On School

The exact point at which Sunday night became Monday morning is unclear. Bleary eyed and slightly nauseous I peel my face from my desk, feeling every inch of the imprint my spiral notebook has left on my cheek. My computer screen blares at me unapologetically, taunting me with several pages of consonants which I have unwittingly appended to my thesis while sleeping.
There is always a hint of panic when I wake up like this. I am usually working so close to my deadlines that there is little time for such human weaknesses as sleeping and eating. In this case, it’s not so bad. There is now exactly one week for me to complete my thesis – something I have had all year to do, but which I have hardly begun.

I rise from my desk, joints complaining loudly, and begin to clear the empty beer bottles and coffee mugs from around my keyboard. Writing has always been like trench warfare for me, a slow and painful war of attrition in which I am willing to use any means at my disposal in order to get the job done.

This is my last week of school. The last week in a rhythm that has been with me for almost my entire life. Somehow, at the end of this year, my life will be changing from the beat of the school year to that of the fiscal year. The magnitude of the event is hardly lost on me, nor do I think that it is lost on anyone that I know. We are all a little scared, and all in some degree or another of denial.

One week can seem like a long time. Or, as in this case, it can feel like the already meagre yet rapidly diminishing line between you and the unknown. I get very anxious when I think about it, and lately I have thought about it a lot.

University is a bizarre reality. It has been the first time in my life that I felt able to control the course of my life, to create for myself the kind of environment in which I will be comfortable and happy. And yet even as I have created this life for myself, it has been with the knowledge, however faint, that there is a time limit involved. An arbitrary, yet very definite time limit. Perched on the brink of this limit I fear it almost as I believe I would fear death. Change is coming, but it is not welcome.

This week I must say my goodbyes. This week I must finish the last of my school work; a monumental thesis project that by this time I am beginning to feel was a poor idea. This week I must live like there is no tomorrow. This week, I must win over Zoe.