school break thoughts by Victor D. '27
I wake up with a jolt.
In middle school, I used to have a recurring nightmare where I’d feel completely conscious, going about a perfectly average day at school only to realize I forgot to do a major assignment. I’d wake up tired and disoriented, briefly unable to discern dreams from reality, my heart racing out of my chest, my throat clenched.
I don’t really remember my dreams while at MIT. Maybe because I already have so much to worry about, so my mind garbage collects them before the memory can even go to temporary storage. But the feeling is often similar to waking up after those nightmares: racing heart, shut throat, sweaty body and hands, with no direct cause to point to.
Well, except there are many causes I can think of, namely that constant stress of school, of MIT, that looming angst that keeps you on edge. Even as much as I enjoy my classes and my activities and my living community I equally wish I could wake up on a Saturday without an impending assignment deadline antagonizing me.
To be able to sit and read a book or watch a movie or play a videogame or rot and do nothing without the Opportunity Cost Demon on your shoulder whispering into your ear: “You have a PSET, essay, and report coming up; your quality of work and grades will suffer if you don’t drop whatever you’re doing right now to make progress on your assignments.” It’s a guilty conscience, and I feel that is largely what distinguishes my anxiety at school from that of the past.
I don’t fear not finishing my work—I fear everything but finishing.
Because Juneteenth is a city holiday in San Francisco, I had the day off, and waking up felt wonderfully surreal. Initially, I felt anxious, as if I were missing something important that I must start work on yesterday. But why do I feel so anxious? It’s my day off. Do I not deserve to allow myself rest? To feel content and not as if I’m falling behind? I then experienced relief, so much peace. Feeling refreshed, not groggy. Thinking and realizing I genuinely have nothing to do other than what I want to or need to take care of myself. I can get with my friends and watch Mean Girls, Pitch Perfect, and Pitch Perfect 2 back-to-back because I want to.
I didn’t fully finish my work project on Friday, but that’s for work. Whereas at school, I still haven’t figured out that boundary between school time and my time. Work time is omnipresent during the semester at MIT. The difference between work and school? My internship has a built-in boundary between work time and my time. The Opportunity Cost Demon slumbers when I’m at home because unfinished work can wait until work time.
I’m elated to sit with my book and read, to scroll my phone, to write this without a direct external compulsion. I don’t feel guilty or that I’m losing out on something. Time doesn’t feel like a resource or a function to be optimized like during school. For now, I pick up whatever is closest to me or what I want to do, but I think I should start thinking about some long-term goals or projects I can achieve this summer.
At the very least, breaks are a great time to rediscover activities I used to enjoy that I lost in the mayhem of MIT. Normally, I enjoy relentlessly photographing cityscapes, landscapes, foliage, and animals. But I look back at my camera roll during the semester, and it is so barren. Not because there was nothing worth photographing, but because I rarely had the mental space to stop and notice and smell the flowers. But I’ve been enjoying the scenery and buildings here, and I hope you can too from the gallery :).
Hope you have a restful summer break.