Kiana

Crossing the bridge between sleeping and waking has become harder. I doze off at the wrong hour, sometimes in the wrong places. I forget what it was like to have a restful sleep, and uniform breathing that leaves you refreshed and calm in the morning.

I’m always tired and upset; tired of everyone, upset about everything. Finals are underway and three professors have assigned us performance pieces as a substitute for the written final exams. This situation is stressful for me because I loathe group work, especially when those in the group are passive-aggressive, careless jerks. There was an instance last week when I tried to lead them into coming up with a decision—a decision that’s better based on group thinking than on a single mind—and to my dismay no one even bothered to answer. Pure silence via a “seen by everyone” Messenger status.

This is when I don’t find introversion a redeeming quality. University work and all the hours required for me to “show up, stand up, speak out” are draining the life out of me, conspicuously. When I get home and immediately sleep without even taking my school uniform off, then that’s it, I’m tired to the bone.

I wonder why the majority of the people I’ve been groupmates with in recent projects are docile and dormant. I think age difference might be a culprit, since my age is that of the usual college graduate. I would have been a senior now had I not dropped out and delayed a year of schooling. At present, I’m carrying sophomore status, even though I’ve taken almost all of the required sophomore courses (university rules are mad confusing), which is also how I happened to be stuck with 16, 17-ish young people at present. So then, maybe age difference is a contributing factor to their passive-aggressiveness (which is so sophomore me, two years ago) and that my being so stressed and un-chill about school projects and group work is because of my being a “senior at soul and heart.” Aren’t the younguns supposed to be full of vitality, while the oldie senior students are devoid of life and even robot-like? If this is the case, then I can’t wait to see what I look and feel like when I become a legit senior. ♦