I am forty minutes into my first day of school, doing it all online (thanks, covid), and I think I’m over it already. My desire to learn is strong, but my desire to do anything BUT learn is almost stronger. I want to blame my bipolar disorder for my lack of motivation, but I think it honestly just stems from laziness.

Now you must be thinking, “It’s the middle of the night! Not even 1 a.m., how are you already “over” school?” Well I found out after I wasted my Sunday away doing meaningless tasks such as cleaning my cluttered home that my two teachers had already posted syllabuses and assignments for the following days and weeks. When I realized that my work had been assigned, it was already 9pm, and they posted their respective assignments at 1pm.

I spent my evening cooking a large loin roast with roasted vegetables and then preparing for my classes that I wasn’t ready to start working on until tomorrow. My first assignment is due the 5th and that is less than 48 hours away. Granted, it’s not a very difficult assignment, but one of my teachers expects us to turn in homework by midnight every day and another one expects us to do a lot of reading and discussion boards every other day. It would be one thing if I didn’t work full time, but working and commuting from 10am and not getting home until 7:30 at night doesn’t leave a lot of room for cleaning, cooking, doing my blog, or anything fun for that matter.

I guess I knew all of this going into school, but now shit’s getting real and I gotta go into fight or flight mode. I chose to fight, but damn. I’m in for a roughhhhhh 3 months. I think it will all be worth it when I hear back and get accepted to the UW, but right now, a lot is on the line and I can’t bare to mess up yet another quarter of school due to lack of motivation.

In summer 2019, I decided to take two classes in order to pursue my paralegal certification and ended up failing both classes because I was too busy partying it up and having summer fun. I regret not being more diligent about my course work, but you live and learn, I guess.

Now the pressure is on from Diego and my dad. Diego doesn’t want to see me fail (OBVIOUSLY), but I think he believes I won’t take school as seriously as I should and won’t do as well as I am perfectly capable of doing. He is a firm believer that I should take advantage of all of the privileges I have as my dad helps pay my college tuition. Because I am receiving help, Diego always says I can do better and be better, not just for me but for those who are helping me. I think this ideology stems from if he had the same opportunities I have had in my almost 23 years, he would be wildly successful already. But since he hasn’t been able to be get out of the grocery business and into a lucrative labor union, he wants the best for me and my opportunities. As for my dad, he just wants me to pass with at least a 3.0 GPA in order to get his money’s worth that he put in to my tuition.

I just want to make everyone proud, but under pressure and with me going into a bipolar downswing, I don’t see me landing on top when everything is all said and done. As I go into a depression, it makes it very difficult to motivate myself to do anything. Today it took nearly 7 hours to pick up my house when it was a 2 hour job at best. The exhaustion is real and I gotta work and leave my house by 10am and be gone for nearly 10 hours.

As I grunted and groaned about it, I finished one assignment each for my two classes, English and math. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Now I must force myself to go to bed in order to get up at 7, get ready for work, and then study for 2.5 hours so I can get a head start on the craziness that is online education.

Until next time,

Dani