Sick of It All

If you’re fine, you can wait
Don’t mention that you’re sick of this place
Say you’re not sold, you’re sick of it all
Say you’re not sold, you’re sick of it all
Just as long as it takes
What’s the upside of this place?
-Pete Yorn, "Carlos (Don't Let It Go To Your Head)"

This is a rant from a tired, burned out man. I can understand if you'd want to skip this post. You've been warned.

I am so sick of school. I'm tired of everything: the projects, the classes, the constant, unrelenting work. The lack of money. The lack of free time. (I haven't read a work of fiction in a year and a half.) The constant feeling that you are falling behind and need to be working on something. It's wearing me down and making me irritable and angry.

I feel like I don't have the time to do anything as well as I'd like, thus everything I'm doing sorta sucks. Everything is suffering. And I don't have the adrenaline (or, frankly, the desire) that I had last fall to just stay up until 2 a.m. every night to make it all come out all right. I am just creatively drained. Although I'm still learning a lot, the projects are all starting to just feel like impediments to my graduating, rather than being enjoying unto themselves.

Adding to my agony is the knowledge that I don't want to feel this way. I want to enjoy and appreciate school. I'm paying through the nose for it, after all. And I chose to do this. No one has to go to graduate school. And many would kill to be here, doing what I'm doing and learning what I'm learning. It's just exhausting and right now, I can't wait until it's over. I so envy the HCI students with their one-year program, and the classmates who've already graduated.

I'm hoping this is just some end-of-the-semester funk, because I've still got six months left of school to make it through. I am so over it.

Originally posted on Monday, November 22, 2004