Still Frustrated

I had to double check what was my last post was about, because emotion-wise, I didn’t know if they were going to be polar opposites. I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Man, it’s been a crazy month. Let me give you a quick recap before I dive into the topic of this entry.

Winter quarter is over. I haven’t gotten grades back, but it was definitely a hard quarter. I was elected Women’s House President and that will start up in the spring so I am really looking forward to that. I am really excited to see how the officer team and this house continue to grow and lead in faith. Now that I’m back with my family for the week, I’ll be working and definitely sleeping so it’s going to be a pretty relaxing break. I can already tell you that sleeping more than 5 hours has been amazing so far.

Let’s go back to those first couple sentences I wrote in my update because that is going to be the subject of this post. I feel like it’s important to put out a little warning before I get into it. Usually there’s a lot more thinking done before I begin writing, but that isn’t the case this time and I apologize in advance.

I’m really frustrated. I felt part of it as soon as midterms began and scores came back, but these thoughts happened more the closer I got to finals and even post finals as I wait for grades to come back. It makes sense when your first quarter at a university doesn’t go great. It’s a lot of change happening all at once. But when your second quarter goes about the same (or worse, but hopefully not worse), it’s just frustrating. Yeah, maybe I need to not be so hard on myself, it was only my second quarter, but put yourself in my shoes if you don’t know how I feel already. It’s frustrating. It’s discouraging. It’s annoying.

Mechanical engineering is something I still want to pursue, but if I don’t step up soon, I’m going to have to figure out something else. So far it feels pretty impossible to get into my department, unless I begin 4.0-ing all my classes. Alright, I’m being a little dramatic with the 4.0 thing, but my point is, I need to start doing better, much better.

I’m grateful to be here and I know a lot of people wish they were in my spot. There are also a handful of amazing people I’ve met and I look at our friendships and I know exactly why I’m at this school. Even the need to grow spiritually, that all started because I’m exactly where I need to be. But knowing that, doesn’t make the bad times any easier. I almost feel like I’m being teased in a way. I don’t look at God and think He’s teasing me or anything, but I look at God and helplessly throw my hands up and ask, “What is going on? What is happening? I know your plan is good, but I wish I could see where all this pain and suffering is going and when it will end.”

Here I am and I was given the opportunity to get into such a competitive school. Here I am and was given the opportunity to work as an engineering intern last summer. But here I am and I haven’t figured out the trick to doing well in this school, I don’t even feel like I can get into my major.

It’s frustrating, especially when my hard work continues to not pay off. It’s discouraging knowing I do homework and study from 5:30 to 5:30 (with a tolerance of two-ish hours) nearly every day, and it’s not working.

Here I am feeling helpless. Here I am feeling incompetent. Here I am still suffering. Here I am questioning the duration of this pain. When will I figure out how to do well at this school or when will I figure out that the only way to pursue engineering is at a different school?

Again, I know God has a plan for me. I know that goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. This isn’t me purposely trying to sound ungrateful. This is me being honest about my thoughts and emotions during my bad days and the bad times during my good days. I know my God is always with me, sometimes it’s just a little harder to remember than other times. I am just really frustrated.

Ending on a bad note sucks and I really hope I didn’t bring your mood down. I worked pretty hard on not letting my grades define me this quarter. Although it’s still a work in progress, I did a lot better handling bad scores and bad grades better than I did last quarter. By far, there were a lot less tears this quarter than last. Minor accomplishment, but I’m pretty proud, I’m happy to see some improvement.

I know my God has a plan for me. I know that if I could see my life as He can see it, I wouldn’t feel anxious about my future. He’s a good God and moving forward, I will continue to remind myself this. I’m excited to look back at this post and to just say, “Oh Kira, you had such little faith. You had no idea the good that was going to come from all this pain and suffering.”

Truly, I hope you got something out of this, suffering or not. Thanks for listening.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23