Who am I?
By Muzammil Khomusi
Photograph: @madushan_mano
Who am I? A monologue or a diatribe, I don’t care anymore.
I am burnt out. I am sick of studying online. I am so fed up with the inconsiderate nature of those who have gotten to a position in their life where they think young people can handle it all and so our voices and views are not considered in their decision. Why are we made to arrange our lives around what staff deem acceptable, why are students not able to truly be independent in their studies? Yes, regulation is required, structure is comfortable but are we allowed to breathe; just have a day, a single day, to ourselves? The week does not even finish and new lecture content has been released like clockwork and so, the weekend proceeds to be consumed by menial study. I am a workhorse with FOMO. I am sick, and scarily dispassionate.
A field which once fascinated me is now beginning to fester in the corners of my consciousness, my identity is rotting away, and no one seems to care. I pay £9,250 pounds for what exactly – a day where I cannot think about myself? Maybe there’s some studying to do, and if I do it now it gives me time later, but later never comes, later is a lie. Everything that made me who I am, I feel is being stripped and sent into the shredder. I am to be recycled by a system.
Photograph: Thor Alvis
A system which doesn’t see students suffering because we’re shy to turn our cameras on because the system never lets students settle in, get comfortable with each other, no, the system sets us up against each other to compete till we strangle the last student standing in the way of a first-class degree.
A degree that cost me, me. A degree I fear will not land me my perfect job, a STEM student has a hard enough time studying and so the prospect of applying to an internship seems great; to do something meaningful, get hands-on experience but no wait, you see, we have to be deemed viable to work here. Psychometric tests, and so many stupid questions in the application; the applications for jobs are so long like, why are we made to jump through so many hoops?
Just interview me. Interview me if you are a human who values camaraderie, if you are a human who values me; me, a guy who just wants a bit more than making ends meet, who spent his whole life seeing ends just about being met and just wants to beget and bring up a family, who wants his passion to be nurtured, who wants his intellect to be challenged, who wants a system that values its workers’ efforts.
That is where I am right now. I am a worker. My manual labour is studying, and I am not paid for my efforts; my efforts aren’t even seen nor appreciated. I just take myself apart every weekend and muster a smile. I am not coping in lockdown; I am livid, and life is so grey. Life is not a hazy day, it is a collection of sighs, tired eyes and brains being fried. “Your brain gains a wrinkle every time it learns something new”; it is so smooth it is scary, and I am weary. I am weary of the prospect of having to spend another second studying because it is just so not fun. I CAN’T BE…I’d swear but I am unable to write so. Discipline. It is hard to not get angry when I am angry, or rather I should say, express anger or vent anger. Anger, anger, anger, anger. You are alright though my reader, or at least, like the system I assume so, because not seeing you is a good enough excuse. So, that’s who I am.
About Author: Muzammil Khomusi will be going into his final undergraduate year of study of neuroscience at the University of Leicester after the summer. Once stressed out, he now relishes the free time he has. His interests include reading, writing poetry, climbing, and spending time with his friends.
