Letter from the Editor: A prayer for the burned out

DANIEL DASSOW Editor-in-Chief

Monday was my last first day of classes as an undergrad, but it didn’t feel like a first day of class. With a creeping sense of overwhelm somehow already at my back, syllabus day felt like the final days of spring 2021, when I was a sophomore living alone in Laurel Hall at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. I could never imagine that I’d feel so ready to be done, and that the feeling would be accompanied by so much shame.

The shame comes because we are supposed to earn our burnout. I feel like I have not earned mine. I feel like the pandemic wasn’t actually that hard to live through, especially because I was fortunate to not lose any friends or family members to the virus and because I was a college student for whom the pandemic mostly involved a lot of sitting.

The shame of burnout is also a sense of being stuck, since people rarely discuss what’s on the other side. Things that have burned out cannot be lit again. That’s why I appreciated the phrasing used by Jacinda Ardern, prime minister of New Zealand, when she surprised the world last week by announcing she would resign.

“I know what this job takes,” Arden said on the edge of tears. “And I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It’s that simple.”

I am not resigning my post as editor or dropping out of school at the last minute. But I am ready to admit that my tank has run down, and that I’m grateful the end is in sight. I also feel sympathy for Ardern as critics publish their op-eds saying she wasn’t very good at her job anyway and that her style — the direct but deep empathy she showed after the Christchurch mosque shootings in March 2019, for example — was her only true substance.

What they really mean is that she has ulterior motives for resigning and that she hasn’t gotten enough done to truly feel burned out.

I sat in class yesterday as professors laid out attendance policies and book lists and all I could think was that I was ready to be done. It’s hard for me to admit because for so long, I’ve staked my identity on my passion for school and work.

Of course, this may sound like a typical case of “senioritis.” But I think it’s also a condition peculiar to the class of 2023. When we came to UT as freshmen in fall 2019, we were told over and over again by seniors to be present for every moment in college and to get involved because it goes by fast.

College has not gone by fast for us. It has been a tiring process of finding our place on campus only to be sent home after a semester, uneasily welcomed back and, at length, halfway reintegrated into the social fabric we once knew. We saw student leaders who came before us lead large and engaged organizations and then bravely steer them through the pandemic. Now, we are expected to be back to normal, as if the pandemic could ever not be the deciding factor of our unsocial college years.

Burnout is something that happened to us, and it has knocked the energy from our daily lives in small ways. Though I now associate school with the anxious malaise of COVID, I am trying to detach myself from feelings of shame at my own fatigue.

As Ardern said, “We give all that we can for as long as we can, and then it’s time.”

Before graduation comes, I want to move beyond the burnout so I can fill the tank enough to enjoy these last months at the university and the paper I love. So here is a non-sectarian prayer for those whose first day of class was as unsettling as mine: May you find strength in the memory of all you have endured and the person you have been in times of hardship.

May each day present you with opportunities for connection to others that once seemed impossible.

May the words you read and hear bring you new life, and may the words you speak bring life to people you love and people you do not.

May you be reminded in sudden moments of the things you love and your history with them.

May you live each day in the knowledge that you are living a life.

May the sight of beautiful things mean more to you than the legacy you leave.

Letter from the Managing Editor: The good, the bad and the university

ABBY ANN RAMSEY Managing Editor

I’ve spent my whole life in Knoxville. I grew up going to Knox County Schools, spending Saturdays at West Town Mall and occasionally venturing out to Market Square for dinner with my family.

I say occasionally because about a decade ago, downtown Knoxville wasn’t all that exciting. We rarely had much of a reason to make the 20-minute drive.

While I’m still here in the heart of Knoxville, much of my family is spread out, living in Texas, New York City and the much-closer Roane County. A portion of my break was spent reporting to them what Knoxville is like now as families flock to a city that offers cool coffee shops and breweries and students apply to UT at record numbers.

Downtown Knoxville looks completely different from when I was growing up. The restaurants are great and there’s never a shortage of new places and activities to check out. But unlike when I was younger, you have to expect long wait times and higher prices. If you want to get on the interstate, you’re more than likely going to sit in a lot of traffic.

The growth makes Knoxville feel a lot cooler. But it also just feels so crowded.

While telling my family about housing in Knox- ville, I mentioned that the cheapest 2-bedroom place you can find within walking distance to campus is usually no less than $600-$700 a month. My brother said, “That’s not bad for a 2-bedroom,” thinking that meant $300-$350 per person. I clarified that I meant the overall lease was no less than $1200-$1400 a month.

For my relatives that don’t spend their free time waiting in line for food at the Student Union or hunting down an open table in the library, UT’s growth equals a successful football program, like Chancellor Donde Plowman saiD on the Paul Finebaum show.

While this might be true, UT’s growth also equals humanities buildings coming down for a new Haslam building and students left scrambling for a place to live.

Last semester brought a mix of emotions for me. I felt so much Volunteer pride with each football win. But being surrounded by talks of university construction plans and unaffordable leases made me sad. I wished the athletic success and population growth could align with people feeling like the university had space for them.

We have no idea what this semester will bring. In August, I didn’t think I’d do a U-turn on the Strip to see why people were lining up outside the TENN. I honestly did not expect administration to decide to slow the rapid growth by letting in fewer freshmen for the 2023-2024 academic year. And I did not eXpect to walk around campus with my laptop open in hopes of scoring a Taylor Swift ticket.

But, that’s why the news is so exciting. Knoxville and UT – and Taylor Swift – can feel confusing and you never know if the latest story that comes out will bring you joy or disappointment or both or neither.

While the mixed emotions can feel uncomfortable, I think it’s wise to sit in that discomfort and understand that multiple things can be true at once. It’s true that I think my peers should be able to find an affordable lease. It’s also true that the football season made me genuinely excited for the basketball season — and that’s coming from someone who told people for years that I once met Peyton Manning, when it was actually Dane Bradshaw. (I was only 5 when I met him, so give me some grace.)

I encourage you to go into this semester at UT with an open mind, accepting that the miserable Starbucks line doesn’t mean you can’t scream Rocky Top at the next basketball game. Likewise, the Orange Bowl win doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to feel defeated when the only available lease is hundreds of dollars over your budget.

While I have no idea what will happen before May, I’m excited for a semester at a place that seems to contradict itself every other week, therefore forcing me to have more nuanced opinions than just only seeing the good or bad of each thing that happens on or around campus. Life here is always a little rocky.