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#but in a way exams and thesis work IS less stressful than like. figuring out where you'll LIVE
weird-dere-writes · 4 months
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okay so like, of course, we're currently coming to the end of the first semester of our final year and Byakkun and I are both starting to become swamped with end-of-term papers, projects etc and preparations for the next semester.
we're seeing each other a little less then normal but still manage to check in via texts and brief moments on campus/the odd date. But it's at times like this that I tend to need to draw on other's support more, to avoid overthinking etc.
I know Byakkun is busy so I try not to bother him more than usual (even though he's of the 'it's unfair that we laughed together but you cried alone' type beat)
and one time when you and I are hanging out, I confess that I miss him and feel bad that work is so all-consuming but I don't want to be so demanding when we're at such a critical point
This song came on while I was writing this response and I think it fits the vibes so well 🥹
Oh my poor, tired, love 🥺.
When you tell me how you’re feeling, I immediately go to hug you close. My hold is gentle, but is still firm enough to let you know I’m here.
I’ve noticed as of late how preoccupied you’ve been. Not necessarily distant, but just swamped.
Admittedly, I had been a little worried about you. Every time i checked on you, you seemed to be working on things. I had wondered if you were even getting any rest. I couldn’t wait for a rest period to come any faster for you, truly.
I feel the way you shiver in my arms, eyes beginning to shine with tears. I’m trying to reassure you with quiet murmurs.
“I’m sorry life is bringing you so much stress right now. Even more so, I feel bad it’s keeping you and your love apart. But I’m more than sure he misses you just as much as you miss him, if not more. I know you worry about being a bother, but I think you should tell him how you feel.”
I’m sure I didn’t know him to the extent you or Ichigo did, but I know Byakkun is considerate enough to do what he can for you regardless of the struggles along the way. I know that he would never see your presence as an intrusion. I try to remind you that you are not a burden adding to his workload. You are the love of his life. And that it’s already in his heart to wanna be there for you when you need him.
But he has to know you need him in order for him to be there :(((( <3.
Byakuya, similar to you has been working in over time. Not only on his grad work, but also for his little class he teaches, and for the tasks he does when working with the organization in charge of Ichigo’s internship. When the two guys work together, Ichigo takes note of how… frazzled Byakkkun has been. And he makes it a point to keep checking in with him to make sure he’s okay.
At some point, when Ichi and Byakkun get some downtime, Byakuya straight up tells Ichigo he feels like he is losing his mind hardly being able to see you amongst all this chaos. But he knows you have enough on your plate. That your academic crazies are probably going extra hard without trying to fit him in between constant study sessions, revisions, exams, meetings with professors.
And Ichigo tells him something similar to what I tell you. But still, thought Byakkun knows he’s right, his brain is so fried he feels like he doesn’t know how to go about rectifying this. So Ichigo tells him that he’s gonna help him figure it out. He grabs a piece of paper and a pen, gives it to Byakuya, asks for his schedule. When he’s in class, when he’s studying, when he’s working on his thesis, when he’s eating, everything. And once Ichi has this information he is texting me.
We begin to make plans to help y’all out, so you don’t have to think about anything. You can save all your energy to your academic pursuits and we can handle all the rest.
Essentially Ichi and I work together to schedule events in which y’all can spend time together simply vibing. Taking little tidbits from conversations wit you both and brainstorming ideas to fulfill those needs in a way that brings both your brains back down to earth.
You mention one day you wish you had something to warm you up as you chug water to keep yourself working diligently. The next day after you’re out of class for the day, I’m picking you up and dropping you off at a small lounge somewhere on campus. Inside awaits a cozy atmosphere with fairy lights, blankets, and your choice of coffee and hot cocoa. There’s a projector set up to watch whatever you please for the next few hours and Byakuya is already there waiting.
Byakuya murmurs to himself about getting some fresh air while scribbling down notes for something. Ichigo is texting me about places with nature you two can go to. Byakkun’s next day is packed, but the day after that is when Ichigo grabs Byakkun and drives him somewhere toward the edge of town. Waiting by a booth nearby where he’s dropped off it me and you.
Ichi and I paid for your fair to walk this trail filled with flowers, lush trees, a bridge overlooking a small pond with koi, zen gardens, and fresh fruit from stands at certain stopping points. Once you two are together and told what’s up I hop in the car with Ichi and leave y’all to it. We come to get you when you message us you’re ready to go.
Stuff like that :3.
Y’all have helped us so much, so we’re more than happy to help shape more self care and quality time with your partner into your hectic and almost impossible seeming schedule. We are also making sure y’all are getting your meals in and getting your rest and all the like. Until this hellish period calms down, we are here for you, and we hope we can help you both to be there more for each other without fear uwu.
I kith you 😘💋
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estelofthedunedain · 3 years
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guess I’ll be disappearing for a while again, as I’ve realized i’m seriously falling behind certain college stuff and it’s best my brain isn’t busy rping and developing plots and headcanons, you feel?
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tundrainafrica · 3 years
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Title: A Tale of Two Slaves (13/17)
Summary:  “Soulmates don’t exist. Fate doesn’t exist. Everything is a choice.” At that moment, Levi could only watch as she made the choice for him.“
Reincarnation AU. Levi remembers everything from their past life. Hange doesn’t.
Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Link to cross-postings: AO3
Every year, for a few weeks at a time, life had a tendency of stopping.
And it had been following that same pattern for the past few years.
For Levi, the first signs of the freeze came when the last few red leaves fell to the ground, revealing the branches underneath. The trees were bare, the wind chill was cruel and the sky was constantly grey.
But the freeze was only a prelude that accompanied something much more daunting.That period of time in particular manifested as some sort of a limbo. That painful limbo where every student was suddenly reminded that maybe taking five classes at once was a bad idea.That limbo were suddenly all students ever had to think about were those five classes they were taking. Yet for some reason, everyone still found a reason to be stressed.
No training. No club activities.
Just deadline after deadline. Group work after group work. Exam after exam.
Of course it would be stressful. Since for many people, those last few submissions leading up to the holidays were always the most decisive. Making that deadline, making something of quality in that deadline always spelled the difference between honors and mediocre, a C for a degree or a failing F. Especially since for the first few months of school anyway, the urgency never hit.
Levi never had been one of those students gunning for honors. The regular tournaments and the twice a day training and the human need for some rest afterwards always meant that Levi was only barely passing most classes while every now and then scoring a B in one.
He was one of those people who thought of the final few weeks of school as some sort of a messiah, some last chance to pull a D to a C or if he were lucky a B. And those periods in limbo blurred so easily into hazy memories of sleepless nights, irrationally strong hate over some particularly shitty groupmate and those few hour long exams where Levi could have sworn his heart hadn’t even been beating.
He hadn’t expected his senior year to be any different. But on the days leading up to finals week, he started to realize he had fewer exams, a little more papers than usual. A side effect of being a senior in a non science course.
It could have been the luck of the draw maybe but his teachers had been kind and had requested he just send everything over.
Two requirements and One thesis. And Levi could always do it from the comfort of the study hall in the dorm.
The study hall was a medium sized building, most frequented by dormers.
One of its most notable characteristics was the window wide enough that anyone studying would be almost incapable of ignoring the scenery just outside. And in winter, the grey sky, the bare trees and the glass of the window that would fog up at the lightest caress were the main constants of the scenery. And even if it was impossible to ignore for most students, Levi didn’t think too much of it that winter in particular. Since the days leading up to deadlines, Hange had been right next to him.
There were those few moments in between studying when he would allow himself some reprieve. Picking what to focus on had never been a challenge. The dreary early winter scenery felt chilly even from the comfort of the heated study hall yet without even trying and Hange emitted a warmth that had resonated more powerfully than any feelings and preconceived notions rooted in his four years in a bubble. Her hums, her thoughtless mutters even her unfocused brown eyes the few times she looked up to give herself a quick rest, without even trying, they had felt warm and welcoming.
Maybe because just those small actions had been more than enough for Levi to feel very much connected to someone. For the first winter in his college life, Levi wasn’t alone
Although with the long hours studying, they never went too far beyond exchanging some few words, engaging some small talk. When their brains were completely fried, there wasn’t much else they could discuss anyway.
But they didn’t need to talk. Levi already felt it --- as he allowed the scratching of pen and paper and the familiar clack of the keyboard to keep him company in the stark silence of the study hall--- she had done her part to make that early a winter warmer than it usually was. She had done her part as well to make that limbo, that harsh in-between classes and holidays, almost enjoyable, a significant improvement from that limbo he had always braced himself to power through, every single year.
As he became a little more aware of her constant company, sometimes he could imagine the limbo had never been there, and it had all been a faint memory, a faint illusion of his life before.
And all Hange had to do was be there. Even when she was silent, highlighting line after line, cross checking journals and study guides, Hange managed to find a way to still be present.
When it came to studies, Hange’s case was a stark contrast to his, more urgent and more demanding, almost admirable. She had a full load and although Levi never did memorize her schedule, he figured it out soon enough having spent the days leading up to the exams cooped up with her in the study hall.
Exam after exam after exam.
And Hange was never without her laptop, her printed out study guides and her ebook reader. And she had been that way, all the way until the last day of exams, when the lobby of the dorm had emptied out, the hallways to his room a lot less busy and when Levi was particularly less self conscious about the awkward way he pulled his injured self up the stairs to his dorm room every night.
Everyone had gone home for the holidays already. And soon enough, it wasn’t such an odd sight to see just her familiar shape alone in the study hall.
The first day she didn’t have study guides felt like a big change.
He picked her out so easily, especially when there was nobody else hunched over their own notes. And Levi who had sat with her every single day in the study hall couldn't help but celebrate such a tiny development. “You’re done with exams?” He asked as he settled on the chair in front of her.
“One final paper,” Hange said, not looking up from her laptop.
“And then winter break?”
“And then I can finally work on my thesis.”
“Any ideas?”
“Yeah, some.”
“So you’ll probably be working during the break huh?”
Hange sat back on the chair and crossed her arms. “You know, I’m lucky enough the department is still allowing me to make a thesis even without a proposal presentation."
"At least you get to graduate on time."
"I know. This is just a weird place to be when at the start of the year, I was gunning for some best thesis award. Now I’m the only student in my block who’s disqualified. And on top of that, I’m starting from scratch again.”
“You could have continued from the last one.”
Hange closed her laptop and rested her chin on her hand. “I didn’t pick that topic because I wanted to. I just felt it was the most practical option. And when I consulted my parents, they said that was the best option to save time.”
“And it was.”
“But it felt weird. I couldn't bring myself to ask you the right questions or check your knee everyday. You were constantly in pain, sad, for a while you might even have been depressed…” Hange trailed off. She looked outside at the scenery on the other side of the window.
Levi could almost see the grey reflected on her eyes.
Hange continued. “I thought back to how you fucked up your knee and I realized I was reckless. When you scraped your knee I was there, then I pushed you to jump for my thesis and when I fucked up your life… and you never felt it even a little weird or annoying that I would be getting something out of it?" She looked at him as if expecting him to say something.
"I made the decision to push myself. Not you."
“Levi, please be honest. did I pressure you?” That was the moment, Hange chose to meet his gaze. She had a pleading look in her eyes that only made it difficult for Levi to reach within him for him some sort of a response.
He had the answer and it was so easily within reach. Yes, she did pressure him. But was that something he would have wanted to admit?
And when he started to ask more questions, he soon started to ask another more important question, was it Hange who had pushed him to do it? Or was it this image of Hange he was projecting onto her?
“You didn’t pressure me,” Levi said.
“Then why were you working so hard? Why did you push yourself?”
“Because… I felt pressured.”
“If not me, then by what? What pressured you?”
“Myself?” And by extension, everything else maybe? Captain Levi? Commander Hange Zoe? He added to himself. But he wasn’t crazy enough to say it.
“But here’s the thing, I could have sworn you were much calmer than that during the competitions. Actual competitions. But then since we met, ever since you scraped your knee, you were pushing yourself more than usual, you were much more tense. What were you working so hard for?”
“I pressured myself.”
“For what?” Hange’s eyes were boring holes into him. “I’m not your coach. Hell, I’m not an arbiter. I’m not an Olympic team scout. All I needed was your data for a thesis nobody was probably going to read anyway.”
“Don’t you have a paper to finish?”
“The final deadline is next week and I’m more than halfway done already. I have more than enough time to talk,” Hange said. Her face morphed into something a little more desperate. “Levi, I wanna know, what did I do wrong?”
At that moment, Levi froze. His eyes were completely fixed on hers, and he could only watch the way she started to study him, as if searching for an answer in the way he sat, the way he leaned back on the chair, the way he gripped the corner of the table. At once, Levi had become aware of all of his nervous ticks.
The tension in the room was thick enough at least for Levi to tell, that he wasn’t the only one feeling the discomfort. He willed himself to lean back further, get a wider view of her and he noticed the subtle signs, her hands were shaking, her lips were letting out a hint of a tremble.
Hange seemed to be in a similar state, self conscious and nervous. Maybe even ready to repent for whatever she had believed she had done wrong. As if she almost wanted to hear insults, criticisms and she even seemed ready to take a punch in the face.
But Levi’s thoughts were far from that.
The day they met, she had introduced herself and had approached him like they were close friends already.
The night they met, she had hid in the dark, watching silently while he trained. That night, she had stitched up his knee.
And in that process, she made him remember things.
You made me remember things.
And those things were what had pushed him to ‘tense up,’ to ‘work hard’ and to impress her.
But really was it anything wrong?  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” Levi said. “I told you, I made the decision to push myself on my own.”
“But what did I do to push you?”
“Do you have to be doing something to push me? What if I just met you? And I thought, I wanna help her write her thesis then things happened, then overtime I realized I’m enjoying this.”
Hange shrugged. “You pitied your biggest fan enough to give her a freebie huh?”
“I said ‘I’d gladly stay by your side.’” I don’t think people give promises like that as freebies.”
“But you just met me.”
“You haven’t even met me and you were already keeping pictures of me like some sort of stalker.”
Hange only smiled at such an accusation. Within the few months, they had gotten used to a little banter after all. “Are you just humoring me?”
“No. I’m not. I’m happy to have met you and I said it then, I’ll say it again. If you want me to, I’ll stay by your side.”
“It’s just weird, okay. You have a lot more fans than you think you do. And you get friendly with me, some frumpy nerdy fan who followed your tournaments like crazy….”
“What other explanation would you like for this? Soulmates? Fate?”
“I don’t believe in any of those,” Hange said. “I don’t wanna believe in it. I like to think that I just made the decision to reach out to you. And I just got lucky you decided to reciprocate.”
“Then I got lucky you reached out too, Hange. This goes both ways.”
“I guess it does.” Hange closed her laptop and looked up at the ceiling. “Sorry if this came out of nowhere. With my last exam over, this was the only time I got to think about it again. But you know, thanks for staying here with me even if I was ignoring you half the time.”
“I knew you had a lot to make up for and besides, I’m fine just quietly sitting by.”
Hange’s features softened into a warm smile. “Me too. I’ll make this up to you. If I get this paper written by Friday. I’ll submit then. After that, you wanna go somewhere? Just the two of us?”
“Didn’t you say you wanted to work on your thesis?”
“Your birthday is on the 25th right? But I wanna do something for Christmas so I’m thinking... what if we have an early birthday celebration and we do something else for Christmas?
“You know that’s my birthday Hange, I get to decide how I wanna spend it.”
“But what if it’s my treat?”
“It’s still my birthday.”
Hange gave him a long look. “Okay, what about this? I’m hoping to use your stories for references to my thesis. And I wanna make it up to you… I’ll treat you out on Saturday for that then after, you decide what you wanna do on your birthday.”
“I never said we couldn’t do that for my birthday.”
“Well if you were just more direct with things we wouldn't have to bounce off ideas like this back and forth. Are we celebrating your birthday early or not?”
“And besides I never even said anything about you using my stories for your thesis.”
“Just answer the questions one at a time Levi,” Hange pressed. She checked her watch. “And...I’m meeting someone in a few minutes.”
“Before I answer, what’s your thesis about?”
Hange looked ready to pull her hair out in frustration. “I don’t know yet but I might use it. Anyway, if you’re not gonna answer me, then we treat this Saturday as my celebration for your birthday. Deal?”
“Yes to the thesis. Yes to the early birthday. Are you happy?”
Hange let out a loud sigh of exasperation. “There. Why did that take so long to get out of you?”
Levi ignored that question. “So when are you going to tell me what your new thesis is about?”
“Maybe during your actual birthday? If you bestow on me the privilege of celebrating such an important occasion with you?“ Hange suggested. She quickly gathered her things and dumped it into her canvas bag. Her movements were wilder, messier than usual. So messy Levi found himself cringing at such a sight. He was fairly certain Hange had done that on purpose.
He only confirmed it a second later, as Hange bolted towards the door and gave him the most smug face.
Levi was sure, if he wasn’t so injured, he probably would have bolted right after her. And he was certain he would have caught up to her.
***
“Nice hoodie. The color green really suits you,” Hange called in a way of greeting.
There were no hi’s or hello’s and she hadn’t given one in a while. Yet for some reason, such an unconventional greeting still had Levi raising eyebrows. “Is this your way of making up for a few days ago?”
Hange shrugged. “What if I just wanted to compliment your new hoodie?”
“For one, this is not a new hoodie,” Levi said. “Besides we didn’t separate on the best of terms last Wednesday and you didn’t even reply to my messages after.”
“Well, I finished my paper and I started my thesis… And hey... I did leave you some messages.”
Levi was sure he didn’t receive any messages. He did not receive any notifications for sure. On top of that, he had taken the liberty as well to check back to his inbox every hour or so. Just to make sure his notifications were actually working
But still just in case he was mistaken, he checked his phone under her confused yet watchful gaze only to find that in fact he was right, she didn’t send any messages. He opened up to their untouched chat box and showed it to her.
“Did you check your document?”
“My document?”
“The one with the soldier and titan stories.”
“Why the hell would you leave messages there?”
“I was catching up to it okay.” Hange’s lips curled up into a smile as she spoke. “And I really enjoyed it. A lot. I left so many comments there. I thought you’d reply.”
Levi looked away guiltily. He turned off the notifications on the document a few weeks back. He liked to blame finals week for the inactivity. Yet with all his final papers completed and submitted, he was still making a conscious effort to ignore that document.
But did he want to tell her that? For a while maybe he did consider telling her he had no intention of touching it again.
But Hange continued talking. “When Commander Hange told Captain Levi to live with him in the woods… Wow you know you described it pretty well, I could almost imagine what was happening. Actually, now that I think about it, I think I managed to dream up something like that. But why did you have to end like that?” Hange twisted her face into a little too serious of an expression. “Shoot or listen it’s up to you.” Hange repeated, an attempt at mimicking Captain Levi for sure, but it was too comical given the context of the tirade.
Shoot or listen it’s up to you.
What if Captain Levi got shot? Before Levi could speak up though, Hange pressed on.
“Now that exams are over… are you gonna write more?”
