Burning Out

As this semester progresses, I just continue to get more stressed and drained. I’m at the point now where I’m burning out.

Although midterms are now done there’s a wide range of different projects and papers that I’ve put off in order to study. Worst of all, there are group projects to work on. While I don’t mind working with other people, there’s just something about group work that becomes a priority to me. Consequently, all my other classes end up taking the backburner – something I really shouldn’t let myself do.

As for readings…I’m very far behind. Looking at my lists of things to do is almost overwhelming in itself. I keep post-it notes with all my assigned readings and projects beside where I sit at my desk. Here’s a little glance at what I’m facing this week:

All these readings snuck up on me while I was in midterm mode. To be honest, I’ve never been able to pull off a semester where I’ve managed to complete and stay on top of all my readings. It’s always been a trade-off where I have to pick what classes I believe the textbook readings are most necessary. Maybe it’s because I’m an Arts and Sciences student and I’m stuck balancing long scientific articles with excerpts from humanities books? Beats me. Does anyone actually manage to complete all their assigned readings?

To try to help myself relax yesterday I decided to go out shopping and treat myself to some makeup. While I was out, I thought it was a good idea to purchase some bird seed for my animal behavior experiment on chickadees. I found a great deal! 4 kilograms of seed for only $6! However, that also meant I had to carry this huge bag of bird seed with me everywhere I went for the rest of my shopping trip. So much for relaxing!

I just realized now how often I decide to take pictures for this blog late at night after I’ve removed all my makeup and showered. Here I’m even suited up in my PJs.

Behold my huge seed baby! Yes, it is the size of my torso. Believe it or not, I almost bought a 7 kilogram bag until I spotted this smaller one on a display shelf.

Well, I’m off to go crawl into bed and finish a reading. The worst part of this time of year is that I want nothing more than to catch up on my sleep and recover, but every day just seems to get more and more demanding as deadlines approach.