Chapter 79

As you might imagine, having hobbies as my safe space meant that when I was done with mom’s phone call, I would be registering for a whole bunch of clubs and other extracurricular activities. The phone call, which came really early in the term, was at the worst time because at the time, it wasn’t too late to sign up for anything yet. 

I often look back at the week after the phone call with mom and think if maybe there was more to it than just running away from my problems with my hobbies. I initially thought that there may have also been a level of trauma from failing a course the last winter term a year ago but that was kind of a weak argument. To explain this thought process, I best describe it as that I was in denial. It was as if to say: 

“I’m not afraid of failing. That last time was a fluke. In fact, look how not afraid of failing I am. Watch as I join in every club I have ever done in the past and still make it through”.

Like I said, that’s kind of a poor excuse. I’d say if I objectively looked at this point, it may have been responsible for the mass-joining of clubs that was about to happen at around 10%? If we’re really going into percentages, I’d say my other reasons for doing a lot of clubs in my last term of school was probably around 45% for coping with familial issues, 25% for needing them as a means to not burn out from school and around 20% because I knew that this was my last term on campus and didn’t want to miss out on my last chance to be part of university clubs/councils. 

So how did that all play out? Well…

The week right after my night time call with mom, I was drafting a message to the music director of the Waterboys. I was going to tell them I’d be quitting this term because there was simply too much demand from the group in an ICCAs term. Right when I was about to hit ”send”, I hesitated. 

Then I decided to do some pro’s and con’s to joining or not…

Activity #1: Waterboys Acapella (member)
Reasons to not join:  1. Takes up lots of time during the week for rehearsal 2. ICCAs term means more practices for choreo as well as other extra rehearsals too	Reasons to join: 1. It’s my last term in school and I won’t get this chance again 2. Third year optometry courses are easier than second year optometry courses 3. It’ll be my last term doing ICCAs and I won’t ever get this chance again 4. The school-life balance with last term and doing acapella worked out okay 5. ICCAs repertoire was the same as last term so I didn’t have to learn anything new

Well, as you can see. The pro’s had it. Was this table biased? Absolutely. Honestly, if I stopped it there, it probably would’ve been fine. However…I caught wind that the UWB were in need of someone to teach the lessons this term and no one else was available.

Activity #2: University Of Waterloo Breakers (teacher)
Reasons to not join: Takes up an hour during the weekSchedule already has a commitment for acapella	Reasons to join: It’s my last term in school and I won’t get this chance againThird year optometry courses are easier than second year optometry coursesUWB has no one else this term to teachUWB is already scarce for members this term and canceling classes with hasten the decline of the club

Okay, so more pros than cons again. Soooo… Two clubs. That’s it. No more. We can’t handle anymore commitments. I stopped there for the official clubs and councils. That is to say, this was my limit for the things you needed to sign up for during the beginning of the term. 

Honestly, having signed up for two clubs at the beginning of the term was already over the zero I was planning on doing. But during this week, I seemed to just have this itch to do hobbies and extracurriculars that I couldn’t shake. 

I told myself at that point. Okay. No more clubs and no more councils. I have too much already. But what about school events? Yeah…So our class skit night coordinators asked for volunteers to coordinate skit night and you can probably tell where I’m going with this. 

Activity #3: Optometry Skit Night (skit organizer)
Reasons to not join: Takes up time for making the skitTakes up time for recordingTakes up time for editingTakes up time coordinating with others from my classSchedule already has a commitment for acapellaSchedule already has a commitment for UWBMy skits are never all that greatIt’s cringeyThe whole “professors judging us on art stuff thing” (see ch. 72)	Reasons to join: Third year optometry courses are easier than second year optometry coursesThis is the one artistic optometry event that our program hosts

The cons outweigh the pros now. So why the hell did I choose to do this at all? Why? I don’t know. Best I can describe it? During that one week post phone call, I was simply out of control. 

During the term, I would end up taking up skit night and doing a rendition of a Hamilton Medley to act like a magnum opus to our cringey skit nights as a class. Aside from the time commitments of arranging, editing and producing it (very poorly and very inefficiently might I add), I also had to find ways for classmates willing to do it with me for the actual day of the skit night. I knew that the stress of all of this would take its toll on me but at the beginning of the term, when all of the arrangements were being made, I figured that future-me’s problem. 

I suppose that a point could be made that I may have thought that by doing a skit of Hamilton, it’ll be well known enough for me to be noticed in the Optometry program as the Hamilton guy. The benefit of this? Any publicity distances me away from the secret of my failing a course in the past. This is the only rationale I could come up with and honestly, it’s so weak I didn’t even include it in the list. 

Okay. So no more optometry related events and no more clubs and councils. 

…

…

…

But I didn’t mention anything about guest performances…

Sure enough, there was a post by UW Orchestra about how they were short some cello players and seeing as how so far I haven’t registered myself for anything cello related yet, I messaged the orchestra and told them I could join as a guest performer.

Activity #4: UW Orchestra (guest performer)
Reasons to not join: Takes up hours during the week during exam timeSchedule already has a commitment for acapellaSchedule already has a commitment for UWBSchedule already has a commitment for Skit Night	Reasons to join:Third year optometry courses are easier than second year optometry coursesThe time commitment would only be during the exam time for a few hoursThis is the last cello-thing I would be able to do during my time in Waterloo

So at this point. The tables were kind of useless. The cons have reached critical mass and would never fall under the pros anymore. Yet, I was blinded from all of this. I was completely out of control. The desperate attempt at trying to get rid of this itch at the back of my neck that told me to sign up for more things wasn’t working. But I had nothing else to try. In truth, all I was doing was digging myself a deeper and deeper hole. 

In case you’re wondering why I couldn’t just quit some of these commitments because 

“Hey! This was still just the first few weeks of school! There was plenty of time to change your mind!”

This is a true fact. 

But I always had a hard time turning my back on things I chose to do. This was a habit from my cello playing days. You are conditioned to think that everything you do has the potential of ruining your reputation and therefore, your future employability. So during that first week, the very good idea about turning away from some of these commitments never even occurred to me. 

It would only be towards the end of the term before I even thought about walking away from some commitments to budget my time better. That’s to say, when I did finally come around to understanding that I should walk away from certain things, it was too late. These commitments for clubs and councils were mostly performance based (mainly talking about WaterBoys, UW orchestra and skit night) and you can’t just dodge the spotlight and leave your fellow performers out to dry. Official performance, paid performance or volunteer performance, you just don’t do that. 

So, clearly, this was going to be a sh*t show but just bare with me. There is one last item for the winter term we need to discuss. We were at a point where I was going to do no more clubs, councils, events nor guest performances. So what do we have left after that? 

Well…

I could still fill up my reading week…

And go to Mexico…