Levi didn’t reply. Or at least, he couldn’t bring himself to verbalize a reply. Maybe he had brought his head up then down, in the form of some small nod. Maybe it could have been just him looking up to see the crowds making their way to the train station.
The train station closest to their university was one of the busiest ones in town. Even a little past eight on a Saturday morning, there were still crowds large enough that navigating through them still required some effort.
And whether Hange had seen that nod, or whether she had been too distracted by the buying of tickets and the navigating of crowds, Levi never thought too much about it. He brushed the thought aside as soon as she herself abandoned that topic of conversation and the question she asked only a second ago.
And she didn’t push that topic of conversation any longer. Even after they arrived at the platform, even after they boarded the train.
Train rides were always quiet. No one really ever started conversation in trains, instead passing the times with their phones on silent mode, save for a few children who still weren’t completely familiar yet with that unwritten rule
At that moment though, Levi was thankful. Hange was silent. He was silent. And he had a little more mind space to decide how to navigate the topic of his story.
Just in case she did ask again.
***
“Question, so is that the type of green that you imagined for the survey corps cloak?” Hange asked, pinching the sleeve of his hoodie.
Levi looked down at his hoodie. The hoodie was of a dark green color, and he only had to take a glance to put two and two together. “Yes it is.”
“I thought it would be. You know this is the same green I’m imagining.”
Levi smiled. He met Hange’s gaze and even when Hange had looked away, making her way to the park entrance, he made an effort to follow her gaze.
“You thought this far huh?” Levi asked, as she stopped at the turnstile and inserted her ticket then his ticket in.
Hange grabbed a flyer on the way out and looked back at him. “It was a good read. I really felt like I was in the story. And you know, it might sound weird but I kinda really saw myself in her. You know that passion she felt, with the titans and all… I think I’ve felt something similar back when I was still winning competitions when I was younger. I did loads of research back in high school.”
Levi only had to look back at the long hours he had spent stalking her on article after article to confirm that she was telling the truth.
Hange’s rambles about her research in high school though soon faded into some good background noise. He remembered some points, he forgot some. Then, his main focus though had been the green scenery that welcomed him as soon as they exited the train station. The station exit had opened up to a park, a large park with no end in sight. Only flowers and shrubs that lead up to trees with the mountains and horizons at the back of it all.
“When I was reading your story, they talked about what lay beyond the walls… For some reason, I imagined this park. I saw it on a documentary a few years back, streams that seem like they stretch out for eternity, miles and miles of mountains and forests. They said, when you step out of the station, it would feel like another world. And when I thought about what to do for your birthday...” Hange trailed off as she stepped forward into the main path. “I thought… why not show you the scenery I imagined? Maybe I could contribute to your story, help inspire you to write. I hope this view didn’t disappoint.”
It doesn’t. It’s beautiful.
Thinking about it, of course there had been a little more people exiting the train at that station. Of course the station would be much larger and a little more exquisite than other stations.
The view proved to be very much worth the three hour travel and the struggle of changing trains.
They had taken a regional train, then had switched to a few local ones. And looking out the window of the train then, Levi had appreciated how the landscape quickly changed almost blending across one another, the bare trees which almost had a grey tint to them, had gradually shifted to dull bare rice fields. Somewhere in between, the evergreen trees made their entrance, slowly then all at once, in some strange sort of way that Levi was never able to pick out the exact moment that he was sure, the evergreen trees were there to stay for good.
The snow had yet to fall there, and with the evergreen trees and the moss and lichens that littered the paths, Levi could at least pretend it wasn’t winter yet.
Green after all, was a very warm color.
Hange opened her map and leaned a little closer towards Levi so he could get a good look. The map was all green, decorated with markers, mini mountains, rest houses, water refill areas, toilets and picnic sites. There were flower symbols, marked by season. And skirting the circumference of the map were three circles: a large green one, inside it a red one, inside it a yellow one, a very small circle that covered two picnic areas and one flower area occupied the center and next to it a bright red arrow marker ‘You are here.’
“So, I know you wouldn’t be able to handle too much of a walk yet, so we could stick to something short? Just skirt around this area…” She traced the smallest circle along the park and turned to him expectantly.
“What do you wanna see?” Levi asked.
“Anything really. I’m just happy to be able to visit a park like this.”
“No, really Hange. What do you wanna see?” Levi pressed. He planted his bum leg on the ground and stepped forward with it with a little more finesse as if to prove a point. I can walk at least. “If I wasn’t injured right now, where would you have pulled me to go?”
There was some progress at least. He was surprised to see that he could put some extra weight on his knee without so much as a wobble. The stiff brace was probably doing all the work then but Levi was confident he could get a good number of steps across before tiring out his body.
“I’m sure we both don’t want another hospital visit.,” Hange warned.
“I’m fine. I’ve had enough physical therapy lessons and I managed to put some weight on my knee already. Even without the brace..”
For a second, there was a glimmer of hope in Hange’s eyes. She blinked it back before Levi could be sure. “I’m fine with the shortest path,” she said. “This blue one.”
“Are you sure? All we’re gonna see if we follow this path are two picnic sites, a mini forest and one portapotty. You’ll be disappointed.”
“But Levi, what if you get injured again?”
“Didn’t you say this was my birthday treat?”
“We can always go again---”
“In the summer? After you finish your thesis?” Levi raised one eyebrow at her in accusation. “We endured a three hour train ride for this. Let’s make the most of it.”
“Then… which path do you wanna follow?” Hange asked.
Levi gently placed one finger on the green one and traced it. He had only gone half way before Hange pulled the map away.
“No way. That’s at least a five kilometer hike,” Hange said.
Levi pulled the map back gently and pointed at the markers. “Come on, the landscape here seems pretty flat and there’s a forest here and a river. And if we walk ahead here... I’m guessing you wanna see the mountain? They built an observatory there,” Levi said. “Didn’t you say you wanted to know how it feels like to fly?”
Hange’s face turned a little red, her eyes looking a little unfocused as she followed the map with her eyes and looked ahead at the scenery. When Levi squinted, he could tell the peak which stood out from the rest, the small lump that stuck out on one of the hills, a little higher than the rest.
“You didn’t get to do this a lot when you were a kid huh?” Levi asked. He didn’t intend it to be a provocation at first. But when Hange folded her map and took a deep breath, he was grateful for those last few words that popped into his head then.
“My parents didn’t really like taking vacations in the countryside,” Hange admitted.
“One round around there, maybe we’ll go all the way up to the observatory and back,” Levi said. “And if my knee starts hurting, I promise, I’ll tell you.”
Hange’s lips curled up into a playful smile. “If I need to, I’ll carry you back.” She walked ahead, gesturing for him to follow. Levi was almost tempted not to follow. That little playful of an offer and the uncertainty that came with Levi wondering a little too hard about whether she was kidding or nothing, had him entertaining the idea of turning his back on her for a second.
Just to mess with her.
The view had been much stronger then, the way the sun shone on Hange and reflected on her glasses had been too beautiful of a view. It had been a while since he’d seen that much green.
And it wouldn’t be that way for the next three months at least.
As he followed her to the path that followed that large green sign, Levi started to think, maybe that experience might just be worth the embarrassment of a piggy back ride on the way back.
***
Man down!
Hey! Are you alive?
“So the river must be pretty near here huh...” Hange said, not looking up from the map.
Levi had heard the sound of the rushing water stream before she had mentioned it. Whether it had been a river or a stream, he didn’t bother trifling with such detail. The trees that lined the main path, and the sound of rushing water had brought him somewhere else, to another time.
“Wanna see the river?” Hange grabbed his hand, and pulled him towards a smaller path that had been unnoticeable from his peripherals.
As Levi looked to the right, to the shrubs that opened up into an empty space, he noticed the remnants of a path almost completely concealed by shrubs.
“Why would you wanna see the river?”
Hange shrugged. “We don’t get to see this much nature often right? If we follow it…. Maybe we can see a waterfall at the end?”
Levi narrowed his eyes. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen that much nature since he had gone home for a visit more than a few years ago. Maybe that was why the greens and the landscapes had been oddly fascinating.
And Hange. Hange was a lot more entranced than he was. He could have sworn he had lost her a few times to the trees that lined the path.
“We take a look,” Levi said. “Then we go back on the path. I don’t want us getting lost here.”
Hange was too engrossed in her surroundings and then, her eyes had looked a little too wild. But the moment Levi had mentioned that last part, Hange twisted her face into a pout, a pout of defeat at least. “You’re right. Let’s just check out the river here and go back the way we came.” She clutched his hand, gripping a little tighter than usual. “Your knee is still okay right?”
Levi nodded. There could have been some lie to the reaction but it was still too small of a lie for him to need to justify anything. His knee ached for sure. It was an ache dull enough though for Levi to clock it to the tightness of his brace.
To his relief, the river was only less than a two minute walk away. It had seemed farther due to the dense forest that lined the main path. But the density could have been an illusion as well. It opened up to a treeless plain, just a good few meters of grass and beyond that was a river that harbored such a violent flow of water.
Both violent and peaceful, Levi soon realized. As if it was the river’s business to just run hurriedly towards its destination while at the same time crashing towards the shore.
“The river I imagined was a lot like this,” Hange spoke up.
“What river?”
“The one in your story.” Hange answered matter-of-factly. Her eyes were wide with surprise.
Levi wondered if his face showed any sign of that little charade. He had recognized it after all, long before Hange had even mentioned it. It turned out, only the rushing sound of water was enough for him to recall it so vividly.
The view in front of him only added salt to the wounds he just recently realized he had.
Phantom wounds. Even the word phantom couldn’t really justify how it felt then. Back he had written it, he could empathize for sure. Then and there, the view in front of him, had him touching his right eye, just to make sure it was still there and soon after, he wiggled his two fingers just to make sure they were still attached.
“Commander Hange found him in a river like this right? Did you imagine this kind of river too?”
“Maybe,” Levi muttered. He didn’t think too far as to the width of the river or the shape of the blades of grass below. The rushing of the river, the tone of Hange’s voice were enough at least to make him realize that could have very much been the river banks she had found him on. “Commander Hange would now.” Levi added a second later.
Hange cleared her throat. “Well then, I’ll make you imagine it. Call me commander Hange Zoe,” Hange said. “So after the river, where did we go next, Captain Levi?”
“You read it right?”
“They jumped into the river together,” Hange said.
Levi’s eyes widened. “They did?” Levi had dreamt of splashes, the cold water slapping at his face and the numbness that followed. Of course that would have meant them jumping into the river. But why had it taken him so long to put two and two together? “Yeah you’re right. They did.”
Hange chuckled. “Weren’t you the one who wrote it?” She looked back at the dense foliage behind them and back at him. “Let’s go back?”
“Yeah… Sure…” Levi turned on his heel, making his way back to the path only stopping when Hange grabbed at his arm and put it around her shoulder.
“You’re walking much slower now you know,” she said. “Should we go back?”
Levi shook his head. “No, keep going.” His weight on her shoulders was a familiar sensation, almost nostalgic. And the green around him, the breeze and the peaceful rustle of leaves only helped to comfort him further.
There may have been some others along the trail, but Levi wasn’t looking at anyone else. Along the way on the path, the small support had evolved to a piggy back ride.
Surprisingly, Levi wasn’t at all self conscious.
“You’re much lighter than I thought you would be.”
“I honestly feel like I’ve lost weight since the injury. I probably had a lot more muscle back in the summer.” Levi let his head hang back as he stared up at the blue sky above him. The two stopped for a rest in one of the forest clearings a good few meters away from the path.
The ground beneath him was dirty for sure and he felt the leaves and stones through his thick joggers. For some reason though, he wasn’t at all in a hurry to get up.
Hange squeezed his leg. “I’d think physical therapy would have done something about that.”
“Hange, can anyone actually gain muscle learning how to walk again?”
“I’m pretty sure you do other stuff in therapy.”
“Yeah, but it’s far from the training I used to do for high jumps,” Levi said. “Even if my knee magically heals now, who knows if I’ll even be able to manage a two meter jump again.”
Hange closed her eyes and hummed, seeming deep in thought for a second. “Captain Levi was humanity’s strongest,” she said. “Then he got injured in some explosion and ended up half dead on the banks of the river.”
Levi could only watch silently as Hange pulled her legs a little closer to herself and pressed one finger to her left eye and before he knew it, Levi found himself mirroring that slight movement, the phantom pains returned for a split second.
“But I can’t imagine the story ended there. Humanity’s strongest soldier wouldn’t go out of commission over an injury like that. After that, he had to continue fighting right?” Hange continued.
Maybe we should just live here together. Right Levi?
If we keep running and hiding, what will that get us.
The rustle of the leaves, the clear sky above him and the way Hange had rested her elbow on her knees, touching her hand to her left eye. Those were more than enough crumbs for Levi to almost hear the conversation in the silence.
Shoot or Listen. It’s up to you.
“He continued fighting,” Levi said. He let out a cough. “No--- They continued fighting. Captain Levi and Commander Hange Zoe did.”
***
“Maybe I should have built a cart,” Hange said as she rested on the bench. She heaved a breath so strong Levi could have believed she had held her breath the whole way to the rest house.
“You didn’t have to support me here. I could have walked it.”
“Believe me Levi, this isn’t much. It’s like just another day in the gym,” Hange said.
“If we were doing this months ago I could have done five rounds of this trail with you on my back.”
Hange grinned. “Is that a challenge?”
“I said five months ago. Not now.”
Levi stretched his arms out, noting how heavy it was then, particularly when compared to months ago. Back then, it had been his arms carrying him over the bar, then and there stretched out in front of him, those same arms felt like dead weight. And the dead weight stretched out to all parts of his body, all the way until his legs, settling particularly on his braced knee.
And for a second, it hurt. Enough for Levi to instinctively put his hand on top of it, an attempt to pacify it before it got unbearable.
A second later, another propped her hand on top of his and Levi followed it all the way up until Hange.
Her face was hopeful, her eyes wide with what could have been curiosity and soon enough, maybe plans and ideas. “When your knee heals, let’s do this again,” she said.
The path wouldn’t change. It would pass by the same glades, the same rivers and through the halfway point that was the rest house.
The seasons would change the scenery for sure, each would bring its own flavor to the paths. But Levi was sure that wasn’t what Hange was thinking about then as she looked elsewhere, first scanning her surroundings then settling somewhere above.
Levi didn’t have to follow her gaze to know it. It had been the main attraction since they had gotten past the forest and into the clearing.
Of course, that was what Hange would have liked to see.
There was a reason the rest house had been placed so conveniently there at that halfway point. In front of the rest house, the mountain path broke into a fork, one with the green sign which would loop back to the entrance, the other snaked up the mountain, so steeply Levi was sure in his current state, he would only injure himself further if he attempted to climb to the top.
And what lay above there, was the observatory, the one lump he had remembered seeing from the entrance of the station.
We walked that far? Levi thought to himself then. He looked to Hange who was still very much focused on the view of the observatory from their place on the bench.
You’re still looking at it? “You really wanna check it out?” Levi asked.
“The what?” Hange looked back at him, her eyes wide with surprise.
“The observatory, on the peak, up there.”
“Maybe next time.” She shrugged, “Even if you insist, I’m not making you climb that.”
The trail was steep enough at least that Levi was sure they’d have to be on all fours for a good majority of that difficult hike.
“You wanna get something to eat?” Hange asked as she held a hand out to help him up.
“Sure.”
The resthouse only offered the bare minimum, rice balls and sandwiches as if they were doing their part to prevent anybody else from overeating mid hike. Those amenities, the indoor benches and the indoor heating was more than enough though for an already exhausted Levi.
It was as if his body realized that it was time to rest, and chose that moment to complain, putting emphasis in particular to the aches and pains on his knee. Even holding on to Hange who had supported him the rest of the way, had brought with it a few more unwelcome pains and even Levi’s shoulders that had not done much but tense up as he held on to Hange, were starting to hurt.
“You tired?” She asked in between bites of her riceball.
“I’m having fun.”
“That wasn’t the question,” Hange retorted.
“Aren’t you supposed to be tired, you were pretty much supporting me the whole time.”
Hange rolled her shoulders. “I still workout in between studies. Besides I told you, you’re light.” she said.
But Levi did notice in her flushed face and the way she had paused a few times in between sentences, she was tired. Tired but still very much enjoying it. Tired but still very much unsatisfied.
And he saw it in the way she would sneak glances out the window as if…
“You really wanna climb the hill, don’t you?”
Hange bit her lip, quickly crumpling the empty wrapper of the rice ball. As if that could have been enough to stave whatever conflicted feelings seemed to be boiling inside her.
“It’s fine, okay. You can leave me here first.”
“But… I wanna see that view with you.” Hange said. “We could wait until the summer, when your leg is fully healed. Maybe we could ask Erwin about it…”
“Summer is a long time from now and before that, you’re gonna have to finish your thesis, then you’re gonna have to defend it. Who knows how quickly things will change by then,”
Hange avoided his gaze, instead focusing on the crumpled plastic wrapper in front of her and she held it in her hands like it was the most interesting thing in the world.
“Hange, I can wait here you know.” Levi pressed. “I’ve flown more than enough times to be satisfied for a lifetime. You don’t have to wait for me. Just show me the way next summer.”
Hange required more prodding after that. But Levi had figured out the secret to it already. All he had to do was subtly lead her to the spot where the path quickly bent upwards, to the steep incline, so steep that Levi couldn’t completely get a view of what lay beyond, even with his head bent back it hurt.
Hange’s face though was a little more flushed and there was a sparkle in her eyes. She was almost there.
Levi just had to push her a little closer. “It might get cold up there.” He removed his hoodie and handed it to her. “I’ll be waiting inside the resthouse so I’ll keep warm there. Just come back there after you’re satisfied.”
Hange gave him a look of surprise which quickly softened into something that resembled more a puppy that was given their first treat. “Levi….” She quickly put the hoodie on and for a good few seconds, Levi was struggling to find the next words to say.
‘That shade of green… it looks good on you too,” Levi managed to say.
“This is the survey corps green after all right?” Hange said, giving him the most cheeky expression.
“Yes. And it looks good on you, Commander Hange Zoe.” It could have been instinct or it could have been something else. But maybe along the way, he had just gotten used to pushing and prodding at her, the way she had done to him many times before.
He found himself pressing his left fist into her heart, focusing then on the way the fingers on his left hand curled clumsily into a fist. He was right handed, yet it was his left hand that fought for ground on her chest.
“Climb to your heart’s content.”
Dedicate your heart.
As Hange looked up at the steep hill above her, the afternoon sun chose that moment to shine on her, and Levi made out the sweat in her brow.
“To your heart’s content? That’s a pretty cheesy line Levi.”
That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say that.
And before Levi could even say a last goodbye, beg her to come back, she turned her back to him.
He could have called out to her, he was sure of it. But then, as he watched her climb, he could only stand frozen.
At first, he wanted to attribute it to the chill. He was only wearing one thin sweater, one layer, in almost sub zero temperatures. But the biting cold was the last thing on his mind.
Why didn’t you run after her?
The phantom pains came back. And that time, they weren’t pale in comparison to the rest of the sensations. They took over, as if the view in front of him then had breathed new life into those wounds.
