(Not So) Teenage Calculators

Hey guys, it's me again. I hope the weekend has treated you well.

Today has been an interesting day...or semi-interesting, depending on how you look at it. I spent the night at my friends' apartment...but let's be real, when do I not?

Anyway, we woke up, cleaned house, made waffles, and went downtown for the day. It was fun, but pretty soon we had to come back to jump back into homework (which is, according to popular belief not as fun as everyone wants it to be). Homework seems to take over a lot of everything these days, even on the second weekend in school.

But we powered through, and when I say "powered through", I mean, we were barely hanging on by the end of it. So after some sushi and shenanigans, the evening is coming to a close with a bit of dancing and a lot of letting go of stress that's been building up inside.

As I've grown older, I've come to find that weekends aren't always the reset button on stress. In fact, the weekend sometimes feels even more stressful-the next week's to-do list starts to settle into your brain, fluffing the pillows and settling down for a stay. Last week's mistakes and unfinished projects still linger, and on top of it all, there's always the desire to let it all go and do something that doesn't require as much brainpower. It's like there's no real break.

And for me, it can be even worse than that sometimes. I get so anxious about perfecting every detail, about making everything right-in my life and on the paper-that I become useless. Useless because, while I'm supposed to be focusing on the electric field between two charges, I'm focusing on what topics I should cover in my tutoring session, what I need to buy at the store for food the upcoming week, what I'm going to do if I end up alone, living with twenty three cats in a few years. And then the charges start jumbling across the page and I'm left wondering if I'm even meant to be an engineer at all.

Thus the life of a college student, or this college student at least. Plus too much junk food (I'm trying to be good, guys).

College has left me wondering what makes for an interesting life...what do people do to balance work and school and living? It can be impossible...but I'm taking it one day at a time. I'm almost past the teenage years, and I feel that sense of fun and freedom slipping away. It feels like there are fewer and fewer nights left staying out til 2 AM, watching movies all night, eating popcorn and cookie dough and whatever else we're craving.

I don't want that time to disappear, but it's becoming harder and harder to fit those nights into a schedule. But again, it's a one day at a time kind of thing.

I love you guys, and while I've been super stressed, I have been trying to get on and post. So I'll try as long as I can, you teenage calculators. Stay numerically accurate.