Rantings of a College Student

Letting it all out, one rant at a time :) I'm 22, and I sure love to complain

[sweaterszn]

tag urself as a student type

coffee: always frantic, has a crammed schedule, never stops consuming caffeine, will agree to go to a party even if they have a six a.m. shift the next day

bujo: organized, likes to makes lists and keep track of things, plans outfit the night before, stresses when they get a grade less than a B

oops: stopped caring in the third grade, somehow manages to get okay grades, never studies, kind of lazy, would eat Waffle House at 3 in the morning

sweatshirt: is trying as hard as they possibly can, has to study and work hard for their grades, constantly stressing, has social anxiety, tries to do every extra curricular under the sun

aesthetique: probably vegetarian or vegan, has a “mom jean” 80′s aesthetic, glorifies local cafes, wants to live in Europe, always wants to cut their hair

gothique: black clothes only, still stans my chemical romance, uses sarcasm as a defense mechanism, desperately wants some tattoos, likes the black lipstick look but too shy to do it

[coacs7-blog]

I'm the sweatshirt 😂

[stillstudies]

how I keep myself sane during summer break.

I think we can all agree that the mere idea of having holiday breaks from boring lectures and all-nighter study sessions sounds like heaven; although this romanticized idea of having so much free time often turns into wasted summer days, oversleeping, and basically an anti-social teenage version of house arrest. so, to help you out (or, more to help Myself) here are some things I do to keep myself busy, on a budget (kind of), and mentally healthy during long breaks from school.

continue your morning routine. this is important; by this I mean to basically treat your summer mornings as you would your school mornings, without the rush and alarm. brush your teeth, brush your hair, start/continue a skincare routine, get out of your pajamas and into real clothes, make your bed, make some coffee, eat some breakfast, do it with some music on, whatever you want. this keeps your mind and body into a daily routine. don’t let all your precious no-class mornings of summer go to waste!

savor sleeping in, but not too much. I know its super tempting to go to bed at like 2 AM and wake up the next “morning” at 12PM, but trust me, you’ll regret fucking up your sleep schedule once you actually have to set an alarm and get your ass to class next fall. I’m not saying you should force yourself to set a summer alarm (although, if you really want to train yourself this isn’t a bad idea tbh) but for the love of god, at least go to sleep and wake up at reasonable times. don’t waste your entire day!!

force yourself to see your friends a couple times a week, even if you really don’t want to. obviously this excludes mental health days, but I’ve found that spending time with my friends actually distracts me from any anxiety I’ve felt during the past week. I love my alone time, but human interaction is super important both mentally and physically. as college students we’re all pretty much broke, so don’t underestimate the power of free things- watching netflix at someone’s house, having a boardgame night, going to parks, you name it. as long as you’re with your friends, you’ll have a great time!

clean out your music library + make a playlist or two. y’all know I love a good playlist. this is something totally 100% FREE, and a perfect way to make use of your free time. delete all the stuff you don’t listen to anymore and make a few playlists of your favorite songs, or even go with playlist themes to organize your songs. it’s fun and your future self will probably thank you later for getting rid of so much audible junk.

get back into reading. this is something that was on my personal summer to-do list. I haven’t read a book for myself (aka not for a class) in sooo long, and let me tell you- I don’t know why I ever stopped reading. I know for a fact that once the semester starts I’ll have zero free time to read for myself, so summer is the perfect time to get into a new book or two!

eat your three meals a day +hydrate. I mean this. its very easy to skip/forget meals when you really don’t have any set schedule whatsoever, so plan your meals into your day. even make an alarm if its necessary. also: if you don’t know if you’re drinking enough water, you probably aren’t.

deep clean your room/workspace/closet. I’m super guilty for putting this off but, long breaks like summer are the perfect times to deep clean! what makes it easier for me to clean my room is to go section by section, which means not doing it all in a day (because that gets hella overwhelming and stressful, let me tell you). grab a garbage bag, put on some tunes, and pick a section to clean that day; you’ll be done with the entire space in no time!

outfit plan. for someone like me who has way too much in my closet and somehow still “never has anything to wear”, this is essential! set some outfits out on the floor/bed and take pics of them on your phone so that you can look back on them for some style inspo the next time you have “absolutely NOTHING to wear”.

find a new hobby, even if you’re bad at it. make some collages of your friends, make a scrapbook, learn photoshop, paint a little, learn how to sew, garden, cook, practice your phone photography skills… if there was a time for you to try out new things, it’s NOW.

make a post about all the shit you should do. I’m doing it right now. literally. you’re reading it right now. its not a bad idea.

if you know you have shit to do, plan it into your day! this is where the planner/agenda/bullet journal aspect comes in. having no class and no homework is not an excuse to stop planning out your day, your week, or your month. make some task lists and pencil in your dentist appointments and dates with people and whatnot; and even journal your days while you’re at it! if you’re a planner, never stop. Future You will thank you for it, I promise.

[coacs7-blog]

I'm on break, so I'll try this out, since I feel like I'm it myself anymore. I don't know if that makes sense to you?