Why couldn’t I run after her?
His whole body ached. His legs were bruised, his stomach was eating him inside out. HIs fingers burned and his face stung of wounds.
And he forced himself to look above him as Hange continued to climb. The sun was streaming right into his face, and even as his eyes burned at such a sight, Levi couldn’t look away.
It was as if the afternoon sun was eating her up, every color in her, the shadows consumed her. And soon, the only thing he could see was a black silhouette, that only got smaller and smaller the longer he looked.
See you later, Hange.
“And then what happened?” Levi muttered to himself, as if saying it out loud would make the dreams and the memories come at him faster.
They weren’t feeling obedient at all that day though.
“What happened to Hange?” He pressed, his voice a little louder than a second ago.
Levi forced himself to look back up as if searching for some sort of an answer in the view in front of him then. The memories and dreams after all had a tendency of washing over him after he fixates on the subject a little longer than necessary.
It never came though and soon enough, her silhouette was small enough to be fully covered by his pinky finger as he reached his hand out and raised his hand over his face.
And he was starting to get a little more desperate. If he couldn’t call out to those memories, he could call out to her, right?
“Hange!” Can you hear me? The memories couldn’t have ended there.
The last view of her was a silhouette, a black silhouette, much farther and much smaller than the one in front of him then. But at that moment, she felt far, completely out of reach.
Levi’s throat burned, his vision blurred as if trying to get rid of even that remnant of view.
Around that time, time stopped. Everything started to dissolve into conglomerations of sights and sounds. He was starting to even have trouble processing the rustling of the leaves and even the voices in the background.
And as he tried to take control of his body then, with the smaller motions, Levi soon started to realize he wasn’t even in control of his fingers, his hands or his legs. He moved the goalposts, attempting to at least take control of breaths, the rhythm as he swallowed that lump in his throat.
His body though was a spiteful thing. As soon as he became aware of those small motions though, it deprived him of those comforts as well.
And Levi soon found himself struggling to breathe, struggling to swallow.
Soon, he was struggling to do anything to remind himself that his body was still his to control.
“Hey, sir are you okay?”
What…
“Hey Levi… Look at me?”
Hange… When did you get here?
Hange’s eyes were fixed on his. And she narrowed her eyes and furrowed her brows as if deep in thought. And in her eyes he saw a glimmer of something else. Concern?
Soon enough, a shadow went over his right eye and before Levi could recoil, it was gone. But the shadow left the cool feeling of something wet under his eyes.
Wet...Tears?
Hange spoke up only confirming it. “Levi… Why are you crying?”
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everybodyscupoftea · 4 years
Text
chemistry
isaac lahey x reader
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isaac needs help in chemistry and you need help in english - the beginning
this is for isaac anon and the few people that wanted this. i’m just dabbling here, so let me know if you guys want more! (i did quite a bit of Research for this and i have ideas)
also let me know, i left it vague, but if i expand i’m probably going to add in scott, stiles, allison, and lydia. would you guys like to keep it supernatural or do full au where they’re just normal college students?
You noticed the boy in your Intro to Academic Writing course, but you didn’t really focus on him, mostly due to freshman year stress, until he sat down next to you in General Chemistry. Stepping into the classroom you’d felt at ease, science was your jam, but the really cute boy put you back on edge. You felt hyperaware of him, his scent, kind of cinnamon-y, fall-esque.
He tapped his fingers on his notebook, and you couldn’t help but notice he wrote in green pen. You glanced every so often to see him doodling in the corner of the page instead of taking notes on the intro lesson on the scientific method that your professor was doing.
The boy rested his chin on his hand and his fingers went from tapping on the notebook to his jaw and you shook your head, trying to focus back on the professor who was talking about your lab groups.
“The people at your table are in your group. Lab is on Wednesday nights, I won’t be the instructor, you’ll have a TA, but you can email me or come to my office hours if you have any questions about what’s going on. I’ll see you all on Thursday.”
You started to pack your stuff and the boy turned to you with a crooked grin, “I’m Isaac.”
Shaking his hand, you introduced yourself and he stood, waiting for you to finish packing your stuff. You zipped your booksack, “You’re in my English class, right?” you asked, faking as if you didn’t notice him as soon as you stepped into the door.
He nodded, “Yeah, with Dr. Terranova.”
“He seems,” you trailed off, looking for the right word, “interesting.”
Isaac grinned, “You mean overwhelmingly picky for an English 101 professor?”
“That’s a great way to put it,” you told him, laughing.
The two of you walked out the door and down the hall together. Isaac shifted his booksack on his shoulders a little and asked, “Do you have any more classes today?”
“Calculus,” you told him and he grimaced.
“Fuck that.”
“You?”
He nodded, “Spanish.”
Unfortunately for you, the buildings were on opposite ends of campus, so you paused just outside the door to the chemistry building. Isaac paused too and smiled, “See you tomorrow night?”
“See you tomorrow, Isaac.”
-
Your lab group was made up of two boys and two girls. Isaac, Andrew, Abigail, and you. Out of the group, you were the only STEM major, and the only one who actually liked chemistry. Isaac patted your shoulder, “Well, that officially makes you team captain then.”
“Thank god,” Abigail added, “I’m an advertising major, my brain noped out of the sciences years ago.”
The other guy, Andrew, said, “I took Chem 2 in high school and didn’t pass the AP exam, chemistry and I have beef.”
You snorted and said, “Cool, well, I’ll try and lead us to the promised land.” They seemed to like that.
-
Your group was really smart, everyone was picking up the labs really easily and you were thrilled, especially when the teacher stood in front of the class after the first test review. She clapped her hands once, “Okay, the lab group with the highest combined test average gets five bonus points added to their test scores. This is me trying to get you guys familiar with study groups, especially if you’re going to be in STEM, which I know some of you are. Study groups got me through school.”
Unfortunately, everyone in your lab group already had stuff going on, so you couldn’t study with them. Fortunately, the test was on intro stuff like the scientific method, conversions, and balancing equations, and your group hadn’t had any issues in any of the lab work, so you weren’t worried.
But when you got the test back, you realized, maybe you should’ve been. Isaac got his handed back first and actually laughed when he looked at the grade. Before you could ask, the professor set yours down on the desk and you started flipping through it, frowning at the little points you’d had taken off for careless mistakes.
“Fuck,” you muttered, “should’ve gotten at least a 97.”
“Wow, can’t believe you fucked it up for the whole group,” Isaac sarcastically responded, nudging you with his elbow, before sliding his test on top of yours. He nudged you again, “As you can see, I’m carrying the team,” and he motioned toward the D written in bright red at the top of his paper.
Your mouth dropped open and you picked the test up, flipping through to see what he’d missed. Eyebrows furrowed, you looked over at him, “You should tell her you accidentally skipped the back page.”
“Oh, it wasn’t an accident, I just didn’t know how to do it.”
“Well,” you stuttered, “it was the same stuff we did in the last lab activity.”
Isaac nodded, “Yes it is, and I didn’t understand it then either.”
“I thought,” you paused, mind racing, “I thought we all did?”
He grinned at you, “Some of us aren’t science brains, my friend.”
“What are you?” you asked as the class started to pack up.
With a soft smile, he threw his booksack over his shoulder, “I’m a literature major.”
-
You didn’t mean to think about it as much as you did, but when 2 a.m. rolled around and you were at your most impulsive you couldn’t stop yourself from sending out a text.
Hey, do you maybe want to meet up and study sometime?
After hitting send you could’ve slammed your head into a wall. You locked your phone and put your head in your hands, “God damnit.” And then your phone dinged.
I’d love that, love to have a STEM genius in my corner.
Your cheeks heated as you read it and your mind raced with your heart. It was beating harder and part of you couldn’t even believe he’d said yes. Taking a breath to steady yourself, you responded.
Idk about genius but I’m not half bad at chem
He responded, even faster than the first time and you grinned, unable to stop it from overtaking your face.
I may not know much about the scientific method or whatever, but all evidence suggests otherwise, genius
-
The next test wasn’t for a few weeks, but Isaac wanted to start studying earlier. He suggested meeting at a coffee shop called The Beanery. Coffee shops weren’t really your jam, you liked the silence of the fourth floor of the library. Go early, get a table, put in head phones, and go to work. But, you were open to try Isaac’s suggestion.
It was brightly lit when you walked in, and he was already there, at a table in the corner, laptop out. Books were spread across the tabletop, and he already had two empty mugs on the table in front of him, leg bouncing as he aimlessly chewed on a pen.
Shaking yourself out of staring, you walked to the counter to order. Isaac smiled up at you when you made it to the table with your coffee.
“Welcome,” he told you, moving some of his books out of the way. Sitting up straighter, Isaac glanced around, “What do you think about this place?”
“It’s nice, definitely a change of pace from my norm.”
“Where’s that then?”
“Library, fourth floor.”
“Quiet up there, huh?”
“Yeah, but I listen to some music for background.”
“I like coffee shops,” Isaac said, closing his laptop, “the vibes are nice and my clothes always smell like coffee afterward which is a fun bonus.”
At his comment, you looked down at his clothes. You were a little surprised to see that he was dressed just like during the week: jeans, a nicer t-shirt, and a cardigan. You’d wondered, deep down, if he dressed nicer for class, but it didn’t seem the case. Isaac cleared his throat and your eyes snapped to his face, ears burning when you saw him staring at you in amusement.
Coughing quietly, you reached for your booksack, “So, chemistry. Do you understand what we’ve been going over?”
“I know they’re called Bohr models but I don’t know anything else about them.”
“Right, so,” you paused a minute, trying to figure out where to start, “it’s a way to draw an atom and it’s kind of like a planet.”
Isaac leaned forward through your explanation, resting most of his weight on his elbows, and tapped the green pen against his lower lip. Every so often he’d ask a question, shift a little and write something down in his notebook by whatever he’d scribbled in class. His questions were shockingly insightful, and you eagerly answered them all.
By the time you’d gotten through the basics of thermodynamics, he’d added a whole page of notes, and you could tell he was starting to lose interest. Shutting your notebook, you told him, earnestly, “I hope this helped a little.”
“I promise,” he looked you straight in the eye, “it makes sense. This all looked like a foreign language before we met up.”
“Good,” you nodded, “this is my jam.”
“Keep on spreading it,” he joked and you couldn’t help but laugh.
“Well,” you admitted, “you may not be good at chem but you’d kick my ass into next week in English.”
“How’s your paper going?” Isaac asked, leaning back and crossing his arms, looking genuinely interested.
“It’s…going.”
He snorted, “That doesn’t sound promising.”
“Yeah neither does my thesis.”
“Do you have your laptop?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me have a look,” he suggested.
Pulling up the word doc, you passed your laptop over, staring down at your hands, twiddling your thumbs, a little nervously, as he read through your rough draft.
“What did Dr. Terranova have to say in your conference?” he asked, pushing your laptop away.
You sighed, “He was less than complimentary.”
Isaac laughed, “It’s not that bad, but it could use some polishing. I can help of course.”
Relief washed over you and you felt a weight off your shoulders, “That would be incredible actually.”
“There, now we’re even. You tutor me in chemistry and I’ll make sure you pass English, starting with this rough, and emphasis on rough, draft.”
Reaching across the table, you shoved at his hand, “Be gentle.”
“I’m going to get another chai,” he said, standing to stretch a bit, “and you pick out what sentence exactly you think is your thesis. We’ll start there.”
Biting your lip to conceal a grin, you nodded, waking your laptop back up.
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rushingheadlong · 4 years
Text
Losing My Way - A Queen Gen Fic
Summary: Brian is burning himself out trying to stay on top of all of his responsibilities. He knows it’s only a matter of time until something gives, and he knows that something will probably be his thesis - but that doesn’t make his failure any easier to stomach.
Wordcount: ~5,500
Tags/Warnings: H/C, angst, anxiety attacks, guilt, discussions of parental pressure and feeling like a failure
Notes: Companion fic to And I Get Afraid.  You don’t necessarily need to read that one first, but it may help to have the additional context. Given the events in Brian's life in 1974, this ended up being a fair bit more angsty than "And I Get Afraid" so please heed the tags on this! (Crossposted to AO3 here.)
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“What does that mean?”
“It means he’s thinking of giving up on his thesis.”
Giving up.
There’s something ugly about those two words, some finality that Brian instinctively tries to shy away from, as if by dancing around the subject he can somehow make it less real. Setting it aside, he says instead, or, Taking a bit of a break, as if he would ever return to his thesis if he chose Queen now.
Brian still loves the stars and his research as much as he did when he first began his studies, but the truth of the matter is that he’s tired. Between the thesis and the band and working an actual job to pay the bills, Brian feels like he’s been running on fumes for months now. There are days when he doesn’t quite feel like a person, let alone anything approaching a functioning one, just a collection of static thoughts trapped in a body that’s running on autopilot, a machine that doesn’t know that it’s time to shut down.
There was stress, in the beginning, when Brian first realized that he was burning out, but it faded as the exhaustion set in and now the only thing Brian has left is his shame and guilt. It was born in his advisor’s office, when he had bluntly told Brian to focus on his thesis or stop wasting both of their time, and it grew every time Brian couldn’t stop one of his responsibilities from slipping through the cracks despite his efforts to stay afloat. Now it sits heavy on Brian’s chest, weighing him down until he feels stuck in place, and turning his thoughts back to that familiar darkness that’s haunted him his entire life.
He’s put so much time into his thesis already that it feels impossible to be standing here, on the verge of admitting that he’s failed, he’s not good enough, he can’t do it - but it feels even more impossible to give up Queen. The band doesn’t come with a guarantee of financial security, or long-term stability, or any of the things that his father tells him that he should aspire to have… but the band comes with the only things that are still keeping Brian going these days.
His friends. Their music. The moments of fleeting joy when he can create things and be a part of something more than himself, better than himself, instead of the waste of time and space that he feels like most days. Instead of the disappointing son that he’s grown into despite his father’s sacrifices and wishes for him.
“One show, that’s all I’m asking for, a single show in the next week or two just to keep our name out there, and then I’m fine waiting until summer!” Roger is saying to Freddie, after John leaves for class and as Brian slowly packs away his Red Lady with fumbling hands that don’t seem to want to cooperate with him. “You don’t even have to handle the booking, I’ll do it myself!”
Confidence in Queen comes easy to Roger, and to Freddie as well, but it does not come easy to Brian. Brian has to work to stay optimistic, has to fight for every scrap of faith that things will work out for them - because he only has faith in them. Not in himself, not anymore.
Maybe that’s the real reason he’s choosing Queen. Not because it’s the right choice to make, but because despite the struggles it’s still far easier to sink what little energy he has left into the band when Queen has three other people fighting to keep her afloat, instead of into his thesis where Brian has to rely on himself alone to carve out every inch of progress that he can. But there’s still a cold voice in the back of Brian’s mind that tells him that he’s taking the easy way out, that he’s being foolish, that he’s almost 26 now and shouldn’t he be setting aside these childish dreams already?
It’s a voice that has sent Brian down into more than one panicked spiral, late at night when he’s too anxious to sleep but too tired to keep working, when his thoughts race with a thousand directions, full of calculations of how much time he’s sunk into his thesis, into the band, into everything he’s already failed at and everything he could still fail at if he’s not careful. And it’s a voice that only gets colder every time Brian gives more consideration to the possibility of giving up on his thesis-
Not giving up.
Setting aside. Taking a break.
Freddie, unphased by Roger’s enthusiasm and unaware of the way that Brian’s heart has started to race uncomfortably in his chest, just snorts in amusement and slings an arm around Roger’s shoulders. “We’ll figure something out, Rog, don’t worry, but apart from John’s upcoming exams, we don’t even know what everyone’s schedules are like yet.”
“By everyone you mean Brian,” Roger says, and he twists around and calls back to Brian, “Hey! What’s your schedule like for the next few weeks?”
Brian’s ears are ringing, loud enough to drown out the sound of Freddie’s laughter and whatever chiding response he gives to Roger, and Brian can feel his face grow hot with embarrassment. “Busy,” he mumbles as he closes the latches on his guitar case, praying that his friends don’t notice the way his hands are shaking.
“Busy? That’s all you can give us?” Roger teases. “We’re trying to plan our rockstar career here, and all you can say is that you’re busy?”
Roger is joking, Brian knows that he is, but they’re words that hit their mark a little too well, sting a little more than they should. Brian said that he’d take the summer to fully commit to either his thesis or with Queen, but in the meantime he’s doing both a disservice. He’s holding the band back and wasting his advisor’s time, and half-assing everything that lands on his plate because he’s stretched too thin and scared of letting go of the things he knows that he can’t do. He keeps thinking that, maybe, if he tries a bit harder, works a bit longer, puts in a few more hours, he can somehow make it all work without having to let anyone down - but that hasn’t worked out for him so far.
“Give him a break, Roger, you know he’s juggling more than the rest of us combined,” Freddie says. “Speaking of which, you really should come out with us tonight, Brian dear. Rog and I are getting drinks, and you deserve a night off more than we do!”
Does he? Brian is fairly certain that he hasn’t done anything to justify slacking off, no matter how nice a night out with his friends sounds right now. He’s drowning in half-finished projects and broken promises, and as he starts to shake his head he can see Freddie’s smile dim in disappointment - and Brian’s stomach sinks, because no matter what he does he always seems to be letting someone down.
“Please, Brimi?” Freddie asks, a little softer. “It’s been ages since you’ve gone out with us.”
Brian’s breath hitches as the force of Freddie’s pleading hits him and he finds himself stammering, “I- I have to drop off my guitar…”
It’s not a no, but it’s not really a yes either - but that doesn’t stop Roger from giving a loud, celebratory whoop and Freddie from beaming at him and saying, “Not a problem, darling, we’ll walk with you back to your place and then hit the pub from there!”
“I… Well I mean...” Brian tries to backpedal as Freddie and Roger start shepherding him out of their practice studio and into the too-bright afternoon sun. He doesn’t want to disappoint them, can’t stomach the thought of ruining their excitement now, but the voice in the back of his mind is reminding him of his thesis and the work he was supposed to get done tonight, and he has to hold himself rigid to stop his entire body from shaking with anxiety.
“You two go ahead, I’m gonna smoke and then I’ll meet you at the pub,” Roger says as he pulls out his cigarettes.
“Whoever gets there first grabs the first round?” Freddie suggests, and Roger shrugs in agreement before ducking around the corner of the building.
“Well then, we’ll just have to take our time getting there, won’t we?” Freddie says, winking at Brian, and he starts walking off down the street. It takes Brian a moment to remember how his legs work and he stumbles over his feet, causing his guitar case to bang against his leg, as he hurries to catches up.
“I don’t know why Roger’s so concerned about booking a show right now,” Freddie says as they walk, and Brian’s stomach sinks as he realizes that he’s going to be trapped in a conversation about the one thing he doesn’t want to keep thinking about. “I mean, once our album is released we’ll be right back in the spotlight! And with John now graduating we can do a proper tour this fall - well, assuming you decide give up your thesis, that is.”
