Inspiration to Beat Procrastination

(which is ironically a form of procrastination in itself... that will hopefully inspire some motivation)
i needed some trig inspiration to get myself re-motivated so that i would stop procrastinating. i have been a bit intimidated ever since i realized that i wasn't doing well. this is what i found this morning.



this is why i committed to engineering. i'm really hoping that i can work out an internship or something next summer with this guy... or with McDonough Branaugh, or Make Online Magazine.



http://www.makezine.com/

although i was thinking that working with the discovery channel wouldn't be a bad idea. maybe i could do some writing for their website or something:

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/planet-earth/planet-earth.html
http://science.discovery.com/

oh here's the site I wanted:
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/

anyhow my time limit is up. But thankfully i have these sites catalogued now so i can check them out later. enjoy!

Nap-Nighter

So I've adopted a whole new sleep schedule... and thus a brand new outlook on life. I can't remember the last time I felt well rested, but this new lifestyle seems to help my academic life as well. We'll see how long it takes for me to fully acclimate.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about the age old classic Nap-nighter philosophy of the overloaded college student. I go to class all day and finish my work shift. Instead of collapsing at dinner for 2 hours, I only take 1 now and spend the other hour either out walking or in the gym. Then I go home and take a "1 hour nap"... although it usually ends up being a little more than that. Then I head over to the library to get any clarification on what we're covering in trigs, (right now it's arc functions -yeesh) and stop by the cafe before it closes and i'm still trying to wake up and grab a cup of decaf coffee. Then I head back to my suite and get a little work done. It is a great way to recharge my batteries so that I can get a better quality of work done that seems to escape me when I am exhausted. [That is, so long as I have a full load and can avoid getting sidetracked on Facebook]. The nights when I have less to do, I just do a little bit of reading and researching on topics of interest that will either teach me some important "soft skill" that will make my life THAT MUCH EASIER or do a bit of prep for an upcoming project. The system actually works rather well.

Anyway, I knew it was time for some major adjustments to be made when my body just decided to shut down from the excessive autostatic overload [I learned that term in wellness]. AO is essentially when you have been caught in a state of distress that is either so intense or for such a long time that you body finally gives in and lowers its defense systems and you get sick. I'm there, the rapid weather changes finally did me in. The funny thing is, my body just sort of threw in the towel, but my mind kept making me go. Plus I'm working through some broken heart stuff and so I sort've have to keep busy. Getting a little bit of sleep is one thing, but staying cooped up in a room all day can make me feel so confined. That's why I don't do any meditations in there.

In wellness we talked about fight and flight response and how distress can trigger our "autonomic response". I must admit that over the years I have become quite the adrenaline junkie, and even once I've achieved a state of homeostasis and completion, I will cut you if you try to disrupt that, [well maybe not cut you because I'm a pacifist] but I'll definitely find some way to fight back. In all fairness, I will probe first and try to ascertain "the insurgents intention and give the person fair warning that a problem exists in an overly cautious and pragmatic manner." Unfortunately, there are people in this world who just don't care. Their attitude is to get over or establish dominance before someone else takes it and that's a shame. It never fails, as open minded as I try to be, there is always an inevitable clash and I get to spend weeks on personal development that could be better spent in joy and appreciation for life. ah, cest le vie.

But no one likes to be constantly caught in a state of alarm and resistance toward it. If you do it for so long, your mind becomes used to it, and that can be equally as distressing to understand that you are consciously creating more problems in your own mind. Here are a bunch of incredible links that i ran across last night during my study session. I found that because I am constantly in a state of collecting information when I wake up, getting some work in that requires retention works excellently for the "2nd shift". [Ironically, one of my wellness goals is to recondition myself to work my way out of this stress addiction and also better monitor my study habits, so in retrospect it was an excellent way to procrastinate.]
I hope that this practice will serve me much better than my past methods and allow me to be able to get more work done as well as catch up on some much needed rest.

tekgurl's crash....

Facebook Status messages.... (a typical Berea College student) is overwhelmed by life... how to cram everything I have to do and possibly fit in a little of what I want to do in 24 hrs... with sleep? impossible.... :D/.

(BC student)....is I have an 8am class with a nun, a test at nine, a test at 11, and sleep around 2012

(and yet again) ...is hitting that 24 hour mark.. no sleep... 1st time ever doing such a thing...

