I look at the calendar... it's already May. I almost forget that I had birthday exactly a couple of weeks and a day ago. Kind of a sad one. I spent the whole morning sleeping past twelve, and had lunch with only tic-tacs. At least I went out in the evening to get some ice cream with my pal Eka, and I got a Deadpool keychain, which was a pretty nice surprise.
I did two blog posts before, so why do I mention my birthday in this particular one?
Well, I want to talk a little bit about timing.
When I looked at the calendar, I didn't think about my birthday at the first glance. I think about how the long weekend already passed. Today is the 8th day of May. A Sunday. It means tomorrow is already Monday, and there are a lot of responsibilities waiting for me. But it doesn't feel like it's going to be Monday tomorrow because my classes finished in April. So what I'm doing now is just waiting for exam dates, which are on the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 19th (odd one out there). THEN, I could go home for a three-months holiday.
Plus, I had long weekend from the 5th of May, and did nothing more than going out for a day with Tisa to watch the infamous Captain America : Civil War. I was basically a human trash in the last four days. Brain is numbing, muscles are weakening, and my will is shattered. Exaggeration? Maybe. But the point is, I just wasted four perfectly good days off, and suddenly I feel like it's already the holiday period.
I'm wrong in that aspect. I still have four exams waiting, one postponed exam (because my body decided to break down), and a few research / experiment-based tasks. That's the fact, but I don't feel like that's the fact. Mindset is dangerous when you don't set it right.
That's one example. The second one would be how I don't feel like I'm already 21. I should be a fully-functioning adult by now, but I still feel like a high-school kid. Hell, I think high-school kids now are more mature than I am. I think high-school me was even more mature than I am right now. I feel like I've been wasting perfectly good 21 years.
...Well, maybe just two or three years. The third one would be how it hasn't gotten into me that I should be starting on my skripsi right after this three-months holiday I mentioned. That means I have three months to sort myself out before I'm actually going adulting.
For the past two years or so, what I've been doing is basically only going along with the flow. In my university, each semester you have compulsory classes, and you get to choose optional classes that suits your intended research topic as long as it doesn't exceed the limit. As you get into higher level, you have less compulsory classes and more optional classes. So now I have reach the top level, in which I only have two compulsory classes to take, and the rest? Optional classes to support my favored research topic, in other words, my skripsi.
How do I choose which classes to take if I don't even know what research topic I'm going for?
My real problem actually lies in how my mind still can't comprehend that I don't have much more time. Every start of the semester I promise myself that I would do better in classes than I did last semester, but as far as I know, my grades have been going downhill. Like, rollercoaster downhill.
My grades are going downhill because my awareness of time is terrible. Every semester goes in a flash, and it's already the end as I just happen to contemplate, what just happened? I have no track of the present, and it happens rather unconsciously. Sometimes I postpone the study of a chapter for probably just a day, and when tomorrow comes, I'm given more tasks that require more urgency and boom it's already exam day.
I hate when that happens, but that happens more times than I can count, so in the end I would only end up hating myself, and adopt 'regret' as my middle name.
If there's a word to describe my situation, it probably would be absent-mindedness. I don't comprehend how much time I have on my hand. I don't comprehend how much tasks I have. I don't keep tracks.
I know about my responsibilities, but at the same time, I don't know my responsibilities.
Most of the time I experience myself through the eye of a third person. I would go, "okay, you need to do this" but when the time comes to do the thing, my mind would leave my body, thinking about something else less urgent, less important, anything but the thing I should be working on. I heard the correct term is procrastination, but I figure when you procrastinate, you are fully aware that you have tasks in mind. I don't.
I feel like, when the time to do something has come, someone else (I figure, the responsible side of me) would take over and everything will be fine. But it never happened. No one is coming to help, not if you don't ask them. But how could you ask for help when you don't even realize that there's something you need help with?
I'm only keeping tracks of my schedule, but not on the things in the schedule I have to actually do. For example, maybe I have to do a meeting in two days, but in the meantime I don't do any preparation for the meeting at all. I just know that I have meeting, but I don't even know what the meeting will be about.
Then it struck me deep. I only enjoy marking my calendar, because it means I would have something to do. I'm living a life bored, waiting for the day something would happen... and I wouldn't be bored anymore. I don't have the inside drive to do anything based on my passion, my decision alone, so I get excited when there are actual plans made for me.
I have tried deciding plans on my own, but they're mostly as shallow as getting something to eat, shopping some books, watching movies, well, those stuff. I can't think of bringing myself to do anything remotely exciting or life-changing or soul-searching or skill-gaining. Just... mundane, ordinary recreational activities that don't include thinking or gaining self-satisfaction.
Last year, after my three-months holiday period, my semester went... terrible. I failed a compulsory class that I have to take next semester. I never failed a class before. This was the class that at first I thought I would like, but apparently it's in dire need of fundamental materials that had been taught in a class held a semester beforehand. A class which I hadn't pay much attention. A class which I wish I had paid more attention into.
It's like a chain reaction going on sometimes. I had to study for a class, but then it has a part that had been taught in a class some semester before, but I forget, and then I got stuck, and end up with nothing. Then I regret why I didn't study for that material in the last semester better, and then I feel the need to study so I don't regret the next semester but I can't study it fully because I forget some crucial parts in which I need to learn before I can move on. And it goes on and on in a devil's circle.
I feel like I'm only making excuses for myself, because admitting myself into inferiority is easier than changing for superiority. I may have that complex.
All excuses aside, I have cognitive recognition of my problems, but as I said, admitting my inferiority as an excuse over things I did wrong is easier than actually solving the problem. It's like I'm going through a "list of all things wrong with me" but not aiming to cross some things off the list.
Long story short, I know my problem lies in my absent-mindedness over timing and responsibilities, but I can't bring myself to actually solve the problem... so far. This kind of explains why I'm slightly... afraid of this year's three-months holiday period. I worry that this long holiday will sort of increasing the absent-mindedness due to the long period of 'unused brain'. I always tell myself that I would study some materials in the holiday period, but it never happened.
This year, I'm trying to avoid the mistakes I kept making years after years before. I wouldn't promise myself to study in the holiday, per se, but I will try to sort myself out of my problems instead of just recognizing it. I'm going to need some support... and maybe a little luck.
Maybe you can help, by suggesting some actual thing I can do on holiday? Something that would keep my mind from being in limbo...
Wish me luck!
Bandung, 8 Mei 2016
Taruna In Limbo
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