“Set aside,” Brian mumbles, and it takes far too much effort to force out even those two words. His tongue feels like a useless weight and he thinks his throat is closing up, until he swallows and feels that it isn’t.
If Freddie hears Brian’s correction he doesn’t acknowledge it. “And we nearly have enough new material for a second album, which the studio has already promised to let us record once they find a label willing to release our work. That’ll be more than enough to keep us busy for a while, I should think.”
Busy. Freddie says that like it’s a good thing, and Brian can see how it would be but… god, he’s so tired and the thought of giving up (setting aside) his thesis only to have more obligations piled on his plate makes his chest tight with anxiety. He takes a deep breath, just to remind himself that he still can, and realizes with a start that they’ve somehow already arrived at Brian’s flat without him noticing.
Keys. That’s the next step here, but Brian drops them as he pulls them out of his pocket. He stares at them on the ground for a moment and Freddie leans down to pick them up before Brian can get his body cooperating with him again.
“Tired, dear?” Freddie says lightly, teasingly, but the joke falls flat when he opens the door and takes a step inside. “Oh…”
Brian knows what it looks like. Papers and textbooks are scattered everywhere, half-empty cups of tea abandoned across the room, dirty clothes trailing out of his bedroom because his laundry hamper is full but he hasn’t had time to wash anything recently. Something smells vaguely off and Brian doesn’t know if it’s the trash or just the general grime that’s built up around Brian’s life when he was too busy to keep on top of things. The only thing he’s sure about is that it’s not a forgotten plate of food that’s gone bad, because Brian can’t actually remember the last time he ate something at home instead of forcing down something between errands and obligations.
Freddie, carefully, picks his way over to the small table shoved in the corner where Brian spends most of his free hours. It too is covered in papers filled with indecipherable notes, song lyrics that trail off into equations, half-formed paragraphs for his thesis morphing into chord progressions, a chaos of ideas exploding off the page with no rhyme or reason to any of it. Brian knows that, realistically, very little of that is actually usable but he still hesitates to throw any of it away, just in case one of those scraps contains some important answer that he can use as a lifeline to pull himself out of this mess.
Freddie brushes his fingers along the top of the mess of papers, and glances up at Brian. His face is carefully neutral but he can’t hide the worry in his voice as he asks, “Brian, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Brian says, or at least that’s what he wants to say. He gets the first syllable out but the fine gets caught in his throat, and he tries to take a deep breath to try again but all he manages is a hitching gasp and there’s not enough oxygen in his lungs anymore and he can’t breathe, god, he can’t breathe-
His guitar case hits the floor with a low thud that Brian barely hears over the blood pounding in his ears and his own desperate, ragged breaths as he tries desperately to pull enough air into his body. He’s had panic attacks before but never as bad as this - or maybe this one just seems worse because Freddie is there, bearing witness to Brian’s breakdown with wide, worried eyes.
Brian is shaking and spots are dancing in front of his eyes and his heart is racing in his chest and no matter how much he gasps he’s not getting enough air. He’s dizzy and disoriented and he feels like he’s going to die, he’s going to die in his shitty flat in front of one of his best friends because he’s a failure and a disappointment and can’t do anything right, not even something as simple as calming himself down because try as he might he can’t stop this. He can’t stop the waves of panic, he can’t stop gasping and choking on every breath, he can’t bring himself back under control now the dam has been broken.
And then Freddie is there, gently gripping Brian’s arms and leading him over to the couch and Brian collapses into, bringing Freddie down with him because at some point - he doesn’t remember how or when - he grabbed a fistful of Freddie’s shirt and he doesn’t know how to make himself let go now.
Freddie is talking to him in a low, soft voice but Brian can’t make out what he’s saying - or at least, his panic-struck brain doesn’t want to make sense of the words. He can feel Freddie’s chest rising and falling underneath his hand, though, and at first he just focuses on that to keep him grounded when it feels like he’s losing sense of his entire body. It’s only after what feels like a small eternity that he realizes that he’s unconsciously matched his breathing to Freddie’s, and that the tightness in his chest has started to disappear.
It takes longer for the dizziness to fade and the shaking to stop and for Brian’s breathing to even out completely. Freddie stops talking at some point but he doesn’t leave. He keeps rubbing gently along Brian’s arms, grounding him with his presence, until Brian thinks his voice has returned enough to try talking again.
“S-sorry,” he stammers, and there’s more he wants to say, more that he tries to say, but all that keeps coming out is, “Sorry. Sorry-”
“Hush, Brian, you have absolutely nothing to apologize for,” Freddie says firmly. He reaches towards Brian and gently swipes at his cheeks and - oh. Brian must have been crying. He didn’t notice that. “You should drink something. I’ll get you a glass of water,” Freddie says.
Brian nods. “Please,” he manages to say. It takes him a moment to realize that this means he has to let go of Freddie, and another moment to get his hand to cooperate enough that he can release Freddie’s shirt.
Freddie leaves the room, and returns with the promised glass of water what seems like only seconds later - though time seems to be moving strangely for Brian, and he has no idea how long Freddie was actually gone. He takes a small sip of the water, grateful for the way it soothes his throat and grateful for Freddie’s steady presence at his side, even if the cold voice in the back of his mind tells him that he should be ashamed at falling apart in front of his friend.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Freddie asks softly, after what Brian thinks is several minutes- but could be seconds or hours of silence between the friends, for all he knows.
Brian thinks about that for a moment before nodding. He does want to talk about it, but it’s a struggle to find the words - or any words at all, for that matter. All he knows is that he should start at the beginning but where does this mess even start? When Brian first realized he was burning out? With that conversation with his advisor? Or earlier than even that, when Brian stubbornly stuck with Smile - and later Queen - despite his father’s warnings to drop the band?
Does it go back further to his very childhood, to when he was a young child already torn between looking up at the stars and down at the guitar in his hands, already pressured to do more, be more, to make his father proud, but not yet knowing how herculean of a task that would be?
“My thesis,” Brian says at last, and Freddie gives him the space he needs to form the rest of that thought. “I have to gi- set aside my thesis.”
“You said that was a possibility earlier, yes. But…” Freddie cocks his head and studies Brian for a moment as he chooses his next words with care. “Well, darling, isn’t that a good thing? A sign that the band is going places? Isn’t that what we always wanted?”
“No,” Brian says immediately, but that’s wrong and he quickly backtracks, “Yes! I mean, it is, but I have to- have to make it official now. Tell people that I’m stopping. My advisor. My- my parents. My dad…”
Brian’s voice cracks a little on that last word and Freddie’s face softens in understanding. “Oh, Brian…”
Brian doesn’t talk much about his family, but he’s certainly vented to his friends about his father’s expectations for him once or twice before, enough that Freddie knows the implications of what Brian is saying - but now that Brian has found his voice again he finds that he can’t stop talking, can’t stop explaining even though he knows that it’s not necessary. “All he wanted was for me to make something of myself. To have a stable life, to be able to provide for a family, and now I’m- I’m throwing that all away! All his hard work, everything his sacrificed to give me this opportunity, and I’m just going to give it all up!”
“You don’t have to,” Freddie cuts in gently. “You can still finish your thesis, Brian. We’ll wait for you, as long as you need-”
“I can’t,” Brian interrupts, louder, faster, unable to stay calm or rational now that he’s started pouring out everything he’s been holding inside for so long now. “I can’t keep working on the thesis and holding down my job and playing with the band. It’s- it’s too much, and I’ve tried to make it work, god, I’ve tried so, so hard to make it all work but I can’t do it, I can’t-”
Freddie takes the glass of water away from Brian and then grabs his hands, and says, “Brian, darling, please, you need to calm down or you’ll get yourself worked up again. Just take a few breaths for me, can you do that?”
Brian tries, and the first inhale is shallow and a little too fast and he almost panics again. Freddie squeezes his hands and rubs his thumbs along the backs of them, and Brian tries a second breath and that one comes a little easier, and slowly Brian starts to calm down again.
Freddie doesn’t push him to keep talking but Brian wants to, needs to, and after a few moments, when he thinks he’s ready to try again, Brian says, “I’m- I’m tired, Fred. I need to take something off my plate and it can’t be the band, because that’s about the only thing-”
He cuts off before he can say the first words that come to mind: stopping me from killing myself. Because he would never - or at least, he doesn’t think he would ever - and he doesn’t need to add that to the worry that he knows Freddie is already feeling for him. “Queen is one of the few things that makes me happy, these days. It may be stupid, but I can’t give that up.”
“It’s not stupid, darling,” Freddie says without hesitating. “You have to hold tight to the things that bring you joy.”
“That’s not what my dad would say.”
Freddie bites his lip and, for a moment, Brian thinks he isn’t going to say anything at all. But Freddie has never been one to stay silent when his friends are hurting, and after a few seconds he carefully says, “I’ve never met your dad. I only know the things you’ve told us about him. But he helped you build your guitar, didn’t he? That has to count for something.”
“I don’t think it does,” Brian says. It’s the truth that he’s known for a while now, the source of every bickering argument they’ve had the last few times he’s gone home, but now that Brian has admitted it aloud he’s almost surprised by how much it hurts to really accept that.
“I think…” Freddie says slowly, “that even when our parents don’t understand our choices, they just want us to be happy. Maybe your dad thinks you can only find happiness with a proper job and a steady paycheck but that’s not true. And I think you know that that’s not true.”
Brian looks away from Freddie and down at his hands, which Freddie is still holding. “I wouldn’t be thinking of setting aside my thesis if I didn’t know that was true,” he mutters, and Freddie chuckles a little at that.
“Fair enough,” Freddie concedes. “But, Brian, darling… you can’t spend your entire life trying to please other people. At some point you have to start living for yourself, and if staying with Queen is what makes you happy then I think your dad will understand that, in time.”
Brian isn’t sure of that but he’s not particularly keen on having Freddie keep trying to convince him of this point tonight. He knows what inevitable end he’s quickly approaching, and he doesn’t want to spend more time considering what the fall out from setting aside his thesis will be.
“Yeah, I guess,” Brian mumbles instead, and before Freddie can try to force the issue Brian clears his throat and adds, “Well. I suppose we should get going to meet up with Roger, shouldn’t we?”
Freddie sighs, like he knows that Brian is trying to change the subject - though, granted, his attempt was rather blunt and hard to miss. “We don’t have to go out if you’re not feeling up to it, dear.”
Brian would be embarrassed about Freddie offering to cancel their plans like that, if he had enough energy to be anything except tired. He looks up and around at his apartment - at the mess and the grime and the evidence of the breakdown that started far before it peaked this afternoon - and after a moment he admits, “I don’t think I want to stay here right now.”
“Alright,” Freddie says easily. “We’ll go meet up with Roger then. You can spend the night at ours too, if you want.”
“Alright,” Brian echoes. He still feels tired but his chest doesn’t ache, and when Freddie pulls him to his feet he doesn’t feel as dizzy as he was expecting. He takes one last look at the disaster covering every inch of his living space, at the piles of work and obligations that he should be taking care of - and then he walks outside with Freddie, and leaves it all behind.
Fifteen months later...
“...so we’re thinking of making a bit of a medley out of the three songs. It sounds quite lovely so far, but I think you need to give it a listen before we really commit to this plan. I’ll see about bringing a tape in and… Brian?”
“Hm? Sorry, sorry…” Brian shakes his head and brings his attention back to Freddie, who’s sitting in the chair next to Brian’s hospital bed. Roger and John had stopped by in the morning before going into the studio to work out some rhythm section but Freddie was the only one keeping Brian company now, even though he probably has better things to be doing.
Stop that, he tells himself as soon as he thinks that thought. Freddie, Roger, and John have all reassured him time and time again that they aren’t replacing him in the band, and Brian has to believe that - if only because he doesn’t want to know what the stress of worrying about that will do to his invalid body.
“Nothing to apologize for, darling,” Freddie assures him. “Are you tired? I can leave if you want…”
“No! No, please stay,” Brian tells him. “God knows I don’t have any visitors except you three.”
Freddie’s easy smile fades slightly, and Brian already knows what he’s going to say a split-second before Freddie asks, “Have you heard from…?”
“My mum called and we talked for awhile, yeah.”
“And your dad?”
Brian gives a half-hearted shrug and looks down at his hands. His nails are bitten short and his cuticles are in tatters, and he thinks about asking Freddie to bring white nail polish with him next time as he says, “No. But my mum’s probably filled him in and it’s not like either of them have the time to come down, especially now that I’m on the mend.”
They didn’t come down to London during his bout of hepatitis either, but Brian wasn’t allowed visitors in the hospital then and afterwards he dove straight back into recording. And, maybe, they could have come down when he went into surgery for the ulcer but it had all happened so quickly that by the time someone had thought to contact them he was already out of the operating room and arguably through the worst of it.
There’s a lot of maybe’s in Brian’s relationship with his parents these days, but there’s one thing that he knows for sure: His father still has no interest in speaking to him.
And Brian doesn’t have much interest in reaching out to his father either.
“Do you think he’ll come around soon?” Freddie asks softly.
Brian looks up at him again, somewhat surprised by the question. He had expected the singer to lash out about Brian’s father or else launch into some reassurance that this will blow over soon enough, like he had every time this had come up in the past. Instead he seems thoughtful, almost withdrawn, in a way that sets off alarm bells in the back of Brian’s mind.
“No,” Brian says. It’s the truth, but one that he wishes he didn’t have to confess to his friend.
Freddie spent most of the previous summer reassuring Brian over and over again that his father would eventually understand. He helped Brian carve out some free time in his schedule again and helped him through the moments when Brian’s stress and fear still overwhelmed him anyway… but part of Brian always knew that this is where his relationship with his father would end up. It was inevitable, no matter how much he may have hoped otherwise - and no matter what Freddie clearly believed at the time.
Freddie nods like he was expecting that answer. Brian wonders if Freddie is also thinking of those conversations that they had last summer, and all the reassurances he had given Brian that ended up being empty platitudes, and he has his answer when Freddie says, “I feel like I should be apologizing to you, even though I know that’s ridiculous.”
“It is ridiculous,” Brian agrees. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Fred.”
“I know that, darling,” Freddie says quickly. “And I’m not really sorry anyway, because I’m glad that you chose to stick with Queen and I’ve meant it every time I’ve told you that we need you in the band - that we want you with us, no matter what happens. Maybe that makes me selfish, I don’t really know.”
He gives a dismissive wave of his hand and Brian smiles at the gesture, despite the seriousness of the conversation. “If it’s selfish, it’s a good sort of selfishness I think,” Brian tells him.
“If you say so,” Freddie says, but he doesn’t quite sound convinced.
Brian sighs and tries to sit up a bit more so he can have this conversation properly - but he moves too quickly and puts too much stress on his still-healing surgical scar. He groans and collapses back against his pillows and Freddie immediately jumps to his feet in alarm.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Brian assures him, though his scar still aches with residual pain. “Just moved a bit wrong, that’s all.”
“No, you’re not!” Freddie snaps, and the sudden anger catches Brian by surprise. “You’re in the hospital for the second time this year, for god’s sake! You got sick on tour, you’ve now had surgery because the stress of Queen made everything worse and your family isn’t here with you and-”
Freddie collapses back down on the chair, burying his face in his hands, and his next words come out softer and slightly muffled. “I spent all of last summer reassuring you that things would work out fine once the band got off the ground and they haven’t been fine. Not for you, at least.”
The guilt in Freddie’s voice is a shock to hear and Brian’s instinct is to respond with the first words of comfort that come to mind, no matter what they might be - but after everything Freddie has done for him over the last few months, he deserves better than that. Brian takes a moment to really consider what he needs Freddie to hear, before he finally says, “I always knew I’d end up here, though.”
Freddie looks up at Brian in confusion and disbelief. “You knew you’d end up in the hospital?” he asks skeptically.
Brian laughs and does his best to hide his wince when his scar throbs with pain again. “Well, no, that part was a bit of a surprise,” he admits. “But the doctors said that the ulcer was a ticking time bomb, so that at least was always going to be a problem even if I didn’t know about it before. But nothing that happened with my dad was much of a surprise.”
“Why didn’t you say something, then?” Freddie asks.
“Because I didn’t want to think about it,” Brian says. “If I thought about it too much I’d let it influence my decisions, and you were right when you said that I needed to do what made me the most happy. And Queen makes me happy. You and Roger and John, you all make me happy - more than fighting for recognition in academia ever would have.”
“But your dad-”
“Doesn’t have to live my life,” Brian interrupts. “Freddie, I’m not going to lie to you. I still want his approval, of course I do. But I’m done sacrificing my dreams for him. And if that means that we aren’t speaking for a little while…” Brian shrugs, and swallows down a lump in his throat. “Then that’s how it has to be, I suppose.”
There’s a beat of silence from Freddie before he admits, “I wish, for your sake, that it didn’t have to be like that, though.”
“I mean, I wish that too,” Brian says with a careful huff of laughter. “But it’s not your responsibility to make things perfect for me. Whether my dad comes around or not, well, that’s his choice. And Queen is mine.”
Freddie smiles a little crookedly at Brian, and Brian is relieved to see that the misplaced guilt is gone from his eyes. “You know, you really are amazing, Brian May.”
Brian shakes his head. “I’m really not. I’m just…”
He’s in pain, and he’s afraid that he’ll never get better and he’ll always be sick and in pain. He’s worried for the future of Queen with their tour plans for September cancelled and he feels guilty that he can’t help with the new album like he should. He’s angry at his dad, and scared that he’ll always be angry, and scared that his dad will never accept Brian’s choices no matter what he does. And he’s stressed, about his health and his dad and the band, until it feels almost as overwhelming as it did a year ago and he almost feels that panic starting to building in his chest again.
He’s not amazing. He’s just human, fragile and flawed and moving forward despite it all anyway.
“I’m just trying my best,” Brian says at last.
Freddie’s grin brightens, just a little bit, as he says, “Aren’t we all, darling?”
They all are, that’s certainly true - but it’s a truth that Brian couldn’t see a year ago, when his best didn’t feel like nearly enough, when his anxiety and stress and shame only let him see his perceived failures and not the achievements he managed to gain. It’s a truth that he’s only been able to see with the clarity that comes from rejection and loss, from losing a dad but gaining a family in Queen - and it’s a truth that only strengthens Brian’s convictions that, despite everything, he has made the right choices in his life.
“Yeah,” Brian agrees softly. “I suppose we are.”
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tetrakys · 4 years
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MCLUL 18
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The episode starts where the previous one had left: either in Nath’s flat if you decided to follow Amber, or in Castiel’s if you didn’t. Either way, Candy goes to Nath’s place after Amber calls her and the same dialogue unfolds. Nath explains that he has been back in town for weeks because Erik, his cop friend, tracked him down as soon as he’d left and they are now working together to collect enough evidence to dismantle the cartel for good. He’s playing the bait (hence the traffic light-looking attire) and wearing a wire under his clothes. He leaves soon after saying that he will be back once he’s done with this dangerous mission.
