I am truly overworked with college things that I miss out on so much. I realized that I'm going to Towson this fall and I won't be able to see much of my friends from Essex anymore. I found myself more active in my studies than ever before. I know I'm getting better grades this year. I'm even getting scholarship money. But every time I enroll into class, I become unavailable. I'm always unavailable that time of year. I rarely see my friends anymore. Even my parents are upset that I don't get enough time with them because I have so much work. Last week alone, I had about six big papers due last week; four of them were due by Thursday. I was studying more for tests than I have been spending time with friends and family.
I feel like I'm getting used to this "all this work in one week or night" routine. It's made me more alert and focused on what I want in life. I'm starting to think that I want to be a journalist or a court reporter, whichever I'm more interested in or will make more money. An old friend from high school told me he pictured me working for the Baltimore Sun newspaper. And I've had a year's experience as an anchorperson in high school for the morning announcements. I love writing and reporting. And I've gotten used to researching. I think I'm in love with this.
Yet, it makes me tired.
I always feel like I need a break. I'm always feeling very drowsy when I go to school. I lose sleep because something is always keeping me awake. Something's troubling me that I can't get to sleep, let alone think about something fresh to write about.
I did a research paper for my Psychology class that was about sleep deprivation. One of the articles I found said that more and more college students are pulling all nighters which is making them feel fatigued. Some long term effects of doing more than one of these all nighters are seizures, strokes, and heart attacks. Still, students aren't always seeing these things clearly. In an issue of Teen magazine, a section in one article read that a college student died from taking 90 caffeine pills, equivalent to 250 cups of coffee, to keep him/her awake to study for a test. To me, that's just disgusting. And I don't even like coffee. I've never taken caffeine pills ever. I hope I'll never have to.
In another online article, I saw that sleep deprivation can ruin relationships. A study confirmed that a fourth of people reporting said that they lost interest in relationships or felt too sleepy to engage with them. Isn't that true. My father has sleep apnea, so he wakes up every now and then and he hardly gets enough sleep anymore. He says he gets about four hours of sleep every night. Sometimes he even falls asleep in front of the television. I'm surprised it hasn't affected his job, but he rarely has some romantic time with my mom anymore. He's now sleeping in the basement more so mom doesn't have trouble sleeping due to his loud snoring. Mom's worried about him. She's getting the quality sleep she needs, but she's having difficulty with dad since she doesn't see him that often anymore.
I'm scared that I'll end up that way. That I won't have enough time to be with people. What's worse is that I'm easily distracted. When I'm with a bunch of friends, I tend to get bored quickly, looking for something to do. I start to lose interest in things. I'm not so into trading card games, video games, and science fiction as much as they are. I like some sci fi, but I kind of like it. I'm not crazy about it. They're all nerds. Computer/video game nerds who love Magic the Gathering cards. And when I try to ask them to go do something, they tell me "I have to do something else", especially over the summer when I don't have much to do.
I wonder if I'll have time for myself and my friends when I have so much work to do for college. College is the most important thing to me now. I'll be the very first woman in my family to finish college with a degree in something- anything. I just need to pinpoint what my major is.
It's just- I NEED A BREAK!!! What am I going to do if whenever I'm available, everyone else is busy?
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