Amazing footage....

I stumbled across these today

Rocking out the good grades

So the darndest thing happened. I got my midterm grades back and I got one B..... and the rest were A's. I don't know what that means. I've been goofing off a lot. Well really I've been overwhelmed sort of with my work load and down on myself for not managing my time better, but evidently all of that paranoia is paying off.

But then again, something else happened. My workload like tripled. Oh, no!!! Now I have to really apply myself. That means no more extended meals, no more FACEBOOK, well at least not for as long a period of time anyway. I spent the weekend doing some inner work and trying to get caught up, but really I've been stressing myself out unnecessarily in the wrong areas. I'm going to have to work on that.

I did get some good poetry written last week. I was kind of proud of that. But we had an internet outage over the weekend and some things didn't get done and while you think that I would've been much more productive being forced to separate myself from the technology, it was quite the opposite. I did get to play the drum though for a gig, although I may have directly blacklisted myself from any further engagements after the fact with a little social faux pas that I made later when I was leaving the music building. We'd have to discuss that at some other time. Plus some of the boys have been distracting and I've been wrestling with the idea of coming across as some sad old cougar, so I've been hiding myself in my circle of friends to make sure that I don't make any innappropriate decisions regarding them and that's worked pretty well. I think I've pretty much worked all of those hormones out of my system with a little bit of chi harnessing. It's amazing how putting things into a more zen perspective can totally alter your state of mind. Now I just need to let go of this catharsis and get back to work.

I just thought I'd update those of you who were concerned and hadn't heard from me in a while. Some of my friends aren't doing so well. But now I don't feel so guilty about alienating myself from them this past couple of weeks to get some work done. I really could use some new tunes (indie and neo soul) so that I can have more incentive to focus. A really good friend of mine, who will probably end up as our valedictorian sent me a playlist today to cheer me up, which was really sweet. I love the people with whom I've chosen to associate. I really hope they all are here with me for the duration. That being said, let me do my part to make sure that I get to stay here.

"If a man devotes himself to the instructions of his own unconscious, it can bestow this gift [of renewal], so that suddenly life, which has been stale and dull, turns into a rich unending inner adventure, full of creative possibilities."
-- Marie-Louise von Franz

Or so I tell myself... My attempts to counteract Math Anxiety

Here are some musings of my relationship with my math homework….

(which I correlated with Sandra Anne Taylor's excerpts about creating more substantial relationships).... It's a little out in left field but it makes perfect sense to me.

I promise there's a method to the madness....

If you put out a certain type of energy you will receive results that are often a reflection of that particular energy. In a relationship as Sandra Anne Taylor says “if you put out a nervous energy than you will attract a fearful mate in return or if you are critical of yourself than you will attract a mate who is critical of you as well. As well as if you put out passive energy, you will either attract a mate with that same passive energy or you will attract someone who will try to dominate you to exert their energy through you”.

The same attitude can be applied to our relationship with our studies. If we are nervous about our assignments, that scattered energy is going to reflect in partial retention. We’ll only remember bits and pieces of the information. If we are critical of your assignments, you’re limiting yourself in that you are not maximizing the full potential of yourself to immerse yourself in the material and receive a variety of favorable results from them and your output in you assignments becomes questionable as well. If you are passive about doing your assignments, either you will be equally as ineffective about learning the material or you will let that anxiety dominate you by playing those fears out through you which will probably adversely affect the way you approach the problems as well as your potential results.

Don’t be a victim when you make a mistake, because it inhibits your ability to learn from them. That means don't be so hard on yourself or blame the professor for why you don't understand the material. Learning math is about learning how we make mistakes as well as learning how we approach these inconveniences and how we go about trying to correct them. Math is about teaching us more effective ways to think and strategizing to correct our thinking when there is something in it that is causing us to make errors. Hmmmm…. My thinking needs to be improved…. Maybe I will do some math problems …. I just need to read this repeatedly whenever I find myself averting my focus from it and remember that it’s more than a job or an assigned task. It could be the very thing that could possibly bridge the gap between here and a MUCH better life. I may like the one I have now, but it could totally exceed my expectations if I take the material a bit more seriously, and respect and enjoy the process instead of being reluctant to participate. Think of it as another form of service learning, only this time it is a service that you are doing is for yourself. Sweet….

Behold... a good relationship with one's self, and what they learn or choose can become the key to enlightenment

Heeeeyyyyy

I haven't talked to some of you in quite some time especially since I no longer have a phone. I just wanted to let you know that I am doing well and I'll try to contact you sometime this week. I've had midterms this week and I'm not quite done yet so it's been a bit of a challenge staying in touch. I apologize if any of you were worried and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Feel free to email me and EVENTUALLY I will respond.

