#I AM. nervous and upset about how my math prof is handling our class.....

[bensiskos]

Sorryyy I need somewhere to put my rage

[academla]

Summer 2017 Update

Hey guys! Finally, another big update post. If you haven’t read these before, I split it into sections: Academic, Financial/Professional, Social, Mental Health, and anything else I feel like. Feel free to skim! (Give this a like if you’re actually reading it because I feel like most people ignore these update posts, which is fine, I’m just curious haha.)

Academic

I go back to school on September 5. I’m super excited, but I think my underlying anxiety has been affecting me a bit.

Classes I’m taking on campus: Classics of Children’s Literature, Abnormal Psychology, and Ethics & Society (an Honors seminar).

Classes I’m taking online: History of World Civilizations Before 1500 & Child Psychology.

Here are some comments on each class so far (I’m nothing if not thorough, guys):

Children’s Lit: Well, Harry Potter is on the reading list, so I’m already there. I’ve emailed the professor already and she seems super nice, so I’m pretty excited. The syllabus is a bit intimidating; I’m sure it will be fine, though, and having a nice professor makes a huge difference.

Abnormal Psych: I’m going to have the same prof as I did for Intro, and I’m really pumped about that (so is she). I’m nervous because the tests are harder and longer, but she was very reassuring that I’ll be fine. There was a whole issue because I thought that Abnormal had service learning linked to it (service learning is basically where you get experience doing things related to the course, so essentially volunteer/internship work) and was planning to use an internship that has been in the works since the winter for that. However, turns out that it isn’t linked. My prof was super nice and said she would be flexible. I emailed my adviser in a bit of a panic, and she informed me that actually service learning is no longer a requirement of my major. So, I’m going to go ahead and do the internship for my resume, but not have to worry about the assignments and grade aspect.

Ethics & Society: I don’t know anything about this really, but I do know that the professor is well-liked and I’ve seen him a few times.

History: Okay, so I hate history. I’m quite well-rounded as a student and I know that I’m lucky that most classes, I do very well in and enjoy. But history just... I don’t even know. My history teachers in the past have all thought I was really good, and I was grade-wise; I simply didn’t enjoy it. So to make this bearable, I know I need to have a professor I like. I was going to take it on campus, and emailed briefly with the professor I was going to have, but he had bad RateMyProfessors ratings and struck me as not very personable or understanding or nice. I checked about online courses and saw that there is one being taught by the director of the Honors College that I’m in, whom I really like and has a great reputation and ratings. Unfortunately there is a $125 fee associated with online courses that I wasn’t aware of, but cost-benefit wise, I really think I’ll be happiest like this.

Child Psych: Oh GOD. Why am I so extra? I emailed the prof once and she was super nice. Then I replied, and since online courses are different from real-life ones in that you don’t really get that ‘getting-to-know-you’ vibe with professors because it’s so remote, I mentioned that I can be an anxious student. I just said basically that means sometimes I’ll ask a lot of questions or check and double-check things for reassurance. I also asked if she was a professor willing to look at drafts or not. She completely got the wrong impression and sent back an email (that was quite final too; signed it “All the best”) as though I had been a hysterical student coming to her with anxiety that I had no idea how to handle. She told me that there are personal counseling services offered by the college as well as the writing center with writing tutors. I’ve had outside counseling for 7 years, and I’m a writing tutor... so that was ironic and also a little embarrassing. Whoops. Honestly, when I get embarrassed about things like that (which I often do) I kind of remind myself that I’m just there to learn and hopefully earn that A, so what they think of me doesn’t matter that much.

All and all, I’m excited for school to start. I want to learn things and take notes and have stuff to do. I also have waves of anxiety, which I’m working very hard to combat with reality checks and focusing on the positives. Oh, and I got an A somehow on my chem accelerated summer course :)

Financial

I have worked two jobs this summer after a lot of miscommunication and lack of clarity:

A preschool, the same one I worked at during my gap year. It was unfortunate because I thought I was going to work full-time there after my chem course, but they didn’t need me because they had so much help. I ended up working Thursdays and Fridays there and Monday through Wednesday at my dad’s job. Now that all the summer help is leaving, though, they’re back to being in desperate need. Everyone there is pretty stressed (and families have been leaving).

At the place my dad works. They produce food and formula for people with metabolic disorders (primarily PKU). I was extremely appreciated there, which was nice, and I got a $4 raise on my second week! They’re desperately understaffed and having problems with their products, as well as not being able to keep up with general demand. I electronically filed faxes dating back to 2016, stuffed envelopes (my favorite), put in tons of orders (one day I put in 34 out of a total 62 orders that day), and by the end was allowed to check emails and reply to some of them. I LOVED the job. However, there’s the possibility I might be able to work there on Fridays during the school year, which I would love. It’s stressful there because there’s so much shit going on and people are basically running around putting out fires all day, but I enjoy my work so much.

During the year, I’m hoping to work at my dad’s job on Fridays, do my psychology internship (if you don’t recall, I’m going to be working at a VA hospital helping with a study on suicide prevention), and tutor! I’m a math and writing tutor. They’re two completely different trainings and types of tutoring, so it should be interesting. Luckily we get to shadow a writing tutor for awhile before being on our own.

I’m not doing well with money, guys. The entire year of 2017, I’ve only made $300 or so. I’ve spent $1,800 on school, even with scholarships, and $940 on medical things such as medication and copays. I did win a $1,000 scholarship which has been very delayed in arriving and I’m praying it will get here by the end of this week or next week so it can be applied to my account. I didn’t work over winter break, which was really my downfall; I needed the time for a mental health break, though... so I’m trying not to beat myself up over it.

