To the window, to the wall, to my 9 a.m. I crawl.

                                                                                             Photo illustration by Skye Clayton

I’ve got 99 problems and they’re all due this week. 

The fourth week of spring semester is done—not like I’m counting or anything. If I wasn’t feeling slightly overwhelmed two weeks ago, I’m definitely feeling it now. My classes have evolved from PowerPoint presentations and endless textbook chapters into quizzes, tests and papers. Throw in endless amounts of homework, a job and the responsibilities of personal life, and I’m ready to resign from adulthood. Thank you for the opportunity, but it’s just not for me. If anyone needs me, I will be hiding in my blanket fort coloring and watching Netflix.

College life for me is like playing a multiplayer video game with a bunch of people on normal. Everyone playing has struggles, but over time their gameplay slowly improves. Although I’m technically on the same level as everyone, I feel like I'm playing on expert with a map in another language, no ammo, crappy vision and a controller with sticky buttons.

I’ve heard the college survival tips, “eat healthy, exercise and get enough sleep” so many times I’m starting to wonder if the people that can do those things on top of their classes are even human.

How do you expect me to eat healthy when a salad costs twice as much as a McDonald’s cheeseburger and isn’t as easy to eat on-the-go? I don’t cook at my apartment because I pretty much live at the school. When I try to eat healthy and buy produce, I forget I bought it and it sits in the crisper drawer molding into something worthy of any science class experiment.

Coffee and Red Bull are my best friends. My diet usually consists of coffee, Red Bull, more coffee, a couple hurried bites of a granola bar I found swimming around in the black hole that is my backpack, followed by more coffee. By the end of the afternoon on a school day, my body is shaking like a scared Chihuahua. The amount of caffeine I have in my body could quite possibly kill a small animal.

Exercise? I count running late to all my morning classes because I snoozed the 20 alarms I have set on my phone as cardio, so I’m covered there.

Sleep? What’s that? Is that a college term for a really long blink? Every time I close my eyes, I can’t stop thinking about how I need to get my act together and figure out what I actually want to do with my life. I’m fairly decent at math now from the endless nights of calculating the possible hours of sleep I could get, and it didn’t cost me $100 for an access code!

I’m so sleep deprived I accidentally fell asleep on the couch and woke up around two hours later wondering where I was and hoping I’d slept through the Donald Trump Presidency. You can imagine my disappointment when I checked my phone and saw the same drama on Facebook. I’ve come to the realization that being tired is just a part of my personality at this point.

I’ve learned that sleep is religious and my roommates know that if they wake me up, it had better be because the apartment is on fire. College is about learning things, not just about the world but about yourself. Learning how to survive college sounds humorous, but we all struggle with one thing or another. If sleep is one of your struggles, find out what is causing the problem. Is it stress? Too much caffeine late at night? Existential dread? 

We’re all adults in college, but sometimes we need an "adult" adult—a person with more life experience—to help us. Don't be afraid to ask for advice if you're struggling, because we're all struggling. Some students are just better at hiding it than others.

We could always petition the school to create a nap class that teaches students on how to take effective naps. I could pass that class with my eyes closed!

College Life: University Woes

Nothing screams college more than eating ramen noodles out of a mug at 3:30 a.m. while questioning your existence.

College life is like the feeling of hopeful elation you have on the first day of school when the professor has just finished going over the class syllabus. You assume class will end early so you can go home and take a nap.

Then when the professor opens up Microsoft PowerPoint and immediately goes into the lecture reality hits, like a physics textbook to the face. You look over at the person sitting next to you, staring at the slide on the screen like a deer caught in the headlights, wondering what is going on? 

That’s the golden question that college students wonder daily. No one really knows what’s going on, we’re all just really good at faking it. No one is perfect, and the few who know what they’re doing with their lives are the fortunate ones.

I am not one of those lucky ones. I don’t even know what I want to eat for dinner, let alone what kind of career I want to have. I would look at everyone around me and feel so inadequate because I seemed to be the only one struggling. College is hard and knowing that you’re not alone can really help with a rough day.

With College Life #Relatable you can expect to find me getting through the semester just like you. I’ll be writing about what many students are thinking, but too afraid to say. Consider me your Gandalf, Yoda or Spirit Guide through your college experience.

I’m sure I’m not the only student who sometimes feels a little overwhelmed during the beginning of the semester. I wish my university offered a major in stress with an emphasis in anxiety, because I would exceed expectations in that area of study.

It’s only the third week of the spring semester, and I’ve already sat down in the wrong class, caught myself accidentally staring at someone while zoning out during a lecture, been late for my 9 a.m., had a printer go rogue and print 267 pages one-sided instead of double-sided (so much for trying to save trees), cried to my mom about dropping out, and googled which of my internal organs I could sell and still live.

I have painstakingly learned many college life lessons through trial and error. The free food they have during events on campus is the reason I haven’t died from starvation. I gave up looking good the second day of school because sleeping in an extra 30 minutes is a big deal. Especially when you’ve stayed up all night doing the homework that you put off to binge-watch “Stranger Things” on Netflix. I put the “pro” in procrastination.

So, before I go, I’ll let you in on a couple kernels of wisdom I’ve discovered since attending Uni.

The elevators in the library operate on this strange idea that up is down and down is up. Don’t bother pressing the elevator button, you will only get caught in this elevator trap. Save time and take the stairs; your perfect attendance record will thank you.

Stock up on scantrons from the campus bookstore, and no I’m not talking about a Transformer action figure.

I think it is ridiculous that students have to purchase their own scantrons in order to take tests, but trust me on this one. Once I went to the testing center and forgot to bring a scantron and they wouldn’t let me buy one there. So, in order to make it back on time to take my test, I had to run faster than Usain Bolt to buy one at the bookstore.

Learn from my mistakes. Buy a small package of scantrons and put them in your binder at the beginning of the semester. It’s convenient to have them around when you need one later on down the road.

College has a tendency to sneak up on you when you least expect it. Just know you’re not alone and don’t be afraid to ask for help — just make sure to check the syllabus first.