I constantly read these kinds of messages on Facebook. Even this week I've been running on fumes and caffeine trying to study for my trig exam. I received news that I'm failing the homework portion despite spending three nights a week in the math lab and getting the aid of a private tutor on Tuesday. I talked to my Professor and TA to let her know how much I've been working on it, pulling up additional resources, getting outside help, etc. but without the formation of a good study group or a textbook that doesn't send the best math minds collapsing into the fetal position, there really isn't that much I know left to do. It all boils down to a question of time. Even with my super intense time management skills, I still can't seem to find enough time to get everything done in a day.

My labor schedule has to fit within the 9-5 block, and with the ridiculous amount of classes that I'm taking, [double the requirement] I've found that sacrificing more than the necessary amount of sleep to function during the week seems to be the option that I chose. The customary 6 hours a week that I spent doing math last semester has increased to at least 9 and this does not include the amount of time writing for my hard ass writing seminar professor or studying vocabulary, drills and characters for Chinese. I keep pushing myself to get the work done, but it doesn't always get done. Even now I need to be reading an article and writing an annotated bibliography, but I needed to purge this overwhelming feeling of apprehension for a moment get back to work. I'm listening to the new Chinese dialog we're supposed to perform today and undoing the curls in my hair to have a glorious fro to keep my head warm [why is it still snowing in March]. I'm also trying to stave off this cold. I've decided Herbal tea is a great aroma to wake up to.

Anyhow, they did a mental health surveyat the school and determined that more than half of the students here were either well over the healthy level of distress or simply depressed. I've been to busy fighting to get up to speed to allow myself to break down, but I definitely feel the tension to break down from time to time, the later things get in the evening. Even now I'm always amazed to look online and see who still managed to stay up all night. I'm too old to get away with that these days.

I did explain to my trig professor how much time I was spending and that I was eventually getting the concepts it just was taking me much more time to fully comprehend them. She understood, so hopefully this means that there will be a wicked curve. She did mention the word when she gave the academic integrity disclaimer before our exam. I can only hope....

here is the article that helped me to get through this week... [http://www.berea.edu/bcnow/story.asp?ArticleID=1425]

as well as a bit of well planned ethical humor


I will comment, for the sake of geek-dom that this is the farthest thing from a cyborg. A robot is a much more appropriate usage of a word, although if you want to use a more gender specific term you could go with gynoid, but that term can be construed as somewhat offensive. But it's how I found the image in the upper right hand side. People who know the right terminology can communicate better images... or so I allege.

Taking 2 Minutes

I am always surprised at the extraordinary amounts of work that I am able to accomplish each week, in spite of the numerous challenges that continue to arrive. It occurred to me, that someone who aspires to do the amount of work that I want to do, as well as complete the tasks with the level of devotion and intensity that I put forth into these investments is bound to run into challenges on a fairly consistent basis. It appears that the amount of time I spent complaining about these challenges, or lamenting over the fact that I am plagued with these additional burdens could be better spent getting much more work done, or at least improving the quality of my work more effectively. If I do a better job of monitoring the ebbs and flows and stifling the need to constantly complain about everything, perhaps I will find myself much more productive and will be able to alleviate some of the problems or anxiety I create due to anticipation, and disappointments held within my mind. So I’m adopting a non-complaint regimen as one of my wellness goals. If I get overwhelmed I am allowed to give myself 2 minutes of isolation to cry, if need, be. But as this permission and act of surrender seems to curtail any need for me to release any tears, I will limit my anxiety to this period of time, to acknowledge the physical distress that I am feeling when I become overwhelmed and then take a few minutes changing gears [approx 5]. I hope that with this technique I will be able to better motivate myself to complete more tasks, and actively participate in the present so that I can get a better quality of work done. I will also perhaps try this technique @: http://video.about.com/altmedicine/2-Minute-Relaxation-Technique.htm .

