This Week, Brian and Eda remind you it’s that half of semester.
Nothing good happens after mid-sem break.
True story. The university days get longer, the students get more unhappy and everyone curses themselves for not getting more work done in the first half of the semester. It’s like sticking with How I Met Your Mother past season 8, or moving to England to join your ginger husband’s racist family – you think you can hack it, but the miserable reality sets in quick. With the unusual arrangement of the first half of the semester being five weeks (last time we checked, half of twelve was six), and the first couple being in and out of lockdown, it has felt like we’ve only been here for a couple of weeks and done shit all.
Of course, because none of us are here to Meghxit our degrees, it’s the time in semester where we reach an inexorable crossroads on which route we want to take. Will it ultimately be time to catch up on all the semester’s work, and give a gruelling push to exams? Or is it just time to flounder along for the rest of the course?
As always, because we royally suck at giving advice here at Craccum, our keen readers would probably think we’d give the second point as advice. Those at any rate more optimistic would expect the first.
Truthfully, if it were as simple as taking Prince Phillip’s driver license (R.I.P big dog, gone too soon), then we would advocate for hard work until the end of semester. Instead, we want to remind you that there is no clear-cut balance. It’s unsustainable manipulating ourselves into believing we can produce a sudden burst of work in the final weeks of semester. Sometimes, it’s just better for our wellbeing to set realistic targets, and there’s no matter of shame in doing so.
The time also being just over an anniversary since our first COVID-19 lockdown serves as a reminder that it’s fair enough if our pre-2020 mojo hasn’t made a return. We keep in our back pockets the knowledge that no one is alone in feeling demotivated and purposeless, and that with the nationwide vaccine rollout, there is some sense of safety and comfort for us in the near future.
You’ll see quite a few candid and potentially triggering articles in this week’s issue (on either side of a lacklustre help guide on what to do while bored, from our team). Putting the shitty royal jokes aside for a second, it serves a reminder that the human psyche is fragile. We have limited control over our emotional health, and often that is capable of completely clouding our physical and mental activity. For this, there is no cure, but problems can be alleviated through finding routine, and keeping mounting pressure at an arm’s length.
However you cope with the rest of this semester, Craccum promises to be by your side, for better (letting you know which primates are the most auspicious this week) or for worse (completely wasting your time). And if you need a sign to go talk to that tutor, start that essay plan, make a booking with that counsellor, or ask for that extension (so that you can spend more time reading Craccum), this is it.
Yours faithfully,
Brian Gu (he/him) and Eda Tang (she/her)
Co-Editors of Craccum 2021
