Tick Tock Goes The Clock

I haven't posted about uni in what, about a month? For which there are two reasons; the first is that uni has been non-stop so when I get home, I'm too shattered to hash out a blog post and I then spend my weekends doing absolutely nothing until the next week begins. But secondly, and probably more importantly, I've been having a hard time because I'm not enjoying my course to the point where I've been really unhappy. And because of it, I haven't been motivated to do much of what I love doing. Least of all write about the one thing that's making me unhappy. Then again, this blog was designed to be all about my experiences at uni and in the field(s) that I've become a part of, and that includes the good, the bad, and the ugly.

It's been a rough month. Adjusting to a new uni and a different course was always going to be hard, but I didn't expect to not want it this much. It drowned me like a tidal wave, the depressing reality that optometry is tediously wearing me thin and it's only just been a month. And it consumes me. I am losing my mind. I'm haunted by the idea that I'll be spending the rest of my life in a career that I don't want, in a job that I'm destined to hate. I can't tell you how physically and mentally exhausting it is to think of your future and see nothing but unhappiness, to not see anything but a tunnel vision of a life that you feel trapped by.

And so I've been feeling the constant push and pull between biochemistry and optometry. I felt weighed down by the pressure to determine the fate of my future. Ultimately, despite me not enjoying any aspect of uni life and not liking the profession I'm heading towards, I'm sticking it out with optics. Maybe it's stupid, maybe it's smart. I don't really know. I don't know what my future holds. But I do know that this isn't the life I had planned for me. It's been hard to accept. It's been so incredibly hard to let go of a subject that I had a deep-rooted passion for studying, an idealistic career that I wish with every fibre in my being I could go pursue whilst dropping optometry like a hot coal. Sadly though, I can't. And I have to be okay with that.

Patience, patience, patience. I think I utter that word a thousand times on my way to uni, a thousand times at uni, a thousand times on my way back. And ready to repeat the next day. Insanely hoping that it'll resonate deep within my bones, that it'll miraculously eat away at the unhappiness that threatens to eat away at me for the next four years, and the forty after that.

I'm still somewhat mentally rebelling against what feels like one big cosmic joke that's been played on me, but somewhere is the faith that this is all part of the bigger plan and it'll make sense one day. Until then, I just have to get on with it. Push aside my misgivings and the incessantly angry, frustrated thoughts of "I DON'T WANT THIS" that threaten to break my mind, to simply do the best I can with the hand I've been dealt. But I can't help the moments where I reach a breaking point and it all spills over and bleeds into my waking life and I'm screaming on the inside with no one to hear.

Studying is hard, but to study something that you don't want to study, that does not even remotely academically stimulate you, that you find no enjoyment in studying because it is so mind-numbingly dull...it is ten times harder. It's like hitting your head repeatedly against a brick wall. I don't know if it'll get better. I don't know if I'll learn to enjoy my degree and right now, I see no turning point in the next four years where I will. I don't know if I'll find my way back to biochemistry in the near or distant future. And what's truly killing me on the inside, is what I do know as solid, concrete facts... the crushing reality that I used to be a girl who loved studying - who couldn't see a life beyond studying - and I'm now a girl whose first mid-semester exam is on Monday and I honestly could not give a shit. I know that I used to relish writing essays and learning, that I found a kick in revising my stuff inside out, and now it's a struggle to put pen to paper. It is a chore to attend uni when it used to be a joy. I remember that the holidays would tire me out at home and I'd be itching to get back into uni life, and now uni life has become my own personal hell with home being my only escape.

I count down to my Fridays every damn week, and I count down to Christmas break every damn day. Tick tock tick tock tick tock. Always counting down. Four years, 12 semesters, 128 weeks. Always counting. I just want to get my degree and get the hell out.