Slowly Slipping into Summertime Stresses

I’ve needed to write a personal blog post for a few weeks now. I’ve been visiting my family and hometown these past few weeks and to be honest, it’s been quite hellish. I am very much looking forward to going back to Merced soon – back to my school, my work, my studies, and most importantly, my valuable peace and quiet.

Here at our family residence, I live with all but one sibling, plus my eldest sister’s boyfriend and daughter: my niece. Everyone is loud, sure, but my niece in particular is the reason for my headaches. We have to share a wall and she’s quite young. The constant tantrums, screaming, shouting, and overall disturbance heard clear as day through the wall at all 24 hours of the day is enough to drive anyone mad given a long enough timescale. She’s so extremely loud and violent and destructive, and it’s taken a serious toll on my mental well-being.

I’ve lost sleep, focus, and sanity as a result of having to live with such a loud and violent child. It’s become impossible to work on any of my projects. It’s become impossible to get a good night’s rest. It’s become impossible to simply exist. It’s stressed me out so much and I’ve felt like just a droned zombie these past few weeks because my mental well-being has just deteriorated so rapidly. More than anything else, I am absolutely excited to escape from all of this and go back to my residence up north in Merced in a few weeks. I only have to endure this terrible home environment for only a few more weeks. I absolutely cannot imagine staying here the entire summer.

People have often asked me why I chose the University of California, Merced as my school. Why would someone like me choose a school in the middle of nowhere with an unfantastic computer science and engineering program? Why would someone who’s always been such a top notch student choose UC Merced over the more “prestigious” and “made” schools that were offered to me.

Well, the answer is twofold. First and foremost, I’ve never cared about prestige. I couldn’t care less about admission rates or famous alumni or celebrity professors. Secondly and more importantly, I simply just wanted to get away from my family. Merced was the perfect location for me. It was home to a research university; is located in a small city with a slower, quieter pace of life; was not so far north that it would be impractical to travel and move; and was not so far south that it would be practical to make frequent visits to and from my family.

Only a few more weeks of having to put up with this, and then I’ll finally be back in my own space. Until then, I’m stressed and working hard to power through this.

Happy trails.