Our eyesight may be too high a price to pay for our degree
My 20/20 vision ended in 2021
“School is bad for our health,” my best friend has told me on several occasions.
Truer words have never been spoken. I just came back from my optometrist appointment and he told me my eyes are tired from reading about Freud and Pavlov.
He said my eyes were tied because I have hyperopia— simply meaning I’m farsighted—which is very common among students. He added I should try to take 20 second breaks every 20 minutes by staring 20 meters away. As though my ADHD would allow me to schedule controlled space out breaks.
I’d rather space out by staring at my notes for 20 minutes—or two hours, let’s be real—and think about how I’m going to tell my parents I’m dropping out of school because my eyes can’t take it anymore.
When professors spoke about the dangers of Zoom fatigue, they never told us we could go blind.
Every time I sit down to watch yet another pre-recorded lecture, I start seeing double. It could be because I can’t bring myself to focus anymore, but it could also be my eyes finally telling me I should get glasses.
At least Concordia offers health insurance, right? Well, they do, but we shouldn’t have to pay for it. International students pay Concordia an estimated $1,344 yearly for insurance while non-international students pay $225.
Why don’t they pay for it since they are the reason our physical and mental health have been plummeting ever since we made the mistake of enrolling?
Basically, school is bad for our health, full stop. Since we are already paying astronomically high tuition fees—especially international students—why should we sacrifice both our eyesight and mental well-being?
Anyway, thank you COVID-19, for introducing online school to my once-perfect eyes. The strain of having to look at a computer screen for days on end ruined my perfect eyesight.
Man, I used to brag about my 20/20 vision, and now I have Concordia and COVID-19 to blame for weak eye muscles.
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