DISCLAIMER: This is very different from what I've previously posted--but don't read me wrong. It's not a comment on how terrible Oxford is, just how strangely the entire experience has been affecting me. I've basically summed up the term's negative emotions and vomited them all up in one place, because I think I needed it. I'm seriously rethinking what I've been doing with my life up until now, and what I'll be doing in the future; this is just mildly eloquent venting of my surprising emotions.
The closer I get to a deadline, the more acutely I feel my utter lack of motivation. I hate the feeling that I've made a mistake because I had to make a decision without knowing all the information--but that's how my primary tutorial feels. Apparently tutorials are supposed to be building on a foundation you've already got, not functioning as the foundation itself--this would have been good to know before I signed up for "Nationalism in Western Europe, 1799-1890." I knew NOTHING coming into this course, and apparently that's not typical. So not only am I just now starting on the "normal" coursework in 5th week, but I still feel woefully unprepared and inadequate. The assigned reading is two leading theorists of nationalism...their main works are obtuse, stuffy, unnecessarily complicated, and bore me absolutely--literally, to tears.
I have plenty of motivation to read for my secondary tutorial (Shakespeare, currently) and to scroll through Facebook, to make oatmeal and to shoo bees out the window, to write an overly-emotional blog post and to create new Spotify playlists. But the motivation to put any more effort into understanding theories of nationalism? Eludes me entirely. I do have barely enough motivation to want to want to work on this essay (it's due tomorrow night, after all), but that cannot--apparently--be translated into the purpose and drive that will turn in a 2,000 word essay at 8pm on Thursday.
Even the motivation to just "get it done" has evaporated, and I'm left feeling empty and purposeless (which is, honestly, ridiculous). Right now, the only thing that even gets me through the knowledge of impending (constant) essays is that I'll be done in a month. And I don't like my only consolation to be "being done" because that's really no consolation at all, a month out, and it makes me feel like I'm not getting anything at all out of studying at Oxford--also ridiculous, because I truly am learning a ton, and rather enjoying myself most days. I just feel no interest in or connection to what I'm learning, which is--of course--making me rethink my entire academic life up to this point, and making me wish fervently that I could just stop turning in essays, tell my tutors to sleep in, and chill in Oxford for the next month.
I'm starting to take issue with the very structure of learning in Oxford--it may have worked for hundreds of years, but it doesn't work for me. I meet with my tutor once a week (or every other week)...to talk about an essay I've already written. I get zero guidance on my next essay, except that it ought to "be a bit longer" or "go into a tad more detail" than my last ones. I am assigned a question to answer, and given a list of books to read. I skim through the 5-10 books, try to understand each one of them and then form a coherent 2,000-word argument based on what I've "understood", and turn that in the night before my meeting. The next day I go in, talk to my tutor about all the things I've misunderstood (and get them nicely explained and feel like I've really grasped what's going on, but with no benefit to my essay or my grade), and then I say "have a good week!" and repeat the process all over again.
This is omitting the inevitable panic attack/crisis/wave of depression/constant homesickness/lack of purpose accompanying each and every book I pick up. And also omitting the facts that I'm writing three 2,000-word essays every two weeks, and expected to be working on a 4,000-word term essay in my "free time" (?), and supposed to be attending four relevant lectures a week (an especially difficult assignment when none of the offered lectures are the least bit relevant to anything I'm studying).
My sleep schedule is the most screwed up it's ever been, and that's saying a lot, if you know me. I stay up late, intermittently actually accomplishing work. I go to bed at (maybe) 5am, and then feel like I've wasted my entire day when I don't wake up until (maybe) 2pm. I love Oxford, but I often can't remember why I'm here, or I honestly feel like I'm wasting my time, or I don't belong. I'm not usually one for broadcasting my emotions, or whatever, but I feel like (while everyone here is great and I love them) there's nobody in this entire city (much less this house) who understands how I'm feeling about this stuff. I'm not as motivated as the other people here, as single-mindedly "academic". Sure, they procrastinate and don't want to write essays either, but no one else has considered just not doing it. I have. And if I say things like that, everyone looks at me like I'm crazy. I value sleep over research. Again, I'm the crazy one. And honestly, even if I'm not the only one here going through this, it sure feels like I am. When others talk about not having motivation, it's because they're tired, not because they're genuinely bored by their subject material. I've been getting sleep, because it's so much more interesting than nationalism (which, I've learned, is essentially undefinable; this is ridiculously upsetting and hurts its reputation with me).
I'm trying to keep perspective (after all, I've been here for 2 months already and survived, and I am coming home in a month), but sometimes (read: rather too often) I feel like just dropping everything, taking the coach to London, and getting on a plane back to Arkansas. I would love to just forget about essays and tutorials and nerd-drama and the day-to-day irritants of living with people who are so like me and yet so not. I'm not used to being the least academic person in...well, anywhere. But here I very well may be, and it only serves to steal more of my lagging motivation.
Lest any reader of this melancholy post worry that I am depressed, that's genuinely not the case. I really just have been feeling these things for a while, and I'm not traditionally very good at expressing emotions--I don't often see much of a need for it. But tonight I did (that might be 3am talking), and if you actually bore with me, I should buy you chocolate (to share with me, of course).
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