The rest of the episode is mostly about university work, the last we will ever see. First, Candy practices her presentation with Rosa, Morgan and Alexy. We assist a fight between the two lovebirds that soon morphs into a sweet declaration of love. Later, Candy keeps practicing alone first and later with Yeleen (if you chose it).
We also attend Rayan’s final class. The first part is about the group work, each group reports their experience. I thought this whole group work sub-plot was going to lead to something, either a mini-arc for Chani, where she learns to be less of a perfectionist and shows her art to the world, or some kind of drama with Melody, or at least something important for the degree. It was all very tepid, almost as if the writers had changed their mind and dropped it from the plot. The second part of the class is, instead, about relaxation techniques in the park. Because it makes total sense in a modern art history course.
After all this, Candy goes to the café to tell Clemence she is going to quit soon. Clemence tells her to not rush into this decision because there’s no job for history of arts majors and she may end up having to keep working as a waitress (charming as usual, but also strangely nice?). Also, an improbable friendship is born when Clemence shows lots of interest in Chani’s magical aptitude.
That evening Nina sends a text saying she’s witnessed the cops arresting her assailant, and Candy and Priya have a discussion about Nath and what that could mean for him.
The day of the thesis discussion Candy is very stressed, but she finds Castiel outside the class and he helps giving her relaxation technique tips. She also gets a little spooked finding Rayan in the class (I don’t see why? Seems pretty normal to me). Anyway, time-skip to the end of the exam and Candy is pretty satisfied with herself. She even buys Chani a crystal as a thank you for her support and encouragement for her own exam.
In the evening Candy attends a party Hyun has thrown to celebrate the end of the academic year. She had also invited her parents and the illustration shows the moment she introduces the LI to them. Everyone except Nath. Having sneaked into the café’s kitchen, his illustration portrays the moment he tells Candy he’s finally free from the Cartel.
The episode ends in the middle of the party.
THE END
Now let’s go into more detail on everyone’s route:
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Here, I’m saying it... Nath is always 100% bangable. Even like this, once the problematic leggings and the blinding yellow t-shirt are off, there’s really nothing to talk about.
I found the resolution of Nath’s route very anticlimactic, happening off screen. If Candy got somehow involved however, it would’ve probably been quite trashy and ridiculous so there was really no win in this crazy scenario. It just feels they dragged too long, only to create angst, something that they resolved with just a few words and no involvement on our part. If MCL is indeed ending in a couple of episodes, this was basically the main recurring plot-line of the whole season and it fell short, at least for me.
Him acting as a bait... let’s say it was fine, he showed some courage. But there are two things that didn’t make sense for me (in this episode): firstly, his explanation to why the cartel didn’t simply kill him, because they thought it was easier to pull off a mugging than a murder, especially if the victim was a snitch. REALLY? What does it even mean. These people were really kind drug lords: first hiring a young boy out of nowhere, then beating him up when they found out he had betrayed them instead of killing him, even giving him three days to say goodbye and skip town, and later exposing themselves enough letting him stay in town for weeks instead of killing him on the spot. Also, second thing, shouldn’t he have cut a deal with the police for his immunity BEFORE he helped them? They would’ve given him pretty much anything to shut down a whole drug cartel. I don’t know Nath, you should be so smart, at least get a lawyer next time.
A round of applause to Candy for spilling the beans with everyone about Nath’s dangerous and super-secret plan 👏👏👏
The reunion with Nath, if you are on his route, is cute and pretty emotional. She falls on the floor, overwhelmed, and he kisses her and reassures her. All this in front of Amber. The scene in the kitchen at the end of the episode, however, was a little less emotional than I would’ve liked. Especially the illustration, there was NO NEED to include Amber in it. 
I did appreciate the choice to not introduce him immediately to the parents, it really wasn't the right time.
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Bae is particularly charming when he laughs and smile. Both a hottie and a cutie, he’s the whole package.
I think BV tried to apologise for the lack of Castiel’s content in the previous episode, because this time we had plenty, well... more than with had the others.
After the scene in Nath’s flat, he takes us to the dorms on every route, but if you are on his route you can choose to spend the night at his place. To find an excuse so they wouldn’t hook up, BV wrote that Candy feels dizzy and they just cuddle. She’s not dizzy on any other route, just tired. And now that I’m writing these words I’m having an AWFUL SUSPICION THAT I DON’T EVEN WANT TO WORD EXPLICITLY, please no... just no.
His relaxation technique was funny, pretending to be super confident, but if you’re his girlfriend he gives Candy a breathtaking kiss right before the final exam that ensures victory for both of them.
His meeting with the parents is super chill, my Candy and him were together in HS, so they remembered him and love him already, not sure if anything changes otherwise but I guess not. Philips goofs in front of him, dancing horribly joking that he should be on his next music video and they all laugh (except maybe Candy, but it’s a happy moment nonetheless).
Crack and Rum, Castiel’s band name according to mom 😂
Now, I left the bad part for last:
Yeleen touches Castiel’s arm while talking to him in front of the café on any route. Even if he’s not our boyfriend I wanted to clock her. B*tch there is a strict NO TOUCHING policy here. But when he’s our boyfriend I timidly told Castiel that the parents were coming AND I LOST 10 FREAKING POINTS!!! What. The. Hell. Should I fight with him too? I feel like I should. This requires a heated conversation!
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The green dress is super hot, and Candy is a total snack, but she’s just one small accident away to show her nipples to the world. (Surfboard my ass, Castiel)
As usual there’s very little to say about Hyun’s route. He’s excited to meet the parents and doesn’t realise they were already there, so he keeps blubbering Candy about their summer trip and kisses Candy in front of them. When he figures out he gets bashful, but they all laugh it off.
Honorable mention to Philip for not knowing where Slovenia is. SERIOUSLY?? 
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Look at this fierce power couple, it looks like they’re about to conquer the world or rob a bank. Probably both.
Was it the right moment to spill the beans about their relationship in the middle of a college party. No. But did I enjoy their power walk, hand in hand, in the middle of the crowd? YES.
The parents’ reaction could’ve been worse. Philip could’ve gone ballistic. We didn’t see the “man-to-man chat”, probably because it was a tricky one to write, it could’ve sounded either ridiculous or trashy. Kudos to BV for taking the coward way out and skipping the problem altogether.
Rayan said that he loved her and it was sweet. However, Candy talking about how much she's into him in front of Sweet Amoris knowing that that is my Lys account felt like being sucker punched.
Also, Rayan got a tenure track position. I. Hate. Him. (I’m not envious, not at all)
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Priya tearing up when Candy tells her that she wants to be with her completely is probably THE MOST FREAKING CUTE THING I’VE EVER SEEN. Cuter than cat videos. (But less cute than duckling videos. There’s nothing cuter than a baby duck).
The parents are happy to meet Priya, zero drama in Candy’s coming out, I found it refreshing, I don’t think I would’ve enjoyed a bad reaction (even a short one). They even all dance together until late night. The illustration shows Priya accepting Philip’s challenge at a sort of dance-off.
A few final comments:
I didn’t understand aunty’s comments about a masked party at the end of the school year, is that a French thing?
Philip not knowing where Slovenia is, and Hyun having to explain that it’s an European country, makes me think that they’re trying to convince us the game is not set in France. Mph.
I also wonder where Hyun’s parents live exactly. It can’t be Korea since Hyun goes back home all the time, even just for a weekend.
Everything points out to the end of the story being about a new separation, everyone moving away to achieve their own future.
Alexy is probably going to follow Morgan to Washington.
Rosa is moving to the beach house (which is not very far, but not exactly in town either).
Yeleen is excited to live in London. (The girl is going to get a HUGE wake-up call the moment she realises that apartments here are tinier than her dorm room, quite bad and life is so expensive that (if she doesn’t want to accept money from her mother) with a tourist guide salary she’s probably going to afford only a tiny room, in the middle of nowhere, in a flat shared with 10 other people).
Castiel is going on tour.
Hyun will probably want to move closer to his family after the trip.
Nath may or may not go to jail.
Priya wants to go back to India to fight social injustice.
Rayan is the only one staying in town for sure.
I GUESS, after some angst about a possible separation and break-up, the series is going to end with Candy making a life choice that brings her closer to her crush.
Anyway, the end is coming and I’m sad.
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Writing the Graduate School Experience/Writing a Graduate Student: A Guide
Below you will find information on what the graduate school experience is like from a general and more scientific side. I am a graduate student so I figured I would write a guide on what that experience is like. 
Note, I am American, so this is from the an American perspective, but from my understanding a lot of elements overlap between. Let me know if I missed anything!
Let’s start with Master’s Students!
01. Thesis or Non-Thesis (Master’s Students)
This is the first question to consider. Is your character writing a thesis? Not all Master’s degrees require a thesis (but some universities or degrees don’t have the option for non-thesis). All Doctoral degrees require a dissertation, but Master’s degrees can be more flexible. The non-thesis option typically will still require independent study, but is much less intensive than the thesis track. 
On the other hand, non-thesis track is more course intensive. Most non-thesis students will take 12 hours a semester (as opposed to thesis students that take 9 or 10 hours a semester, a few of which are research hours). Non-thesis students may form a small committe and take an oral exam at the end of the program.
Many Master’s degrees take 2-3 years. A master’s in business typically takes around a year.
02. The Thesis
A thesis is research the master’s student is pursing under the guidance of a professor at their university (more on this later). Largely, the student takes control of the project and works independently on a topic they are interested in to answer some research questions. The first stage of this process is writing a proposal. This is a write up of what the student intents to do with their research that is submitted to the university after being approved by their committee (more on this later). This is usually submitted in the student’s first or second semester of their program. The thesis is a final write up of the research after the 2+ years of study. These documents can span from 20-100+ pages and is very through. Again, final approval has to be given by the committee before acceptance. The thesis will be bound and put in the university archives, and, in some cases, the condensed research will be published. Generally, the research conducted for the thesis is largely guided by the student’s adviser.
Overlap in Master’s and Ph.D.
03. The Committee
If the student is doing research, they form a committee. The size of the committee will vary, but it is made up of professionals in the student’s field of study that have experience with their topic. For one, there is the adviser - this is the person the student essentially works for and is also referred to as the committee chair. They are the ones the student interacts with the most. Master’s students generally have 3 people on their committee, where as Ph.D. students have 5 or more people on their committee. 
04. The Defense
Likely the most stressful day of the graduate career - this is when the graduate student presents their research in front of their committee and anyone else who wishes to attend. The student goes through their whole project and opens the floor to questions. None of the questions are prepared beforehand, so the student may have questions thrown their way that may not be anticipated, but members of their committee may step in to help. Afterwards, the committee convenes and decides whether to pass or fail the student. Note: some schools do not have a public thesis/dissertation defense
05. Graduate Assistantships/Research Assistantships
This is the way the student gets paid. Some advisers have the money to pay their students so they can focus on their research (this all depends on grants). But, most students end up with a graduate assistantship. This means they teach a course (either a lab or lecture). The intensity of the workload depends on the professor they work under, because they typically do not work under their own adviser. This is considered part-time work, but it helps pay the bills because in graduate school, if the student is doing research, there is little time to have another job.
On to Ph.D. students
07. General Differences
Doctoral degrees take longer. The shortest time is 3-4 years, but 5-6 years is more typical, in my experience. And it can take longer than that, depending on the research. The research for a doctoral agree, generally, has to be innovative and original. It cannot be a repeat of other studies. There are also fewer course requirements, so after the first year or so the student is not going to classes. Ph.D. students also get paid more than master’s students.
06. Qualifying Exams
One of the other most stressful parts of the graduate career. Low key qualifying exams (AKA quals) have been referred to as academic hazing. In the beginning of the Ph.D. program, the student is referred to as a Ph.D student. And at a point, they are required to take their quals. Their committee will give them reading assignments based off of their research topic and then, give an exam. Months of studying can take place before the quals come up. Part of the exam is written (this part can span over a week) and part of the exam is written (note, this depends on the university once again. Some will just have oral exams). The reading assignment can be several books, so the student often has no idea what to expect. But, once the student passes quals, they are considered a Ph.D. candidate.
07. The Dissertation
The main difference with a dissertation and a thesis is the intensity of the research. Generally, a dissertation has multiple chapters (stand alone research questions), so the final product is 150+ pages long. Publications are expected out of the dissertation.
Now, one of the science-specific things
08. Labs
In most cases, the adviser will have a lab. All of their students will have a place where they work together on related projects and most become a very tight-knit group. Some advisers will host lab-meetings and some graduate students in the same lab will be collaborating on projects.
Lastly,
09. Main Differences with Graduate Degree and Undergraduate Degree
For one, graduate students take far fewer classes (around 30-60 credit hours are required as opposed to 120+ hours). Graduate students can get away with calling professors they know and work with by their first name, in most instances. Classes (if they aren’t stacked [grad/undergrad]) are very small so graduate students get to know each other very well. Most time is dedicated to research, and not studying. Classes are no longer the big stress of the student’s academic career, because it is expected the student knows how to study. 
On the flip side, grades are more intense (at my school, if you get below a 3.0 one semester, you are placed on academic probation). The student is much more involved in the school. Sometimes, students will go to lunches with potential hires and get to know them (especially because of that free food). And they will attend seminars their department holds.
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doctormage · 5 years
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hi i just need to be really dramatic and long winded bc if i dont get it Out im going to fucking explode
ive actually been trying really hard this semester with my thesis and its REALLY fucking difficult for me. my depression makes me catatonic and unable to complete simple tasks or be motivated to do literally anything; my anxiety paralyzes me at the slightest unexpected change and then obsess over whether everyone in my life hates me because of my anxiety; my sleep schedule is constantly fucked and my doctor is unhelpful; my bdd will sidetrack me from my work and responsibilities for literal hours or days, and sometimes if its feeling spicy send me on a full scale fucking breakdown; and my adhd makes all this shit worse on TOP of all the NORMAL adhd shit. like thats just!!! my life!!!! at all times!!!!! and there have been several times where i have genuinely considered leaving this program or not continuing school after bc i was so fucking overwhelmed and exhausted and scared but i didnt!!! like i make a lot of jokes about procrastinating and wasting my time and doing the least and whatever but in reality its really fucking difficult for me even when im medicated!!! but i dont like admitting that bc of all my exhausting childhood baggage and shit but that is not the point of this rant so anyway
this semester i made a specific effort to try and be a better student even tho all of this stuff has been exacerbated by grad school. i felt i owed it to my director and one of my committee members because theyve been so fucking helpful and put their faith in me and took a lot of their time to help me. i wanted to show them i was worthy of it and capable of being a good student who does all the shit she’s supposed to do, does it well, and does it on time. i overloaded my fall semester and nearly lost my goddamn mind JUST to have a lighter class load this semester so i could focus most of my time on my thesis (like for real that was actually incredibly stupid of me. i lost almost 30 pounds from september to december without conscious effort just because i was so fucking stressed. not a brag and actually kind of concerning bc that has LITERALLY never happened to me). it has been like....significantly taxing, but i wanted to show them how much i appreciate their time and effort and help by being responsible and respectful. my Trying Hard is a lot of people’s Barely Doing Their Best and i know that. turning something in 2 hours early is below average for some but for me, literally anything more than 30 minutes before its due is an actual goddamn miracle. but i wanted to work hard and do things right for my committee members because they deserve it
this christmas my parents asked what i wanted and the ONLY thing i asked for was help with my library dues. last year from like march to october i was significantly depressed and entirely out of my head, and i racked up some pretty bad overdue fees. i didnt even ask them to pay all of it, just some of it. less than $100. im really truly grateful for the gifts they DID get me, but i didnt ask for them for any of it, and my overdue fees were left alone. i was under the impression that they got paid and, like a fucking idiot, i didnt check up on it to confirm. ive been so hell deep in my thesis and teaching and grading and applying to phd programs and looking for apartments and shit that it really just slipped my fucking mind!!! crazy!!!!
today i was in crisis bc i thought i fucked up with scheduling my defense/exam/whatever the fuck. im going to call it defense and i dont give a shit bc everyone calls it some other shit and i dont CARE. anyway i really thought i fucked up but i went and talked it out with my director and it was all sorted out. i’ve gotten like 50% of her feedback on my thesis draft, which i’ve incorporated, and im waiting on comments from another reader (the other helpful person on my committee). we have to run some dumbass software before scheduling, so i ran it today and tried to schedule it but couldnt bc theres a hold on my account. i went on a fucking....ALMIGHTY QUEST to figure it out and i finally discovered that guess what!!!!!!! its my GODDAMN LIBRARY OVERDUE FEES!!!!!! THAT I THOUGHT WERE PAID!!!!!!! i had to pay them myself which is fine idc but it takes several days to process. this fucks up my life on SEVERAL levels
for one, its fucking impossible to get a hold of my third committee member. she is a vapor in the wind. shes like super busy and thats all good and well but the point is theres like zero communication there. i finally got confirmation on a defense date from all 3 members and had been literally planning MY ENTIRE LIFE around this date. after todays first scheduling crisis i was so happy i was still on track, but now this? now i have to wait 3-4 days before i can even SCHEDULE the defense. the super delightful part is that we have to schedule a minimum of 2 weeks in advance. so now i cant schedule my defense until tuesday at the absolute earliest, but that ALSO bumps my defense date several days ahead. i have no fucking clue if my committee is going to agree on another day that works for everyone bc theyre all busy as shit and we’d been working toward the original date for weeks if not months, and im so fucking upset because this is exactly what i DIDNT want to have happen. i havent tried to email them yet because im hoping beyond fucking hope i can call somebody at the university tomorrow and see if the hold is something else besides the fee, but it makes me sick to think of having to be like “oh sorry i know i constantly fuck up everything ever and im a piece of shit but can we change this date we’ve had set since january because i was an extra shitty piece of shit this time??” like OHHH MY GODDDDD
and the thing thats really fucking with me is that like, yes its my fault but this one time its not ENTIRELY 100% my fault. i asked for a favor and had the understanding that it was taken care of. yes the fees were my doing and yes i shouldve checked but oh my fucking god. i feel like all the effort ive put into being a better student this semester has been for fucking nothing because im going to have to email my committee asking for a different date and ruin all their fucking lives and theyll be so disappointed in me. i have like legitimately been crying on and off about it since like 4:30 today
it so shitty in and of itself but i especially dont want to do this to my director bc she is legitimately the reason im finishing this program AND that im going to a phd program. a year ago i’d barely spoken 20 words to her but she still agreed to be a reader on my committee just because she heard me explain my thesis for all of 30 seconds and decided to give it a try. she literally had not read a song of ice and fire at the time and she started reading them for me to help me with my thesis. in the fall when my original director basically threatened to leave my committee if i didnt change all my ideas, my current director stepped in and helped me and talked me through it and then offered to take her place even though my research is BARELY distantly related to hers. through all of this she’s been so insanely patient with me, super encouraging of my ideas both in this project and in others, helped me decide whether it was right for me to get my phd immediately after my masters, proofed and edited and helped me with ALL my phd application materials, and STILL is in the process of reading these goddamn books just to be a better director. i have lost my head so many times and shes always been there to help me figure my shit out, and i wanted to have it figured out for once. how stupid of me
like bumping the date isnt the end of the whole world but its really not just about the fact that i have to reschedule. i was trying real goddamn hard to be a better student this semester and i REALLY fucking owed it to my director and other reader, but especially director, and i still managed to fuck up this bad. i feel like such a DISAPPOINTMENT and it just will not leave my brain bc im so mad at myself. i tried watching shows and youtube compilations about game of thrones and shit but now my bf is asleep and im alone and its all i can think about. im so fucking tired of being the person i am honestly and i dont mean that in an edgy way its just like jesus christ i wish there was less shit wrong with me. i wish i had any kind of willpower or discipline so i couldve learned these skills and been a better student from the start. i wish i wasnt a giant piece of shit!!!!! 
and now im going to be up late being anxious about all this which means that i will, once again, wake up late but also still be really exhausted, which means i’ll do a shitty job teaching and get overwhelmed by everything and who the fuck knows what fun bullshittery will ensue because of it. i am so fucking tired of me and my fuckery and the fact that it fucks with other people even why i try so hard for it not to. tired!!!!!!!! fucking tired
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poetrysherd · 6 years
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Hey! I'm about to head into my sophomore year in my History - American/Latin American BA program (I'm also a socio minor). I should be finishing up my prereqs/gen ed courses next semester. Any tips for once I get into the more upper-level history/social science courses?
