Stress and Relief

I won't be blogging about my new/current internship in this post, so if that's all you came for ya better find another way to procrastinate.

This marks the seventh week of my junior year at USC and I am losing my mind. I always seem to think I can handle things well (because I usually can) and therefore I always seem to pack my schedule to the brim. And then when I can't handle it, I get so frustrated at myself. In the spring I overloaded my schedule and I had to drop a class. Although I blame a lot of that on both my professor and my TA, it was really rough on me. I TOLD myself that I wouldn't do an internship in the fall because I wanted to focus on my schoolwork and yet here I am, writing this blog at my internship. I'm taking five classes that totals about 17 hours a week, working 10 hours a week, and interning 16 hours a week. I have almost no free time during the weekdays and it seems like all of my professors want to suffocate me with papers. My October is ridiculous. Here's a glimpse:
9/27 - Philosophy paper #1
10/1 - Scholarship essay
10/3 - Argumentation speech
10/7 - Film paper, Comedy paper
10/14 - Mythology paper
10/21 - Argumentation midterm
10/23 - Film midterm
10/25 - Philosophy paper #2

I know I'm probably not the only one who is having a crazy month of midterm stuff, but it's really hard to balance everything considering I don't finish on Mondays and Wednesdays until 10 and then I intern all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And because I have such busy workweeks all I want to do on the weekends is sleep and go out with my friends.
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I was extremely stressed out when I started writing this post and now that things have calmed down, I figured I'd take the time to finish it. Now that there are only four and a half weeks of class left (sidenote: excuse me WHAT?!?!!), I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know finals are going to kill me since I have two on Friday the 13th and three on the following Monday, but I have almost a whole month until my next big assignment is due, so I won't have to worry about things for a few weeks.

It seems, aside from the war-storm that will be my finals week, that my future is looking pretty great. This weekend my friends and I are traveling up to Berkeley for the Weekender (aka when USC plays Cal or Stanford) and then it's Thanksgiving and then the end of my internship and then the end of the semester and then Christmas and then New Years and then I'll be leaving for LONDON.

I am so unbelievably excited to be studying abroad next semester. I have been wanting to go to London for as long as I can remember... honestly probably since I saw the Spice Girls movie around age 5 or 6. What started simply as a longing to don platform shoes and gallivant on a double-decker bus has grown into a burning desire to explore a world I have only drooled over onscreen. I want to face my fears and take a ride on the London Eye - I want to pretend to be a wizard and travel to Platform 9 & 3/4 - I want to take silly pictures with the Queen's Guard - I want to traipse through castles and gardens - I want to ride the tube and pretend to be from Bristol - I want to skip along Abbey Road like a huge tourist - I want to stand by Big Ben and pretend I'm flying to Neverland - I want to wander around neighborhoods and pretend I'm in an episode of Skins - I want to trot along the Millennium Bridge in fear of an attack by death eaters - I want to come home with an impeccable English accent - I want to travel to the Netherlands and discover my culture - I want to meet with long-lost cousins and uncles and family-friends - I want to travel through the Red Light District and really see what freedom is like - I want to take a cliched picture in front of the "I AMsterdam" sign - I want to eat stroopwafels and haagelslag and speculaas - I want to visit the Anne Frank house - I want to wear orange - I want to travel to France and take a picture under the Eiffel Tower - I want to pretend to fall in love in the city of romance - I want to see Versailles and the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe - I want to eat decadent French food in cafes wearing all black. I want to stay in hostels and get lost and find myself and figure out what the hell I want with my life.

I want to get out of here because I need a change.

January 8th feels soooo far away but as the days seemingly fly by I know I'll be boarding the plane before I know it.

I just have to get through this semester first.