I need a break, I need the summer back. Only the summer wasn't doing me any good either because I was at that stupid job that I hated. What I need is motivation, or enthusiasm, or maybe just a clear idea as to what the heck I'm doing. I feel like I'm lost ALL THE TIME. I go from day to day, I get things done but I rarely actually put any effort into them. It's a good thing I'm smart and I'm in a course that generally comes pretty easily to me because if I were struggling with it at all I'd have flunked out by now. My dad thinks what I need is a challenge but a challenge would probably undo me. At the same time, not being challenged or stimulated by anything is driving me crazy. I have no focus. I have nothing to work for. Working towards my degree feels hollow. I've been headed for a degree since the day I was born. Probably before that, even. A degree is honestly nothing special to me. It's not going to make me feel accomplished. It's just something you do, like getting the oil checked in your car or doing your laundry or showering every day. It feels so mechanic, and I can only engage half the time. The other half, I'm lost, because I don't know what I want or who I am or who I'm going to become. I don't have a set path to follow. At least in high school, I focused on getting into university. In high school, everybody was pretty much on the same track and it was easy to just go with the flow. But now that that goal has been achieved and I'm actually IN university it feels like such a hollow victory. I thought things would be so much better in uni but I've come to realized it's just more of the same, working your butt off and stressing over something that's not going to lead anywhere. In my case, this is basically leading towards another degree. It's a degree I actually want. These stepping-stone degrees feel so pointless because all you need is the diploma so you can get where you're ACTUALLY going. And there's no getting there without it. Right now, I'm just ... unfulfilled.

My dad thinks I love to think. It's a funny concept I guess, but to him I've always been such an academic. School almost always came incredibly easy to me. I'm very accomplished in that sense, I suppose. I am at an elite university and the people I know -- my friends, my family -- toss its name around all the time. It drives me insane, because they seem to think that this is some kind of big deal, but I just can't feel it. It's just something that happens, it's just a place I've stopped and don't particularly care to be. I don't tell anyone where I go to school unless they ask. I just have to be here. I just have to get this degree. I happen to have gotten into this university but I did not put any extra effort into it. To me, it's a fluke, a complete accident, nothing to be particularly proud of. I don't feel like I worked to get where I am, I don't feel like I deserve to be where I am because I didn't struggle or consciously try to do it. Somehow I just ended up here. I am only engaged in what I'm doing a fraction of the time, but mostly I'm just waiting. Waiting, working, waiting some more. It's so frustrating. I'm trying to engage, I really really am. I'm trying to find ways to feel fulfilled outside of school. I've signed up to volunteer at a nearby nursing home because I love to be around elderly people and helping out makes me feel good. But it's just going to be more waiting. Waiting around until I can do what I want to, be who I want to, be who I can't be until I'm done waiting. I have two more years of this.

I do actually enjoy thinking, just not in the way that people who see me as a brainiac or an academic think I do. I like to consider things. I like to think about people. I like to observe and I like to record. I like to think about things in a sort of rambling way. I get fixated on something for a while. Last week, it was women during the Holocaust. I spent all afternoon at the library reading about it one day. I was supposed to be translating a news article from French to English that had nothing to do with that subject. It has nothing to do with my studies and I am behind because I waste my time thinking about and learning about things that don't even apply to my course. I am good at what I'm doing and I do enjoy it ... when I get around to thinking about it. But I'm a thoughtful person in the sense that my mind is ALWAYS GOING and I can't focus on anything too long before I'm off exploring something else.

What I can do is write. I'm good at it. I write stories. I can focus on stories, because I usually have at least two going at the same time, two simultaneous and usually unrelated trains of thought. I get preoccupied with them, but in a good way, in a productive way. I can sit and write for hours. I've won awards from pure preoccupation. I want to get my Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing. But I need this stupid undergraduate degree first, the degree I only need to get where I'm going. There's no changing course now, I'm locked into my major. I don't even hate my major. I'm taking French literature right now. I like my classes. While I'm in the classroom they're interesting and engaging. The minute I step outside, my mind is elsewhere, and I just can't conjure up any kind of passion for this. I don't have a single-track mind. I love to learn, I love to think, I just can't seem to be productive about it.