Posts Tagged ‘coursework’
Strange times
Posted on: June 10, 2010
I just found out that a piece of coursework that I handed in a few weeks ago has been marked, and I got 73%. Which is, and I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, a first.
This is something I feel I should be happy with. Proud of.
But mostly I feel a sort of lingering regret that it means nothing because I haven’t done enough work. It emphasises the idea that I could have done well, if only I hadn’t been so lazy. If only I’d done my work. I feel stupidly guilty that, maybe if I’d done more, pushed myself more, completed more things, perhaps I would have similar marks all across the board. Or at least, you know, marks.
I’m also a little suspicious. Perhaps I’m being paranoid, but there’s no way that essay was worth that mark. I hardly went to anything for that module all term, and I wrote the essay in a matter of hours. How on earth could it have been good? I get the feeling that maybe the department’s being over-generous, giving a high mark to balance out all the stuff I haven’t done, in an attempt to keep me from messing up their statistics.
I’m trying to stop thinking that. Even if it is true, I have the mark now. I might as well just be happy with it.
Achievement or madness?
Posted on: May 7, 2010
Over the past 17 hours, I have:
- had three hours of sleep/sort of sleep/trying to sleep
- been keeping up to day with the election coverage
- watched ‘Outnumbered’
- had a bit of a rest
- written over 4000 words
Now, I’m not sure if those words are any good. In fact, I suspect they’re a bit crap. BUT that’s two pieces of coursework done!
And I feel energised, and vaguely hopeful, and wide awake which is good because that means I can stay up for the rest of the day and maybe possibly SLEEP AT NIGHT which would be strange and wonderful but probably unlikely.
I’m not entirely sure if this is a case of Laura Finally Gets Her Act Together, or just one more episode in the endless saga of Laura Does Strange Things Sometimes.
But I’m not going to question it, because chances are high that I’m going to get more than 0%, which means I’m benefiting from doing it. 🙂
Mixed bag.
Posted on: January 26, 2010
I couldn’t get to sleep until 2am. I know, I should be thankful. That’s an early night for me.
Then I woke up at 3:30am. I couldn’t get back to sleep.
So I stayed up. Not really doing anything. Listening to music. Reading, a bit. Watching stuff on youtube.
Then I got out of bed. I showered. I had breakfast. And I went to volunteering.
And I felt…alive. I felt like everything made sense. It sounds stupid, doesn’t it? It’s not really cool to have rewarding experiences. It was challenging and frustrating and exhausting, but ultimately, I spent every minute of it feeling like I was in my element. I worked my socks off all day, and when, at the end of it all, the person running the scheme turned to me and said, “thank you”, it felt like an extra. Like the day itself was reward enough. I must be getting soft in my old age.
Of course, with every positive comes a negative. Lately I’ve been scared of checking my email. That’s a really stupid fear, I know. But I was emailed about missing things, and a few days ago I managed to summon up the courage to send a brief reply, with an apology for the absences and “I’ve been depressed”, which feels like a lie every time I write or even think it (other people get depressed. Me, I’m just stupid, and weak, and pathetic). Anyway, I’ve been dreading the reply and as such generally avoiding opening my email account.
The reply was nice. Of course it was. “I’m sorry to hear that”, and a list of people I can speak to, ask for help.
I’m always scared, when I manage to make these brief gestures towards telling the truth, that the reply will be something more like, “you’re not depressed, you pathetic, lying bastard. You’re a fraud. There’s nothing wrong with you. Stop your fucking moaning and get on with your life”. Maybe I want that to be the reply. Maybe if someone in my life told me to shut the fuck up and sort my life out, then I’d be able to do it. Maybe all I need is a kick up the arse.
I’m too tired to really feel anything at the moment. I’m going to try to stay awake for a few more hours, so I can sleep at night. Maybe it will suddenly click and everything will make sense. Maybe pigs will fly. Read the rest of this entry »
…begins now.
No more lying around doing nothing when there are things to do.
No more constant crying and fantasising about suicide.
I’ll do my coursework. I’ll accept the cut in marks for it being late.
I’ll go to lectures and seminars.
I’ll try to do some reading.
I’ll try to find a way to actually sleep, before my brain explodes.
I might even make a counselling appointment. Maybe they will help me sort out my university problems, which are rapidly spiralling out of control.
And it’s written down, now, so I have to do it. And I’m not going to delete it or make it private so I get to ignore it. It’s here, now. No backing out.
Right.
Shit.
Stress
Posted on: January 5, 2010
I’m okay. I’m doing fine. I’m low-level sad, I still have a horrible cough, but this is nothing. I’m fine. I’m still me, just with the speed and the volume turned down a bit. Weepy moments come and go, but mostly I’m okay.
The real world is less okay.
I have a few days to write around 5000 words. That, I can cope with. I mean, it’s terrifying, but pressure is pretty much the only way I ever get anything done. I wait, wait, wait…the pressure builds up and then bang, stuff gets done. So I’m worried, a bit nervous, but not disproportionately so. I have stuff to do, and it’ll probably be difficult, but I’m determined to get it done.
