Chapter 1: It’s a Slog

It really was the dog days of the semester. The middle of March. Second semester. Everyone’s preparing for finals just after they finished cramming for Midterms. Spring Break came and went like it never happened. 

The days all feel the same. You slog to the bus stop, then ride it for an hour cramped on a route with too many students and not enough buses. You slog to your first class, then slog to across campus to your second, rushing in the 10 minutes you have to cover nearly a kilometer, then slog through the two hour break you have between your second and third class because you couldn’t get the classes you were interested in at the times you wanted, then slog to your third class, slog to the bus stop, ride another hour on a slightly less cramped bus, then slog back to your apartment. 

It’s like walking through the same swampy marsh day after day, never getting any easier. You don’t get stronger, your muscles never build the strength. You just get more used to it. 

You come home, and there are chores to do. Readings to study, and by the time you actually have any free time, you’re too tired to divulge in any of the things that actually interest you. 

My particular hobbies aren’t even that energy consuming. Play a video game here or there, watch a movie, create some generative music and jam. None of it is particularly hard work, but after a day like today and every other day, it just doesn’t feel worth it. 

I look around, see other people on campus. They are all going through the same thing as me, but seem to be dealing with it. Maybe they’re not all smiling, but they’ve got their heads up, talking to other people, enjoying extracurriculars, doing something. 

Last week there was a club fair again. Tables upon tables of people who somehow, through degrees more rigorous than mine, can find the time and energy to not only dedicate it to a hobby, but manage a group of people tailored specifically for that hobby. 

It amazes me. Really. I always thought I’d get to university and it would be different. I had friends and I did well in high school, but this is so much lonelier. It almost makes me yearn for the days of taking all my classes on Zoom. Don’t have to slog through a commute. Don’t have to show your face unless your professor forces you to show everybody just how generic and unsightly you are. Still have the time of day to engage in something you care about since you’re not slogging away every hour on campus or doing chores. 

It’s just a lot more lonely than I imagined. I’d always heard that university was a lot easier to be social, but that turns out to be a lie when all the things you didn’t like about yourself in high school prove to be more permanent than just the transitory awkwardness of puberty. 

A month and a half to make something out of another wasted year. At least my semester got easier towards the end. Final projects instead of final exams mean less cramming for one make-it-or-break-it day, and more time dedicated to actually making progress on something. 

It wasn’t my last year at university, but it soon would be, and I wanted to at least have something going into the summer, the next year. 

It’s not like I really had a lot of motivation, but maybe with some extra time and a little less stress after the midterms, there could be something out there for me. 

It was still the dog days of school, but soon everybody would become a recluse to cram for finals, and there would be actual motivation for achievement in the atmosphere again. 

Plus, not everybody is going to be cramming for finals. I mean, I’m not, because of how my classes work, and there’s gotta be others like me, maybe even in the same program, as well as those diligent students who study enough everyday to have enough free time to say hi to a peer or two during the early spring season. 

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But…

What to do…?

If I want to get out of this sickening marsh, and find some reason to be someone other than a student, well, I actually have to find that reason. 

I was always good enough at school that it was never a stressor. I didn’t have to worry about not doing well in class. I was a good student and I put in the time outside of class to get everything done. I did well enough to achieve everything I wanted, even if I never aimed all too high. 

Really the biggest problem school had always placed on me was the time suck. It was like an old, broken vacuum that was always running in your apartment. So loud any task was impossible while it was on. Your roommate can vacuum and that's it. Nothing else in the area is allowed to function until this task is over. School felt like that vacuum. It was useful, it did its job, but while I was in the thick of it, the sound was so deafening getting anything done that wasn’t school itself wasn’t even worth attempting. 

Maybe though, maybe it could be. There’s gotta be a reason the people around me can participate in all these extracurriculars, still have hobbies, friends, and all the rest while doing well in school. I knew it was possible. Some of the people I talked to every once in a while were prime examples. 

Maria was a biology student with a heavier course load than me, but still managed to not only have enough time for all the escapades her friends took her on that she was always telling me about, but also to play enough video games that there was a long list of Steam invites from her that sat unread. 

Justin was a music student like me, but had a band that actually did enough to have a bandcamp page. He invited me out to some of their sessions but my late class ended up being a time conflict. I don’t even know if I’d say yes anyway. I was never confident enough in my own abilities, or myself for that matter. Probably something I should work on if I want to be more of a real person. Actually having the confidence to do, well, anything really. 

It’s what Julia was always saying. She apparently had a friend who really suffered from confidence issues and she said that once her friend took some time to focus on them to the point she actually liked living in the world with the rest of us, she really came out of her shell and was able to participate in human interaction and activities. 

She was probably onto something. I mean, I’d never really felt all that much about myself. It was kinda hard to. I always thought the people around me, whether I liked them or not, were at the very least interesting and had depth to them as people. 

I never really felt like that. Maybe it’s because I only saw the outside of them, what they put into the world and not their inner self, but their outsides seemed to imply a depth to their personhood I never really felt for myself. I felt like I was only the stuff I put into the world, and if you took all that away there was nothing there. A fraud of a person. 

Julia is probably onto something with that whole confidence thing though. Maybe I can meet this friend of hers and ask about what she went through. That’s probably too forward, I have never met this person, but I could still just ask Julia to elaborate more. Meeting them and seeing someone who might have dealt with the same thing I did and came out of it better than ever would be pretty nice though, even if it was just for a coffee or something. 

There we go. A thing to do. A thing to look forward to. A thing that I came up with. It’s not just something that I let happen to me. I can reach out to Julia and ask her to hang out and I can bring this up. Maybe we’ll even watch a movie, she can show me one of those weird art films she’s always talking about. It’s something I’m into too, but don’t really have the energy or motivation to actually put something on. 

Far easier to stare at a wall or endlessly scroll. 

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