Burnout

Yesterday was such a terrible day for me because I was feeling so frustrated while studying. I've never felt that exhausted and my confidence so broken before; it as if I was experiencing a burnout. I don't know why this has happened to me emotionally but it's also affecting my climbing a lot and I hate this feeling so much. I'm just glad that through it all, Sab is there to listen to me and cheer me up. I don't know what I'll do without her. 

Maybe it's because I've set too high expectations on myself. But I've always been somewhat of an overachiever, so why is it that only now do I feel this way? Have I lost all of that motivation and resilience to get better in everything I do? I'm sorry that you all have to put up with me lamenting on my blog so much but I just need to vent out all of this stress that I'm feeling right now. 

Could it be that I'm sick of going to school? Apart from the friends that I really talk to I'm just getting tired of having to say hi and wave at acquaintances and play this stupid uni social game. To be honest, I'd rather just be ignored and left alone. I just wish everyone, including myself, would be more genuine. Everyone's trying to put up a happy front in school, that everything is okay, trying their best not to seem awkward in front of others and we slowly kill our real personality everyday. I miss the freedom of the summer break of just doing whatever I want, of being myself, and just climbing all day.

I really hope things will improve soon, especially for my climbing. I find solace in climbing and it helps me feel better emotionally. I'm sure that if my climbing gets better, then so will my ability in coping with my studies. 

Struggles and Doubts

The past few days have been pretty rough for me. After taking a one week break from climbing to recover my elbow and finger injury, I still feel a little off form every now and then during training and even on non-training days. I'm not sure why this is starting to happen to me but I can think of a few reasons other than my injury, because a few weeks ago I have been climbing consistently well and just bearing with my injury throughout. One of these reasons is that I'm waking up earlier these days compared to the summer holidays period when I can just get as much sleep as I want. Another reason is that I'm starting to feel the pressure of my academics as I am really confused and lost during lectures nowadays and the content I am studying for chem eng is just so freaking difficult to understand. It feels like once I thought I've understood the concepts from the lectures, I just get shot down by the insanely difficult tutorial questions and I can't do them without referring to solutions and this makes me really worried. I've never felt this stressed before for my academics because this is one of the few moments in my life that I just feel like I'm not intellectually capable enough to cope with this, and damn it, it really does worry me a lot. Maybe this bugging thoughts have been hindering my climbing the past few days. All of these doubts just lead to struggles on the wall, and all of these struggles on the wall just lead to more doubts of my climbing.

I absolutely hate feeling off form while climbing and I think all of these excuses I came up with are just signs of my weak mentality. Everyone else has school too and everyone else has their own problems to worry about. I have no excuse. I just have to get my thinking and mentality straight for climbing and my academics and I am sure everything will get better. I just have to believe in myself.

Maybe I'll start writing down what I did well and what I did badly and also include what are the areas for me to improve on for every route so that I am more aware of my mental state and try to understand why I choose to follow certain beta instead of others.

In the meantime, I really have to study so much harder this semester. It's only week 3 yet I'm already feeling the pressure. But I have to constantly remind myself that I am studying out of passion and the thirst for knowledge. If it isn't challenging, then there's no interest and fun in learning it anyway.

August

Haven't updated my blog for a long while, a lot has happened since the last post.

So Year 2 Semester 1 has started and already I am feeling the drive and motivation to do well this sem. Quite satisfied that I took special term during the holidays so my brain didn't rot for that long and the studying momentum is still there. the finals for the special term mod went alright, I think I did okay for it and I'll find out my results soon next Monday.

Climbing training has been getting better too, I can really feel myself improving. However, I am quite worried about my elbow pains which haven't gone away for a month already and also my recent finger strain on my left index finger. It is the first time I strained an index finger (usually I injure my ring finger more often) and this time it feels different because it is not a pulley. I can't fully close my index finger any more without feeling a weird pain at the highest joint near the fingertip. It is definitely not a pulley; it feels more like a permanently jammed finger. Like when you play basketball and the ball stubs your finger and you get that weird painful sensation that lasts for awhile, except for mine it has been ongoing for many weeks already and I'm not sure how to deal with it. Right now I'm still climbing on because my finger and elbow pains don't really hurt when I climb so it is still tolerable. I'm only worried that it might hinder my improvement cause it doesn't seem to be going away. I just hope that it will disappear eventually on its own.