Existential Crisis

Franz Kafka is my new best friend. He and I are like this [insert picture of right index and right middle finger crossed]. I understand this man, this literary genius from turn-of-the-century Prague.

I think I am in an existential crisis. Or have a burn-out. Or both. But I just feel like crap, even though my life is pretty great. Let me tell you of some of the reasons why I feel this way.

First of all, I have absolutely NO IDEA who I am, who I've become, how I've become how I am, why I've become how I am, or whether I am like this because I want this or because I've been doing it every single day for the past six years. I used to have such a clear vision of who I was and who I wanted to be and how I was gonna get there. Graduate from high school. Leave Almelo and never come back. Go to University College Utrecht. Go to UCLA. Graduate Cum Laude. I succeeded in all of these goals. Sure, it was hard at times. During the first two weeks at UCU I pretty much called my (now ex-)boyfriend every single day in tears to let him know that I didn't fit in, that it was too hard, that I would never succeed. Although I spent sixty hours a week studying and had no time for a job or any other extracurricular activities besides drinking myself into oblivion every Tuesday night, I made it, did a good job and made some lifelong friends in the process. I became a Chief in the UCSA College Bar. One of my papers was published in Eidos, the UCU Academic Magazine. I felt invincible, unstoppable. I never thought of myself as someone who was smart, but as someone who worked hard, and since I continued working hard, I would get everything that I wanted. Or so I thought.

As graduation was fastly approaching, my father told me that any ambitions I had of studying abroad for a master program would have to be put on hold when it came to his financial contributions. UCLA had cost him too much for him to finance my dream of going to Harvard, Oxford or Cambridge, so that dream was out the window. Fortunately, I was fine with staying in the Netherlands after having spent six months in California, so this was not a major setback. I wanted to stay in Utrecht and study at Utrecht University, so I tried to get into the only master program that I wanted to get into: a prestigious research master in Literary Studies. Although I was sure I had it (I came from UCU after all), my interview didn't go so well and then the earth-shattering news arrived that said it all: I did not get in. My friend suffered the same fate when she applied for a research master in Art History, also at Utrecht University. Another friend of mine, who had heard about the Literary Studies research master from me, and who had applied to the same program, did get in. Reason for not letting me in: I hadn't taken enough Lit. classes. I could understand this because UCU only offers four Lit. classes. However, I had taken an additional four Lit. classes at UCLA, which made a total of eight. Four more Lit. classes than my friend who did get in. I was heartbroken. It became painfully obvious that they had made up an excuse to hide the fact that they just didn't want me. It's pretty much been downhill from there.

Although I did manage to get a great apartment in the neighborhood of Wittevrouwen, it was hard to overcome the illusion. Anna will know what I'm talking about. The illusion of UCU. The illusion where you're groomed for three years into believing that you 're better than anyone else, that you can do and be anything you want to be, only to be turned down by your own university. As I had to watch my fellow graduates going to important places and doing important things, I enrolled in a second bachelor program. I suppose this was a blessing in disguise. I was able to acquire a minor in American Studies and meet three beautiful girls whom I can't imagine my life without right now. But it was not so much fun having to get a job in hospitality with the frat boys and sorority girls of Utrecht whom I'd conveniently ignored while at UCU, or having to work another job in education that I loved but was not appreciated for at all by my employers or by my colleagues, or having to explain to both teachers and classmates why I was doing another bachelor program. I took extra classes and also did an internship in publishing, which almost killed me. It's one thing to study sixty hours a week on campus, but when you have to do the same when you also have a household to run, is quite a different matter. I'd wanted to go to Harvard since high school, but it turned out that even Summer School would be too expensive for someone who does not have a trust fund, to that didn't happen. I then decided to go to New York, but was unable to enroll in a university summer program as a foreign student, so I ended up spending only one month there learning things that I had learned in high school already six years before, and missing Jochem so much that it almost ruined the entire experience for me.

Then there are the CHOICES. They will one day drive me into schizophrenia, I tell you. I couldn't decide between the American Studies master program (which I LOVED because it's one of those alfa/what-are-you-gonna-do-with-it/well-it's-just-for-intellectual-saticfaction-kind of master programs) or the Educational Master (which would be practical since I wanted to teach). I had one year left of financial aid (two if I chose the Educational Master, since there's a shortage of teachers in this country), so I really had to pick just one. I ended up picking the Educational Master, sensible girl that I am. I made myself feel better by trying to get into a couple of American Studies master classes, but I could only enroll in one. I convinced myself that it would still be a challenge because I would sign up for the international track, which was also prestigious. Of course now I don't know whether I want to sign up for the international track because it's really expensive, because it's really hard (you have to take two extra classes), because you have to go abroad for three to four months (and I don't want to leave Jochem again - call me the anti-feminist if you want), because you have absolutely no control over where you get to go (and no offense, but Scandinavia or South Africa are not places where I want to spend any amount of my precious time here on earth), and because it does not seem to add anything substantial to my résumé. Still, when other people, including good friends of mine, talk about doing the international track, I get so jealous that I immediately start to doubt my objections to the program, which I even wrote down on a list (so as not to forget in situations like this). Now, do I really want to do the international track, or is it just my competitive streak (a legacy from UCU) that tells me to do it? I DON'T KNOW!!!

