I work a lot. I'm a full-time college student with two part-time jobs who's also in extracurricular activities.
I'll never forget the time I was on the phone with my mom after work, it was around 10 p.m. I call her on my walks to my car for safety, but it's also just become routine for me to call her whenever I finish a shift at my second job.
This specific time, there was a beat of silence before my mom said, "You're my favorite daughter now, all you do is work and school and you never call to complain."
I know she was playing around, but a little part of me was upset by the comment. She made it sound like it's so easy for me.
My schedule consists of two in-person classes and the rest online, my two journalism clubs and my day job, which is a student worker position with ASU. My night job is at a local concert venue in downtown Phoenix.
Read More: Insight: High expectations made me hate my college experience
I started my second job at the concert venue over the summer. I call it my "tuition job" because that's what it is. I don't have anyone else helping with my education, and I've made it a goal to not take any loans past my first year.
My logic behind my work schedule is my student worker position pays for my living expenses and my night job pays for tuition and savings.
I spent the summer getting adjusted to two work schedules and preparing myself for the fall. It was a difficult adjustment, especially when school started.
The fall coincidentally happens to be the busy season for concert venues, so in this time frame, I was tackling a new job on top of my old, more demanding classes and a new reporter position.
There were a lot of days I'd get back home after a 15-hour work day and just sit in my car, decompressing.
It's not fun to do all of this work knowing your peers are out on a Friday night and you have to work a double just to pay for your education.
I think for a while, I was starting to become very bitter. I'd see other people do things I couldn't and be filled with rage. If I was scrolling on social media and saw someone post vacation photos, I'd click uninterested on the post.
It was weighing on me that I'd become something I never wanted to be: resentful. But I couldn't stop thinking that way.
And then one day, it clicked.
A couple of weeks ago, Suki Waterhouse was performing at my work and I was excited to stay for the show after my shift.
I finished my office job at 5 p.m. and had about an hour to scarf down some food and do some schoolwork before going on to the next job.
I ended up being second cut that night and clocked out before Suki Waterhouse even went on stage.
I let myself forget about work and school and just blended in with the crowd of 20-somethings on a night out. It was my first time at a concert alone and my phone had 10% battery life.
So it was just me and my thoughts. I think that did me a lot of good.
Suki Waterhouse played one of my favorite songs, "Supersad," early on in her set.
And I wish I could say it was this big revelation for me — that I was struck with some arrow of clarity. But as I was jumping around to the song, singing the lyrics with the crowd I felt a high. I realized there is truly "no point in being supersad."
I've never been a glass-half-empty, glass-half-full kind of person. I usually think "Feel what you feel," but I did realize that night that it's all about perspective.
I drove home after the show with a smile on my face listening to the setlist and thinking about all I have to be grateful for. I have two jobs I enjoy, no matter how much I complain, with people who I like to be around.
One of which allows me to be surrounded by live music constantly. Nothing beats seeing people's faces at a concert, seeing everyone in a room united by a common love.
In addition to work, everything I do through Cronkite and The State Press is reassuring. I know that I'm here studying what I love.
And even if the life I live isn't what is depicted on screen and glamorized, I know it's a life in common with a lot of college kids.
I know I have a lot to be grateful for, sometimes I just need to weed through the bad to see it.
Edited by Andrew Dirst, Abigail Beck and Alysa Horton.
Reach the reporter at jagon128@asu.edu
Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on X.
Jazlyn is a sophomore studying journalism and mass communication. This is her first semester with The State Press. She has also worked at Blaze Radio.
