2020 journal

april 4, 2020

11:18 p.m.

wow. it has been so long. i really just left you on march 12 in a completely different situation than i am now. i seriously don't know where to start. my life is kind of a mess.

first, i never went back to school after spring break. um, yeah so school extended spring break for a week while they prepare for distance learning and planned to do that until april 17. well fast forward quite a bit--the federal government called off everything until the 30th, and tate reeves followed up with stricter guidelines (curfew, etc.)

anyways, online school sucks. the schooling itself is not bad, don't get me wrong. i only have mandatory  zoom classes with physics, so 3 days a week is not terrible. my issue is i lost my stability and my sense of control over my life when i came home. the first week was hard to kick off. i did absolutely nothing monday and tuesday, and kinda crunched and finished just fine with wednesday through friday. 

that week, my school newspaper also was prepping for our april fool's edition (i am determined to keep it up and running through to the end of the school year because it's the only thing giving me life right now. i might actually shut down mentally if i stop producing). unfortunately, since we're working remotely and i have little to no experience with wix, i chose to create the website completely on my own. kinda crazy, i know. but i think it was the better decision than trying to figure out how it would work between multiple people then showing said people. so everyone wrote articles, sent me stuff, and i inputted it. but anyways, i worked my ass off for that and was really losing sleep (tbh though... i probably would have only lost just a little less sleep without doing it, it's just that i wouldn't be mentally exhausted cause i'd only be binging netflix and youtube) from staying up to 4 or 5 in the morning and waking up at 8 or 9. so by wednesday (when we published) i had done nothing except a couple physics problems during the zoom class and my english test. outside of that, i told myself this is me rest day. i will start schoolwork tomorrow. 

well, tomorrow came, and nothing happened. and behold, here we are on saturday night, and i still have done nothing. everything is due tomorrow night. 

outside of school however, i'm still a mess. before the april fool's edition, i had been cleaning my room for about a week. like deep cleaning. i went through all my clothes, some random bins in my room, the shit on my desk, and started to go through the drawers next to my desk but only got 4 drawers down when the april fool's edition came. i dropped it and haven't touched it since. so basically my room is still a fucking mess, and it's really messing with my mental state.

additionally, since being home, i had my first really bad mental breakdown in a long time. i've had some here and there throughout the school year, but nothing this bad. last time this happened was in august when i found out that my mom knew i like girls--i say "like girls" because i still don't know how much she knows. does she think i'm lesbian? does she even know what bisexuality is and understand it's real? who the fuck knows and this is a big underlying reason why i had that mental breakdown. 

being at home is mentally exhausting. it's this place where i have to shove who i really am back into this box, lock it up, and try so hard to not let it slip. i'm not sure what triggered it, but it was all a jumble of thoughts of how i'm never gonna be loved for who i truly am because i've had to live a lie to my parents for as long as i can remember and who tf knows how much longer i have to keep an act up. the problem is that it's not just my sexuality i hide. it's my unstable mental state and not being able to ask for help and support. it's being afraid of being judged for the things i enjoy doing.

anyways, i've been feeling a little distant from vy lately. i'm not sure why, but i'm afraid of losing her. it was her birthday yesterday. and i facetimed her when i woke up to wish her happy birthday, but that was the first time in a while that we have facetimed. 

one last update: college.

i've been accepted to northeastern university, boston university, northwestern university, george washington university, and university of southern california. i was waitlisted at harvard university and new york university. i was rejected from stanford university. 

at this point, i'm waiting to hear from usc, gw, and northwestern for my financial aid package--oddly enough, those are my top three choices. here's a little breakdown about where i stand. 

usc is the most attractive. i absolutely love the location, the campus, the school spirit, and the afrotc detachment is on campus. literally without considering from cost of attendance, the only thing stopping me from committing right now is my mom says it's too far, la is expensive, and she doesn't want me to get caught up in the social life.

northwestern was second, but i think it's third now. it's the top journalism school in the nation, the campus looks nice, but i don't love the cold and the afrotc detachment is at illinois institute of technology--in south side chicago. not ideal. also 1.5 hours away on the L. doesn't seem worth waking up at 3:45/4 a.m. for PT. i'm also afraid that the only things attracting me to northwestern are the j school and the full tuition. i may not stick to journalism, it is very much prone to changing. i want to be excited for more than that, but i can honestly say those are all i'm looking forward to rn. mom also doesn't want me near chicago.

gw was third, but i think i've bumped it to second. i love d.c. so much. i've got the connections, it's in the heart of d.c. where so many opportunities (for career and leisure) lie. the afrotc detachment is off campus at howard university, but it's like a 15 minute bike ride, so i'm not complaining too much. probably not worth the metro ride, but i could take the bus on bad weather days? i also received the presidential scholarship for gw-- $22k a year, so another incentive. 

anyways, i'll be making my decision soon. tune in i guess. and wish me luck as i try to survive quarantine season in my toxic home. goodnight.