6/5/13

i am a burn out

I like school. I like my classmates, my friends, my teachers; I like to learn.

I like eating lunch in the courtyard, exchanging words of ease with the people around me.

It's not hard for me to be happy at school.

I like it.


But I am tired. I am extraordinarily, depressingly tired. I am like a melting candle, and my wick is running out. I just want to smile and run down the streets. Just one more day.

My room is a mess. My shelves are cluttered, my bed unkempt, my book shelf disorganized, covered in scarves and socks and weird shit I don't recognize. While I love the imperfections I witness in my world, in art, in writing, I demand perfection in school, and it's driving me insane.

Essays must be reread 3-5 times after completion.

Grammatical mistakes are not acceptable.

Projects must include 20% more than what the requirements demanded.

When studying for tests, extra research and a deeper-than-necessary-understanding is a must.

You must know everything.
You must learn everything.
You must ace everything.

Pressure is like a chemical burn, slowly eating through your skin as it makes its way around your body. No matter how much you try to dilute the burn with water, it doesn't help.

Pressure is like being crushed by a stampede of elephants. Followed by a stampede of hippos.

Pressure to succeed pressure to excel pressure.

We cannot learn for the sake of learning.
We are penalized when we don't understand, when we make mistakes.
So how are we supposed to learn that it's okay to make errors?
We aren't taught to make mistakes in order to further our understanding, to take risks, to appreciate failure as an opportunity to do better.

We are taught that failure will lead to crappy jobs and shitty futures.
The world is so fucked uppppppppp.

I am burned out and tired.
Two years into high school has resulted in good grades, at the cost of dozens of panic attacks, tears, headaches, anxiety, insomnia, sleepless nights.

Is that even worth it?

Mondrian
Beautiful Beautiful Beautiful.
Peaceful.

5 comments:

  1. i just had a week off school but i know exactly how you feel. it gets so tiring when most of your week is spent in such a demanding environment. i hope you'll be alright and there are things to help you get by, like good books and good music. it really helps to give yourself some me-time, whether that's taking a long bath or a nice walk. :-)
    x

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  2. it's good to know that I'm not the only one who feels the same way about school!

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  3. i feel exactly the same way. Only thing is, my grades are getting worse, although i always was a really good student. school drives me mad. sometimes i feel so disgusted, so tired of all the people around me that i want to throw up. i want to run away, from all the pressure. i don't want to be what they expect, what they teach us anymore. you put it in words perfectly. <3

    birdiewearsatie.blogspot.com

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  4. i thought life would get better in uni, after having worked my ass off all through my senior year of high school, but it didn't :( when i have some spare time i can get angry about the flaws in our society and our education system, but RIGHT NOW I HAVE TO STUDY FOR MY EXAM ON MONDAY

    in the words of my hero george carlin,

    “Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the résumé of a Supreme Being. This is the kind of shit you'd expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me, in any decently-run universe, this guy would've been out on his all-powerful ass a long time ago. And by the way, I say "this guy", because I firmly believe, looking at these results, that if there is a God, it has to be a man.
    No woman could or would ever fuck things up like this. So, if there is a God, I think most reasonable people might agree that he's at least incompetent, and maybe, just maybe, doesn't give a shit. Doesn't give a shit, which I admire in a person, and which would explain a lot of these bad results.”

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  5. oh, sorry for the totally irrelevant quote. i just really like george carlin, raging atheist though he may be.

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thanks for commenting! ☀