Hi friends! Long time no talk! I hope you all have been doing well! I, for one, am going through a pretty stressful phase, with the commencement of finals less than 24 hours away. I’m sure many of my fellow college students can hardcore relate.
So, what’s been going on in my life since we last spoke, in my post Enamored and Intoxicated? Well, I’ve had several dance performances, and I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. The experiences all corroborated my love for the stage, and I am convinced that I want to make the art and science of live performance one of the cornerstones of my life’s work.
It’s so interesting how, even with the mood stabilizers helping me out, my moods can still fluctuate so. In my last blog post, written about three weeks ago, I was definitely riding the tall wave of one of my highs. But alas, all waves do crash, and, shortly after the post was written, I was soon in for a rude awakening. I’m not necessarily in a depressive period at this moment, but my head is definitely a lot more grounded in reality than it was a few weeks ago. Which sucks, because I love feeling the high. But it is this very high that makes all else– including reality– pale in comparison.
Apologies for the tangent. Now, where was I? Oh yeah– finals. At this point of the year, I’m feeling pretty burnt out. I had a pretty tough courseload, coupled with my commitment to a hip hop dance group, as well as ballroom dance lessons. I am currently enrolled in a 6-unit research methods course, which has held the long-standing, notorious label of being the “weeder” class for psychology majors. The class is all about SURVIVAL. I’d honestly be happy with a B in the class, which I wouldn’t say about any other class at UCLA. So far, I haven’t done great in the class. I got a little above average on the first exam (76%), and average on the first submission of the research paper (65%). Tomorrow morning at 8am, I have the second exam, which I’ve been studying for all weekend, so I’m crossing my fingers that the hard work will pay off (PLEASE). The upper division adolescent development class I’m taking is not easy, either. Professor Juvonen’s exams are tricky. I only got an 86% on the first exam, and am hoping to score near perfect on the second exam, to hopefully get an A- or A in the class. As for my philosophy class, I am so far behind on lectures, it is not even a laughing matter at this point. You see, I have philosophy class every Tuesday and Thursday, and dance practice every Monday and Wednesday night. Practice often goes until the early hours of dawn (we’ve gone until 2am, one time!). That’s why, on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I usually choose to sleep in instead of go to lecture, which, in any case, is podcasted– so in theory, I can listen to the lecture from home if I happen to miss lecture one day. Unfortunately, the system fails when people like me lose motivation to listen to lectures online… and thus starts the cycle of falling behind. The good news is, I did very well on the first philosophy exam, so I have some buffer room, in case I don’t do very well on the second exam.
Bottom line is, academically, I’m pretty stressed right now– as expected, during finals week. I haven’t been taking good enough care of my physical health– eating all sorts of junk at strange hours and not exercising nearly as much as I should be. The only good thing that’s been happening is that I’ve been sleeping a decent 7-8 hours a night.
Mentally, I’m neither great nor terrible. As I said before, I’ve come down from my most recent high point, and am currently grounded in sobering reality. Reality is boring and, at times, uninspiring, but it’s also the state I’ll be spending most of my life in, so I’d better get used to it. I need to be able to find motivation and inspiration without the assistance of my hypomanic episodes.
It’s currently 8:10pm on this Sunday evening as I type out this post. At 9pm, I’m going to an a capella concert. Bruin Harmony is the group that’s performing– UCLA’s only all-male a capella group! They actually won the a capella title at Spring Sing, UCLA’s biggest music/dance talent show and competition. The concert finishes at 11pm, and after that, it’s straight to bed. Gotta wake up early for my 8am final. Urg. There’s so much more I wish to tell you guys, but I should get some last minute studying in before I get ready for the concert.
I’ll talk to you guys soon!
Love,
Belicia
Teenage Struggles 