Setbacks by Jenny B. '25

I’ve gotten a little better at planning. I use a Notion now like all the cool kids, and it’s great because I get to customize my planner the way it fits me best. This is one of the pages I’ve made for myself:

notice how I left last week’s assignments here so you’ll look at this and think, “wow Jebby’s so productive”

Anyway, I’m not going to do a full tour of my Notion because I’m not writing this post to show off how productive I am right now. I haven’t even done any work today.

Today was supposed to be Ultra Productive Study Session Day. Every two weeks, I make a pilgrimage to Lamont Library in Harvard and camp there for hours. It’s far enough from my dorm that I don’t feel the magnetic attraction of my own bed. It’s quieter than Hayden but not as deathly-quiet as Barker, and my favorite libraries at MIT are closed on the weekends anyway.

I’ll tell you what I did instead. I woke up, immediately knew that my body was not having it today, lied back down in bed and slept until 3 PM. Had a bizarre dream where I found out that Season 3 of The Bear was going to take place in the middle of Siberia. I woke up, tried to study, but ended up lying down again. Couldn’t go to sleep. I watched Hermitcraft videos for two hours. Now I’m here.

To officially celebrate my entrance into early adulthood, my body recently obtained this cool adult feature called “Migraines.” At least, I think they’re migraines. Whatever they are, they’re different from normal headaches. They make me feel all discombobulated and yucky, as if the fluctuating brain-throbbing sensations don’t make me want to explode enough. Something with hormones, I think. If you know what I’m talking about, you know.

Migraines stink. No matter how much Ultra Productive Study Sessioning I was gearing myself up to do today, I just couldn’t do it.

I’m pretty bummed out about that too, not gonna lie. I was hyped to get ahead in my assignments because this upcoming week is so packed, but no amount of planning is immune to the inevitable forces of nature and the unfortunate effects it can produce.

I’m going to make a compromise with myself. It’s too late to cram everything I wanted to do today in the next few hours, neither is that something my head can handle right now. I’m going to sleep at a reasonable time tonight (which I didn’t do last night… probably another reason why my brain is angry). This means that I’ll have to spend more time in the next several days, yes. But I’d rather cut my losses now and let my body rest, rather than stumbling through my priorities and prolonging the situation. I Am Adulting!