No more Mr. Superman?

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My (selfimposed) tempo is finally catching up with me. Big time. I'm burning out. Literally. For the third time in the past three weeks, I have had a physical melt down. That is, I collapse when I come home. Not lose consciousness but rather drop everything the moment I walk through the door and sleep. Or, another way this happens is, I experience a "being chopped down" feeling - I'm studying or doing whatever and all of a sudden, my body shuts down, leaving me unable to do anything but sleep. Not to mention that, when I experience this feeling, I am having an abnormally hard time climbing up into my bed... About 6 hours of classes and anywhere between 2-4 hours of practicals pretty much every day and up to 30 hours of work every weekend to top it off are "finally" taking their toll.

This week is particularly interesting. So far I've had two exams and a presentation on Monday, have two exams tomorrow, and another exam on Friday. And again... 30 hours of work throughout the weekend... What can I say... life is interesting.

I got lucky at work this Sunday though. Although I was supposed to be the floor manager at the casino I work at, I decided to take advantage of the fact that the place was empty and not much was going on and study at the reception desk. My supervisor noticed this and, as soon as the guy, working a shift that started 2 hours after mine, came to work, told me I could go home. Basically, I was at work for 2 hours instead of the 10 I was supposed to do. And so, while my shift should have ended at 1 am on Monday morning, it ended at 5pm, Sunday afternoon.

Some good has come out of all this though. I earn my own money and I appreciate the time I have to myself so much more. I am still pretty rotten when it comes to finances. I managed to blow most of my first salary within two weeks. Considering I started working in order to buy a new computer, I need to figure out a way to save what I earn...

I am still climbing and am getting into it more and more. And progressing surprisingly fast. While my physicial fittness is nonexistent, the basic climbing skills I mastered in Norway are still there somewhere. It's like ridding a bike I suppose. Once you learn, you can do it for the rest of your life.
I did feel very confused for a while though... about climbing that is... after I learned what happened to Nikos... since at the time I learned this, my evening sessions of climbing were pretty much the only thing that was keeping me sane.

People have been bugging me after Nikos passed away. About how I feel, about how I'm doing... I must admitt I was pretty upset by this. By all the discussions about it. By people leaving R.I.P. comments on his wall on facebook. By the fact that there was a blog made to comemorate him. If people weren't able to appreciate him while he was alive, I found it hypocritical to supposedly do it after his death... Why are people like this? Why am I like this? Why can't we appreciate what we have while we have it? Why does it need to be taken away, before we realise how beautiful and special it was and what an irreplacable role it had in our lives?
If it takes a life of a wonderful human being for certain bonds to be reestablished between people, then I think it is better those bonds remain severed.
One thing that also pushed me off balance (pissed me off) was someone mentioning that he is the 3rd person (of our RCN generation to have died so far). While this is true, I was enraged by the fact that someone could consider a person that was and in many ways still is so close to me as "the 3rd".
Sigh.
I felt guilty that I wasn't better at keeping in touch with him. That's one of the reasons I didn't make cheesy comments on his wall on facebook after he died and didn't want to get into discussions about it and about how I feel.
But inspite of this, somewhere in the back of my head, while he was alive, there was always a possibility. A possibility to see each other, once I'd have enough money to take a trip to Greece. A possibility to write to each other, as we did (both, letters and e-mails), for the first couple of years after graduation. A possibility to see each other at our reunion. And this possibility died with him. And it made me feel empty. To realise that he is gone. For good. No more jokes, letters, discussions about religion, fjord jumping, climbing, smoking together... no more anything.
And while the relationship I was in in Norway, and managed to destroy, hurting someone that is very dear to me, crushed most of my heart to death, his death crushed that little bit that was left.
It took me a few moments to grasp the fact that another one of the people that mean most to me are gone from my life and nothing I can say or do can change that.
This realisation hit me while I was in front of our library. I had learnt of his death while checking my e-mail in the library. And as I walked out, I sat down on a bench and broke into tears...


While life has been pretty difficult these past few weeks, I try to keep my chin up. I am being kept alive by climbing and by people that believe in me.

I need to go. I spent too much time on this. Time I don't have.
But at least I got a few things off my chest.
I need to go study... 3 more exams this week... and I have no intention to, as they say, bend over and accept my destiny...