Though technically spring break lasts till next Monday, I need to get my head in gear and back to work. I wrote a paper yesterday that is due Thursday of next week, but mostly I am procrastinating in order not to study for a mid-term in the dreaded web design course that is a week from tomorrow. Here I have this entire week, free from work, free from school, to catch up and finally understand the fundamentals of html and ruby and other computer jargon and I am avoiding it like the plague. Actually the plague sounds like more fun.
I did work my way through the first two weeks lecture notes, and wonder of wonders I did suddenly see some things in a new light and even had a couple of AHA! moments when I finally understood some things that had stymied me previously. But not a lot of such moments. And I have so many more weeks of lectures to labor over. My mind is almost frozen in fear, and I get stomach aches when I think about taking an exam for this course. At other (short) moments I think I can handle some of the written exam, and am only paralyzed at the thought of the practical exam the following week. Regardless, I need to get past this and take this opportunity to figure out at least enough to pass the class.
Remind me again why I did this to myself? I could have taken another boring, lecture/paper writing course that added nothing to my skill set. Could have wandered through this last semester in a happy haze. But no. I had to take the one course that challenges me beyond belief, which sucks up all my study time. Which I have nightmares about. Which hogs all the brain cells during the day. Which causes me to eat everything in the fridge. This is a good thing, right? Right?
Change Is Hard 
February 26, 2008 at 8:23 pm
This happened to me in law school – Lawyers’ Ethics (and no, that’s not an oxymoron, thank you very much!). It was so ethereal that I couldn’t really understand how he was test us; I mean, 2 hours a week of class for 14 weeks, and I had 10 pages of notes, tops. Every time I thought about the exam, I got exactly that sinking feeling in my stomach that you’re talking about.
Eventually, when the panic was about to overwhelm me, I realized I had to do something that would make me feel like I had control. So I took the book for the class and outlined each chapter (the book happened to be written by my professor so I thought that was a safe bet), one by one. It took me weeks, but in the end, it calmed me down and I aced the exam.
One of my favorite writers is Anne LaMott. She tells this story of her brother, when they were kids, who had 6 weeks to write a report on birds, but put it off until the last minute. He was sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by notebook paper and bird books and pencils, and he was near tears thinking about the enormity of what he had to do. Her dad came in, touched his shoulder and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
I think that’s genius, and I relied heavily on it when I was outlining that book. Maybe it will help you. Hang in there.
LikeLike
February 26, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Thanks, it does. It’s just html, ruby, tables, images, tags, attributes…item by item. Just have to remember to breath. Thanks for the encouragement. I am, often, near tears. Which is silly really. But true.
LikeLike
March 5, 2008 at 3:06 am
Challenges are what strengthen us. “We should not feel embarrassed by our difficultires, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.” From The Consolations of Philosophy, Alain De Botton ( a recent read).
You can also play, What’s the worst that can happen? You don’t have to go back & be a banker! 🙂
LikeLike