Thank God for this blog

I don't know if I can do this. I'm almost done with school (only 7ish more months), and yet this semester is the most class-intensive, stress-laden, HELL RIDDEN stretch of time I've ever endured. I'm not even 4 weeks into school yet. I'm honest to God petrified that I'm not going to make it to the end of the semester. I keep trying to tell myself that next semester's going to be ridiculously easier (because it is; only 3 real classes, no team leading, no grading, maybe just some working to make money) but that doesn't help me now! I'm so busy and time is going so much slower and I can't complain to anyone because that's fucking whining!

I have all these emotions bottled up inside me and I have to go around acting like everything is okay and that I'm enjoying myself. Most of the time I am, but there are times when I stop thinking (or my brain forcefully zones out) and I get all melancholic again. And I'm supposed to apply for grad schools now. My future is depending on this time right now and I barely have time for extra projects, I'm fucking barely getting by on my regular assignments. And now swimming is starting and my free time to do work just got halved. There's not even anything that I can really give up; all of my academic classes I either really like or need to take in order to graduate. The only thing that I could drop is my kung fu class, and the requirement for that class is Th, 7-9 PM, which I can usually do. I want to cry, I'm getting emotional, and I HATE IT. Couple this with some loneliness (which I'm sure you're tired of hearing about) and a recent obsession with Avenged Sevenfold, and you've got a maelstrom trapped inside human skin, i.e. me.

I'm tired. Already tired. Tired of working so much towards a goal I'm not even sure I wanted in the first place, let alone want now. I don't give a fuck for advancing science, I just want to help people and I'm not even sure that a job in academia is the way to go. I'm scared, man, scared shitless and I don't know how to fix it. I don't even know who I can talk to, because I feel like, as an adult, I can't go to my mom anymore, sit on her lap, cry (which I am finally doing now, thank God) and ask her what I should do. I'm so uncertain what to do right now, AND THERE'S NOTHING THAT I FEEL I CAN DO ABOUT IT. I don't have time to sit back and reevaluate my position on life and where I want to go. I DON'T FUCKING KNOW. How can I decide my future now? And what if I fuck up? I mean, life is short, and we only live once, then we're dead. What if I fuck up? What if I do something wrong and my life is one big shitshow? Well, this is retarded, I could go on with "what if's" forever and get nowhere productive.

So, I think I'm going through my midlife crisis. I have to chart my life now, apparently, so I'm putting pressure on myself to choose correctly now. On top of what I'm already going through, the pressures of my coaches to have me perform well and work hard, the pressures some of my professors put on me unintentionally, the pressures of being in a leadership position in a year-long team project for credit, the pressures I put on myself to perform academically, it might be too much. Ooh, plus a little side dish of body-image insecurity to wrap it all up into one nice little gift-wrapped package.

Long story short, I'm a bit of a mess right now, but writing in this blog (and finally getting myself to cry a bit and get some of the emotion out) has helped a ridiculous amount. I know what I'm going to do. I will research Ph.D. programs and find which, if any, seem interesting to me. Do they have the potential to save lives? Am I making the world a better place? These are the questions I want to be able to ask myself and say, with resounding authority, yes on both accounts. I can do this, I know I can. Thank-you, nonexistent readers. I am more at peace. Whoever said that holding in your tears is good was fucking RETARDED.