[coacs7-blog]

So, it is almost back to college for some us (I mean me) and the Wi-Fi has been down for over a week and I'm really trying not to freak out, because I need the Wi-Fi everyday and I'm not sure if I can survive another second without Wi-Fi. I'm in cute little cafe and I realized that next week I'm going back to college(groan) and I'll be in and out of cafes for coffee and Wi-Fi.

[coacs7-blog]

I'm sort of jealous

For the past week, my sister's been acting a little bit strange, she wouldn't stop smiling. Today, I finally got to know why, she has a guy in her life. I'm happy for her, but I'm 21 and I've never had a boyfriend let alone kiss anyone. I was so focused on school, I forgot to have fun. :(

I have yet to see a picture of this so called guy and meet him of course. I'm a little bit jealous but not that much, it's just that, I think that if she's going to have boyfriend now, I won't know anything of what she is feeling and then I won't be able to advise her on relationships. I feel like a total failure, right now. Advice?

[coacs7-blog]

Do people change?

I’ve thought about this a lot before today and I came up with nothing all the time. But the question came back, when I was watching one of my favorite shows, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, there was a scene where Kimmy was asking Lillian if people change, and I pondered on it for a few hours.

This is what I found out when I looked back at myself for the past 21 years of my life on earth. I believe I made changes within myself. I mean, I used to care what everyone thought of me, and if they happened to say what they thought of me, and it happened to be bad or negative, it would ruin my entire day. I was really sensitive and emotional back then, but now, I don’t care what anyone says or thinks about me because it was really making me an unhappy person, and that is not an attractive trait. I wanted to be happy, so I stopped caring, not that it was that easy, but I came through.

What I’m getting at here, is that I can see how I modified by behaviour over time. I saw a lot of problematic actions that were affecting my happiness, quality of life and my view on life and I decided to change the script.

I wanted to come up with an answer for this question, but I came up with more questions, but I’ll leave this one that stood out: When you update an application, does the application change?

[coacs7-blog]

Ever had an ‘at what point did my life turn into this’ moment… I just had one.

I write this with a heavy heart, and tears rolling down my cheeks trying to stop them too, but its not working. This morning I took my time cleaning the house, more of spring cleaning if you will, I was so proud of myself that I actually did on my own, with no help at all, because the sisters were at school. 

When I finished, I took a sigh of relief and set my alarm for 13:30hrs to fetch the last born, and then I went to sleep. After fetching my sister, we got home, and she got hungry and made herself some toasted biscuit (she got the recipe from Pinterest), and so I thought she would know better to clean up after herself, after all she just turned 13 today. So, I went into the kitchen because I wanted to start cooking before my mother comes back home from work, and BOOM!!! The kitchen was a mess, with flour on the floor and a little bit of the dough crumbs on the floor. I pause for a while, thinking of how to react, but nothing came to mind, so I called her, and somehow, she knew why I was calling her and she came with a dish cloth to wipe the nook and the toaster, the crumbs dropping to the floor. I really was trying to be strong but when I went to fetch the broom to sweep the crumbs off the floor, the tears started flowing down my cheeks, and I couldn’t help it, so I ran to my room, Now I’m thinking at what point of my life did I turn into such a wuss? At what point of my life did I become a maid for my own sister? Does she think that I’m a maid? Did I do something bad to her that I feel obligated to help her with everything? Her whole life, I’ve always tried to help her any way I can, but now, I don’t know if I still want to. Am I a bad person?

[coacs7-blog]

This is me, rn. I don't know which one I want to believe, the mirror or the scale. Do you feel any different? Let me know.

[coacs7-blog]

College you vs College me

I’m going to make this as a series, because there is a lot to cover under this topic. Obviously there will be other content on this blog, you can always ask me to write about content you would like me to write.

Freedom, the power to act, speak, or think as one wants, is the power I would like to have. You have a say in almost every little thing that concerns you but compared to me I think I will have a say in everything that concerns me when I finally move out of my parents’ house, and that’s in another two years. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I do have a say in what I want and most of the time I don’t. I understand that they are trying to look out for me, but I am twenty-one years old (21), I want to make my own mistakes instead of learning from my parents’ mistakes, not that you would learn something from others’ mistakes, granted, you could learn some little somethings like black tax, budgeting etc. Just last week, we went to shop for back to school clothes, and no it didn’t go well. I can’t wear crop tops because it’s “half a top,” and don’t get me started on boyfriend jeans, my father said, “Honey, it’s torn, I can’t let you buy a torn jean and a half top, then you’d be wearing a half outfit.” And yes, I ended up getting dresses, skinny jeans and very long tops. It is hot here in Africa, I’d like to wear shorts but with a father like mine that would prove to be impossible.

Freedom, the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved, granted I do know I’m not imprisoned or enslaved, but I feel like I am. You get to go shopping with your friends, watch a movie with your friends, party with your friends, unless if that’s a stereotype from watching a lot of movies and series at home. I’m confined to my room all day, every day, except when I go to college, fetching my sister from school (on foot), and when my parents send me somewhere to run their errands. Otherwise, I’m always at home. Nonetheless, I still love my parents and I appreciate their methods of parenting.