This feels familiar...

The cycle of the uni year is starting to feel like Groundhog Day (and I'm Bill Murray). 

Recently, I wrote a post about my anticipation of burnout, but I could have sworn that I wrote something similar a year ago. Because, each semester of the university year seems to follow an inevitable, repetitive pattern. Sometimes it can feel like we are stuck in a time loop, completing the same actions, having the same conversations, and suffering the same breakdowns, again and again, semester after semester.  

The semester begins with that same bright-eyed fervour; that commitment to 9am study sessions and a nicely coloured calendar. The first weeks go smoothly, but then suddenly the first assignment is due, and so you're behind on readings. Then, it is reaching the end of the semester, where there is major assignments or exams, and all the built-up anxiety comes to a crescendo, and then it ends. You are left feeling tired and burnt out. 

In a time loop movie, we always get that scene where the protagonist slowly remembers that a bike rides in his path (and he will step aside and not get knocked by the time there is a montage) and he will remember the most trivial conversation (and be able to finish their sentences). I think I'm at that stage of the movie, learning to navigate the minor annoyances or the mundane actions that complement every uni semester. 

But now, as I am facing the inevitable stress as the semester starts ramping up, I don't feel so prepared. Even though, five years in, this should be new to me, it is just as tiring and stressful. I have gone through this routine so many times that it is true; familiarity does seem to breed contempt. The novelty of the time loop is dying.

When we are bored of this loop that university study struggles get us in, we have to remember that we will eventually see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm waiting for that climax, where the guy-gets-the-girl, the girl-finds-her-father, in my case, the girl-finishes-her-degree. And then, the Groundhog spell will be broken, and there will be happy days ahead. 

So while things are tough, I am trying to remind myself that the time loop won't last forever. Bill Murray, does, eventually, get his happy ending.