I just sat through a two-hour seminar on post-colonial literature with my phone tucked under my thigh, refreshing a page about some reality TV star’s new boyfriend. Not even a good reality star. Like, third-tier. The whole time, my advisor is up there talking about Fanon and the damn dialectic of liberation and I’m just... checking if these two nobodies broke up yet. The shame, dude. The absolute *shame*. My parents sacrificed everything, *everything*, for me to be here. My baba worked two jobs. My mama sent every penny home. They think I’m gonna be some big shot professor, bringing honor to the family, writing books and changing the world. And here I am, practically drooling over internet gossip while my brain rots. Am I the only one who does this? It’s not even that I don’t care about the seminar. I do! I really do want to be smart and engaged and not a complete moron. But something just… takes over. It’s like a twitch, an impulse, and suddenly I’m deep in the weeds of celebrity babies and what someone wore to Coachella. Then I look up, and everyone else is scribbling notes, looking thoughtful, asking insightful questions, and I’m just a hollowed-out shell, pretending to look deep in thought while my notes are literally a blank page. The anxiety after is crushing. It’s a whole new level of self-loathing. Like, *habibi*, what are you even doing with your life? Is this just... what happens? Does everyone secretly hate their academic responsibilities and just scroll through garbage? Or am I uniquely broken? Like, how do I get out of this loop? How do I even explain this to anyone without sounding like a total fraud? My parents would have a heart attack. A literal heart attack. They think I’m living the dream, and I’m just... watching it all pass by while I scroll through pictures of people I don't know and don't care about. God.