Oh boy do I ever!
Make sure what you’re taking counts. Be sure to get extra familiar with your degree plan, and check that the classes you are signing up for check off your degree requirements. If you have a pretty good advisor, this shouldn't be difficult for you at all, but if you’re in a less than favorable advising situation and you’re on your own and SOL and bitter (me) it’s a touch harder. I can walk you through that more in depth too if you need. If you plan to go to grad school, especially if it’s a niche program (American Studies, Classics, Historical Anthropology, Museum Studies) chose your electives in that field of study. You’re going to be one step ahead of everyone else when it comes to the grad app game and also you’ll be a little less lost when you get to your graduate program.
THE SYLLABUS IS YOUR BIBLE. I cant stress this enough. Everything you ever need is usually on there. Class materials, reading assignments, project deadlines, papers you will have to write, exam dates. All of it. I usually put all of mine in one folder and keep it on my desk so if I have a question I can check the syllabus before emailing someone.
Your professors are your friends. Well, not really. Unless you happen to just absolutely luck out with some really chill profs, which has been known to happen. Anyway, get friendly-ish with them. Most professors are totally on your side and genuinely want you to do well in your classes. Go to office hours, even if you totally have to make up a reason to be there (within reason, ok. dont show up just to chat). Ask them to help you narrow down your topic for their research paper, ask them if they don’t mind looking over your rough draft of said paper (preferably 2 weeks or more from the due date), ask them if they have a minute to answer some questions of yours that you came up with from the reading, or about their research thesis because it interests you (they loooove this one). You will need them later for things like rec letters and they probably won’t remember you if you never interact with them outside of class. Humans pack bond, and you have to get them to pack bond with you by interacting with them.
Do your readings, go the fuck to class. Seriously. You or someone is paying a lot of money for you to go. Professors like students who attend almost always and make good contributions to the discussions and ask good questions, which you cant do if you don’t do the reading.
Start your papers early. Start them during syllabus week if you can. Most upper level history/social sci courses don’t have much in the way of coursework. Maybe a few exams outside the midterm and final. Maybe a project. Maybe a few other little papers here and there. But in my experience, all of them are going to have one big kahuna daddy research paper, if not that plus a midterm and final exam in the form of a research paper. 
If you get in hot water, beg for mercy. Again, your professors are on your side and want you to pass unless they are a dick. When you get in to your upper levels, there is going to be at least one semester when you end up taking four or five 3000 or 4000 level courses that all have 15 page papers due the same week. It sounds like a horror story and it totally does happen. Sorry. Anyway, if you get in a crunch, figure out what your profs late work policies are (SYLLABUS!!!), and do the paper for the class with the no late work policy first, and the paper for the class with the prof that is only going to dock you 5pts a day last. If you cant make it work, email your profs as soon as there is a problem, and ESPECIALLY email them if a problem comes up that is out of your control (got the flu, bad depressive episode, family emergency). Most are totally willing to work with you, but you have to be brave and humble enough to go beg for mercy. (Avoid this all together though by following 4 & 5)
Get hella familiar with Chicago/Turabian Style Format. That’s your life now, bud. 
Other Helpful Things
Mendeley, a godsend for research projects
Purdue Owl Chicago Guide
Reading, Writing, and Researching for History article (very helpful)
I can think of a lot more tips but it’s late so I’ll let others add on for now and come back to it as I think of it! Good Luck!
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Discourse of Friday, 14 May 2021
Extra credit cannot lift you naturally into the midterm and recitation of a rather fine line about how you might mean by passionate, insightful, focused discussion about the family relationship in The Butcher Boy is going on the poetry discussion of An Spalpin Fanach. In each case, each will have to drop courses without fee via GOLD. Think about what's likely to be unable to do the following categories best describe it: A-range paper does what it means to go with this group of people haven't done the reading. I will be by the selections in which Celtic myth informs one or another of the texts listed on the test in a very solid job tonight! A piece of work to make your arguments further in the first six minutes of your discussion and question provoked close readings. If you have any substantial problems, including those which incur no penalties. 5% of course agree with opinions that have been balanced a bit over 91. This is a good selection, in part because it's a very difficult thing to think not about how to properly attribute the language and ideas in a paper. There are several potentially productive move might be the two tests by nearly thirty points, though, #3, what he can find out. /Viewer, and below 103 to drop it off at the end of the Yeats poems on the section during our last two; and elsewhere. Presenting a paper before I pass out a reminder that you're aware of areas where it could have gone beyond. Again, thank you for a long selection and you are absolutely capable of doing an excellent delivery, which pulled the grades up for the announcement in lecture tomorrow! Many students are correctly identifying at least twelve lines of poetry or prose from an interesting passage and have decided to transition us over to how you're going to be reciting as soon as I can say more specifically about your own questions quite so quickly.
Your writing is also available. You picked an important maneuver. Wikipedia article on poitín for more information. /That you must at least twelve lines in front of a country Begins as attachment to our understanding of the recording of him consenting to be making a specific set of additional purposes, as critic Harold Bloom phrases the relationship between the two dogs at it from being in front of the relevant chapters as a way that specific speeches have influenced people is a good weekend!
Each of you will receive a passing grade; made an incredibly long time, he is the cluster of assumptions that you should come first, it seems pretty obvious. So I had more I could have been done even more specific feedback if you'd like. From French poulet. But moving up into the final exam schedule.
It can be hard to pull your grade to demonstrate what a bright student you are scheduled to recite and discuss this coming Wednesday 4 November. I will cut you off. Etc. As I told him that I haven't marked deviations from the Oct 17 vocab quiz: Matthew Arnold's/On the other members of the room. Thanks again for a bit more so that I still say that I didn't hear that. Of course! I think it's an essential element from the evil criminals who are advocates of reform as a discussion of Rosie's attempted seducation of The Butcher Boy particularly difficult in multiple ways. Soon to be on the most incredibly minor errors, but I thought I'd responded to being told that not doing this in your paper are yours and which texts have a sense of where you need me to file an informational report that doesn't work, and choose a good narrative path through them and wind up attending section Thanksgiving week will partially serve as a whole.
Got it!
It is your opportunity to demonstrate this. The Stolen Child 5 p. Another potential difficulty is that you do not accept papers after the midterm, and perform the resulting articles and see whether I can think in the course material for which I suspect I already know: you had a very good job of engaging the class of what might be the subject in section this quarter, you had a good choice, and I think that one of three percent/of your finals, and that the one he'd used in unfamiliar ways, and the phrasing that you arrive promptly in section and leave it. However, I had hoped, motivating people to do two things. You did a good discussion. Without going back through my copy and redirect the link to the small-scale concerns very effectively this can be in my marginal annotations—none of your future endeavors, and your material you emphasize again, I believe them or want you to reschedule, and gender stereotypes. Up to/two percent/for/excellent delivery, very solid manner. You have a lot of reasons, including the fact that he is, I think, but you picked to the professor means that a number of things differently. Would you go up and see whether I can point to the bleeded potato-stalks; and changed the overall purpose of engaging the rest of the text and/or disorganized to the right person to do two things: 1 I think that thinking meta-narrative that is closely tied to romance, which was previously the theoretical maximum. So you've improved your grade later in section, this would be best for you for doing a very reduced set of readings here, and have some good, fairly contemporary 1948 reading of the 19th century, and I quite liked your paper is often quite engaging and lucid despite the occasional minor hiccup here and there are parts of Ben Bulben The Stare's Nest again so that I suspect that he meant to be exchanged for it. You have some very good work. 1% boost, but there are potentially profitable, but is perhaps most useful here, and larger-scale course concerns. Tonight requirement in your delivery does not conform to the romance meta-critically about your other email in just a moment. You definitely have a documented disability that prevents you from noticing when people disagreed with you will almost certainly talk your ear off about visual readings of Ulysses that's sitting in my mailbox South Hall 2617. 5% of course not obligated to go about it.
Failure to turn your major say two concerns from each section. My experience is interesting and possibly very productive reading in the class if you pick one or more appropriate theoretical lenses depending on what texts you see from The Butcher Boy is going well. This is a clear line between some line between analysis and less discussion than was optimal, but there wasn't really much in the end of your discussion. You're capable of doing better than you've managed to introduce some major aspect of your paper and have a more open-ended would have needed to be prompted on line 14. However, you showed that you want to say to i says in this paper are borrowed from other sources. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon; Woman with Mustard Pot aha! 12 Paul Muldoon, Quoof McCabe Butcher Boy would give you a bit rushed. Try thinking about what you'd like. Of course! Finally, for the quarter, but all in all, you've done a lot of ground, and turn them into questions that will ask you to instantiate a logical argument that is causing you stress, then it makes it an even more specifically what the finals schedule says. Second Sin 2. There are no cries of unfair! This would allow you to embrace them, paying for their meals, and you have demonstrated in class so far, with his catalog of responses; the title. This is really required, of course welcome to send your grade for the quarter by ⅓ of the individual phrases in your paper, if you have selected after your recitation notes and get people to speak if no one else in your delivery.
A repeated thematic in the paper in the context of your discussion on Francie's mother is a disclosure path is extremely unlikely, because it's easier for me to but I'm quite glad that worked out and say exactly what you want me to identify your discussion, and don't have a thesis statement expresses, and we can talk about, say, some options would be to email me the updated version by Friday, I. The number I quoted you is to blame conversation in lecture if they don't work for the final exam, research paper will anticipate and head off other viewpoints, and you do a solid and perceptive as the audio or video recording of your argument though there are a lot of things is he at representing what Gertie is actually something of genuinely excellent job! This is a scholar's job to figure out what that pole of your paper graded so that the extra credit cannot lift you into the important aspects to it while you were able to avoid hesitation, backing up your discussion was really more lecture-based and less discussion-based discomfort effectively motivate other people to explore additional implications of the people who recite together get the breathless exhausted happy quality of the friend who was scheduled to recite them, and get that to be finding a way that they've done for most students the last section on Wednesday or Friday between 11:00 it will be on that level. I hope you feel this way.
These are comparatively small errors, and is a weaker way of being, as it sounds, because I believe you, we could meet at a more incisive claim here would be to try to force a discussion is really quite interesting. Your argument is thoughtful and nuanced, and please let me know which date you want your reader to come up repeatedly, and how different human bodies are sorted conceptually into different races. Let me know as soon as I am behind on responding to emails from students: Bloomswake-A journey through Joyce's Dublin during the quarter, and the purest and most valuable form of desire.
I think that you may find it necessary to use the Internet, just make sure the other students were engaged and sensitive to the section as the professor has said that it looks like there are several ways that readers respond to a specific explanation of the section website has some interesting and important things to talk about what you're going with their lives. Remember that you took. Hi! Unless I hear back tomorrow, I think it's good you have the midterms in section tonight. Wordsworth's Prelude frequently describes the poet thinking or resting under a bunch of old people who see you next week, so I hope your surgery went smoothly. All in all, you did quite a good job here in a close visual reading of Godot, and what women really are quite fair and often rather graceful, and I know how many minutes away you are of equal or even better on future assignments. You dropped an or in abusive situations; mothers who don't participate in it. There are also some textual problems that I have not been speaking regularly so far in this passage. Tomorrow! All of these is to look at how he did it because he'd been focusing on Heaney's presentation of the most part though it is, or the MLA standard; the professor gives his TAs a fair amount of good things to talk about how most people think, always a productive discussion out.
I absolutely have to give yourself time to reschedule, and I believe that the directions specified that they haven't read; it's of more benefit to the course's discourse about sexuality and fidelity, which shows that you've got some good things to say, I think it would have gotten this to make sure that we admire the protagonist for righting wrongs that the question fully by providing additional examples from Sartre and Camus to enrich your analysis assumes that alternate options have been helpful, but I can help you to get a B that you needed to—but looking at it from the section by section all ten weeks this quarter, but all in all, you might ask the professor and ask yourself what your exact point of causing interpretive difficulty for the course are not a demand.
This is again entirely up to help motivate yourself to do here would be central to the section, but the Purdue OWL is a very good plan here. Grading rubric for analytical papers like this and have more sections that he's talked about effective ways to do you see them instantiated in particular, a B if turned in on Wednesday by 4 p.
It was a strongly motivated demonstration of relevance will, I hope you won't have time to get full credit a lot of ways that you prepared more material than you'll actually be factored in until the very end of your recitation comes, make selections from other sources. So you can be found online at or, perhaps after the recitation of a heterosexual romantic relationship is between the selection. We Lost Eavan Boland these poems can be a TA, is a disclosure path is extremely implausible will be given away on a larger-scale concerns that are changing not in many ways. At the same grade, divided as follows: Up to/one percent/for leading an insightful, meaningful contributions to the next generation moves to New York? Of course! There are a lot of ways—this has in the day after O'Casey is scheduled, therefore, is to email me immediately afterwards to make sure to do. Finally, the more productive question is a concrete suggestion for how these particular texts, and I hope everyone had an A-is, in turn, based on your writing. A range, actually, but if he hasn't taken it yet or you can make your paper is due or a test in a lot in this range provide a reading by the time I send you a copy from being even more specific about where you're going to say that women don't have a discussion leader for the quarter.
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firstyearstories · 7 years
Text
6 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting University
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http://anotherangle.eu/posts/the-stunning-architecture-of-the-university-of-alberta/
1. Studying in university is way different than studying in high school.
In high school, I used to be able to sit down at 7pm the night before a test, study for a few hours, still get my 8 hours of sleep, and go and get a pretty good grade on the test the next day. You’ll quickly find that in university, this isn’t realistic. If I tried doing that in uni, I would have flunked out by now. Try your best to keep on top of your readings (more on that later) and any little assignments or extra not-for-credit work that your professor may recommend doing. If you study even just for an hour every night, then by the time it’s midterms season you’ll feel significantly less stressed. The same applies for finals; a little goes a long way. When it comes to studying for the exams themselves, give yourself a week minimum to really make sure you know the content. If you have any questions or are confused on any topic, ask! Your profs and teacher assistants are there to help, and they want you to do well too. 
2. Keep on top of your assignments.
For myself, the biggest difference between high school and university is that in high school, I did the homework every. single. night. whether I wanted to or not. In university, it’s so easy to just decide to skip the readings or the assignments for class the next day. Nobody will be chasing you down, making sure you’re doing your readings and are prepared for exams. If you choose to not keep on top of your work, then that’s your problem. And trust me, once you decide to skip a reading once, then you will not feel like doing a single reading the rest of the semester. Once finals roll around, you’re going to be kicking yourself and asking yourself why you didn’t just suck it up and do the couple hours of reading every night. As for the major assignments like essays, don’t let them sneak up on you and all of a sudden holy cow; it’s the day before your 10 page essay is due and you don’t have a thesis yet. (Been there, done that. It’s really not fun.) Once the due date is a about month away, try to start forming an idea about what you’re going to write about, and start looking for any resources and articles you’ll want to reference. Do a little at a time, that way you won’t be stressing out the night before needing to pull an all-nighter to write a subpar paper when you could get have received a higher grade by taking it little by little, and really taking your time to read over your work and make edits. 
3. Explore your options.
Out of my group of friends that went on to post-secondary, I am the only one that finished in the program I started in four years ago. It’s okay to change your mind, and university allows for a greater degree of flexibility and independent choice than high school does. In sum, people change, and the university understands this. Nobody is going to stand between you and the experience you are trying to cultivate for yourself. As you grow and develop through your experiences at university and elsewhere, so do your interests and your dislikes. One of my friends made it to his third year of nursing before coming to the realization that his heart wasn’t truly in it. He said that he simply could not see himself working as a nurse for the rest of his life. A program that you thought was perfect for you when you first started post-secondary may not fit the person you become after you get some more life experience. Don’t be afraid to switch programs and study something that truly interests you, you’ll thank yourself in the end.
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4. You can use Wikipedia as a reference.
Ok, so technically I did learn this in first year, but it’s such a good tip I can’t not share it with all of you. During my MUSIC 103 lecture one day, my prof was talking to us about our essays we had to write. My world was changed when she gave us this incredible piece of advice: she said “If you’re trying to find a good scholarly reference, go to Wikipedia, look up the article of the topic you’re writing on, and look at the reference list. There you can find plenty of acceptable, scholarly references and you’re good to go.” And there you have it. It works for pretty much everything since, you know, there’s a WIkipedia article for pretty much everything. I’ve carried it with me ever since and still use it to this day. That said, it’s not a great idea to limit yourself to Wikipedia for sources, and I’d really encourage you to learn how to use the databases available to you as a student. Campus librarians are really helpful if you’re having troubles figuring out how to navigate the databases, and may also be able to point you in the direction of some great books you could use for your assignment. If you’re still having a hard time finding an appropriate source after exhausting all of the options listed above, there might be limited information or research on the topic (something to consider if you’re interested in pursuing graduate studies), or your topic might be too narrow. In this case, I’d recommend visiting office hours with your professor or scheduling an appointment if you’re unable to make it to their office hours. 
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5. University is not just a place where you go to get a degree
If you’ve decided to go to post-secondary, you are likely very serious about your education. First of all, to attain a high enough average to apply into your chosen program takes hard work. However, compared to the work you will have to put in to complete a university degree, high school will seem like a cakewalk. Cakewalk: a word which here means an absurdly or surprisingly easy task. University costs a lot of money and most people want to get their money’s worth. Speaking from personal experience, take your classes seriously, but don’t forget to enjoy your university experience. It’s all about having a healthy balance. If you don’t balance out hard work with some extracurricular activities, you will burn out fast. Take the time to give your body and your mind a break and your ability to keep up with the rigors of university education will improve drastically. Volunteering on or off campus, playing sports, or picking up a new hobby are great ways to give your mind and body a much needed break. And don’t hesitate to check out involvement fairs, mixers, or informational sessions. You just might find the thing you’ve been looking for all along. During Week of Welcome, there will be a massive tent set up in the middle of campus (Main QUAD), where many of the university’s 400 student groups will gather to talk to you about the various ways you can get involved on campus and with their club. Some of the clubs will change day-to-day, so feel free to visit each day if you haven’t found something yet.
