It’s now approaching the end of term for the third year of my degree. I’m not quite sure when that happened, but things are so stressful that I don’t have much time to process it. The days just pass by, and I’m not quite sure where all that time is going. Deadlines are fast approaching, as are exams.
I had my Japanese speaking test on Tuesday. It did not go well. My partner had been unreachable all weekend so we ended up meeting on Tuesday afternoon to create the dialogue and to go through it. In the end I messed up a couple of particles but that went ok – it was just a bit short. It was when my teacher started asking us questions after that I struggled. To be fair to me, I would struggle in this situation even in English – I’m not good being put on the spot like this. In the end I had to say “I don’t know” – twice. Too many times. The worst thing is that afterwards I knew what I could have said – it’s just that interview environment that I freak out and my mind goes blank. I just cannot think in those situations. Tomorrow, I have my writing test. I have a 300 character essay to memorize for it. My teacher initially said it was a 160 character essay, which I did and sent to her on Thursday. I got a terse email back on Friday saying for level 2 it needed to be longer and more detailed. Feeling a little bruised from the passive aggressive feedback, I changed it up, expanded it and sent it back. I got another email, even more terse, with even more red text and more corrections on Saturday. I now have a final essay but of course I still need to memorize it. Which I cannot. Because I’m not very good at memorizing things. Especially a 300 character essay in Japanese. One of the things I’ve always loved about Japanese is how you can say so much with so little- 100 characters are very different to 100 words. Yeah, perhaps now I wish Japanese was more straight forward. I feel bad after my teacher spent so much time on it, that it may come to nothing. My confidence is more than a little battered after the terrible speaking test, and the terse emails – all that red text a reminder of how bad I am.
Worse, apart from that essay I have no idea what to expect for the exam. There are no past papers, we have not been told what is on it, what format it will be. Nothing. I have been stressed out about it all week but I think I’ve reached the point where I’ve just given up on trying to prepare for it. Gotten too overwhelmed by it all and now thinking, what’s the point? It’s not like I’ve not tried this year – last semester, sure, I did not do enough but I had six exams and a group thesis to work on as well. This semester I have had more time and I have been trying harder. But there’s so much to memorize and I’m not very good with cramming it all in. I get confused over which particle to use. My mind goes blank and I can’t remember whether a word means one thing or another, whether the kanji/kana says this or that, what the stroke order is. And all the weird and wonderful conjugating rules and all the different forms – there are so many different word forms. Again, I loved Japanese because it was so different from English, I found it fascinating. When it comes to an exam, it’s just frustrating.
It’s too damn much. For someone who has been learning Japanese for as long as I have, it’s also admittedly pretty pathetic how much I still struggle. I try to brush it off but the thing is that next year I will be able to take a language as part of my degree. Currently I am taking paid evening classes outside of my degree – they do not count as credit towards my degree. The evening classes are at a slightly different level than the degree classes – at level 2 for evening classes, I should be able to enter level 2 of the degree classes. I’m slightly terrified that if I fail these assessments I am in fact going to be sent back to level 1 for the degree classes. I want to move forward. But maybe I should accept the reality that I’m just not very good with languages? Clearly, I have no idea how to learn a language, and I don’t have the memory to be able to hold onto the sheer amount of vocab needed. And I certainly do not have the confidence to speak it well – I fear getting it wrong so much. Even when speaking English I have that fear – what if I’m saying the wrong thing? Becoming tongue tied and ending up blurting out strange things because of this fear. Feeling embarrassed, so the fear intensifies, becomes justified.
Nonetheless I am pretty annoyed at how little information my teacher has provided about these assessments. For the speaking test she told us it wasn’t long enough but we had asked us before and she hadn’t said it should be long. For the writing test she told me the essay needn’t be too long, 160 characters is fine, but then it was suddenly 200 characters minimum, and of course there are no past papers. How am I supposed to practice without anything to practice with? Its two hours – how am I supposed to know how to manage my time?
Anyway, apart from my Japanese test on Monday, I have three pieces of coursework due Thursday and my group draft thesis due on Friday. I want to say that I’ve made more progress with these others, seeing so I’m so hopeless when it comes to Japanese. Alas. I’ve got one report done and submitted already, but the other two aren’t anywhere close to done. The group thesis is going particularly terribly. I feel helpless about it as it’s a group project, so it only matters 1/6th of what I do. The other 5/6th rests on my group members and therein lies the problems. My group members were supposed to finish their research by 3rd march, it is now April and they still haven’t finished. I’m in charge of putting together the final thesis but so far only 1 out of 6 chapters have been done. I’m working on another chapter but my group member whose research I am combining with mine for it has totally half asked his work and I do not even know where to begin polishing that into a final product. The other members keep telling me they are working on their stuff but have nothing to show for it.
I’m so stressed out right now it’s ridiculous. I’ve been spending hours in the library this week trying to get through everything but those hours pass with only small amounts getting done because it all takes so much time. On Friday I was at the library from 3pm to 8pm and I hardly got anything done, busy fucking around trying to get this group members research to fit into the thesis and failing miserably because no matter what I did I cannot work with what isn’t there, and I tried to do a bit more research myself but at the same time there isn’t enough time. I cannot write this thesis all myself. I can add bits and pieces but I need more from my group members. And I have no idea how to express this, and I am acutely aware that it’s all probably hopeless because it’s too late. 60 pages by Friday, and we’ve only got 10 pages.
I miss my wonderful group from last year – where we all delegated tasks based on our strengths, where we all pulled our weight and got things done on time with plenty of time for last minute edits. These people I am working with have no sense of time management. I mean, sure I procrastinate, I admit, but leaving it this late? After we’ve had all year to work on it? It makes me angry, quite frankly. This thesis is worth 30% of our marks this year. I’ll be so annoyed if my marks drop because other people cannot be bothered to pull their weight.
I’m so very annoyed about it all.
Meanwhile I’m getting exactly no revision done for my exams and that just adds to the stress and the anxiety.
And its awful because I’m dealing with my eating disorder right now and the stress is not helping. I’m a binge eater. Usually I’d be drowning my stress in chocolate, ice cream and other such fatty foods but of course I’m trying not to do that now. I’m left feeling very lost, and very empty, with all this stress and worry and no idea quite where to channel it.