Two words have been careening like bullets off Camosun’s unshakeable walls. I hear them and nod, a sort of bow and prayer. Empathy for the reality of the point, for I live it, too. These words can mean everything or they can mean nothing. They are: “I’m done.”
Done. At the time of this writing I am looking down the face of week 12, and at the time of the paper’s printing it will be week 13. Maximum overload weeks. I am dragging my bag with much less energy than I ever thought possible: my body is weary and mind is exploding.
I curse myself for desiring that magical A+. I curse myself even more for wanting to earn it with less than 1000 percent effort. I feel as if my 110-percent effort simply isn’t cutting the grade. Why is it that I drive myself so crazy and I act like a three-year-old child when I learn that the project just over the horizon suddenly has a new twist and I am expected to simply go with the flow?
Tantrums.
Oh, yes. I am a 43-year-old student and I want to fling myself to the tiled floor and weep, scream, and cry, because, damn it, this all feels like too much. Why is there a new twist?
(Reading this now, of course, I want to smile and laugh at myself for the pure ridiculousness of it all!)
I’m not the only one who is done. I watch as the entirety of the student body huddles in the library, the cafeteria, or vacant spots studying together, working together. Heads bow together to make urgent deadlines.
A running-shoe ad once implored me to “try: the responsibility is yours.”
I get it. I wear the runners, I work my hardest, and I try.
I feel that, as the end of the term approaches, I am overloaded, overworked, and near hysterics. It is some consolation that I am not the only one. Students everywhere groan in mutual pain: I’m done, I’m done.
Sacred two words.