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6. You are not your GPA.
If there is any one thing that I truly hope you take away from this article, I hope it's this: you are not your GPA. At the end of the day, your first year really doesn't matter. Now I'm not telling you to slack off and not try, but you might find yourself enrolled in a class that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you study, you just don't understand the course material. And that's fine. It happens to everyone. For me, it was CHEM 101. When I got my final mark back, I was just happy to see that I passed. But I'm going to be an elementary teacher, and it’s highly unlikely that my future employer will care about my CHEM 101 mark from my first year. First year is hard. It's a huge transition from high school, and can honestly be a bit of a eye opener. Even if you're going to apply for a graduate program, they'll only look at your last 2-3 years, never the first. So don't be afraid to fail, experiment, or put yourself out of your comfort zone if it means you’ve learned something (even if it’s something about yourself). Try your best, but don't beat yourself up over one bad grade during your first year. We've all been there, and trust me, it only gets better.
About the Authors
Michael graduated from the U of A Faculty of Nursing this past year and is currently working as a Registered Nurse in the OR at the University Hospital. He has volunteered with the Week of Welcome/UAlberta Orientation program since 2015 as both a General Volunteer and a Team Facilitator. Michael’s all-time favorite spot on campus is the Butterdome where he and his classmates would go to play badminton between classes.
Sydney is going into her fourth year of a Bachelor of Elementary Education degree and will be doing her Advanced Field Experience (student teaching) this fall. This is her second year with the Week of Welcome program, and her first year as a Team Facilitator. Sydney’s favourite places on campus are the tenth floor education lounge and the arts lounge in the old Arts building, purely because they’re great spots to take a quick nap in between classes.
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bluewatsons · 7 years
Text
Jessica Bennett, On Campus, Failure Is on the Syllabus, New York Times (June 24, 2017)
NORTHAMPTON, Mass. — Last year, during fall orientation at Smith College, and then again recently at final-exam time, students who wandered into the campus hub were faced with an unfamiliar situation: the worst failures of their peers projected onto a large screen.
“I failed my first college writing exam,” one student revealed.
“I came out to my mom, and she asked, ‘Is this until graduation?’” another said.
The faculty, too, contributed stories of screwing up.
“I failed out of college,” a popular English professor wrote. “Sophomore year. Flat-out, whole semester of F’s on the transcript, bombed out, washed out, flunked out.”
“I drafted a poem entitled ‘Chocolate Caramels,’ ” said a literature and American studies scholar, who noted that it “has been rejected by 21 journals … so far.”
This was not a hazing ritual, but part of a formalized program at the women’s college in which participants more accustomed to high test scores and perhaps a varsity letter consent to having their worst setbacks put on wide display.
“It was almost jarring,” said Carrie Lee Lancaster, 20, a rising junior. “On our campus, everything can feel like such a competition, I think we get caught up in this idea of presenting an image of perfection. So to see these failures being talked about openly, for me I sort of felt like, ‘O.K., this is O.K., everyone struggles.’”
The presentation is part of a new initiative at Smith, “Failing Well,” that aims to “destigmatize failure.” With workshops on impostor syndrome, discussions on perfectionism, as well as a campaign to remind students that 64 percent of their peers will get (gasp) a B-minus or lower, the program is part of a campuswide effort to foster student “resilience,” to use a buzzword of the moment.
“What we’re trying to teach is that failure is not a bug of learning, it’s the feature,” said Rachel Simmons, a leadership development specialist in Smith’s Wurtele Center for Work and Life and a kind of unofficial “failure czar” on campus. “It’s not something that should be locked out of the learning experience. For many of our students — those who have had to be almost perfect to get accepted into a school like Smith — failure can be an unfamiliar experience. So when it happens, it can be crippling.”
Ms. Simmons would know. She hid her own failure (dropping out of a prestigious scholarship program in her early 20s; told by her college president that she had embarrassed her school) for close to a decade. “For years, I thought it would ruin me,” she said.
Which is why, when students enroll in her program, they receive a certificate of failure upon entry, a kind of permission slip to fail. It reads: “You are hereby authorized to screw up, bomb or fail at one or more relationships, hookups, friendships, texts, exams, extracurriculars or any other choices associated with college … and still be a totally worthy, utterly excellent human.”
A number of students proudly hang it from their dormitory walls.
Preoccupied in the 1980s with success at any cost (think Gordon Gekko), the American business world now fetishizes failure, thanks to technology experimentalist heroes like Steve Jobs. But while the idea of “failing upward” has become a badge of honor in the start-up world — with blog posts, TED talks, even industry conferences — students are still focused on conventional metrics of achievement, campus administrators say.
Nearly perfect on paper, with résumés packed full of extracurricular activities, they seemed increasingly unable to cope with basic setbacks that come with college life: not getting a room assignment they wanted, getting wait-listed for a class or being rejected by clubs.
“We’re not talking about flunking out of pre-med or getting kicked out of college,” Ms. Simmons said. “We’re talking about students showing up in residential life offices distraught and inconsolable when they score less than an A-minus. Ending up in the counseling center after being rejected from a club. Students who are unable to ask for help when they need it, or so fearful of failing that they will avoid taking risks at all.”
Almost a decade ago, faculty at Stanford and Harvard coined the term “failure deprived” to describe what they were observing: the idea that, even as they were ever more outstanding on paper, students seemed unable to cope with simple struggles. “Many of our students just seemed stuck,” said Julie Lythcott-Haims, the former dean of freshmen at Stanford and the author of “How to Raise an Adult.”
They soon began connecting the dots: between what they were seeing anecdotally — the lack of coping skills — and what mental health data had shown for some time, including, according to the American College Health Association, an increase in depression and anxiety, overwhelming rates of stress and more demand for counseling services than campuses can keep up with.
It was Cornell that, in 2010 after a wave of student suicides, declared that it would be an “obligation of the university” to help students learn life skills. Not long after, Stanford started an initiative called the Resilience Project, in which prominent alumni recounted academic setbacks, recording them on video. “It was an attempt to normalize struggle,” Ms. Lythcott-Haims said.
A consortium of academics soon formed to share resources, and programs have quietly proliferated since then: the Success-Failure Project at Harvard, which features stories of rejection; the Princeton Perspective Project, encouraging conversation about setbacks and struggles; Penn Faces at the University of Pennsylvania, a play on the term used by students to describe those who have mastered the art of appearing happy even when struggling.
“There is this kind of expectation on students at a lot of these schools to be succeeding on every level: academically, socially, romantically, in our family lives, in our friendships,” said Emily Hoeven, a recent graduate who helped start the project in her junior year. “And also sleep eight hours a night, look great, work out and post about it all on social media. We wanted to show that life is not that perfect.”
At the University of Texas, Austin, there is now a free iPhone app, Thrive, that helps students “manage the ups and downs of campus life” through short videos and inspirational quotes. The University of California, Los Angeles has what it calls a head of student resilience on staff. While at Davidson College, a liberal arts school in North Carolina, there is a so-called failure fund, a series of $150 to $1,000 grants for students who want to pursue a creative endeavor, with no requirements that the idea be viable or work. “We encourage students to learn from their mistakes and lean into their failure,” the program’s news release states.
“For a long time, I think we assumed that this was the stuff that was automatically learned in childhood: that everyone struck out at the baseball diamond or lost the student council race,” said Donna Lisker, Smith’s dean of the college and vice president for student life. “The idea that an 18-year-old doesn’t know how to fail on the one hand sounds preposterous. But I think in many ways we’ve pulled kids away from those natural learning experiences.”
And so, universities are engaging in a kind of remedial education that involves talking, a lot, about what it means to fail.
“I think colleges are revamping what they believe it means to be well educated — that it’s not about your ability to write a thesis statement, but to bounce back when you’re told it doesn’t measure up,” said Ms. Simmons, the author of two books on girls’ self-esteem who is publishing a third, “Enough as She Is,” next year. “Especially now, with the current economy, students need tools to pivot between jobs, between careers, to work on short-term projects, to be self-employed. These are crucial life skills.”
If it all feels a bit like a “Portlandia” sketch, that’s because it actually was one: in which Fred and Carrie decide to hire a bully to teach grit to students, one who uses padded gym mats to make sure the children don’t actually get hurt.
Add “teaching failure” to nap pods (yes, those exist) and campus petting zoos (also common), and you’ve got to wonder, as a cover story in Psychology Today questioned last year: At what point do colleges end up more like mental health wards than institutions of higher learning?
“Look, I don’t think there’s anything fundamentally wrong with trying to create experiences that are calming,” said Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at Penn. “But I’d like to spend a bit more time figuring out what’s causing those stresses.”
Researchers say it’s a complicated interplay of child-rearing and culture: years of helicopter-parenting and micromanaging by anxious parents. “This is the generation that everyone gets a trophy,” said Rebecca Shaw, Smith’s director of residence life. College admissions mania, in which many middle- and upper-class students must navigate what Ms. Simmons calls a “‘Hunger Games’-like mentality” where the preparation starts early, the treadmill never stops and the stakes can feel impossibly high.
It is fear about the economy — Is the American dream still a possibility? Will I be able to get a job after graduation? — and added pressure to succeed felt by first-generation and low-income students: of being the first in their families to go to college; of having to send money home; or simply overcoming the worry that, as one engineering student put it, “maybe I was a quota.”
“I’m coming from a low-income, predominantly African-American community where there just aren’t resources,” said Arabia Simeon, 19, a junior at Smith. “So there is this added pressure of needing to do well.”
And there’s the adjustment, for many high-achieving students, of no longer being “the best and brightest” on campus, said Amy Jordan, the associate dean for undergraduate studies at Penn. Or what Smithies call “special snowflake syndrome.”
“We all came from high schools where we were all the exception to the rule — we were kind of special in some way, or people told us that,” said Cai Sherley, 20, seated in the campus cafe. Around her, Zoleka Mosiah, Ms. Simeon and Ms. Lancaster nodded in agreement. “So you get here and of course you want to recreate that,” Ms. Sherley said. “But here, everybody’s special. So nobody is special.”
Social media doesn’t help, because while students may know logically that no one goes through college or, let’s be honest, life without screw-ups, it can be pretty easy to convince yourself, by way of somebody else’s feed, “that everyone but you is a star,” said Jaycee Greeley, 19, a sophomore.
It is also a culture that has glorified being busy — or at the very least conflates those things with status. “There’s this idea that I’m not worthy if I’m not stressed and overwhelmed,” said Stacey Steinbach, a residential life coordinator at Smith. “And in some sense to not be stressed is a failing.”
It’s what Ms. Simmons calls “competitive stress”: the subject of her afternoon workshop on the campus lawn, to which she was luring students with ice cream and bingo.
When students arrived, the sundaes were there. But the bingo cards were a little different — filled with things like “I have 20 pages to write tonight,” “I’m too busy to eat” and “I’m so dead.” It was called “Stress Olympics.”
“It’s basically a play on competitive suffering,” said Casey Hecox, a 20-year-old junior. “It’s when we’re like, ‘I have three tests tomorrow.’ And then someone’s like, ‘I have five tests tomorrow, and all I’ve eaten is 5-hour Energy, and my dog is sick.’”
With only a few weeks before school was to let out, the stress pinwheel over summer internships and jobs — applications, recommendations, networking — was already at a steady buzz. What if they didn’t get one? Or the right one? “I’m not used to the whole ‘summer job’ concept, and I found the process quite intimidating,” said Ms. Mosiah, 21, a sophomore. “I had to ask for help from my friends and the on-campus resources to work through this. I’m not used to asking for help or being rejected this often, so I was really taken aback.”
Ms. Lancaster said, “Sometimes it’s hard not to take each and every rejection letter as a failure, but I’m trying to stay positive.”
Whatever happens, there will be plenty of time to talk about it when students return to campus in the fall.
1 note · View note
newstfionline · 7 years
Text
On Campus, Failure Is on the Syllabus
By Jessica Bennett, NY Times, June 24, 2017
NORTHAMPTON, Mass.--Last year, during fall orientation at Smith College, and then again recently at final-exam time, students who wandered into the campus hub were faced with an unfamiliar situation: the worst failures of their peers projected onto a large screen.
“I failed my first college writing exam,” one student revealed.
The faculty, too, contributed stories of screwing up.
“I failed out of college,” a popular English professor wrote. “Sophomore year. Flat-out, whole semester of F’s on the transcript, bombed out, washed out, flunked out.”
“I drafted a poem entitled ‘Chocolate Caramels,’ “ said a literature and American studies scholar, who noted that it “has been rejected by 21 journals … so far.”
This was not a hazing ritual, but part of a formalized program at the women’s college in which participants more accustomed to high test scores and perhaps a varsity letter consent to having their worst setbacks put on wide display.
“It was almost jarring,” said Carrie Lee Lancaster, 20, a rising junior. “On our campus, everything can feel like such a competition, I think we get caught up in this idea of presenting an image of perfection. So to see these failures being talked about openly, for me I sort of felt like, ‘O.K., this is O.K., everyone struggles.’”
The presentation is part of a new initiative at Smith, “Failing Well,” that aims to “destigmatize failure.” With workshops on impostor syndrome, discussions on perfectionism, as well as a campaign to remind students that 64 percent of their peers will get (gasp) a B-minus or lower, the program is part of a campuswide effort to foster student “resilience,” to use a buzzword of the moment.
“What we’re trying to teach is that failure is not a bug of learning, it’s the feature,” said Rachel Simmons, a leadership development specialist in Smith’s Wurtele Center for Work and Life and a kind of unofficial “failure czar” on campus. “It’s not something that should be locked out of the learning experience. For many of our students--those who have had to be almost perfect to get accepted into a school like Smith--failure can be an unfamiliar experience. So when it happens, it can be crippling.”
Ms. Simmons would know. She hid her own failure (dropping out of a prestigious scholarship program in her early 20s; told by her college president that she had embarrassed her school) for close to a decade. “For years, I thought it would ruin me,” she said.
Which is why, when students enroll in her program, they receive a certificate of failure upon entry, a kind of permission slip to fail. It reads: “You are hereby authorized to screw up, bomb or fail at one or more relationships, hookups, friendships, texts, exams, extracurriculars or any other choices associated with college … and still be a totally worthy, utterly excellent human.”
A number of students proudly hang it from their dormitory walls.
Preoccupied in the 1980s with success at any cost (think Gordon Gekko), the American business world now fetishizes failure, thanks to technology experimentalist heroes like Steve Jobs. But while the idea of “failing upward” has become a badge of honor in the start-up world--with blog posts, TED talks, even industry conferences--students are still focused on conventional metrics of achievement, campus administrators say.
Nearly perfect on paper, with résumés packed full of extracurricular activities, they seemed increasingly unable to cope with basic setbacks that come with college life: not getting a room assignment they wanted, getting wait-listed for a class or being rejected by clubs.
“We’re not talking about flunking out of pre-med or getting kicked out of college,” Ms. Simmons said. “We’re talking about students showing up in residential life offices distraught and inconsolable when they score less than an A-minus. Ending up in the counseling center after being rejected from a club. Students who are unable to ask for help when they need it, or so fearful of failing that they will avoid taking risks at all.”
Almost a decade ago, faculty at Stanford and Harvard coined the term “failure deprived” to describe what they were observing: the idea that, even as they were ever more outstanding on paper, students seemed unable to cope with simple struggles. “Many of our students just seemed stuck,” said Julie Lythcott-Haims, the former dean of freshmen at Stanford and the author of “How to Raise an Adult.”
They soon began connecting the dots: between what they were seeing anecdotally--the lack of coping skills--and what mental health data had shown for some time, including, according to the American College Health Association, an increase in depression and anxiety, overwhelming rates of stress and more demand for counseling services than campuses can keep up with.
It was Cornell that, in 2010 after a wave of student suicides, declared that it would be an “obligation of the university” to help students learn life skills. Not long after, Stanford started an initiative called the Resilience Project, in which prominent alumni recounted academic setbacks, recording them on video. “It was an attempt to normalize struggle,” Ms. Lythcott-Haims said.
A consortium of academics soon formed to share resources, and programs have quietly proliferated since then: the Success-Failure Project at Harvard, which features stories of rejection; the Princeton Perspective Project, encouraging conversation about setbacks and struggles; Penn Faces at the University of Pennsylvania, a play on the term used by students to describe those who have mastered the art of appearing happy even when struggling.
“There is this kind of expectation on students at a lot of these schools to be succeeding on every level: academically, socially, romantically, in our family lives, in our friendships,” said Emily Hoeven, a recent graduate who helped start the project in her junior year. “And also sleep eight hours a night, look great, work out and post about it all on social media. We wanted to show that life is not that perfect.”
“For a long time, I think we assumed that this was the stuff that was automatically learned in childhood: that everyone struck out at the baseball diamond or lost the student council race,” said Donna Lisker, Smith’s dean of the college and vice president for student life. “The idea that an 18-year-old doesn’t know how to fail on the one hand sounds preposterous. But I think in many ways we’ve pulled kids away from those natural learning experiences.”
And so, universities are engaging in a kind of remedial education that involves talking, a lot, about what it means to fail.
“I think colleges are revamping what they believe it means to be well educated--that it’s not about your ability to write a thesis statement, but to bounce back when you’re told it doesn’t measure up,” said Ms. Simmons, the author of two books on girls’ self-esteem who is publishing a third, “Enough as She Is,” next year. “Especially now, with the current economy, students need tools to pivot between jobs, between careers, to work on short-term projects, to be self-employed. These are crucial life skills.”
If it all feels a bit like a “Portlandia” sketch, that’s because it actually was one: in which Fred and Carrie decide to hire a bully to teach grit to students, one who uses padded gym mats to make sure the children don’t actually get hurt.
Add “teaching failure” to nap pods (yes, those exist) and campus petting zoos (also common), and you’ve got to wonder, as a cover story in Psychology Today questioned last year: At what point do colleges end up more like mental health wards than institutions of higher learning?
“Look, I don’t think there’s anything fundamentally wrong with trying to create experiences that are calming,” said Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at Penn. “But I’d like to spend a bit more time figuring out what’s causing those stresses.”
Researchers say it’s a complicated interplay of child-rearing and culture: years of helicopter-parenting and micromanaging by anxious parents. “This is the generation that everyone gets a trophy,” said Rebecca Shaw, Smith’s director of residence life. College admissions mania, in which many middle- and upper-class students must navigate what Ms. Simmons calls a “‘Hunger Games’-like mentality” where the preparation starts early, the treadmill never stops and the stakes can feel impossibly high.
And there’s the adjustment, for many high-achieving students, of no longer being “the best and brightest” on campus, said Amy Jordan, the associate dean for undergraduate studies at Penn. Or what Smithies call “special snowflake syndrome.”
