oh, the crash by Cami M. '23

As evident from my last blogpost, I’m doing a lot and it’s taken a toll on me. So much so, in fact, that I’ve finally crashed.

So I have COVID, but there is some sick part of me that is relieved that I have gotten it since it gives me an excuse to not go to any of my responsibilities and just sit for a couple of days.

This week has exploded in my face. My sorority is bringing me tons of stress, I had an awful concert experience this past Thursday where I got yelled at so badly I had a panic attack, my finances are struggling, and I am just the definition of the hottest fucking mess in existence right now.

I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting and the first place my mind went to, genuinely, was: Do I deserve this? Is this some kind of karmatic punishment for something I did?

So yeah I guess my mental isn’t currently in the best place right now, seeing as my immediate reaction to getting sick was thinking that this was some god punishing me for being a bad person.

Anyway, in these past 5 days of quarantine, I’ve been finding ways to feel like myself again. I seem to always find myself here: I crash, i burn, I put myself back together. And the cycle repeats.

I’d like to say that this is probably the longest streak I’ve gone on of not bursting and breaking down. (See breakdowns from fall 2020 and spring 2021). But the summer and fall that came after were good.

So now I’m back here, learning how to not be burnt out again. And here’s how my past couple of days of quarantine have been.

Friday

Friday was the first day that the COVID really hit. Full body aches, shakes, shivers, nausea, headaches, sore throat, congestion, coughs. I just felt like weak and tired all day with a pounding headache. I introduced Raymond to Pokémon games, which he has never played before, and per my recommendation, he started off playing Pokémon Emerald. I also continued reading People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry in an effort to get back into reading.

The entire day was just spent lounging, joking around about our COVID symptoms and weak, shitty bodies.

Saturday

Saturday we took COVID rapid tests and tested positive for COVID, so now that we had an official test saying ‘hey…you’re infected’ we duly reported our symptoms to MIT Medical, along with our positive tests, and officially began our 5 day quarantine. We spent the day watching Euphoria, NorthernLion, playing Pokémon, eating very unhealthy food we ordered from UberEats, and more. I spent the night coding for my 6.S063 class⁠01 Intro Web Dev making a CSS demo which is real neat in Javascript, HTML, and CSS.

Sunday

I spent the day reading comics, specifically J. Michael Straczynki’s The Amazing Spider-Man comics from 2001 onwards. I tried do a little bit of research of where to start delving into my comics journey and ultimately narrowed it (haha, get it, ultimately) to JMS’s Amazing Spider-Man run or Bendis’s Ultimate Spider Man. A lot of people recommended I start with Ultimate, but me always needing to go against people’s suggestions, ended up starting at Issue #30 of TASM. So far, I’ve really liked it. I can tell that these are dated though, especially with a lot of the humor involved. Some of them are like weird…man jokes about women and it’s kind of annoying cause who the fuck is finding these jokes funny?

But yeah! I started reading comics because it’s my job! Well, kind of. I’m part of a UROP⁠02 Undergraduate research opportunity where we are supposed to be skimming through the Marvel comics to find mentions of MIT in them.

Aside from all that though, I really really like reading the comics.

Raymond then played Pokémon Emerald for the rest of the day, beating the Elite 4 and Champion with his incredibly over-leveled Rayquaza. And then I suggested he installed Pokémon Platinum.

Monday

Raymond started his Pokémon Platinum run, choosing the best starter of that region (Chimchar) while I spent the day sending out emails to professors saying I won’t be able to make it to their class.

I then took some notes for 18.03⁠03 Differential equations and backseated Raymond.

Tuesday

I spent today doing more 18.03 work, going to lectures remotely, and doing some readings for CMS.614.⁠04 Network Cultures There’s part of me that hates that I’m doing work again, because that lounging period from Friday to Sunday was so so nice, but at the same time, my body feels prepared to handle all of this shit again. There’s been a lot on my plate as of late. There’s been a lot of shit happening re: leadership with my sorority that unfortunately I’m not allowed to air out on the blogs and it’s been really fucking with me. Student Events Board is a lot re: planning SpringFest, our big annual concert. Classes are as tiring as ever. And on top of that I’ve been on the job hunt for fall co-ops. So…it’s a lot.

But I think in some way it was a good thing that I got COVID (I say this as a health 20 year old who knew her body could handle it, I am not, like, recommending people get COVID lmfao before anyone fucking twists my words you weirdos) because it allowed me to actually just sit. I think it’s a bit sad that it took me getting a whole fucking virus to finally take care of myself and that I was relieved to get COVID because it meant I could catch a break. Which honestly probably says a lot about MIT more than it does me.

But I am happy to be working on myself again and not drowning in my extracurriculars.