I’m supposed to be studying for my final finals today but I’m not. I’m on Tumblr ranting. Why?
Because last night I couldn’t get to sleep until 4 and then I had to wake up at 8:30 to let my dogs out which meant I couldn’t go back to sleep because I was already awake so I’ve been up for over 24 hours with less than 4 hours of sleep and expected to ace all of my finals.
I saw this on Pinterest and I just had to link it here because it is so true:
WHY IS THIS NORMALIZED NOW???
Here’s the thing: I understand that I need a job. I understand that I need to work to make money. I understand that I need to be successful to be successful. I understand that I need a degree to make myself look better to potential employers. I understand that I need good grades just to get the fucking degree.
I UNDERSTAND ALL OF THAT, AND I AM TRYING MY BEST.
But what I DON’T understand is why it’s expected like I’m supposed to not only do all of this, and do all of it well, but do it without having a mental breakdown.
I get so pissed off when older folks say “When I was your age I blah blah blah”. Well, guess what!?!? THIS ISN’T THE 1900′S ANYMORE!! Modern college kids have MORE stress than the average INSTITUTIONALIZED MENTAL ASYLUM PATIENT in the 1900′s, and yet we’re supposed to just go on with our lives and handle everything like it’s nothing.
We have to have a full-time job in order to support ourselves (barely, by the way, cause minimum wage doesn’t cover shit) and work on our grades so that means we’re balancing having a full-time job and all of those responsibilities and being a full-time student and the 10+ hours of homework we have for every fucking class and you expect us to be okay??
Here’s the thing: this is not coming from someone who considers herself to be a snowflake. I’m not easily offended. I’m not easily phased. I’m not easily stressed out.
But when the literal layers of the keratin of my fingernails are splitting apart and falling off because of the amount of stress-levels in my body, I would think that people would realize that there’s something wrong here, because that is not normal.
I’m not supposed to be so stressed about this that I’m up for 24+ hours stressing out. I’m not supposed to be losing my fingernails because the stress hormones are causing my body to fail. I’m not supposed to be so stressed that I can’t even eat a fucking protein shake because I become physically ill.
And what really pisses me off is the older generations don’t seem to understand that. They say “Times change” but they don’t understand how much. 25+ years ago, you could live on campus and have a full-time job and still be a straight-A student and still have time to hang out with your friends on the weekends. 25+ years ago that was normal because A) your everything cost significantly less, and B) your teachers actually bothered to teach you.
Now we have the fucking Common Core which is so stupid morons can’t understand it, and we have minimum wage jobs that are taxed like nothing else so we can barely live paycheck-to-paycheck and rent is fucking expensive and food- well there’s a reason that the stereotypical college student lives on McDonald’s and Top Ramen. It’s all we can afford!
Again, I’m not saying this as someone who’s trying to get the easy way out or to get free handouts. I’m not.
I’m saying this as someone who’s frustrated and honestly upset at how hypocritical and two-faced this society is.
Just, please. If your student says they can’t come in the next day because they have to cover an extra shift, don’t dock them points. If your employee asks for a day or even a week off because they have tests and finals to study for, give it to them. Stop asking us to be Supermen, and just start treating us like we’re human. There’s only so much we can take, and worrying about keeping our job while keeping our grades high enough to graduate is stressful enough. We don’t need bosses and teachers making it impossible for us to ask them for time off so we don’t fail at either.
