One. Feeling Off.

Please read this text like you would watch a dance where the beginning and end don’t exist, just the dancer’s or dancers’ continuous alignment with music only for the sake of experiencing the present moment as self-forgetfully as possible. Thus, like the dance, this text does have a beginning and an end, but it will not offer any truths about how to best experience this life. I will merely try to use writing as a different way of dancing, because I feel writing is my most naturally occurring form of self-forgetful self-expression.

Feeling off

The last half of the year has been an odd time. There have been many great moments, there have been moments that can be remembered for other reasons. As in any other period of time that allows for multiple moments filled with both “positive” and “negative” emotions. Somehow, however, during much of it I just felt slightly off and I can’t even really properly describe what it means nor what created this feeling. Well, the answer to the latter is probably a combination of things. Like getting close to the end of my time in Groningen. Or the fact that I didn’t really take on new challenges for this last period (or I didn’t define them as such). Or just generally feeling a bit more tired – something that many of my peers noted about themselves as well, and these peers were not only from my year of psychology students.

So what have I been up to? Until the end of February life was still hectic in a nice way. I had probably my most beautiful New Year’s evening party ever, shared mainly with Nils. During the first week of January, Groningen was almost shut down because of icy weather, which me, an Estonian friend from Groningen, and an Estonian visitor from Rotterdam whom we had never met before, used to stay inside for three days for the most chilled out days of sleeping over, playing card games, and having food. The end of January meant three exams successfully passed by cramming the information during the last days before each exam. Finishing exams obviously meant that it was time to take time off again. First, my then 22-year-old uncle, who prefers that I call him my brother, visited me for four days. We had a crazy, close-to-disastrous party night; relaxed time with some of my friends; and a visit to Rotterdam ourselves. Right after my uncle-brother left, two other very good friends, Villi and Timm, came to visit. We had a little house party at my place and the day after we visited the carnival in Maastricht. We were amazingly hosted by Mariann and Triine in their sweet home, in which we felt maybe too much at home since we slightly pissed of their roommate Irina who had to study for exams. A little trip to Amsterdam after Maastricht, and then back to Groningen. When Villi and Timm left I had to work on Schiermonnikoog, had to take part of a seminar week, had to work again and then used the last week of February to visit Paris, where I saw one of my favourite artists – Jamie xx. And a very special thank you here for Johanna and Marie, girls from my course who were on exchange in Paris and could host me during my visit.

Paris

Skiing in Paris

Metro in Paris

Golden in Paris

Meh in Paris

Look up in Paris

This is illegal in Paris

It was after this trip to Paris, in the beginning of March, when I really started feeling slightly off. I had contacted the person who had been my personal coach during the course Teaching Skills. For that course we met up a couple of times to reflect on my performance as an instructor for second year students in the course Communication & Diagnostic Skills. As the input from my coach was very helpful, I now asked if some extra sessions would be possible. Practice for the coach, because the person was also just finishing their Master’s degree, and helpful for me to set some goals for the last months of my university programme. These sessions were quite fruitful, and I did set some goals to create some structure in my life again. I wanted to be healthier with my sleep, nutrition, sports, and with how I spend my time in general. The first weeks were quite nice. Especially sports and sleeping regularly. Studying regularly also felt nice, but the content was kind of hard to grip on to. After some time, however, I wasn’t feeling it at all. This feeling applied to almost everything. The lowest moments came when I was at work during weekends on Schiermonnikoog. “I really don’t want to be here.” But I had to, of course. I had many moments during which I felt like I don’t want to be in them. However, there were also many nice moments with friends of course. Like Nils’s birthday at the beginning of March as one example.

The end of March brought exams again. The two very last ones of my Bachelor’s, which I both passed with the minimum grade required for passing an exam. This despite having more time to study for them than I had for many previous exams. I remember that finishing my last exam felt nothing like finishing one’s last Bachelor’s exam should feel like. It just felt like the rain outside during that day. Karl and Karl Henri, another two very good friends from Estonia came to visit me in the beginning of April for a longer weekend: again a crazy party night, a lazy day, a short trip to Amsterdam and over it was once again already.

Thesis

It was now time to properly get to my thesis. I was lucky to get a chance to join just one other student (mostly theses are done in groups of 5-6), Tara, for a project with a great supervisor about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), stimulant use related to ADHD, and malingering of the disorder. Malingering is intentionally faking or exaggerating symptoms of a disorder to get some sort of monetary or social benefit. And we collected data through a 15-minute online survey, which meant that we had 718 participants in the end with less effort than other groups put into testing 40-50 participants in a lab. And the literature about malingering ADHD has only started to grow in the last 10-20 years, so we didn’t even have to read that much. And Bachelor’s theses for 15EC-s have to be only 4000-6000 words in the Netherlands, so we also didn’t have to write that much. Our attitude towards the project was also more about getting the project done than being intrinsically interested in our findings and topic. It was an interesting topic, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that after three years in University… our appetite was gone.

The most stimulating part of the thesis was probably our presentation. It generally actually isn’t meant to be like that, because it’s not about defending the work, it’s just presenting it. We just wanted to have a little challenge with the presentation since we had the time for it. For everyone who doesn’t know, Ritalin is a stimulant drug used for the treatment of ADHD because it helps people focus. For the same reason, many people without ADHD have started using Ritalin for studying, or other activities that require increased focus. To show that Ritalin use takes place in Groningen as well, I told the audience that during the day before the presentation, after talking to some people on Facebook, I could already meet up with someone in the university library to buy Ritalin from the person for only 1€. And then I showed them a little white pill in between my fingers. The pill, however, was just a Tic-Tac, because Ritalin is a prescription drug. I told the audience that the pill is a Tic-Tac right afterwards, but getting them to believe that it’s real Ritalin just for a moment was a good way to get their attention in the beginning (we know that, because our supervisor said so after our presentation). Just to round of this first part of four blog posts: 17.4% of our participants without ADHD admitted to stimulant use at least once in their lives. The presentation was a success, and the whole thesis project as well. 

Tara, David, Dan

this is about the feeling that you might know of
this is about the feeling, the feeling of feeling off
not the feeling of sunrise bursting from your heart
nor the feeling that you just absolutely can’t

you can, but mostly don’t want to
you even try to count your breath, but mostly don’t get past one-two
you do all the nice shit you always do
but this annoying voice in your head keeps yelling “boo”

it will go by
spend time with your people, keep that smile
life is built day by day, the floor tile by tile
love will fill your heart again in a while

(to be continued)