–Molly B.
Look, we all want to lie on the floor like Michael Cera in Arrested Development sometimes, college is hard and I get it. Sometimes people come into the WaLC and just need someone to sit next to them and give them encouragement to get their assignment done (I have 100% done this for someone, it is okay, we all get there sometimes).
These are the kinds of things that one can plan for in college… Getting overwhelmed and getting overworked, those things happen. And sometimes, especially if you are a certain workaholic English grad student, you might find that you have spread yourself too thin. Again, these are all normal things, and you are so not the worst for needing to ask your professor for an (reasonable) extension on something when you find yourself in this position.
However, what you need to remember is that even though college is your life right now, and it seems like it is your entire life, the universe has a funny way of reminding you that it is not your entire life. Sometimes a family member gets sick or something major happens and you have to take care of it, or maybe of yourself.
For me this semester, I was stretched thinner than ever before. I mean I had to be somewhere different every single day of the week. I was going from early in the morning until 9pm or later every single day, and then I would go until 1- 3am or so doing homework. It sucked, but I was making it happen, I guess. Until one Sunday morning around 3:30am I was awoken by a weird feeling in my back and stomach, and by weird feeling I mean sharp pain, but you know, I was sleepy and it was the last thing I wanted to deal with at the moment. However… The pain never stopped, and I never ended up falling back asleep to just sleep it away either. Basically long story short, I ended up in a hospital with IVs stuck into me and was told I needed emergency surgery because my gallbladder was no longer playing nice with the rest of its Organ Friends.
I was out of commission for an entire week. Me. The workaholic English graduate student, who even in their hospital bed was shooting emails to professors as quick as the morphine was letting me (shout out to all those professors too because they were some strange emails). I had never planned for this, I had things due, I had things to do, and I was not ready for a hospital stay. And really, no one ever is.
It’s been almost four weeks now, and I still have a weird infected incision, and I just now am catching up on things I missed from that week and the following weekends afterwards where I should have been studying and not sleeping to try and get better.
What the entire point of this post is though, is take care of yourselves. College is so important, I love college, and I even want to teach in one someday, and, like, I promise that I understand that it seems like the biggest thing in the world right now. But, and especially as we get into finals week and as spring allergies are coming up, please, just take care of you first.
~Advice from Your Friendly Neighborhood WaLC Tutor~
