Luvprada

Looking around my room, you’d think things have fallen apart. There’s a half-drunk mug of cold green jasmine tea on my desk, last sipped two days ago. The speaker I used to play songs next to my laptop, its dark-black enamel surface wearing a fine layer of dust. The paper innards of my binders have burst all over my room, leaving a layered chaos of subject notes on my desk, on my bed and under my chair. And my load of laundry has once again reached dreadful proportions. That’s the condition of my room.

At the moment I’m in the middle of my second year towards my Ph.D. Since September 2008 when I was writing up my progress report, I’ve had this period marked off in my calendar with red ink. Yet the advance warning did little to prepare me. I’m swamped, finishing one thing only to begin another.

Up until this point of time, my stress has risen and fallen in a sinuous curve. There are moments when all pressures are removed, when everything runs well and problems are little black blips barely perceptible in the distance. Then the blips get closer and incrementally become big black blots. Little by little my stress goes up the slope, until I’m at the peak.

Right now I’m at the peak and I badly want to slide down and slip into a nice and easy Easter break.

I’ve never had to do so much in so little time. I don’t have much choice but to work. Working at the reception desk in my college, 7 hours of tutoring in my university plus further 10++ hours of preparation, 2 hours of Diploma of Education Studies lesson weekly. If I don’t work, life may screw up. Yet people around are telling me I may go too hard, too much.

It is my bad of being ruthlessly prioritize breaks and I am getting upset when I am deviated from my schedule. My works simply become more intimidating, and the list goes infinite.

The beginning of the first few months of my second year is incredibly stressful. I’m plunging myself into an environment that I know little about. I’m still struggling to find out how these whole things should be worked out together. I don’t really want to spend another years being as keyed up as I am right now.

I shall devote more time and plan my schedule to the umpteenth detail. I need to know exactly what I need to do and when I need to do it.