I used to like school
Apr. 16th, 2005 12:18![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillI loved it, actually... or at least I loved being a student. It broke my heart when I had to give up being a full-time student because I was too sick. As I told Emmett, it wasn't the stuff I was being taught, and it sure as hell wasn't the school bureaucracies (which I hate as much as anyone else).
It was, as much as anything, the rhythm of my days. No standard 8-5 for me... I had one set of classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, another set on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the occasional all-week class, plus the longer tides of due dates: homework and labs and papers and exams. I like having a more syncopated schedule to my week, where one day I have to get out of the house in time to be somewhere by nine, and the next I don't have anything until noon, and I know it will repeat predictably for some time. Then a small break, a rest, and a new rhythm to learn.
Add to that the feeling of new things soaking into my skull, my brain picking up information almost idly once I get up to speed. I get into a mindset where I feel almost like a sponge, where someone can toss a bunch of new stuff at me and, so long as I am primed by knowing to expect it, it just gets neatly filed away. I rarely cram for exams as a result -- most of the time (with at most a little refreshing to bring it to the top) things I learn in class are filed away for retrieval, and when called upon I know they will be there.
This isn't meant as a brag, simply a statement that when it is this natural, it is a pleasure to learn new things. I fit in well with most class structures, which is a blessing I am aware many other people don't have. I'm just lucky, I suppose. Too many of my friends find themselves at odds with the teaching methods and deadlines and pace of high school and college courses, friends who are fully as intelligent as I. For me, it is like a fish taking to water.
It has been, anyway. It may be again. This semester, however, I hate school. I find myself resenting it with a weary viciousness, a stubborn feeling that I'm facing an adversary who may strip away everything I love and grind me down to a nub but it won't win, dammit. I won't let it.
I had a bit of this last spring when I came up against my English class, taught by a bright cheerful man whose sadism belongs in graduate courses. That lower-division class was far too hard for me, and I think that's saying something. Fifty-five hours during one week I slaved over a paper, which netted a C-; this on top of a course in basic chemistry which wasn't lightweight either. Rather than kill myself to get a low grade, I quit English. I could afford to, and it's still one of the most freeing decisions in recent memory.
I can't afford to drop biology. Between that and chemistry, which is still almost relaxing in comparison, I have had to put everything else on hold. I have to choose between passing school with decent grades and doing anything I care about: gardening, dating, dancing, reading, seeing friends, even sleeping well. Any little motion I make in the direction of doing something for me seems to have direct repercussions on how well I do in academics. It's like some ravening monster that wants more and more, and by now I'm feeding it almost all the time and energy I have.
Nothing should consume me this much. Nothing should be able to jeopardize my health and emotional well-being, things which I placed at the top of my priority list after I got sick. Some things are just more important than anything else, and my physical and mental health are definitely on that list. I promised myself that I would look out for myself above all other considerations, because I've been down that other path and had to drag myself back to health over the next six or seven years. Never again.
Yet I seem to have gotten myself into a situation where something has to give -- and I care enough about getting a degree and a career that I'm not going to give up on that now. If I drop anything now, I'll just have to re-do all the work I've already put in, and put everything off again.
I have this tiger by the ears. I can't let go... all I can really do is try to protect myself as best I can. I'm taking time for myself, I'm aiming for B's rather than A's. Even as I strip everything away from my life, I'm trying to reserve a little downtime to recharge, trying to give myself just a little bit of time for some of these things I care about so that I don't lose sight of them. I'm taking care to do the minimal maintenance for my hobbies and relationships so that they'll still be there when the semester ends. I just wish that even these little dribs and drabs didn't make a visible impact in my academics.
God help me when I get to graduate school.
(No particular encouragement or advice is necessary right now... I really just needed to get that off my chest.)
It was, as much as anything, the rhythm of my days. No standard 8-5 for me... I had one set of classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, another set on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the occasional all-week class, plus the longer tides of due dates: homework and labs and papers and exams. I like having a more syncopated schedule to my week, where one day I have to get out of the house in time to be somewhere by nine, and the next I don't have anything until noon, and I know it will repeat predictably for some time. Then a small break, a rest, and a new rhythm to learn.
Add to that the feeling of new things soaking into my skull, my brain picking up information almost idly once I get up to speed. I get into a mindset where I feel almost like a sponge, where someone can toss a bunch of new stuff at me and, so long as I am primed by knowing to expect it, it just gets neatly filed away. I rarely cram for exams as a result -- most of the time (with at most a little refreshing to bring it to the top) things I learn in class are filed away for retrieval, and when called upon I know they will be there.
This isn't meant as a brag, simply a statement that when it is this natural, it is a pleasure to learn new things. I fit in well with most class structures, which is a blessing I am aware many other people don't have. I'm just lucky, I suppose. Too many of my friends find themselves at odds with the teaching methods and deadlines and pace of high school and college courses, friends who are fully as intelligent as I. For me, it is like a fish taking to water.
It has been, anyway. It may be again. This semester, however, I hate school. I find myself resenting it with a weary viciousness, a stubborn feeling that I'm facing an adversary who may strip away everything I love and grind me down to a nub but it won't win, dammit. I won't let it.
I had a bit of this last spring when I came up against my English class, taught by a bright cheerful man whose sadism belongs in graduate courses. That lower-division class was far too hard for me, and I think that's saying something. Fifty-five hours during one week I slaved over a paper, which netted a C-; this on top of a course in basic chemistry which wasn't lightweight either. Rather than kill myself to get a low grade, I quit English. I could afford to, and it's still one of the most freeing decisions in recent memory.
I can't afford to drop biology. Between that and chemistry, which is still almost relaxing in comparison, I have had to put everything else on hold. I have to choose between passing school with decent grades and doing anything I care about: gardening, dating, dancing, reading, seeing friends, even sleeping well. Any little motion I make in the direction of doing something for me seems to have direct repercussions on how well I do in academics. It's like some ravening monster that wants more and more, and by now I'm feeding it almost all the time and energy I have.
Nothing should consume me this much. Nothing should be able to jeopardize my health and emotional well-being, things which I placed at the top of my priority list after I got sick. Some things are just more important than anything else, and my physical and mental health are definitely on that list. I promised myself that I would look out for myself above all other considerations, because I've been down that other path and had to drag myself back to health over the next six or seven years. Never again.
Yet I seem to have gotten myself into a situation where something has to give -- and I care enough about getting a degree and a career that I'm not going to give up on that now. If I drop anything now, I'll just have to re-do all the work I've already put in, and put everything off again.
I have this tiger by the ears. I can't let go... all I can really do is try to protect myself as best I can. I'm taking time for myself, I'm aiming for B's rather than A's. Even as I strip everything away from my life, I'm trying to reserve a little downtime to recharge, trying to give myself just a little bit of time for some of these things I care about so that I don't lose sight of them. I'm taking care to do the minimal maintenance for my hobbies and relationships so that they'll still be there when the semester ends. I just wish that even these little dribs and drabs didn't make a visible impact in my academics.
God help me when I get to graduate school.
(No particular encouragement or advice is necessary right now... I really just needed to get that off my chest.)
