Online Classes: A Bittersweet Victory

 

Basically how Yugi feels during Online Classes

    You know... I wanted to write this on early April, but I felt that it would be more appropriate if I started writing this post towards the end of the school year. It is currently the 4th of May as of writing this, and my classes will end this coming Thursday; I am excited for that, but not really...

    It is very hard to explain why I am feeling like this, after going through such a year. Normally, after going through a "heroic narrative arc" of hardship, difficulty, and strife, the hero's will always feel victorious and awesome in the end. We all like to think about ourselves as the protagonists of our own stories, I know I do; however, after going through one hell of a school year being isolated in the mountains long ways away from city life and studying in the absolute hot mess that is online classes, I felt lethargic and melancholy as the hours went by. In the years past, I was ecstatic to see the days tick by in the classroom before the final day, awaiting eagerly to hear the chime of the final period bell and walk downstairs with my friends as we enact our plans of celebration for both the day and the summer. It was like having our own episode of Phineas and Ferb, that's how exciting it was! Now... I feel like complete crap and really sad.

    Do not get me wrong, I am really happy to finally finish the school year; however, it just doesn't have the same feeling of fun and excitement as previous years had. Maybe it is because I have matured and finally began looking towards the future of uncertainty and reality I have always feared; maybe it's because I felt I did not deserve the achievements I had throughout the year as I played "easy mode" in HUMSS while my peers played the normal to highest difficulty levels in STEM and ABM; maybe I just started to not care... I do not know. It should be a victory, but I feel it is a defeat. What in the world do I get in the end? Stepping into another year of praying for lucky dice rolls while coasting the D&D campaign of existence? A free vacation isolated in my bedroom with absolutely no contact with the outside world other than the small group of friends I hold dear whom I know will depart once 12th Grade is finished? Not much reward after everything in the end.

    I have lost track to what days of the week my classes were in; I have tucked myself away in my self-declared "Enhanced Quarantine" space just to be left alone; I have lamented any project or activity that required me to be stuck to a group of my classmates whom I have NEVER interacted with for the whole year; and I basically hated the extroverted people in my class who dare talk to me in FB messenger about "sharing  my work" with them and have the absolute gall to invite me to their annoying little "zoom parties". Screw them to the highest degree if they dare INSIST I come. You may think I am putting myself off as a huge asshole for those last bits, but can you blame me? There is a shit ton of noise outside, announcing how much worst the Pandemic is for the Philippines and reminding me that I have more worries to think about each passing day with the weights of petty high school drama, "Career Placement", and University clamping my throat to a garrote. I want silence, but noise will always try to seep itself in.

    You "health professional advocate" folks may try to think that I should try to vent out my frustrations to family or friends. Fuck you. It is either they do not understand what I am going through and how feeling right now, or will berate me on how much worst they have gone through and say that I or my generation is "Lucky" [Note: No generation is ever lucky]. Mental health is extremely taboo in the Philippines, with the sheer expectation of happiness and smiles, or else you will be scolded for being a brat who doesn't appreciate jackshit. It's true for every conservative household, even my own. "Read the bible" they usually say. It is just very difficult to express how I am feeling to people who may or may not understand my situation, while hoping someone will reach out to be a listening ear; at the same time, I feel like a fucking nuisance for even venting myself in the first place and filling the chat room with long paragraphs of my emotions. This is why I made this blog, to express myself and be hope someone will see some form of entertainment and relatability from my long winded ramblings.

    I see some form of comfort in online classes depending on the class and the teacher, having that special student-teacher relationship is very important to me when I started 7th grade. A teacher would usually answer my curious questions about certain things outside of class which I like. My teacher for Politics and Gov't and Practical Research gave me a whole Google Drive folder of resources regarding Socrates and the Socratic Method when I asked him how the process worked; I usually made rants to my homeroom adviser, and even told him my observations from my little "star gazing" sessions during the night; Sometimes I would ask my Oral Communications teacher obscure grammar questions like "how does the semicolon work?" and later would use that as a premise of a whole conspiracy in a project; and I made a feature article for my Creative Non-Writing class that introduced my teacher to D&D and even made her interested in playing. Teachers always gave me some form of comfort and fun in classes, even before pandemic, and helped me get some clarity to what I wanted to be when I grow up (a question this 17 year old has not properly answered yet)

