The Victorian Language of Flowers was used for decades to relay feelings that people had a hard time expressing or were too embarrassed to share. Each flower has its own meaning, and each color further explains the emotions they evoke. The flower we will be looking at today is the Field bindweed. This flower is an invasive vine with trumpet-like blooms. Its deeply invasive nature has gained it a reputation for wreaking havoc. This plant has cost American farmers millions of dollars in destroyed crops. In the Victorian Language of Flowers, the Field bindweed symbolizes humility, perseverance, and uncertainty.
With finals fast approaching, I feel there is this nervous air about campus. Like everyone is just a little bit on edge. I think it’s because of the uncertainty of finals and the fatality of final grades. Despite this uncertainty, students, much like the Field bindweed, persevere.
Finals season in general completely disrupts the routine of everyday life. Suddenly, I can’t remember the last time I truly slept or what I ate today. I feel caught in a loop of constantly studying yet moving through nothing. It can be rather devastating to an individual to be so out of the loop.
I think it’s because of the loss of routine that coping with the severe stress in our lives feels impossible. It changes strategies and can put a person on edge. Yet people will keep developing new coping strategies and new ideas, even if it is not the best option in actuality.
I think that much like the vine, students are incredibly determined — slowly stretching out as we try to cover as much material as possible. It’s difficult, but is that not the life of a student? The tumultuous trials that one must endure as they are trying to improve themselves. It is this that helps me most.
The fear of failure can be debilitating, yet it is when the fear begins to worsen that I start working to remind myself that I would not have learned anything had it not been for struggle. No one would have, and there wouldn’t be any advances in society.
It makes me recall subjects that I really struggled with. For instance, I remember truly struggling for the first time with math over long division — for some reason, I just couldn’t get it. I had to sit with the teacher and work through every problem while I recalled everyone else working on something else independently. I would have to meet with my teacher during breaks so that I wouldn’t fall behind. It took me an additional two weeks to understand the content.
Now, however, the process is burned in my memory. I have not once forgotten how to do long division, but I have forgotten about things that came more easily to me, like cross-multiplying. This may be a very trivial example, but I think, like this Field bindweed, we must persevere through the worst conditions, because in the end, we’ll come back stronger than ever before.
