Thursday 12 February 2015

I suck at time management

It's becoming very clear: I should never, ever be put in charge of trying to schedule my own time. I suck at it. I have a few things I'm meant to do before next lesson.......I have no idea when to do them. On the weekend? But its the weekend! When I get home? Nah too tired. On my half day off? Maybe, are there laws about that? In other words I agonise when the 'best time' is, spend even more time worrying that I'll never have any free time again (note: worrying time could be free time. But that's how I roll) and thus get nothing done leading to a mad panic. It's super.
I really need to get it sorted though, it only the start and I'm only going to get more stuff, and I'm only doing 3 courses-some of the people in my class are doing 6 and working part time. They are either much better at time management than me, need less downtime than me or are aliens. Equal bets all ways I say.
Anyway my first week is done, so far english has been okay (and I met a nice girl to sit with!), math is in that iffy grey area: we did graphs the first week and I'm okay (on my math scale okay=not panic inducing, minimal sweating and only 20% stupid mistakes) at graphs but obviously we'll be doing other stuff so this may change, biology has been the worst for a few reasons:
*The teacher: He's really nice but I like someone to explain exactly what they want me to do, he's more of the 'read this, discuss with classmates and get answer' this doesn't work so great for me.
*The material: this is stuff I've never covered before in any form (even with math at least I'd seen/made a graph before) and theres a lot of it. That's hard for me and I felt a bit lost at least twice in the class.
*The other students: I'd say 90% of them have taken biology in some context before, they seem to know a lot of the course content for example before today I'd never heard of Eukaryotic or Prokaryotic cells (handy hint: the difference is Eukaryotic cells have nucleus and organelle membranes! Or at least I think that was it.....) but the class was discussing them as if they already knew about them. I freaked out a little bit. Also there was some math involved that I didn't know (volume, area and then dividing them to get.....I've forgotten, but you get the picture) which put me on the spot and made me uncomfortable. I hate looking stupid in front of other people.

Anyway that's the lay of the land for now. I still feel unsteady and unsure but I hope it'll get better.

Vanessa

Monday 9 February 2015

I need to stop reading

Why you ask? Well I find articles like these:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/students-struck-by-high-anxiety-20101129-18doq.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/student-life/10371945/Anxiety-at-university-dont-feel-youre-alone.html
http://counselling.anu.edu.au/brochure/10-best-ever-anxiety-management-techniques
http://www.uts.edu.au/current-students/support/health-and-wellbeing/counselling-service-and-self-help/self-help-resource-7
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/15/anxiety-epidemic-gripping-britain
(I realise some of these have nothing to do with anxiety and university but just anxiety in general)

And I wonder.....if anxiety is more prevalent amongst university students, who were for all intents had stable mental health to start, am I doing the right thing for my mental health? As someone who already suffers anxiety have I dodged a bullet? I mean I already have it so it'd be pretty hard to develop it right? Maybe not. I can certainly be more stressed thats for sure and lets face it as someone who suffers from anxiety and mild depression motivation can be hard to come by so things like assessments and tests are like my worst enemy. I want to achieve something, I want to make friends and have a life-is this the best way? I don't know.

My first day was okay. I was pretty freaked the first few hours (sweating, shaking, heart racing) but the last couple were okay. I go again tomorrow and also have my first math class so we'll see how that goes I guess. The way I'm playing it is: if it's too much I'll drop a class and I'll try to feel okay with putting my mental health first and not beat myself up over it. If I need to go down to a lower level to feel comfortable it's not a big deal. And if I do need to drop out, well, it's not the end of the world. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that but I don't want to hate myself if it does.

Vanessa

Friday 6 February 2015

I don't know what I'm doing

Hi everyone!
It's been a busy few weeks, I went to my interview and got accepted into part of the course-unfortunately my math was not good enough for Chemistry so now I'm doing english, biology and low level math. I don't know how it will go, I have my schedule but I haven't even put it in my planner cause I feel like I won't be going for long. I start on monday so I guess I'll find out soon enough, I guess I just have this feeling like I can't do anything academic at all :( I really want to though, I've found a perfect science prep course that I could do after this if I can hack it. God I hope I can. And the worst is the more anxious I get about one thing (school) the more anxious I get about everything, did that person who hasn't replied to my email for 3 days hate me?, does the person who hasn't texted me back think I'm stupid?, does that person at the post office think I'm frivolous? just one big ball of freakout right now. I also feel guilty if I post on my blog before I reply to emails......but my blog is like my diary, it's an outlet, sometimes I don't feel like emailing but I do feel like blogging *shrugs* I have no idea what I'm doing basically. So hopefully no one is irritated at me. I have plans for a couple of posts first off is the 'TMI' tag as on hugs x heart and the second is 'dear 28', hopefully by writing them here I'll remember them!

Does anyone else feel totally inferior when they read about people who are single parents to 6 kids, study full time and work part time? Or those people who collaboratively moan with you 'oh I'm bad at math' then proceed to get 18 out of 20 questions right on a test? When I say I'm bad at math I mean it-like 8 out of 20 questions right. I'm not lazy and not even particularly stupid, it's just for some reason math doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I hope I can get good enough to do what I want but I'm beginning to seriously doubt it.

Vanessa

Monday 2 February 2015

!!!everybody!!!

Just a quick note that if you're waiting on hearing from me I am neither ignoring you or dead. I've just had the busiest couple of days ever, and the next couple of days are much the same. Including a visit to the dentist. 
I'll get back to you all and write a new post in the next few days.
My social anxiety feels  compelled to add-please don't hate me!
Vanessa