
What you feel is just natural, a lot of people feel (and have felt) the same way as you do.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of hard because you just mentioned that you are really itching to march, but I'll still advise you to just savor the final days you have as a student. Go to the places in school that you've never been before (like for example, probably, those hidden rooms for prayers near Kostka, or the overlooking at the back of Gesu, or the secret places in lib where you can sleep undetected), eat food in the caf you've never tasted yet, talk to the people you've never talked before. I don't know, you can do a list of those things, and accomplish it as much as possible. When you go down from the hill after grad, you'll miss that place and the days you've spent there. :)
Just enjoy the moment as much as you can, for someday you will miss going back to school. Stay safe and advance HAPPY graduation.
ReplyDeleteTwenty five days of burning hell, where you are toasted alive. Welcome to the last three weeks of school.
ReplyDeleteYour life as you know it is coming to an end, you are panicking because the structures that you think define who you are, are about to come tumbling down. And you feel the need to rebel against these in order to feel that you are in control. Maybe it’s because you are realizing that after academic life you won’t be in control anymore. You feel inadequately prepared for what is to come as there will be no more class schedules to contend with, mo more planned quizzes, and no more defined grading periods. You want to ease up and slack back as you are slowly realizing that what you achieved in school will be difficult to match in the real world and might not even mean anything in the real world. And you are right in some respect, what you did is done and over with, part of your own personal history which at the moment does not seem comforting. But at some later period the memory of what you have done might provide you with some inspiration or take off point to do even greater things.
ReplyDeleteYou might be thinking that whatever you do for these next few days will not affect the big picture anymore as you will graduate anyway whatever happens. Its just matter of what your final grade will be. And there lies the essence of what academic life was all about anyway. It wasn’t about what place you ended up in the honor roll, it wasn’t about being a “Club Cuatro” dean’s lister, it was about developing the discipline of wanting to do your best in every aspect of your life. Its not the structures or institutions that define who you are but its what you do while you are in them.
You may fear that you are not ready to face the real world, and that’s ok. It is the acknowledgment of this fear that makes you ready. And your grades are the mere quantification and affirmation that you have been preparing for the real world and will be able to take what it throws your way. “Now what?” indeed. As a wise old Comm Arts professor once told us, “the work you’ve put in while in school (especially in your course) is as close to the real world as it gets, the only difference is that in the real world there are more Assh#*es..,”
Hold on for the longest 25 days of your life and then its party season till graduation day and then you won’t be counting what you missed out on anymore as you will be too preoccupied with more awesome nights and days out with friends than you can possibly handle.
(cue background music: "Hold on For one more day" by Wilson Philipps--look it up in the magic archives)
PS: congratulations for your blog posts drawing out this reaction, but what would have made your post complete and had more effect was posting your recently picked-up graduation pic. More for people to forget the recently unearthed archive 1st picture of you and Andi.
I feel exactly the same sometimes..
ReplyDeleteLike when I stay up til early morning to finish a paper or study for math it's like.. how the heck is failing this test or not submitting this paper going to affect my REAL life anyway?? Does it even matter?? I feel like I'm wasting my time, energy and happiness trying to excel in pre-REAL life
In the strictest sense, grades really don't matter after graduation. Going up the stage with a summa cum laude definitely doesn't guarantee success or happiness later on, and thinking you deserve said things will just make you even more frustrated. You'll have to earn everything all over again.
But I think the reason why we've gone on this far, why we pulled those all-nighters and missed out on the parties, is because deep down, we believe that working hard is a reward in itself. The discipline, perseverance and sense of priorities we've gained are values that cannot be measured on paper or by a graduation medal.
To have struggled and to have learned how to struggle, is what has made our schooling worthwhile. :)
Congrats on Grad, Jessica!
May God bless you even more on day 26 and beyond. :)