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July 2018 - Decompression

Lectures are tough, School is tougher, Learn however you want.

July 2018 - Decompression

Hahahahaha, oh my god it's been so long. Just look at that date, I'm almost done with August now! Better late than never, I suppose.

All in all, my July was pretty school-centric and chaotic. Like I said in the last update, I pretty much didn't do anything other than study, sleep, eat pizza, and stress out. My exams began at the end of July, and followed until August 7th, so there was no chance of me getting this update written at the beginning of the month. Even after it all, I took the two weeks as a long break just to come off of the massive streak of all-nighters that it took to pass the term.

Oh yeah, I guess I have that to celebrate! I passed the term! Most people wouldn't be worrying that heavily about something like that, but this midterm season was the worst I've ever had, so I definitely had to shape up to meet my goals. It was probably the worst feeling in the world to jump from course to course and realize just how little of that topic you actually know, and how little time you had before the final, especially when my DUMB schedule put 3 exams back to back (Jul 30, Jul 31, Aug 1). That being said, I'm really proud of how much I was able to learn, and confidently write for these finals, even if most of it wasn't learned in class.

I like the idea of going to class, hearing the professor talk, understanding it, then reviewing at home, but that isn't how my brain works. I don't understand how so many of the people in my class can listen to a lecture on the 'Structures and Properties of Nanomaterials', and follow along with all the confusing content so well that they can even ask specific questions/teach other people about what was taught, just minutes after hearing it. I find myself running over to YouTube whenever I want a good conceptual understanding, and reaching towards practice questions for solidifying what I know. I never even open all those notes that I spend hours/days/months/millennia seated in those halls, scribbling onto random sheets of lined paper. There's just too much risk with that in my opinion. If I forget something, or write something wrong, or learned something wrong in lecture, I don't want to repeat mistakes I've made before by just using my error filled notes, I'd rather take all the professors' online lecture notes and go over those instead. I don't think I'm alone on that but I still just felt I wanted to put that out there.

TL;DR: Lectures are tough, School is tougher, Learn however you want

Besides school, getting back home has been an adventure. I feel aimless back here: no desk, no schedule, just a big ol' empty house for all of August since my family is all working full-time. I've been trying to play video games but I keep getting distracted and don't feel like just sitting in one place for that many hours. Part of that is because my laptop is slowly trying to drive me insane, failing on menial tasks and just being an overall slow disappointment, but still.

Whilst writing this I've realized how good it is to offload some stuff from your mind so I'm probably gonna try to write more, and definitely want to go back and finish my JS30 course. Maybe go and start some more because my brain is so mush from this past month. BUT THAT'S OKAY. I GOT THIS. GET BACK ON TRACK FOR THE COOP TERM, THAT'S THE GOAL.

But so far, I feel pretty D E C O M P R E S S E D.