I should have expected it, but somehow I didn’t think it would be that stressing and confusing: choosing what classes I’ll attend this year is going to be tough, pretty tough, and not only because I have 20h of paid work to factor in all of that.
Even more than my job, my main problem, in fact, is that I went back to college through a specific ‘program’, if I may say so, that allowed me to jump straight to the second year of the English License degree. By taking less classes than the others, and passing them, I was then allowed to join the regular 3rd year section. This has a heavy downside: I am now expected to take 20h/week instead of 8. 12 are part of my English program, which is just alright. But the other 8 are to be picked within a specific range of classes, most of which either won’t do because of the schedule, or won’t do because, in the case of other foreign languages, for instance, I am a complete beginner, who won’t succeed due to having too much to catch up on.
But what does this have to do with weight? Well, in one word: STRESS. You know that word. I’m a semi-emotional eater, in that every emotion doesn’t cause me to eat; however, boredom is one of my triggers, and stress tends to be another one, particularly when it leaves me feeling terribly helpless, having to deal with things I know I don’t really have the power to solve.
Being alternatively annoyed, angry, sad and depressed about all of this. I’m now constantly worrying about whether I’ll be able to simply register for those classes or if some new problem will show up. Worrying about doing everything on time. Worrying about having to negotiate with people at the office, because I won’t be able to hold the same schedule as I had this whole summer starting from next week instead of in two weeks. Worrying about ending up with classes that hold close to little interest to me, just because I need to ‘fill in the blanks’ and can’t take classes I’d like, due to not having the right level for them. And I won’t even mention having to run everywhere and queue for hours to finally get some (usually) almost useless answer.
The good side is that now, I’m less worried when it comes to thinking too much about weight loss in general (see my previous post)…
The bad side is that I think of it all the same, as in I have to battle myself to NOT go buy croissants to gulp down in between going from one department to the other, or to comfort myself once I’m done and more down than ever about all of this.
Today is the third day I’m holding strong and steady. I’m literally loading up on soy products (soy steaks, soy yogurts…) because they make me feel fuller than animal proteins, albeit not being very healthy if eaten in too large quantities, of course. But damn, it’s hard. It really took a lot of willpower this morning to not go fetch a full meal at McDonald’s drive-through, especially when it’s located right next to the campus! On top of it, I decided to stop drinking coffee, or way less than before (1 to 2 liters a day was starting to be too much…), and I don’t know if this is affecting me or not. Maybe it wasn’t a good decision to take right now. Or maybe it wouldn’t have changed many things anyway. I don’t know.
I’m not sure how this week will end up, what it will be made of, but I seriously needed to let all of this out. As often as I could. Just to let some steam off, sort of.
I can only hope I’ll manage to properly get into my schedule, and not crack up, during this school year.