    It is just very sad to see that after the whole journey of hardships you go through with a group of friends, you have to face the reality that the group will never stay together forever. That has always driven my anxiety. It became harder and harder for me to start from scratch as the years went by. I made less friends then I used to, and tried to maintain what few friendships I have left. With online classes, I most likely won't get to see my friends on the same place during recess anymore. School was more than just a place where you sit down and learn math's, it was a community, a home, and a family to me. I treat my friends as if they are siblings to me because I know that when I get home, I will be alone again. I always feel saddened seeing people leave, even if I understand and feel happy for what lays ahead of them as they go. During the start of the pandemic, my family was a bit larger with my cousin and a family friend living with us, but the reality struck hard when they have to leave, along with my dad who had to work abroad as an OFW. A quiet household rings loudly with the noise of anxiety and loneliness. I have feared that for my whole life and never conquered it.

    In the end, it just doesn't feel like a victory after finishing each day. The only victory there is just surviving a day without COVID. I am very grateful for the amount of luck I had for this year, the close calls to infection I have been exposed to and somehow not showing the symptoms or spreading it to my family in the end. However, it all just means that in each passing day, I have to quite literally look forward into the future: the fiery, hellish, and terrifying road of fragile and decaying pavement, littered with potholes that lead to the cold pits of despair and suffering, and inhabited by the harpies and beasts who seek to wound you emotionally and make your tears bleed in each step. What is there in the end of that path? Some say there is a treasure worth more than gold and diamond gems; others say it is the top of a large peak that lets you finally see the beauty of the brutal path you travelled through; while others theorize that there is indeed no reward in the end, only the love and appreciation you have for the people around you, and the development of your character. 

    What do I say is there in the end? Well, it is a bit complicated to explain. We always see the peak of our lives as the end. The magnum opus of our achievement somehow immediately equates to "the end" because that is the only time where the most rewards are given. To me, that is all an illusion, and it is quite dumb to say that "the end" is the peak of your existence. What we see as "the end" of our hero's journey is merely just another peak before the countless others that you have to climb. Sometimes, going down that peak to go to the next one just slides you down a steep spiral of failure. the matter of the fact is that the "end" for me, is the same end that everyone will eventually face: death. However, death happens in very different stages of life, some when they are elderly and others while they are young. There is always the possibility that you will suddenly be gone the next day. The peaks you managed to climb over before that happens are markers people can use to remember you. There is always the longer and harder journey to go through before the eventual coming of death. 

   The end, for me, doesn't really matter, the journey does. However, people always have the need to speed run their entire lives just to skip into the end thinking it will be the greatest peak of their lives, and somehow it is seen as a bad thing not to do that. In media, the illusion is portrayed as seeking danger, flinging awesomely and smoothly in romance, and having a shit ton of money. Anything other than that is dull boring nonsense that spells failure in capital letters. I was always told "time is running" in life, I hated that saying to my very core. I just wanted to slow down and get myself some room and time to think, but no, I have to be rushed into the next thing. It is a very strange aspect of life, but it is what it is.

    The same can go for the end of this school year. We see it as the end of great hardship, but really it is just a very very short break to enjoy the view before being pushed down the other side and forced to climb up the next steeper mountain of challenges in life. It is kind of why the victory of ending the school year doesn't feel as great as before, I know and realize that the next years will be harder; the addition of the pandemic and a lot of uncertainty in the future just makes me more unoptimistic to what the future will bring. I try to not think of the future as much as possible, letting myself breath in and relax into the quiet moments of my situation. In the fashion of introverted-ness, this means i mostly just stay comfy in bed and watch YouTube videos all day and wait for the next session of D&D.

    Seeing the days go by before the end of the school year feels like a victory because I can finally be free to do things that I wish to do without the clamps of school obligations. What makes it bitter is just the thought and realization that this is just a small break for the larger challenges in the future. Bittersweet, but a victory nonetheless.

- YugiBearz