There are other choices as well. The second year of my Educational Master includes one year of work, combined with classes, research and reports that have to be done for the university. Should I enroll in the internship program (which will raise my student debt to about 40,000 euros but will offer me more freedom, less stress, and more structure), or should I enroll in the job program (which will stop me from going into debt even more but will force me to work harder)? Should I try to get a job at an international school and try to get into the international track so that I can still do the program without having to go abroad for three to four months? Should I get a job in Utrecht, or in another city, where all the international schools are (I love international schools, but hate commuting)? I have to know the answers to all these questions by April, when I sign up.

Then travel. Should I join Jochem when he will do his internship abroad, or should he try to find a suitable internship in the Netherlands so that we can keep our apartment? Should I give up the apartment, or should I sublet it? Should I sublet it to a friend, or to a stranger? Should I ask for more money, or not? Or should I get a job after graduation, wait six months for Jochem to graduate, and then leave together? Should we live and work abroad, or should we travel? Should we go to Italy or Spain or farther away? Should we backpack or not? Should we backpack in Asia or in South America? How about shaving and cutting your toenails when you're backpacking? Or should we both get jobs, work for a couple years, and then go abroad? For three months, six months, or a year? How will we finance it? If we want to make such a long trip right after graduation, we will have to save so much in such little time that we probably can't go on vacation at all till then, which is something I just couldn't bear. Should we get a car? How will we get a parking permit in Utrecht? Should we get our pug then, or wait until we're settled? Should we get a pug before, or after we've had kids? How old should the kids be before you have the pug? Should we give up our apartment and store our stuff at my parents' house in Almelo, then go abroad, and figure out what to do when we get back? Do we stay in Almelo, or move back to Utrecht, or to another city? Amersfoort, Den Haag, Groningen, Maastricht, Nijmegen, or somewhere in Brabant? Do we rent or buy? An apartment or a house? What do we do with the cat and the goldfish while we're gone? How do my grand wedding plans fit into all of this? Not that we're engaged or anything, but weddings are expensive, and you can't possibly get married right before or right after a major trip abroad. So when should that happen?

You see what I mean? I live in the whirlwinds of a future that hasn't even happened yet, and I can't snap myself out of it. Meanwhile I have to explain math (MATH! ME!) to elementary school kids and am forced to read really nasty, scary, Hostel-like books for my American Studies class in which eyes are pushed out of people's skulls and people's hearts are cut out and eaten, and my professor pretends that this is the kind of 'literary' stuff that'll give us some insights into multicultural America. Meanwhile, I am afraid in my own house, because I am always home alone because Jochem gets up at 5 AM and doesn't get home until 10 PM every single day for the next two months, and this is only week two. Also, I am surrounded by incompetent German professors during my master program. Not that I have anything against German professors, but they are just so scatter-brained. Unfortunately, and for reasons unknown to me, the German department seems to be in control of this master program, and I just can't understand why the people who are supposed to teach us how to be structured teachers have no structure to speak of. One professor has still not finalized the syllabus, the assignments and the reading list, and hasn't ordered the book either, and it's almost week three. It's infuriating!

And I'm sick. My entire body hurts, although I don't have the flu. I am constantly either ice cold and spending two hours straight in front of an electrical heater, or I am sweating profusely to such an extent that no deodorant could fix it, but I don't have a fever. Yet I wake up once every night covered in cold sweat. My neck, shoulders and back hurt, but not like they usually do - this time it's not the muscle pain from having the wrong posture of from working behind a computer for too long, but a pain in my bones. The bones in my legs, knees and ankles also hurt. I wonder if it's because of the hard-core yoga that I've been doing, but then, wouldn't I just have sore muscles? I have a headache that just won't go away, so I take pills all day every day, and am starting to get worried about the effects. My skin is also acting weird. I just feel so weak. I've lost four kilos in four days, because I live off oranges and soup. I feel sick, but I keep working because I'm not so sick that I can't function. I usually wake up after having slept for twelve hours, feel slightly better, then get to one class or work for four hours, and then I feel sick again. I am in bed by 9 PM and wake up at 9 AM, get work done, but then I am so tired afterwards. I wonder if I have a burn-out, or mono, or something. I've felt like this for the past six days.

I am just so, so, so TIRED! It never stops! What should I do? After writing all of this I kind of feel like a spoiled and whiny twenty-something, but you know what? It's my blog and I can at least write whatever I want!

Suggestions are always welcome.