You heard it here first, folks: I'm burnt out. It's week eight, I've been sick for what feels like years, and I can't remember a time when I didn't feel guilty for going to bed before 1 in the morning. I look at my calendar, desperately searching for a time when I'll be able to take a break. Where's the day that I can go to bed, satisfied that I've completed most of what I wanted to complete? When will I be able to wake up and not immediately want to go back to sleep? It never stops, day in and day out, and quite frankly, I'm sick of it. I'm done! I can't take it anymore, I'm over it.
I'm burnt out.
I was scrolling through Twitter the other day and I came upon my friend Jimmy's profile. Jimmy's one of my top 10 favorite people on this Earth, but I don't get to see him enough, so I just stalk him on Twitter whenever I'm feeling sad. A few days ago, he tweeted this: "The thing is I love learning so much, but I am just too f**king exhausted to keep doing this week after week after week." When I read it, I reached my hand up, closed my eyes, and shook my head in a little "Amen, hunty" gesture (you all know what I'm talking about).
Because, the truth is, I do love learning! I would say that a majority of college students do as well. I asked a boy why he loved his major and his whole demeanor changed. His eyes lit up, he sat up straighter and began a drunk, impassioned speech about the joys of computer science. His enthusiasm was infectious. I've never been more excited about computer science - or attracted to a computer science major, to be honest - than I was in that moment.
That's the great thing about college, that you get to learn and explore and take all these cool classes that expand your view on the world. I'm taking a class on all the different iterations of Hercules and I absolutely love it. I look forward to the readings every week, the class discussions are amazing, and the teacher is so well-versed in the subject that sometimes I think she's a time traveler who was born in 440 B.C. But I feel like I can't focus or really learn or absorb the material because I'm drowning in responsibilities.
And that, I think, is the worst part. My parents work their butts off to pay for Drexel's wildly expensive tuition. I'm going to graduate with a mountain of student loan debt. There's so much money and time spent to send me to college to learn and I feel like I can't make the most of it. If I don't learn and grow from college, then my diploma will be nothing more than the most expensive piece of paper I've ever held. I want to make the most of college, I want to learn, I need to learn.
But I'm so damn burnt out that all I can do is go through the motions.
