by B.J. on 12/18/2004 04:27:00 PM 2 comments Print this post

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i know how you feel,
tv is horrible, aim is addicting....papers are all halfassed.. merry christmas and all that fun
-the girl with the squeaky voice formerly known as junebugeye

p.s.: do you still miss santa cruz?
 
I get the same sorts of problems. Something I've found helpful is studying in a noisy environment, like a coffee shop or a commercial bookstore, so it feels like I'm not doing schoolwork. Something else I do is remind myself that I'm in college voluntarily and that I choose my classes voluntarily (unless it's a gen ed, of course).

By the way, I've changed my blog address. thatwaszen.blogspot.com. Have you active your Atom RSS feed at all? You just have to change it in your settings, and then I'll be able to see when your blog is updated via my RSS reader.
 
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Why Can't I Just Sit Down and Study

Everything I did leading up to and during finals week was half ass. Papers, final exams, I did everything to avoid actually grasping the material for fear that I might actually get an A. Thank you gmail.com, facebook.com, and of course the infamous basketballboards.net.

It's not that I don't like "intellectual" activities like reading or studying because I usually pride myself on reading all this random excess stuff in whatever I'm interested in, particularly at the bookstore and I extract a lot of interesting info. I'm in there so much I know all the cashiers and when their shifts are. Sad.

But anyway, as much I like doing all that "intellectual" stuff of reading, I could not bring myself to actually sit down and study. Now why the hell is that ?

Simple, I love learning, but I hate studying. (Cliche I know)

Study for me implies me being forced to do something.

So I don't study because I hate being forced into doing things like studying and just plain feeling like I got nothing better to do, but am doing something important for me.

As a short immature-looking brown kid I've been forced to take a lot of crap from bigger kids and adults as if these people know better. I fuckin' know better now.

And usually I sit down and read or type during those times when I feel I ain't got nothing better to do but that what I do is something important, like now, as I write this blog. Unimportant in the bigger picture of things, but pretty important now because I put my thoughts into this thing.

Some places can help me feel like I got nothing better to do but that I would be doing something important. The times I like to read are at the bookstore, while taking that 1-minute crap (see the "Urge to Shit Makes You More Ambitious" post, which is somewhat similar to the feeling I get when I am on the verge of finishing a run and I want to go out with a hard last run instead of a walk), and just recently at the Charles E. Young library on the 4th floor where no one ever goes.

And some things I definitely know that when I'm on the computer, nothing is ever going to get done at least for school because I always convince myself that there's something that needs to be checked out online. TV is just. . .terrible.

The obvious solutions such as taking away the computer or going into an environment probably wouldn't do much because it would fall under the principle of some entity forcing me to do work. Remember: I don't particularly respond well to being forced to do things or even doing them for a long time unless it's very interesting. At the bookstore and toilet, I don't read as much as I sift through. It's rare that I spend more than 10 minutes with a single piece of literature. On top of that, I fall asleep in the library. I feel too damn tired every time there and wander off after every new discovery that took about 10 seconds to discover in those lameduck studies.

The only time I actually respond well to anything is when I feel something is amiss which is on ze message boards when I feel stuff becomes a bit personal and emotional and allows for interpretation. That's the only time I respond in a timely and well-thought out manner. And it follows that those are pretty meaningful to me (even though to about 99% of the population it's absolutely meaningless). It's a place full of emotional charges and interpretation. I always feel like I'm educating or creating new ideas into people's heads (or least I like to think so).

So my solutions to my studying problem have been tried to go off that: to learn by integrating my studying with my interest of message board posting. But they have not been successful because I don't think people actually understand what I say or even what to say. I'm working on it. Some other practical solutions have been to just speed read and scan through books like I scan and sift through other books in the bookstore, but then I'd have the potential to miss a key detail. I'm working on it.

The only real solution I can offer is that I gotta constantly build the base for the knowledge. Gradual study or gradually picking info from the books. I mean when some material is newly introduced, it's not that meaningful unless I have encountered it before. People in general tend not to catch on as quickly. People like to cling to something they know, especially when that something they know is put in a different context. For example, when I was taking life sciences and learned for the 25,334 time about evolution, I clung to it and used that concept to connect the whole course together.

I dont like being forced into doing things and during mundane times, I'm doing something important, that's when I learn. . .

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