Time is approaching. October 2012 will be the month I resign from my studies.

Resign? Well— no. I picked the wrong word: I’m going to put my studies on hold. That’s a different procedure: it means the possibility to re-enroll within 8 years from the interruption, by maintaining all exams done. It’s a very good option for students who are forced to leave college/university for a number of serious reasons. If it’s your case, too, just make sure your university has this option.

Why would I leave university, albeit temporarily?

I guess I could give you three answers:

1. my parents
2. my freelance work
3. my old nervous breakdown after-effect

The first item in the list is unavoidable. For how much I tried to convince them, my parents stay fixed on their position: there’s no point in paying tuition (even half tuition, since I pay half myself) to a low achieving student, even when the student would die out of love for those hard, never-studied-before subject she feels so attracted to. But the economy is harsh, and there are other two children that need to study, take a driving license and other courses, so there’s no coming back: Luana’s the one who has to stop studying. After all, isn’t Luana so old already? She’s almost 27, isn’t she? That makes her old enough to stop studying and focus on work. Getting rid of studying would also help her remove some of the stress, wouldn’t it?

Yes mom, dad, it would… but where you got the stress removed, like a cyst, a bleeding hole has remained.

Now, about the second item: it’s a matter of time management, and the reason sometimes I wish we could count on more than 24 hours a day. Unlike many people like to think, freelance work requires a lot of time and energies, but a university student life does too, so there’s a clash of priorities… sometimes work wins, sometimes university does.

I always tried to balance both work and student life. I find it exciting, a way to explore more deeply into my potential; it’s like having a desk covered with paper sheets about all the possible topics and subjects you love, having them all under you eyes, so that your mind can work on finding connections, solutions, new ideas, a new spin on old ideas.

The ‘problem’ – no, it’s not really a problem – is that I need to get my freelance business going if I want to get married within four or five years, so that needs to get priority over my studies. LOL, I could have continued studying even as a low priority activity, but see item #1 for more information.

Finally, we come to the third item… and that’s where I could shed bitter tears.

It’s true: my mind is fragile. I’m keen to depression, panic attacks and nervous breakdowns. I burn out easily, and I need to revise continuously because I have a bad memory (blame it on hypothyroidism and anxiety). I like to do many things, but I have to keep control over the way my mind flows… the moment I feel it begins to hiccup, I have to stop. It’s frustrating, it makes me cry. Back in high school days, I went through a terrible time of depression and alternate nervous breakdowns that lasted for almost four years. That time left its after-effect. I’m still not completely over it.

The interesting thing is that I recently found out that my performance in all areas improves when I tell myself I’m great (a booster for a low self-esteem person) and I let my mind take over and go super fast— I get hyperactive, my memory improves, I multi-task efficiently, I get new ideas and I find new interesting spins to old ideas. In this state of mind I once found a connection between two mathematical concepts while watching a Disney movie,  a connection that revealed to be an already existent theorem.

What’s incredible is that it all works in the background of my mind. If I were to do this consciously, I wouldn’t be able to.

So, all this to tell you why I’m about to interrupt my university studies. It’s going to be tough… but I’ll do everything I can to lighten the burden; that includes:

• attending public lectures when I have a free day (I’ll have to find an excuse to tell my parents, though)
• continue working on university projects I really like on my leisure time
• continue challenging myself with new notions from time to time

I need it to feel alive. Simone is going to help me with it.