So, aside from having to help take the dog to the vet tomorrow, I have one more.
I bombed my linear algebra final spectacularly and I don’t think I’m going to pass. This is weird for me. Mainly because the material was less challenging than other classes I’ve taken, and the only thing that threw me off was really the proof intensive nature of it. Still, the final was only two hours long, no proofs, just depending heavily on abstract mastery of concepts. That’s normally where I shine.
I know the reason. The writing was on the wall before the first midterm. I wasn’t engaged in the class and I didn’t keep up with the material. I bombed the first (now extremely easy to me) test and when I woke up enough to actually study for the next test (read:cram for four hours beforehand) I got a near perfect score. Then I let my attention flag again. It’s ridiculous and I’m angry with myself. I know that one or two days of studying would have netted me a great score on this last exam, but I’ve gotten so backed up this semester I had to let some of that slide.
Every semester, I write up a little progress report for myself and post it on Facebook. It’s partly a way to keep myself accountable and partly a way to have a record of where I learned certain things. This semester’s post-mortem is the story of an energy crisis. I’ve gotten a lot better about getting assignments done ahead of time, managing my time better, and getting work done. I’m more organized now than I have ever been, possibly in my life. The problem is that I dropped something that actually turns out to be critical to my success. I used to spend too much time reading books about science and technology or science fiction, or watching documentaries or sci-fi movies. It took up precious time, but when I cut all of it out this semester, I lost something important- I stopped being interested in what I was doing. Everything was a long, slow, slog. This semester has been the worst by far in terms of my morale, and I genuinely think it has a lot to do with not feeding my heart as much as my brain.
