Totally Clueless – Her.ie Goes Back to College: Guilt With A Capital ‘G’

Because working a full-time job isn't quite challenging enough for some... In a new weekly feature, recent Her.ie recruit Mary is sharing her journey through the very grown-up world of juggling a career with further education. Looking back over her first semester and forward to a thesis, Mary is learning some lessons along the way about time management, the trials of being a born crammer, the importance of sharing the stressful moments... and the reason why "mature student" is probably an oxymoron. ______________________________________________ Guilt with a capital ‘G’ Semester two has officially kicked off in a blaze of glory. Just one week in and we’ve been hit with two 4,000 word assignments, two group projects and a presentation. Breathe. Despite all of this, coupled with the fact that I have an Economics essay due this Thursday, I decided to breeze off to the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre on Monday evening to enjoy a spot of ballet – totally worth it! In fact, the whole evening would have been fabulous were it not for the cloud of Guilt that hung over me from start to finish. I met up with my sister in a restaurant for an early dinner, and as we sat there leisurely eating and catching up before the show, a little voice in the back of my head was throwing a temper tantrum that I was having a bit of fun instead of reading up on the Troika (I’m still not really sure what – or should that be who? - the Troika is). In fact, it’s not just on an evening out that Guilt joins me. Guilt has become my new best friend; it comes to work with me, comes out to lunch with me when I’m catching up with my colleagues and comes all the way home with me again. Even in the evenings when I’m falling over with hunger after class and am cooking with one hand while holding my eyes open with the other, Guilt is there. Hovering. It’s become such a big part of my life that I’ve started to treat it almost like a sibling. That week after my exams had finished and classes weren’t starting for another seven days, I felt like I’d lost a limb – where had Guilt gone? But obviously, it just took a quick city break because already I’m back, enmeshed in this head-frying relationship of never being completely at ease and always looking a bit suspicious because I’m so jittery. My friends and family have already stopped trying to persuade me to come out and know that I’m going to be living in a little far away land for the next couple of months… The land of procrastination that is. I’ve a feeling it’s going to be the full nine months until September and the course ends that Guilt will finally part ways with me. Imagine all the things I could do in those nine months (cue expected pregnancy joke har, har) without having this unshakeable feeling. Alas, it’s not to be, so I’m just going to have to deal and get on with it. I probably really should start that essay at some stage too… hmm, I’ve written the title on the page so that’s as good a start as any, right? Eleven words down, only another 2,489 to go.