Unfortunately it took awhile too for me to lock down my jobs, meaning I only got to work for like 4 or 5 weeks. That really isn’t very much money even with the raise I got. Right now I’m owing $615 per month for my payment plan, and even with tutoring and potential Fridays at my dad’s job, I’m definitely going to lose money. I’m considering taking one winter class online, so I can still work all winter break. That $125 extra fee from my web class sure didn’t help me.

But I must soldier on! I’m going to make sure that none of my money ever goes to frivolous things and never goes to waste. Money is meant to be spent and not hoarded, as my mom reminds me, and it’s okay to spend some on things like going out every so often as well, so I shouldn’t be beating myself up for that (though I still am). School was always going to suck up money. I’m trying very very hard to stay in the moment now and not stress about next semester or worse, what will happen when I get hit with that $30k bill when I transfer and don’t have even close to that much saved.

Social

I’ve changed several times throughout my life socially. In 9th grade, I was extremely social because I needed to be and I had trouble being by myself. It was a lot like that through high school. When I made online friends in 11th grade, they were my social life while drama and bullying and shit went on in real life. Recently, I had a major burst in socialness online, and eventually reached breaking point when I became embroiled in drama.

Look, I’m 20 years old. I’m turning 21 in November. I had to ask myself, why the fuck am I on vacation with family, working on scholarship essays last-minute, and spending my time in the bathroom on my phone dealing with drama with someone years and years younger who’s slandering me to people whose opinions I shouldn’t give two shits about?

That was a big reality check. Because I wanted vengeance, I did. I wanted so badly to expose someone who was gleaning attention and convincing others and spreading half-truths and ruining people’s lives. But then I realized, you know what? That isn’t my goal in life. My goal in life isn’t to tear people down because they’ve torn others down. It’s so, so difficult. I was angry. I was upset. This person violated all of my principles. And we had the evidence against them, we could have potentially won most people over, and I wanted it not for my sake but for the sake of those they had hurt so much more than they hurt me.

But I couldn’t do it. In the end, I called it off. I backed out. I told people to lay off and let karma do its work. I realized how toxic the situation was, how absurd it was for me to be living on the internet when I’m in one of the most exciting periods of my life. How utterly imbecilic I was acting, getting caught up in so much senseless, meaningless, fruitless drama.

After that, I disengaged further from large social groups. I was already overwhelmed by the amount of people always trying to talk to me, so I had to cut myself off from that. And it feels so. Much. Better.

I’ve become more introverted, really. I work all day, then I write fanfiction and watch Netflix and color in my room by myself and I love it. I have any number of people I could hit up anytime and ask to hang out or video chat. But I don’t feel that push, that obsessive need, to be social all the time. Social media became addicting. I still work on that.

I’ve stayed in touch with real-life friends and done things with them when I had the energy, money, and time. Unfortunately my ex and then long-time guy friend both asked me out, and that was incredibly awkward, and the end of that. The trouble with my school is that there are a lot of dual enrollment students who are like, 16 or 17. Much as I love them, I’ve been thirsting for someone my own age with similar interests who I can hang out with. At the tutoring training I attended, I met someone (a guy, oooh). He’s 21 and we had a really good time together. I’m hoping we can hang out once the semester starts! I also met a girl who’s only 17, but she seems very mature and sweet and I also hope to hang out with her.

Things are good socially. I’m always working on that area of my life (with regards to mental health, mostly) but I’m still going strong. I have moments of loneliness for sure. However, I’m happy with myself and happy with my life. That’s what counts.

Mental health

If 10 is completely flawless and 0 is utter breakdown and 5 is rough, I would say my summer has been a solid 7 or 8. Which is pretty damn good!

Areas I’m working on still:

Body image. My ED voice has been loud this summer. That’s probably the area of most concern to me.

Anxiety. It hasn’t been too bad, but with transitions it usually increases, and I’ve noticed myself being more anxious (free-floating anxiety mostly) and irritable in the past few days.

Worrying way too much about others’ opinions. This pretty much traces to the internet. I mean, before I went on hiatus, I had tens of thousands of people criticizing my every word and move. That takes a toll. Moreover, as a fanfic writer, it’s pretty difficult to post things to the internet without craving comments and kudos and hits. I’ve turned off viewing hits for my own sanity, and taken breathers when I felt like I was getting too hung up on the ‘popularity’ of my fics. I write for myself, because I enjoy it. Not for the attention. I just have to remind myself of that from time to time, and I try not to be competitive. It’s really the numbers that get me - the hits and the kudos. I mean, I compare myself to people in different fandoms, fandoms I don’t even write for. It’s so dumb.

All in all, I’m proud of how I’ve been doing. I do have moments of stress mainly about money, but that’s par for the course. I would say I’ve made a 100% improvement from last summer/year and intend to continue doing so, even in light of the impending stressors.

Other

My new favorite movie is Gifted. Oh my god, I love it so much. I’ve seen it like, 5 times (2 of those were illegally whoops). I’ve been fairly active on Snapchat still - add me there edye327. I don’t really have much else to say, except thank you to people who have bought me things from my wishlist that I couldn’t otherwise afford. I haven’t gotten anything recently, but I just wanted to reiterate my appreciation.

If you’ve read this all the way through, reply with the color of your favorite shirt.

Much love,

Edye