requirements

Lately i have been receiving flak from some of my relatives here because I don't call them daily or at least twice a week.

Let me start this by stating that I would like to believe I am a nice person, who goes beyond my own comfort zone in helping people. I , for some unknown reason, have been the perennial shoulder to cry on for other people, the adviser, the level head, the person who catches falling people and i have no complaints about it. But i could only do so much.

Some of my relatives, who i love dearly, have been calling my father and complaining that I haven't been calling them. Like it's something terrible. Like it's the biggest crime next to jeffrey dahmer's. Like i killed someone. I wake up early , sometimes 430 am, to go into the hospital, come home by 9 pm, heat up some food at the microwave, my only time for myself is taking a shower. And then i sit for five to ten minutes to eat dinner and then i hit the books again, do work related to work, sleep by 12 midnight, go on thirty hour straight work shifts every four to five days, no fixed weekends off, no time for myself, not even time for movies, and i get flak because i don't call them...

I don't need this.

If i can i would.

If i could stop time I would, but me being in a foreign country, adjusting to everything, getting caught between missing everyone back home, feeling like I lost every one close to me by making this move yet still moving forward...

Here's the thing. One of the people who demands my calls most of the times just pours out his hatred to everyone in his life. I hate this , i hate her, i hate him, don't you agree he is hateful? Don't you think she is bad? i am angry at her... Hate, anger, problems... How could i spend whatever precious minutes i have for myself listening to that?

I'm a nice person but i cannot solve everyone's problems.

I try to but i'm not superman and sometimes i just feel like my knees are going to buckle and i just might fall with all these demands. I'm human. I also bleed, don't try to stretch me too much, because i am secure with my love for the people in my family, and I don't have to prove it and i don't have to feel guilty about it... but why am i feeling guilty when i shouldn't? This is just adding stress. If they really cared, then they'd understand and wouldn't push it further like making big issues out of a mole hill.

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I print out my papers one evening. He looks at me and asks me if he could do the elective with me. I look at him and think, you're demented. You're crazy. You're stupid. Capital S - tupid. Stressor number six hundred fifty five.