Managing my Time: Finding Incentives

So I've had some issues come up with time management which is why you haven't heard from me in a while. After doing a little bit of a time assessment, the realization came to me that I am juggling a lot more than I anticipated and still not exploring some of the key things that I wanted to be a part of. I did a little audit and I'm not sure exactly how I managed to do so, but I have somehow amassed 7 classes, two student groups, countless hours of Facebook time and have still managed to have a social life. While this appears to be impressive, or insane for those who have had experience with tightly packed schedules before, I have noticed that all of this overloading may be a primary contributor to my increasing lack of motivation. I've decided that before I continue to regress any further that I may want to take a moment to re-evaluate my primary objectives for being here and participating in the activites with which I am involved and formulate some new strategies for managing my time and my priorities better.

Currently our school is a proponent of the Quadrant Time Management model:

Which would probably be pretty effective if I used it more. The question then arises, when do I make time to map out my activities according to this quadrant model and integrate them into my schedule according to these goals. Currently I'm using a highlighting system in my agenda, when I use it. But I've noticed that as my schedule increasingly becomes more repetitive, that I am slacking on really even using all of the time management systems which I've implemented. The one exception being the Time Left alarm system and that's only because I customized an alarm that plays the most aggravating ringtone I could possibly come up with. Thank You Eric Cartman.

Honestly, I've noticed the past few weeks that I've been going to bed so late I've actually been waking up to my 3 am wakeup calls and rolling back over and going back to sleep which has thrown my schedule off the rest of the day because I put off my best quality of study time into the wee hours of the night. Because we had midterms this week I made myself go to bed around midnight, but I honestly felt as if this affected my ability to be prepared more so than sleep deprivation would have. So clearly I'm going to have to come up with ways to better manage my time and interest to make sure that I'm honoring my body's needs as well as accomplishing my academic objectives.



I haven't been able to really put all of my personal interests aside because I realize that pursuing them often seems to be the one motivating factor of reminding me why I am here. Where the problem lies, I think is that I am becoming less inclined to "stick to the gameplan" thus increasing my distraction level and reducing the amount of time that I spend getting things done within the time frame that I may allocate to do these things.

Ironically, I went to the Learning Center to see if they could give me some pointers regarding better time management, and despite my newfound tendency to procrastinate, it seems that I pretty much have been following their program fairly rigorously on my own. I do appreciate the input they gave me about skimming, but Ironically, I end up reading the full context of the material anyway but at a faster pace for fear of missing something.

While it may be no surprise, the biggest waster of my free time seems to be FACEBOOK which is ironic because for years I refused to even indulge the idea of signing up for it because I assumed that it would be a different kind of time waste. Having been out of school for 7 years and having known a lot of people whom I wish I could've stayed in contact with has resulted in my being much more engaged than I had initially anticipated, but I am thankful for the opportunity to re-connect with old classmates and friends. It has definitely enriched my experience here and kept me in a relatively good mood.




That being said, now that I have a free moment, I am going to have to really take into consideration the size of my ri-DON-culous workload before I kill off any last vestage of enthusiasm that I conceivable have left this semester. I did apply to participate in a contemplative writing course since the companies that I contacted did not respond about internships. But I do think that would be a beneficial experience to have just to unplug for a while. I wish I could schedule some contemplative time throughout the week just to decompress for a moment, but more often than not that's when I remember that I have to print off that paper or I opt to spend a little more time reviewing Chinese or talking with a friend instead. Now I see why people opt to go to church.

So what are some things that I could do to try to regain a little bit of focus for a while? It sounds like this would be a good area to consider during my contemplative time. I could even do a little bit of preliminary research to maximize the efficacy during some of my facebook time.

SCHEDULING DOWNTIME would be beneficial for sure, so that there is a distinct separation between when I am actually taking time for myself to veg out versus taking a scheduled break to get my mind clear enough to stuff it full of more information

IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF MY STUDY TIME
like finding better study locations, regulating my hours a little better
and breaking up my study time with constructive activites rather than vegging out might be a better avenue than spending time online and inevitably losing track of it.



BALANCING THE TIME SPENT LEARNING HOW TO DO THINGS VS ACTUALLY RETAINING THE INFORMATION is going to have to be worked upon for sure. Because at this stage of my development, one is sort of interdependent upon the other. Currently, though I am spending a lot more time learning how to learn things but I think that once I begin to follow through that I may actually do better on my quizzes and exams.

SPEAKING OF FOLLOWING THROUGH...
I'm also going to need to come up with some way to measure (quite freqently) my progress and whether or not I'm staying on track and some sort of incentive to correct it. Perhaps I'll establish some sort of point system where I add and deduct points for making sure that I'm working upon what I should be focusing upon and weighing those priorities and perhaps rewarding myself at the end of the week if I accomplish those objectives, with like an extra hour of sleep or a cocktail fund or something. Actually, I cocktail fund might work for me. I've been pretty dry since I've been here and even though there isn't much acessibility toward it, an occasional outing as a reward for staying focused might not be a bad thing....

I'd be grateful to hear any feedback if you can come up with better ideas