does this even count as burnout or am i just lazy

 I know, I know, laziness doesn't exist, I literally read the book on this (you can google it, it's a real book, I really enjoyed it). here's the thing though. I just don't feel like i have a right to be this tired.

I mean maybe today it's because I was up 3 hours later than normal trying to get grading done. There is so much more grading than i thought there would be. I'm used to grading one section's worth of lab reports, not an entire classes' worth of an exam. It is never ending. my wrist and arm hurts. the grades are not good, no matter how generous I try to be.

i just sort of feel like i don't care anymore, except i do. I care about doing a good job. I care about maintaining my performance. I care that they get good feedback. I care that I don't dump more work on the overworked instructor. I also care that he makes more money than me. I'm getting $428.41 a month to do this work, which coincidentally is less than I could make for spending a grand total of 8 hours (2 hours one night a week) cleaning my dad's clinic. I've already blown past 8 hours of marking and I'm not even halfway done, but then again, once this finishes I won't have anything else to do until the final exam.

but ugh. the thought of sitting down and doing more. and then there's the review paper I'm supposed to help edit but the undergrad writing it, while clearly very intelligent, is just NOT a good writer, and each draft just keeps... staying the same. i'll be last author but I don't know that I want my name on something this poorly composed. It makes it more obvious to me that my writing skill- mediocre as it may be in the writing world- is stellar and extraordinary in my science world.

and god i have to keep coming into the lab. i have to keep packing lunches when i don't control the groceries or the dishes and i keep making overnight oats and then not having time to eat them until lunch and that's not even because i'm busy, it's because i spent half an hour on tiktok this morning. 

i debated doing a social media break next month, like, a full scale one. like no facebook, instagram, snapchat, or tiktok, or reddit (which I barely use anyway). Just to see what it's like. But i know in my heart that when it's 6pm on a saturday and I have to wait 5 minutes for the centrifuge there is nothing i will want to do more than spend 7 minutes browsing little videos online. what would i do in that time that is truly more valuable? it's like i realized recently: in high school, when i didn't have social media, when i had to wait half an hour or more for my dad to pick me up after school, what did I do? I couldn't stay in the building because they kicked us out. i sat outside and there was nowhere to sit that i could use to do homework, and it was always windy, so i sat under a tree and sang to myself. i'm not even good at singing, it's never been something i pursued even as a hobby, but all i had was my blackberry and fucking brickbreaker and waiting for my dad. there was nothing else to do. my backpack was too full to fit even one more book just for fun and i probably would have continued to forget it at home anyways.

sometimes i still think about that backpack. it was white with light blue and light green accents, not pastel but not neon. it had little pouches on the side for water bottles that were blue mesh. i tried to wear it once in undergrad and my shoulders hurt so fast. it's the kind of backpack you can only wear when you're 15.

it also occurs to me that i could honestly have walked home in the time i was waiting some days. it would have been such a sketchy walk though. I'm talking highway underpass sketchy.

so what is the point of really taking that break if I'm not going to fill that time with more useful activities? if I'm going to be just as wasteful of my time? heck, i remember being in this lab in high school. when i'd be waiting for western blots and there was nothing to do, i'd find all the coloured sharpies i could and take a piece of filter paper and see how the colour would spread if I just pressed down. I kept a tally of all the songs that played on the french pop hits radio station that my favourite lab tech insisted on having on because there were genuinely only about 15 different songs they played all summer (anything that was popular in the summer of 2015 I absolutely cannot stand to this day).

and yet like here i am, writing this. feeling lighter. it's like there was a weight on my eyelids and now there is purpose holding them open. hear ye, hear ye, @ myself: the problem was always that you need to be writing.

I'd like to try posting on this blog every day for a while and seeing what happens but i know more likely than not i will wake up tomorrow and not want to do it. 

let's not even get started on the job search. I do not have it in me at this time to be the perky Hi My Name is FirstName LastName and I'm So Passionate To Work In This Field Because thing. the networking the keep me in mind the actually reaching out thing. the job search thing. i'm so fucking tired all the time and the last time i felt like I had any goddamn energy was christmas break when i did nothing for 10 straight days. i read, i ate, i played games with my family, i did stupid things on my phone, i sewed, i crocheted. maybe i get to do that if i am unemployed post grad? I know i know i know i know i need to be looking for jobs and writing my thesis right now but i am at the point where i can barely do my Second Job (scanning charts and cleaning my dad's clinic, which he IS paying me to do, and quite a bit more than I make here) so where is the energy supposed to come from.

you know what else is a kicker? they have all this imagery around showers when your health is deteriorating, right? when you see blood running down the drain or pull your hand away from your head and realize your hair is falling out and it's connected to like, you realizing your health problems are really bad. well last night when i was in the shower at 2 am I realized I was losing less hair than I used to. That's right. My physical health is improving and i still feel like this.

i mean do you think it's burnout when i wish i was on bedrest? when i wish i would be told no you have to stay in bed or on the couch and be very low energy for a while? does that mean i need some variant of that? am i just tired because i am sleep deprived from last night? or is it just that my whole body knows that this fucking lab is not where i belong and hasn't felt that way since i started here and it used to be the big lunch table conversations being entirely in another language that i don't speak, even when i sat down, and now it's people stealing my pipette tips and not replacing them, and slowly encroaching on my fridge and freezer space, and everyone in the lab having good buddy happy time conversations with other people in the lab except for me. maybe that's a self fulfilling prophecy because i like to work from home but this workplace is a lonely one. so i don't stay. which makes it lonelier. 

you say you need to be writing but then you treat writing like it's going to be a vacation you put in all your days but really it is more like brushing your teeth every night. you do that routine not because it fills you with unbridled joy but because it makes your life less heavy. 

lighten the load, kid.