Home isn’t great. My mum’s getting really ill again. So along with the crying and the screaming in pain and the throwing up, there’s the shouting, the paranoia, the spite. It goes hand in hand. When she’s healthy, she’s happy, and when she’s happy, she lets things slides. But she’s hurting, so she’s miserable, so every moment is a fight, every mistake is another reason to shout and scream and accuse and just blame.
That’s life. Me, I’m fine. Coping, you know. But circumstances are shit, and I’m scared they’ll get worse.
That’s how my mum describes me. Mostly because I don’t let her see me stressing out, but whatever. It’s a pretty accurate epithet at the moment.
The (thankfully extended) deadline for my coursework is in approximately twenty and a half hours.
I haven’t done anything.
Mostly, I’m laughing at myself right now.
Because, well, stuff gets done, doesn’t it? Eventually.
I’m waiting for the “oh, shit” moment. That moment when it hits me that I actually have to do stuff in order for stuff to get done.
I can’t make myself get worked up about it.
I’m cheerful. I’m relaxed. I’ve been dancing around my room, dancing around my flat…walking around campus with a definite spring in my step. Everything’s fine.
Nothing matters. My coursework’ll get done. It won’t be the best thing I’ve ever written, but I have the feeling that the best thing I’ve ever written was written when I was about twelve or something. Every since then I’ve been doing just enough, and hopefully what I do will continue to be enough.
It’s fine.
I know I should be tearing my hair out over this coursework.
But I’m happy, and I just have this feeling that everything’s going to be okay.
Edit: It got done. Of course it did. With about three hours to spare, which could almost be called forward planning, for me. Of course, it was probably terrible, but no probem. It’s done. 🙂
I’m tired but okay
Posted on: December 8, 2009
I’m going through yet another bad patch, sleep-wise. I seem to have a combination of long-term quite-bad insomnia, combined with intermittent very-bad insomnia.
When I try to sleep, I find I can’t stop moving. Last night I turned my computer on and off about ten times – I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew that I had to do something. There’s a little bit of anxiety in there, too. Every time I feel like I’m going to sleep, I feel scared of dying in my sleep. I just keep thinking, what if I don’t wake up? and then I have to get out of bed and tidy my room, as if the least I can do for whoever has to find my body is make sure they don’t trip over things on the floor when they do.
It’s silly, I know. I spend so long wanting to die, and then when I don’t want to die anymore, I’m terrified of dying. And I know there’s no real reason to it, I know that the likelihood of me dying in my sleep is very small, but every time I lie down in my bed, I start to panic. I feel my heart racing and my limbs twitching and I have to stay awake because if I go to sleep, I might not wake up.
So I didn’t sleep at all last night. And then this morning I got out of bed and I had to go to work. It was my first proper day – I know I did a day last week, but that mostly involved just being there, answering questions if need be and giving directions, etc. Today, I was in charge. Standing at the front of a classroom, running activities and holding discussions with a group of 13-14 year-olds. Trying to motivate them, and inform them, and make them enthusiastic. Trying not to cringe when they called me ‘Miss’. Holding little competitions and then calming them down when things got too competitive. Leading them from one place to another and trying not to lose anyone. Trying to be both honest and positive about my time at university, when I’ve spent so much of it in my own little world, despairing.
And they all had to do feedback sheets and I’m really quite worried that they didn’t enjoy themselves, or they didn’t learn anything, or that they realised that it was my first day and a bit shambolic and I was pretty much dead on my feet.
But I did it, and I know I should just be pleased with that. I’m sure the department will get in touch if all the feedback was terrible, and in the mean-time I should just be glad that I got through the day. There was one other person doing the same job I was doing today, in a different room, and he’s pretty much an expert, having done it loads of times before, and he was asking me how I felt about it…if I was nervous, if I felt I could handle the kids, and afterwards, if I’d been put off the job entirely. But I felt none of that. I suppose that, if there’s one thing depression’s good for (and that’s a big ‘if’), it’s, in its absence, making a lot of other things seem not at all daunting. Compared to some of the time I’ve spent in my own head lately, a roomful of distractible Year 9s and their rather disinterested teacher is nothing.
My course co-ordinator got back to me. I have an extra week to do my coursework, but if I need any more extensions in the future then I’ll have to provide more up-to-date evidence. So, after Christmas, I’ll have to go to the doctor. Or the counsellor. Or just anyone, really, who can back me up that all this shit is really going on. Because I don’t want to get to the end of next term and realise that I can’t do my work but that I can’t get any extra time to do it in.
Now.
Posted on: April 18, 2009
I don’t really know what I’m doing. Lately I’m looking at everything through a haze of exhaustion and confusion. Read the rest of this entry »
Just a quick update…
Posted on: March 20, 2009
My essays are done.
One was okay, and one was horrendous, but they’re finished and referenced and handed in – all with whole hours to spare! I haven’t slept for quite some time, so am now going to go and collapse on my bed.
I’m still feeling great, apart from that totally unreal feeling that develops when it’s too long since you laid your head on a pillow.
Going out tonight with my flatmates, hopefully it will be amazing, or I will be too drunk to care.
Then I’m going home on Sunday, for around two weeks.
Will write here again when I’m more coherent.
Loopy, Lonely and Lost 
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