--heaves heavy sighs

I skipped class for the first time ever today [at least technically]. I had already planned to spend the better part of my evening attempting to make sense of all of those trig and sinusoidal functions before tomorrow's big exam. I received the bulk of my homework back Thursday, and after looking at the first two and seeing favorable grades, I simply put the packet on top of my todo pile to work on later. This morning, however, as I was checking my email, I received a notifications that all of our grades had been posted upon blackboard. Upon finding mine, I realized that the cumulative number looked relatively low compared to what I was supposed to have. So I calculated it. The results were not good. Either I had done very poorly on those assignments or I had grossly miscalculated what was given to me. In either case it looked as if I was pretty screwed.

I spent the bulk of my day getting myself caught up and printing off lecture notes, finishing up assignments and trying to hold it together. I found myself complaining a bit, something that I'm consciously working to notice and eradicate from my pattern of behavior. I think the distress that came from having to make the decision to skip my Chinese class bothered me more than the realization that I was failing. I think this was mostly, in part because I was in denial. Last semester and even through the short term I was able to squeak by with A's. I hadn't been negligent or anything this semester. I'm taking one less class and spending 3 days in the math lab, in addition to securing a private tutor and it still hasn't worked out. I received my homework assignment from last week and I'm not sure what happened. The entire back page was covered in red x's. I think out of 12 problems I only received 3 partial credit points... a total of 1.5.

I immediately emailed my TA and spent the afternoon on the docks going over the class notes and high lighting all terminology and any concepts or formulas that I couldn't make sense of. I'm still surprised at the amount that I did not know. Plus my homework assignments weren't clearly marked so I had no way of knowing what mistakes I was making. I skipped my swim screen. [for some reason we are required to know how to swim as a graduation requirement. we are also required to take to fitness courses, one of which could count as the survival swimming course... do the math]. I went to my writing seminar, took a short dinner and went to the gym to glide off some of my frustrations on the elliptical. Then I did a little bit of core pilates work to spread out the endorphins, stretch and went to the math lab.

I stayed for 2 hours until my TA left. He explained to me in several minutes things that had taken several class periods for me not to understand. Then after he left, I felt myself getting panick stricken from all of the overwhelming amounts of information and frustration so I went outside to take a couple of minutes to cry. I always intend to take the two minutes, but the permission always seems to keep the tears from coming. This is why I only allow myself the two. Then I went back to the library, checked my Facebook account and went around the corner to a silent corner of the library to take a monitored nap. I had a friend of mine wake me in 20 minutes. It was a nice surprise because he was kind of cute, and I'd actually fallen asleep. Then I headed back home and delved back into my trig notes.

After rifling through and organizing my notes and realizing that i had no clue how to measure my progress with no commentary, graphs or answer keys, I put on my most rebellious chick rock, Liz Phair on Pandora and started looking up youtube videos of trig functions. After realizing that I had no clue what the online instructors were sharing, [we haven't fully discussed radians yet] I opted to search the images in the google search engine instead. It saved me a ridiculous amount of time. Most noted out of all of the online resources that I stumbled across, it was certainly the best labled and had great simple visual representations was a site built by the Oswego City School District Regents Exam Prep Center. Is this somem sort of magnet school? Bc they were on it. This site was much better to me that anything I'd found on cliffnotes. They make me want to move to their school district when I graduate and have kids. I must certainly remember to send them a note of gratitude for this invaluable resource.

here is a link to their site: http://regentsprep.org/

I just like to give credit where it is due. I was working on some of their trig functions and I got a bit confused with practice problem number 3, before I even realized that they had a link to a small pop up window that showed you how to do it. I immediately realized that I had left out a crucial bit of information in the notes I'd taken from the special angles chart. But after attempting it incorrectly so many times, I realized that I was more or less spent on retaining any new information. I logged onto facebook momentarily to get a sense of changing gears while trying to make the decision as to how much sleep I'd need to process all of this information in the REM cycle. i just wanted to go back and correct the one thing to reiterate how to do it properly before I went to bed, when i noticed that one of my classmates had posted news about our class being cancelled. Reluctant to get too excited too soon, I checked my college email and sure enough, the test had been rescheduled for Thursday. My instructor had come down with an illness.

Wow, I don't know whether to jump for joy or simply break down. Thankfully, one of my suitemates walked by so I got the opportunity to share my experience with someone before I ran the risk of spontaneously combusting. Yeesh, what a day!!! It makes me wish that I had not have skipped Chinese. At least I can use the classtime tomorrow to make sure I'm caught up.