No, I am not dead nor have I moved away from the Internet - I just have a couple of deadlines hovering awfully close, and a unnecessarily big lump of other nice things occupying my mind with stress and anxiety. As I currently feel entirely too drained to focus on anything productive, yet not too exhausted to sink into coma I have decided to share some things that are eating me with you.
1. An unfinished photography assignment.
Surprisingly (or not) I have some incomplete course work lying around when the assessment is no further away than in a week's time. Technically though it's not lying around but in addition to nagging my brain, it's sitting on my hard-drive just waiting to be finished and done with. This time I feel like I have all the pieces in hand - yet I'm not convinced of my ability to make them fit together in a coherent and strong body of work. I've produced an adequate amount of visual material but it seems to be all over the place with the differing visual strategies and outcomes. In other words, mostly my photographs are too dissimilar to make sense when thrown together. They might look great as singular images, but presenting ten amazing photographs that don't connect to each other isn't actually an ideal scenario - especially when one member of the group has managed to create at least five different sets of finalised and interesting images, and is merely struggling with deciding which one to present in the assessment session. Some people just know how to do it.
Photography is competitive my friends.
I had a seminar with a quarter of the course and a tutor. Since the afternoon I've been trying to figure out whether it was a discouraging event or is it just that my perfectionist nature that hinders me from having faith in myself.
2. A wordless essay.
That's right, I have an academic paper of 2500 words to churn out due March 8, which I haven't started writing yet. I keep telling myself that my research is more or less done, and therefore I only need to tie my bits and bobs together. Because I cherish the policy of starting things tomorrow, I will now declare that the writing will indeed commence no later than tomorrow.
Despite the rather cheery mood that I seem to sport at the moment with my belly full of lovely soy-macaroni-feta-casserole and a steaming cup of cinnamon Rooibos tea in front of me, I am really stressed about the super-tight schedule that I've gloriously managed to create.
Once again I have no choice than to offer hearty applause to the perfectionist nazi part of my personality, whose primary goal is to step in just when the clock starts ticking instead of two months ahead when I still had time.
3. The lack of money trees.
Living costs money, sadly. There are several ways to get money: parents, social help and working. Now that I'm in a university I get paid a monthly student grant with a housing allowance, which is ridiculously small. When the summer comes, the grant goes and I'm supposed to get a job. Awesome. There's nothing I'd love to do more than work my ass off during the long holiday but apparently that is not a proper qualification to get me employed. Every year I go through the same circus of writing and sending dozens of job applications telling how hard I would work - unsuccessfully. So far I haven't heard of anything even hinting at promising and it's already May. This isn't even a thing that I can do something about since I've already tried my best.
I need money, and I need an activity to keep my brain from munching miserable thoughts that arise if I'm unoccupied for long periods of time.
4. I'm homeless too.
Even though there is nothing wrong with the relationship that I have with my family, I am not keen on living under the same roof with them any more. I have my own reasons for wanting to be on my own (with my best friend to be precise), which I will possibly elaborate at a later point if I feel like it. Shorter holidays I can bear with the family, but summer is long and Christmas already convinced me of really trying to settle somewhere else for those months. However, this one's actually not torturing me quite as heavily as the other stress sources above. I'm pretty hopeful that a place will emerge from somewhere, and that I won't have to worry about my mental health more than usually.
5. I wanna run.
This isn't something that I'm decidedly stressed about, but more of a thing that doesn't help me not to be so anxious. And because no one understood what that first sentence was about: I can't go running because my trainers are shitty and the place where I live isn't exactly a runner's dream environment. Neither can I do anything else aerobic since my room is the size of a matchbox and there are no dance classes nearby.
6. Complicated contracts.
This is kind of related to the previous one since it's about sports and how my alternatives for doing them are rather narrow at the moment. We had a six months' contract with this horribly expensive fitness club, and when those six months had passed, we obviously assumed that it was done. However, it came up that we should have informed the gym 30 days in advance when we wanted to leave, which makes no sense to me. They'd taken the payment from my account, which then went overdrawn, which then lead to my bank declining the payment - all of which has left me really puzzled. I rang the fitness people and explained the situation, to which they frankly said that they couldn't give me the money back and that I'd have to email them my wish to terminate the membership in the next month, which I did and never heard of them since. Now I'm only wondering whether they will want to get the payment that hadn't consequently gone through after all - or are we all happy with this.
7. Packing myself up.
I'll be leaving for Finland in no more than a couple of weeks, which brings me back to the question of how to carry my life back there in a suitcase. Fortunately I don't need my bedding, winter clothes, cutlery and some other stuff but it's still an awful lot of crap to pack up and drag to the airport. I'm also worried that it will weigh too much and I'll end up paying massive fees.
8. Being an adult.
Next year's housing has been sorted out so that's good, but there are a few practicalities that still need attention. I know we'll get it all organised before summer but having things sort of pending is annoying - and a nice addition to the pile of stress that I'm balancing on top of my head.
Ughh, what a tiresome and intensely boring blogpost I have created.
If you ever got this far, I sincerely congratulate you and appreciate your efforts because this sure isn't the most fascinating piece of writing that I've published here.
Peace off.
Adult life sucks
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