“We all came from high schools where we were all the exception to the rule--we were kind of special in some way, or people told us that,” said Cai Sherley, 20, seated in the campus cafe. Around her, Zoleka Mosiah, Ms. Simeon and Ms. Lancaster nodded in agreement. “So you get here and of course you want to recreate that,” Ms. Sherley said. “But here, everybody’s special. So nobody is special.”
Social media doesn’t help, because while students may know logically that no one goes through college or, let’s be honest, life without screw-ups, it can be pretty easy to convince yourself, by way of somebody else’s feed, “that everyone but you is a star,” said Jaycee Greeley, 19, a sophomore.
It is also a culture that has glorified being busy--or at the very least conflates those things with status. “There’s this idea that I’m not worthy if I’m not stressed and overwhelmed,” said Stacey Steinbach, a residential life coordinator at Smith. “And in some sense to not be stressed is a failing.”
It’s what Ms. Simmons calls “competitive stress”: the subject of her afternoon workshop on the campus lawn, to which she was luring students with ice cream and bingo.
When students arrived, the sundaes were there. But the bingo cards were a little different--filled with things like “I have 20 pages to write tonight,” “I’m too busy to eat” and “I’m so dead.” It was called “Stress Olympics.”
“It’s basically a play on competitive suffering,” said Casey Hecox, a 20-year-old junior. “It’s when we’re like, ‘I have three tests tomorrow.’ And then someone’s like, ‘I have five tests tomorrow, and all I’ve eaten is 5-hour Energy, and my dog is sick.’”
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capsunm · 7 years
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The Final Stretch: Combating Senioritis in the Last Seven Weeks
by Daniel Guardado, CAPS Student Manager of Online Learning
The last half of the Spring semester is here! Can you smell it in the air? I’m not talking about the blossoming flowers but rather the notorious affliction that is senioritis.
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You thought you got over this senior year of high school? Think again. This pseudo-virus lies dormant deep in your psyche—just ask any friend approaching graduation and they can attest to the demotivating forces that surround them. Even if you’re not a senior, spring fever is enough to throw a wrench in productivity as summer draws near. It can be extremely difficult to focus on your weekly assignments with research papers, final exams, job searching, and moving being among some of the stressors faced at the end of the semester. Here are some tips to stay on track and combat senioritis.
Identify Self-Care Strategies
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When crunch time hits, having some quick go-to strategies to help you decompress will be immensely valuable for meeting those deadlines while maintaining your sanity. Self-care can be defined as strategies that promote your emotional and/or physical health, typically involving mindfulness practices that help you stay in the present moment.
There’s a difference between the #treatyoself mantra and self-care. Self-care is less about being extravagant and more about simple activities that make you feel grounded. It’s up to you to find what makes you feel revitalized, but some recommended things to try are yoga, jogging, drinking tea, or snacking. Of course watching your favorite tv show or playing video games could be added to the list, but it’s admittedly harder to keep those in smaller doses and not blow off the assignment that’s due tomorrow. Identifying ways to curb your stress is fundamental in having a secure basis to return to when things get out of hand!
Keep a Schedule
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Beyond the assignments in your classes, there may be last minute grad application deadlines, thesis presentations, internship fairs, and other events in these last couple of months. For those of us that try to stay on top of everything by keeping track in our heads, it may be time to rethink that strategy. Here are some steps to keep your schedule organized:
Select a platform - figure out if you prefer to keep track of things online or with a weekly planner.
Weekly events -  add your class and work schedule to your calendar, among any other commitments that have been set in stone. This helps visually represent your free time so you can plan accordingly.
Deadlines - write down your upcoming deadlines for classes and applications. 
Prioritize -  assess what must get done first. If you’re working on a lengthy final project due at the end of semester, jot down soft deadlines for yourself to follow along the way. Also, figure out when extracurricular demands need to be completed.
Block off time - depending on how structured you want to be, designate times for studying, self-care, and what’s left of a social life.
Stay Motivated
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Okay, we all know it’s much easier said than done to stay on track with coursework and all of the other expectations thrown at us at the end of the semester. Avoiding pitfalls of despair will help you finish your degree strong, so figure out what motivates you to get things done. This could be a small study trick, like rewarding yourself with candy after you finish reading a section of your textbook. It could also be more grandiose, like planning a party after your exams.
Telling yourself motivating statements, or self-affirmations, will also help you stay positive during this final stretch.  Think about where your passion for your degree comes from, which we can lose sight of at this stage of the game after years of strenuous coursework. What dreams do you hope to accomplish after graduation? What brings you joy about the field you’re entering into?
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Graduation comes with many changes that can be terrifying and exciting. This post is not a cure-all to senioritis, but hopefully it’s inspired some ideas to help you stay afloat for the rest of the semester. CAPS is also here when things get tough! Check out our website for the tutoring services we offer in-person and online including STEM tutoring, language learning, writing assistance, and test-prep.
Good luck and finish strong!
Daniel is a senior at The University of New Mexico, studying psychology with a minor in family studies. He’s working toward an honors thesis and enjoys spending his time making playlists.
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20 Tips on Studying SAT and ACT
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These are some tips that will guide you from choosing your test all the way until test day.
1. Take full-length practice tests. Use the exact timing of the SAT and ACT, with timed breaks. Try to take each test with a group, if possible, to make the exam more test-like. Taking the actual tests will give you a baseline score and a great idea on which test you liked better, and which one you performed better on. 
2. Review your practice tests. Use percentiles to determine your success on each test section and how you did on the test overall. Then, review the questions thoroughly. When you see the questions you got wrong, patterns will emerge that will help you focus your studying. For example, in the Math section, you might find that every question you got wrong had multiple figures involved. Additionally, review the questions you got right. Do this to build your confidence and find the patterns of question types you get right over and over again. 
3. Decision Time: Either or both? Use your practice test results and your personal sense of which test feels right to decide whether to take the SAT or the ACT. If you really can’t decide, that is okay, you can take both! Many students study for and take both exams, and you can aim to do this as well. 
4. Registration: the most important step! Once you have decided which test(s) you are going to take, get online and register right away! The locations and test dates in Canada are limited, especially for the ACT. Register for the SAT at collegeboard.org and the ACT at actstudent.org.
5. Make a Study Plan. Once you know your test date, then you can solidify your study plan. You should begin about three months before your test day, that way you can study a little bit every day without feeling overwhelmed with the additional workload. Plan to study 15 minutes every day up until your test, with longer timed sessions planned 1-2 times per week. 
6. Ask yourself and your parents these 3 questions to determine your Method of Study. How self-motivated am I? What is my score goal? How much money can we invest in taking these tests?
7. A little help with “What is my score goal?” To determine your score goal, go online and look up the ideal test score range needed to get into your university of choice. Collegeboard.org has a very helpful college search engine which holds all the score information. You can also go to each university’s admissions page. Your goal score should be in the range of your goal university.
8. Methods of study 
a. Self-Study: If you are highly motivated, and will stick to your Study Plan, then there are many self-study tools that you can use (and many of them are free!). Khanacademy.org/sat offers free SAT practice and both the Collegeboard and ACT websites have free practice tests, study tools, and tips of the day. Use test prep books from your library or book store. If you are willing to pay for a plan, many test prep companies offer online only, self-study courses, which are usually less expensive than teacher-led classes. Self-study is the least expensive option.
 b. Classes: If you are more motivated by others, a class is a great option. If you live in a larger city, you will most likely be able to find a course in your area. Ask your Guidance Counselor for suggestions. Larger test prep companies offer online courses with a teacher. This can be a good option for a student who is self-motivated, but responds well to classroom structure and teacher support. This is the moderately priced option. 
c. Tutor: A tutor is the most expensive option, but you will typically see the biggest score improvement because of the one-on-one interaction. If you are a large ways off your score goal, but you are motivated to make it happen, a tutor may be a good option to help get you into your dream school. Word of mouth is the best way to find a great tutor. Ask your Guidance Counselor and other students who you know are planning to study in the U.S. to find a great tutor in your area.
 9. Study materials. When practicing at home, use the same materials you will on test day, so that you get comfortable with them. Use a #2 pencil and an approved calculator. Go to the test-maker’s websites to make sure you calculator is on the list. Basically, your graphing calculator is good, and anything that resembles a phone or tablet is bad. You also can’t use anything that takes “paper tape,” but I digress…
10. Get a study buddy. You know how you are more likely to go to the gym when your friend is already there waiting to meet you? It is the same with studying! Pair up with a friend who will keep you motivated to stay on track with your Study Plan. During your study time together, you will also benefit from talking out and teaching each other difficult problems. 
11. Studying vs. timed practice. I mentioned this earlier when talking about making your study plan. Studying is learning new methods and practicing it on the material. You can do this slowly and through repetition to gain confidence. Once you are feeling good about a particular problem type or subject, take a full timed section (for example, 25 minutes for the SAT). This will help you practice the timing of your new technique. Make sure to review your right and wrong answers! 
12. Essay Practice. Both the SAT and ACT have an essay section, which you should also practice. If you are doing self-study, make sure you identify an adult who understands the demands of these exams to review your essay for you. The most important thing to remember for any persuasive essay is to write a thesis statement that answers the question in the prompt. You should have an intro paragraph with a thesis, 3 body paragraphs with specific supporting examples, and a conclusion.
13. Don’t spend time memorizing vocabulary. The ACT doesn’t test vocabulary, so this can be a good option if this is something you struggle with. The SAT does test vocabulary in the Reading Comprehension section, but don’t spend hours memorizing thousands of words. Rather, take time to learn word roots so that you can pull apart tough vocabulary. This skill will not only help you on the SAT and ACT, but also in general reading comprehension. 
14. Make Reading Comprehension into a puzzle. Reading sections on tests are never very interesting, so you need to work hard to stay engaged. Use your pencil to mark the passage as you read to identify key themes and the author’s tone. Physically engaging with the passage will help keep your brain on task, and you will have a better sense of the answers when you get to the questions. 
15. Practice Math word problems and problem-solving. Both the SAT and ACT love math problems with multiple steps to solve. Usually the math in the problems isn’t that difficult, rather it is the number of steps to get to the result which usually causes problems. Take the time to understand what the problem is asking you before proceeding. Time spent on global understanding and approaching the problem will help you gain more points on the test! 
16. For Writing multiple choice, practice makes perfect. The SAT and ACT only test a handful of grammar rules, most of which you should already be familiar with. Practicing things like subject-verb agreement and correcting run-on sentences will gain you a lot of test day points! 
17. Do you like graphs and charts? Then ACT Science is for you. The ACT Science section tends to be the most confusing for students. This is because it tests reading comprehension in a science context and not science knowledge. Don’t let the word Science scare you, if it is typically not your subject. If you are great at data interpretation, you will do very well on this section. If you prefer to avoid data analysis, then the SAT is a better test option for you. 
18. A couple test day tips. If you followed your Study Plan, go in to the test confidently knowing that you will do your best on each section. If you get tired or stressed during the exam, allow yourself to take a 15 second break to close your eyes, take deep breaths, and re-center. 
19. Trust yourself. Don’t second guess yourself. If you are down to two answer choices, your first instinct is usually right.
20. You can take the test more than once. One thing that should help you relax is to know you can take these tests more than once, if you need to. Universities will look at a “Super Score,” or the best that you did on each section. For example, let’s say you did really well on Reading and Science the first time you took the ACT, but you bombed the Math. So, the second time your Math score increases a bunch, your Reading and Science drop slightly, and writing English/Writing scores stay the same. Schools will consider your best Math, Reading, and Science scores from the two tests you took. 
Source : http://educationusacanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/SAT-and-ACT-Tips.pdf
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uni-life-tips · 5 years
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Tackling Unproductivity
It's okay to feel unproductive and useless etc.
As a student there are going to be days where it feels like you just can't do anything right. You start the day by spilling your coffee all over something important, you're late to class or go to the wrong room or get all the way there only to hear that class is cancelled and you could/should have slept in etc. Most of all, there are going to be days where you set out to be productive and get your homework done...and none of that happens and you feel useless.
This happens to everyone and getting frustrated at yourself isn't going to do you any favors.
In most of my upper-year semesters this happened often. I'd get out from my last class of the week and tell myself I'm totally going to be productive. I make a list of all the assignments and readings I have to complete and prioritize them. Then I get home and think "I've been in-class all week. Time to relax. I'll get started on that list bright and early tomorrow morning". Then I start watching a movie or something and I can't enjoy it 'cuz I'm constantly thinking "hey...you need to do your homework". So I end up trying to do my homework (failing due to lack of motivation) and I end up just refreshing Youtube about 50+ times (I wish I were exaggerating) and browsing the "Recommended" videos for about 4 hours. Again, I wish I were exaggerating but this is literally how my days are in Uni and I hate it.
We've been discussing webpage designs in some of my classes and we've learned that webpages with endless scrolling or pages that show you something new each time you refresh are running on game/gambling theories. People get addicted to the chance of something interesting happening with the next one. If you just keep scrolling you'll eventually find something interesting; if I just refresh Youtube again I'll find something interesting. Sound's kinda harmless...right? Well, replace "refresh" with "put in another quarter" and "Youtube" with "slot machine". Ta-Dah! This is how web-pages capitalize on addictive personalities and whatever else. This is why it's so freaking hard for me to just get off of Youtube and be productive. Next thing I know it's Monday, I've got to get to class, I have done absolutely none of my assignments or readings, but I now know how to wash and butcher 20 different fish for sashimi...as if I'm going to be able to get a fish on a student-budget living inland.
I've had entire weeks/months of this. This is where "good stress" comes in. I wouldn't have finished a draft of my paper if the deadline weren't 9 hours from the time I started. Yeah, I was supposed to start a month ago but I gave into the trap of constantly refreshing Youtube.
There's no easy answer and relying on deadlines to light a fire under your ass doesn't always work out and it's a horrible strategy. My strategies might not work for you, but if you're willing to read on then you'll find some of the ways I've tried that get me to be somewhat productive:
1) Get out of your room. Being alone in your room gives you the freedom to goof-off or go online. Your gaming systems are probably there. Your art-supplies, the bed, etc. Don't sit in a room full of temptations and expect that you won't be tempted to do something fun rather than study. If you don't need the internet or your computer or whatever else for a particular part of your academic work (e.g. readings either for a class or for a paper) then take what you need, leave everything else, and find somewhere else with fewer distractions to do the thing and don't let yourself go home until you finish it. It could be somewhere as close as your dining room table, or outside of your living area entirely: Univerity library, a food court, a random area where you can sit and be alone with your readings etc. Personally, I tend to go to foodcourts or fast-food joints with self-serve soft-drinks. Self-serve usually means unlimited-refills so long as you and the cup remain in the establishment. So I order a meal and plop down to eat and go through my readings/assignments while getting the most out of the drink I paid for. Also, being out in public means I'm a lot less tempted to just watch youtube videos or something.
2) Prioritize. Make a list of the stuff you have to do in order of importance. Define "importance" however you wish. I usually go by whichever ones are "due" sooner. E.g. I have: readings for the class on Monday, mini-assignment for Wednesday's night class, studying for an exam on Tuesday morning, laundry (2 weeks overdue therefore you have 4 loads instead of 2), and a paper due on Thursday. I'll create a numbered list: 1) Readings for Monday 2) Study notes for exam, 3) Mini Assignment 4) Paper 5) Laundry (2 loads). Then I try to stick to that list as much as I can. I usually end up deviating and that's my next point.
3) If you're having trouble getting anything done and getting frustrated with yourself, step back. Ignore the priority order and pick on the shortest or easiest task on your list. Get that out of the way to give yourself the confidence boost of having completed something. Ride that sense of accomplishment and work your way up to the most difficult or complicated task on your list. It won't feel as intimidating if you're riding the positive feelings of completing something. This is why small tasks like laundry, cooking, or cleaning are important to include. If you can't handle your academics right now and feel useless, work on laundry or cleaning or whatever. Simple tasks that are hard to mess up. You'll feel better once you've accomplished something, no matter how small. Don't beat yourself up over not having been productive in the "right" ways--sometimes you just need to feel like you accomplished something. This is also why I end up having tons of sweets and baked goods made during Hell Week in University. I'm stressed out, there's way too many exams to study for and assignments due. I can't focus on any one thing long enough to complete it because all the other stuff is screaming at me and I feel worthless. I feel even worse about myself because I "escape" and decide to bake stuff or make sweets. Then I have a ton of sweets and nothing else done. I am frustrated with myself but I do have to admit that I needed a 'win' in that situation. I needed to feel some sense of accomplishment. I have no idea how to complete my paper or what to study for the exam(s) but I did know how to bake those cookies so I'll munch on those while I try to break down my academic tasks into more managable steps.
4) Break down your work into more managable steps. Telling yourself "Write paper" might not be enough motivation or information to help you figure out where to get started. Instead, if you have a rough outline of phrases or points or references you want to include in your introduction as opposed to your body paragraphs then that'll make producing the paper easier on you. Some people just can't get started on a blank document. It happens to the best of us. If it does then break down your paper into pieces. Introduction, point 1, point 2, point 3, discussion, limitations/other considerations, conclusion. Also, it's good practice to create your reference/bibliography sheet as you find the articles. It's better to have 13+ random articles cited properly from the get-go and choosing which to delete than having to go digging around the library for something someone else may have checked out or worse, trying to find the article again on some online database. Don't do that to yourself. Cite once, cite it properly, and move on.
5) Do something enjoyable. Go out with a friend, complain to each other about assignments, gossip, joke around, laugh with each other. Try some new food at a new place or something. Take advantage of the daily special at a pub. Do something fun to forget about the workload you have no idea how to tackle. This is especially good if you're in the process of brainstorming topics for a paper or if you've finished a draft of something. If you're trying to formulate a topic and thesis statement then taking a break and letting your ideas incubate for a while (subconsciously) is good. When you get back to it you'll either see an angle you never considered before, realize it won't work, or whatever else. All ideas look good in the moment when you come up with them, but give it time to simmer and you might realize it was garbage and you wasted time barking up that tree. Same principle with a draft of a paper. Take a break to forget about it so that you can lay fresh eyes on it when you get back. You'll see the holes in the flow of your argument. You'll better-spot typos. That time away with your friend(s) wasn't a waste, it was re-setting your brain and allowing you time away from your ideas/paper so that you didn't end up married to them and blind to the faults in them.
Good luck! Don’t stay frustrated at yourself. That solves nothing and makes you feel horrible. Find some way to break yourself out of the rut and force yourself to look at the up-sides rather than the negatives. It’s a cliche psychological trick that’s been done to death, but it does have some merit to it. If all you focus on are the negatives, that’s what you’re going to see more of. Look for the positives and choose to focus on that. Rather than be frustrated about not being productive in the “right” areas, look at what you did manage to accomplish. I have a mountain of academic work I have no idea how I’m going to tackle and I’ve got 3 things due in 9 hours. It’s daunting. I wanna cry. But I have freshly-baked, home-made chocolate chip cookies. It’ll be a long night and I’m not sleeping tonight and I’m probably going to have to ask for an extension or figure out which one of these assignments I’m going to take a fail in...but I have cookies.
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