Back to school anxiety

[DanaC]

I don't want to half ass any of these to make up for another, I want all this shit to be amazing. Big ambitions, I know. Tonite I'm just thinking so much of what I've signed myself up to do next year.

Just keep taking the next step. That's what I try to do when I am going through one of my insanely busy periods. Don't over-think what lies ahead. Whenever you find yourself tracking through all the stuff you've got facing you and feeling overwhelmed by it, just pull back, break it down into the next few tasks/the day ahead. Every single thing you've listed is made up of many small tasks, remember that. Bite-size chunks.

A second piece of advice is to do something I never quite manage to pull off completely: to do lists. I seriously advise this as a way of making sure the little tasks that make up the big projects don't get away from you, or suddenly become critical forcing you to respond to the situation rather than pushing at your own pace.

Third: relax. Seriously. Have confidence in your own ability to rise to the occasion. It's taken me a while to figure it out, but unless you have a seriously itchy self-destruct finger, or are doing something that doesn't matter to you, most of us just 'get on with it' when we have to. We may push at the boundaries of our deadlines and we may half kill ourselves during the final stages of something to catch up...but we do it. Something clicks in when it has to and we do what needs to be done. You will too.

Sure this is probably nothing compared to real jobs and real deadlines, but I've never had to do so much before.

Nonsense. A deadline, is a deadline, is a deadline. I have worked in a variety of fields, from commission-only hard-sell timeshares to teaching adult literacy in a deadline-heavy government programme. I'm a community volunteer, a political activist and an elected representative: all involve deadlines and the risk of letting people down or suffering a very public kind of failure.

University is the most highly pressured thing I have ever done. What we routinely expect our young people to do, as an extension of their schooling, is something many people would find very, very stressful.

It's true that as a student you are unlikely to have some of the more pressing responsibilities, such as keeping a family fed, housed and happy. But that doesn't mean you can just fuck up without consequence, and there is no reason on earth why that prospect might not weigh as heavily on a 19 year old as the prospect of losing a job might on a 35 year old father of two. A lot of adults look back at their youth as a time of freedom from responsibility. What is often overlooked is that such an appreciation can only really be had if the two can be compared. Until you have to deal with that kind of responsibility, the level of responsiblity you currently have is the most you have had in your life; the responsibility to set the right direction for yourself and the responsibilities you have taken on for the success of projects that affect a group of people. All this whilst learning to be an adult in the world, responsible for your own well-being, responsible for your own bills and food.

It's a lot to take on. But then, life is a lot to take on. As I said earlier: trust in your ability to rise to the occasion. Take a few deep breaths and remember to stop and take in the view from time to time. When the dancers have sashayed off the cat-walk, when the preparation and work and all the last minute crisis-management and tweaks have paid off handsomely, take a moment to file that one into your mental archives. When all is triumph, take a second or two to notice the details and exactly how it feels. In ten years time you'll be glad of that.

[Juniper]

Originally Posted by DanaC

It's true that as a student you are unlikely to have some of the more pressing responsibilities, such as keeping a family fed, housed and happy. But that doesn't mean you can just fuck up without consequence, and there is no reason on earth why that prospect might not weigh as heavily on a 19 year old as the prospect of losing a job might on a 35 year old father of two.

Yeah, or a 40 year old mother of two.

Here I am, in my senior year of college (at this point, I'm estimating I'll finish after Fall 09) taking 5 classes - none of 'em easy. Two literature classes, business writing, history, and sociology. I would have guessed business writing would be fairly easy for me, since I already DO that for a living, but I took "writing for the web" spring quarter and though once again, I already get paid to do that, it was NOT an easy class.

Note to self: if you take a class in an area you already have performed professionally, do NOT tell the teacher you're experienced. They seem to take it as a personal challenge.

I was invited to interview for the college's Ethics Bowl team, which would have been fun! But when the hell would I do it? No way do I have time.

My days will go thus: put one kid on bus at 6:30, shower and do some housework, put the other kid on bus at 8:30, drive 30 min. to school, take three classes with 10 min. in between each one (and of course they're all across campus from each other, in a triangle), come home, kids come home 1 hour apart, juggle kids' homework/kids' extracurricular activities/dinner, put kids to bed THEN do my own homework, probably fall into bed around 1 a.m. and do it all over again....yikes.

Oh yeah, I forgot -- I have to work and bring in some cash, at least sporadically, too.

And pack/paint/clean my mom's condo to sell it. Might be ready by next spring, over a year after she passed away.

Well, what the heck, it'll keep me out of trouble. Maybe.