Adam Oster, Novelist

As you may be aware, I put it upon myself to finish college a lot earlier than originally expected. Like, six months earlier. And I’m super excited about it. So excited, in fact, that I decided that not only would I finish an additional four courses than I had expected to finish this term in a mere 52 days, but, well, I decided that wasn’t fast enough.

I’ve had this school stuff hanging over me for the past 2.5 years, and it has felt like every day has this aspect of weight that I just haven’t been able to shake. And that’s primarily due to my constant feeling of dread that I won’t be able to get a class done on time, or that I will get some terrible grade back and will have to make a last minute adjustment to an assignment, or some other ridiculous thing that really isn’t that much different from normal life, but for some reason school has made it that much worse.

And because of this 2.5 years of weight on my shoulders, I decided that I just wanted to get it done with. If I’m already planning on over-doing it for this term, why not go crazy and try to pour every last ounce of my energy into getting it done and just get it done already.

Yesterday marked the one week point from when these additional four courses opened up for me to start work on them. And as of yesterday, I only have 12 of the 30 assignments from these courses left. That’s right, I’ve done 18 assignments in 7 days, which equates to just about two and a half assignments a day. Adding on top of that the reading required for these classes and trying to cram it into the random free hours of the day means that I have really pushed myself as far as I can possibly go.

And here I am, looking at the very real possibility of being done with school in a week, which is seven and a half months sooner than I had expected to finish everything just a little over a week ago, and I am feeling as though I have hit that metaphorical wall marathon runners like to talk about.

I actually felt this way yesterday as well, but today it feels that much worse.

I’m tired, I’m overwhelmed, and I just don’t want to do it anymore.

And I could. I could take a break. Heck, I could take a whole week off from doing any assignments and still be way ahead of where I actually expected myself to be when I signed up for these additional four courses, and still be able to finish them with a month to spare in the term.

But then I remember this weight that has been weighing on me. This constant feeling of dread about having to get through yet more coursework. And I think about how I could just be done. In a matter of only a few days, I could be absolutely done.

And that is really all I want right now, is to be done.

So, I’m going to do it. I’m going to push through. I absolutely NEED to push through.

But I’m also going to need to schedule a week off from work afterward to just recover. Not just work. I’ll need to schedule a week off from life. That’s a thing, right?

On a brighter note, in the few hours of positive thinking I’ve been getting in between all this focus on school work, I’ve been getting really excited about some of the ideas for things I want to do next creatively. And if I can somehow manage this same level of energy I’ve been forcing into my homework for the past week when it comes to the creative stuff, it’s quite possible I might just have an explosion of output.

Or I’ll just be too tired to do anything anymore and will become one with the couch for the next 2.5 years.

One or the other…Both sound good right now. With the couch one winning out just a little bit more than the other one.

Okay, back to work. Twelve classes left…