Torch Confessions: “Mid-semester blues”

The semester is already halfway done and I can’t believe how fast time is going. The days are getting longer and the time is counting down to graduation.

Why then does it feel like impending doom is barreling down on me? It could be that I haven’t found a job yet, and that I chose to take 18 credits again this semester while trying to make my exit out of this place.

This last week, I took advantage of the warmish weather and sunlight to exercise and do something to break the cabin fever after another winter.

My classes have become everything I thought they would be at the beginning of the semester when I tried to get a head start on all of my work: laborious, tedious and in some cases, downright boring.

These feelings are probably in part because of senioritis setting in. I also feel the pressure of submitting my CV and cover letter to jobs in the technical writing and communications field, mostly because many others want to work in this field as well.

I’m also studying journalism as part of my degree in journalism and technical communication, but the field stresses me out even more because journalists are paid less than what I made in manufacturing without a degree.

I can see why Karl Marx, a journalist and foreign correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune, wrote the books he did and railed against capitalists and capitalism.

I’ve also thought about the possibility that I might not graduate, and that’s the most terrifying thought to me. The thought that I could have to come back and finish one class that was the thorn in my side during my senior year.

Busting loose out of this university and back into the professional world is my first and only goal for these first months of 2017.

So, as I trudge through these mid-semester blues, I think about the futility of trying to manage my life in any meaningful way.

I’m broke and I refuse to use any more credit, meeting social needs is difficult during this time and exercise is something I’ve forced into my schedule.

When I walk in May, then the blues can begin to lift and I can get on with my life.