4
When the school year ends
Every year, I tell myself that
things will be different in May.
In those golden weeks between
the end of the school year and
the start of summer internships,
I’ll take care of all the things I’ve
been filing away in the back of my
mind. Out of an excess of time, an
idealized, optimized version of
myself will emerge.
I spent all of April planning
for May. I needed to put money
in my 401K, start training for a
half marathon, finally trim my
bangs, get back into crocheting,
etc. But when finals ended and
May rolled around, I found myself
overwhelmed by a peculiar feeling.
The stress of the semester never
really subsided and motivation
turned to burnout. I would sit on
my porch with my roommates,
laughing and drinking margaritas,
internally panicking about my
never-ending to-do list. I’d walk
through
the
spring
blossoms,
hand-in-hand with my boyfriend,
silently overwhelmed by all the
ways I could be productive or
improve myself that day.
Year after year, I find myself in
a post-semester panic. Rather than
letting myself rest, I resolve to
really push myself — to read more
books, apply to more graduate
programs,
work
more
hours.
Given
post-semester
burnout,
these goals are often at best overly
ambitious and at worst completely
unrealistic.
I
never
actually
complete my to-do list; meaning I
haven’t allowed myself to relax, but
I haven’t accomplished anything
either.
This year has been particularly
bad. I have a four-week stretch
between classes and my internship
— four weeks that are completely
mine to fill. On top of the usual
post-semester
anxieties,
I’m
reminded that this summer before
my senior year is likely the last
“free summer” I’ll ever have, even
if only a part of it belongs to me.
Instead of getting me to relax
for the first time in my life, this
knowledge has only made the end
of the semester more distressing
and disorienting. As I find myself
yet again in this unhappy medium,
I’m left wondering why the end
of the school year is so reliably
unsatisfying. Why do I always
sabotage my precious few weeks of
vacation?
***
After the last exam and final
term paper submission, days spent
hunched over in the library turn
into lazy mornings and leisurely
afternoons. All the anxiety and
inertia from constantly working
come to a screeching halt. Often, it
feels disorienting to go from intense
concentration for eight hours to
long, empty days. I’d wake up at
noon in a cold sweat, convinced I’d
slept through my alarm and would
never find a seat in the Shapiro
Undergraduate Library, only to
realize classes were over. Then,
a peculiar kind of anxiety would
set in, the realization that my days
were now my own.
I struggled with unstructured
time during the school year, too.
My
sophomore
year,
“Sunday
scaries” subsided to what I dubbed
the “Friday scaries” — a sense of
acute existential dread brought on
by the reminder that I had virtually
no obligations on the weekends
and that I had to figure out how
to fill the next 48 hours. But on
the weekends during the school
year, at least I had a reason to feel
anxious. It’s not easy balancing
homework, housework, socializing
and all the other responsibilities
that get pushed to the weekend.
The weekend, of course, has a
predetermined end. I know on
Monday morning I’ll go back to my
regularly scheduled programming
of
running
between
classes,
extracurriculars
and
part-time
jobs. There’s something different
about summer break. Logically,
I know it will end in August, but
at the moment, it feels like it will
extend indefinitely into the future.
French
philosopher
Giles
Deleuze noted that in our society
“one
is
never
finished
with
anything.” Rather, Deleuze claims
that we instead move seamlessly
from one institution to another.
Education becomes an internship
that becomes a job. These major
life transitions are reduced to neat
and
inevitable
changes
while
losing any distinct form.
School is intrusive. Its long
tentacles have a way of reaching
into all corners of life, taking over
our weekends and mid-semester
breaks. On the weekends, I was
anxious because I had more
control, but deadlines, assignments
and extracurriculars were always
there to make demands of me.
I was never really finishing the
school week.
But while class had a way of
feeding into everything else, the
end of the school year couldn’t
be more different. I looked at the
four weeks before the start of my
internship spread out before me
and felt apprehensive, uneasy and
unsettled.
Design by Tamara Turner
HALEY JOHNSON
Statement Columnist
S T A T E M E N T
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4—Wednesday, May 18, 2022
Retroactive guilt and
growing up a military child
Content
warning:
Mentions
of sexual assault and violence
against women
Every Friday morning, rain or
shine, a group of 10 or so people
arrive to stand outside one of
the gates of Kadena Air Base on
the island of Okinawa, Japan.
They’re usually older, dressed
comfortably
for
the
weather
and equipped with large water
bottles and folding chairs. No one
comes to relieve them through
their hours-long shifts, so they
take turns going on snack runs to
the FamilyMart down the road.
Come evening, they gather their
empty bentos and bottles and
chairs and leave, always with the
unspoken promise that they’ll be
back in seven days’ time.
It’s a quiet, almost rote affair.
If it weren’t for the signs they
dutifully hold up throughout the
day, which carry simple phrases
like “NO BASE” and “NO RAPE”
in bright block letters, you’d
never know why they were there
at all.
Every Friday, thousands of
people pass them, coming and
going from the largest military
base on the U.S Pacific Coast.
They’re a peaceful, unobtrusive
but
constant
reminder
of
things that we didn’t talk about
back when I was one of those
thousands, just going to school
or coming home: the anti-base
movement — which calls for the
reduction, if not the complete
removal,
of
the
outsized
American military presence on
the island of Okinawa — and
the serial sexual assault of and
violence
against
Okinawan
women
perpetrated
by
U.S.
troops.
These
protestors
represent
the remnants of the last major
surge
of
demonstrations
by
Okinawans
demanding
the
removal of American troops and
facilities in Japan. In late May
2016, I was nearing the end of
my junior year of high school
when I started hearing whispers
about something awful — the
rape and murder of a 20-year-
old
Okinawan
woman,
Rina
Shimabukuro, by an American
military contractor. Within days,
massive protests incited by the
incident were taking place in
Naha, Okinawa’s capital, and
outside the gates of Kadena and
Camp Foster, a Marine base
down the road.
KATRINA STEBBINS
Statement Correspondent
Read more at michigandaily.com
Read more at michigandaily.com
Design by Taylor Schott