Renewed Focus and Appreciation

I didn't realize at all how badly I needed a weekend away, a weekend with perspective.  I thought that by getting out and going to work I was giving myself the break from school that I needed.  But while I love my internship, it doesn't exactly ease my stress load.  What I needed was to leave the city and all of its energy.  I needed to slow down the pace of life, to leave my phone at home for a whole day, and to surround myself with family.

It was a short weekend away, but by pressing pause on my life for less than two days, I realized how badly I was spiraling.  I had stopped caring about school and was taking everything I have for granted.  Yes, I changed my major so now taking economics is not only stressful but also useless to my degree.  Had I known I was going to drop the business concentration I would have taken astronomy instead of statistics.  And if I knew American studies was my new direction, I would have taken classes that forced me to read interesting articles commenting on New York's cultural history.  Before I left, I hated my classes and wanted to pretend like they didn't exist.  But now, I see the value.  Yeah, they may not be my top choice, but I get to learn economics from one of the best professors in the field.  And statistics may not be the most fun class, but I get to listen to my professor's New Zealand accent twice a week.

I'm lucky to be where I am. And while I may not always love every aspect about it, I need to remember that there are benefits no matter what.  It's not going to do me any good to complain about the work, if I can just sit down for a couple hours and get it done.

Going away gave me a new perspective, it opened my eyes to the fact that there is more to the world than just how I feel about my life.  I know that this revelation is ironically commented on in a post about my experiences, but what else can I write about?

All I know is that I spent 7 hours of my weekend on a bus, 5 at work, 2 at a basketball game, 2 ice skating, and 1 at a girl scout's event.  Yet I got more homework done this weekend than any other weekend this semester.  It may not be fun, but that's all the more incentive to just focus on getting it done as fast as possible and not procrastinate.