{"id":3774,"date":"2013-05-03T14:18:50","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T21:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studentlife\/?p=3774"},"modified":"2013-05-03T14:19:20","modified_gmt":"2013-05-03T21:19:20","slug":"the-submerged-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studentlife\/2013\/05\/03\/the-submerged-state\/","title":{"rendered":"The Submerged State"},"content":{"rendered":"

We recently read an article in my US Public Policy class on the \u201cSubmerged State\u201d; essentially the layer of tax codes that are hidden from the public\u2019s view (a poor summary of a 20 page article, but it\u2019ll have to do). Looking around my blog, I realized that there is a part of campus life that I seem to have hidden from view: stress.<\/p>\n

Look at any college student and you will see in their eyes a constant anxiety, whether it\u2019s about a test or a paper or registration or a roommate. I\u2019ve spent alot of time in college seeking the \u201ccollege experience\u201d but this is the only thing I\u2019ve found that comes close. Indeed, the only theme I\u2019ve found to be universally true is not partying or playing guitar on the quad, it\u2019s not slacking off in class so you can sleep in, it\u2019s stress.<\/p>\n

So this post is dedicated to the submerged state of panic buried beneath our smiles. Here\u2019s a week in my life (two weeks ago, in fact) as a way of giving you a glimpse into the true college experience. Or, at least, my college experience. Spoiler warning: life is fairly mundane, which the post may also be.<\/p>\n

This week began, oddly enough, on Saturday when I woke up feeling incredibly ill. Strange, especially considering I had gotten a fair amount of sleep the night before. The illness, though, took all day to wear off and as a result I was unable to do homework. My Poetry professor graciously extended my paper on Paradise Lost so I could rest. But my rest didn\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n

Sunday I was up bright and early for Orientation training. As an Orientation group (I\u2019m a Passages leader but Perspectives and Res Life were there as well) we discussed the logistics of August and together mulched an entire hill down by Point Defiance for Metro Parks Tacoma. It was a long, great day which excited and saddened me (my final time leading Passages?! I\u2019m officially in denial about moving into senior year), but a poorly timed day as well. That night I had a paper due; the first of many this week.<\/p>\n

The paper, for my Contemporary American Literature class, could have been awesome. I wrote it on the narrative structure of The Plot Against America, a book by Philip Roth about a boy growing up in an alternate 1933 New Jersey where Charles Lindbergh defeats FDR in his second-term run. With the stress of the last couple weeks, though, I was unable to start (with the exception of my professor\u2019s office hours) until a day or two before it was due. It was in on time, but as all my papers these days it seemed hastily written and I was unable to include some of my meta-epiphanies during the writing process.<\/p>\n

A main focus of my week was not a paper but a presentation. For my US Public Policy class I, along with my group of three others, were to present for an entire class period (one and one-half hours) on the topic of \u201cwelfare.\u201d Broad in itself, so we narrowed it down to comparing the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Heading into the week, though, we were pretty unprepared. We met for an hour or two every day, collectively reading a few hundred pages of research and scholarly work throughout the week and met with our professor twice. By the time our presentation time came around we were ultra-prepared and enjoyed presenting, too. It did, however, come at a decent toll of stress and time.<\/p>\n

\"4.7-4.12<\/a><\/p>\n

It was also the infamous ASUPS budget week, where every club on campus submits their paperwork for a budget and re-recognition. I\u2019m currently running two clubs (and next year will only be running one, take that stress); Safe Men and Hillel. Minnesota Club, of course, is still going strong, but our fearless new President Katie took on the budget process all on her lonesome. To give you some brief idea of what each budget packet included; a two page questionaire about the club, its goals, its events, what it adds to the community, how it enriches lives in general, number of members, etc., paperwork to figure out new leadership, capital requests, a Log Jam (the annual activity fair of sorts) form, and the budget request itself. Leadership is a funny thing, simultaneously fulfilling and unnecessarily stressful. Looking at the money my clubs will spend in a year is both exciting and horrifying; luckily our student government is pretty great at fairly divvying up money for clubs. This is also, of course, not to mention going about day to day life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIan, I don\u2019t care about your trials and tribulations.\u201d Rightfully so, reader, rightfully so. But I offer myself as a case study of college life on the inside. Of course not every day is this jam packed, not every moment is spent stressing over life, but it\u2019s certainly a theme. Not a fruitless one, certainly, but also one that need not consume you.<\/p>\n

Last year I went to CHWS (Counseling, Health, and Wellness Services) weekly for some help with stress management, but I feel like I could distill those many hours into a pretty simple message: make time for yourself. It\u2019s really easy to get caught up in meetings, get absorbed in budgets, or psych yourself out about a presentation. But in the end you are your number one priority. Period. And if you find that you haven\u2019t had a moment to breathe or even enjoy your cup of coffee, it\u2019s time to step back. Make a list of your commitments, make a list of things you\u2019re stressed about and give yourself an ultimatum: \u201cBy the end of this week three things on this list will be gone.\u201d Lift your state of stress and fatigue to the surface and embrace it. Learn to \u201clove yourself,\u201d as my friend Tosia says. After all, if you keep it buried it\u2019ll soon take the enjoyment of the things you do down with it. And if you can\u2019t love what you love to do, what\u2019s the point in doing any of it at all?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We recently read an article in my US Public Policy class on the \u201cSubmerged State\u201d; essentially the layer of tax codes that are hidden from the public\u2019s view (a poor summary of a 20 page article, but it\u2019ll have to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ian-fox-14"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3774"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3778,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3774\/revisions\/3778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}