When I resurrected my blog last month I had a mental resolution to post at least once a day. And that resolution has officially been broken, haha. But I keep reminding myself that it isn’t the end of the world if I don’t blog every single day. Although I just ran across an article warning of the coming end of the world on February 22nd, as predicted by Norse mythology. Sure, the Mayans got it wrong, but perhaps the Vikings are on to something!
I’ll be honest and say I have no idea what this post is going to be about. Usually I have some direction in mind, but not today. So, we’ll see where this takes us!
After hours of studying, I got a 91% on last week’s chemistry exam. The previous week had been fairly easy, and I aced the test without having to follow all the directions exactly. If you understand the concept behind something, you have a lot more freedom to solve the problem however you’d like, because you know what you’re supposed to get. Last week my mastery of the concepts began failing, so I had to backtrack and actually figure out how to do dimensional analysis since my own weird way of doing math was no longer working. Thanks to Khan Academy, I was able to practice my stoichiometry until I did actually master it. And I’m happy to say I feel like an expert at dimensional analysis now! Pretty sure that feeling of proficiency isn’t totally accurate, but at least I am better at it than I was a week ago. : ) Anyways…the last few days have been consumed with trying to get through all the chemistry material so that I felt comfortable with the exam. Thankfully this week’s material isn’t taking nearly as much time so I might not been quite so crazed.
I’ve decided that I can determine the state of my life by the number of browser tabs I have open. I’ve had about 35 tabs open for the past couple weeks. They’re organized by category, so there are 5 completely random pages, 5 related to my history class, 5-8 for chemistry, and so it goes. And that’s about how my brain feels right now too, haha.
For Valentine’s Day at CC, I made these cute superheroes for my students. It was a fun and relaxing project for my sister and me after we finished our chemistry exam!
from Zakka Life. Click on image to visit site.
I’ve had people ask me if I have job, or what I do with myself. Maybe they think I sit around watching Doctor Who all day. Okay, yes, that does happen some days. But not every day. I have always had this dilemma when trying to explain my education to people. It is unorthodox and not easily summed up by something like, “I’m going to this college for this degree and I’m in this year of my program.” I’ve never been able to do that, instead I try to explain what it means to be a student just for the enjoyment of it. Well, now my entire life is suddenly very hard to explain. I’ve got tutoring at Classical Conversations, freelance tutoring and consulting, I’m doing some consulting and quality work for the aerospace shop I used to work at, and I have a few other projects in the works. What I love about this freelance life: I can work anytime I want to. What I don’t love about it: I can work anytime I want to. As my schedule is filling up with work and school, I’ve found myself staying up till midnight, or later, to get my work or studying done. This is great because I love being up late, and, for the most part, I can arrange my schedule around my night owl preferences. But this also means that I never have a reason to not be working or studying. For example, a couple nights ago I was watching Broadchurch, and realized I felt really guilty for this, since there’s a never-ending stream of work and school that could be done. In one sense, this pressure is good and necessary if you’re going to be successful at this kind of life. It really requires discipline and self-motivation. But on the other hand, it is still supposed to be a life, and that includes more than just working and studying. I hope to eventually find some good way of balancing these two extremes.
I really like the soundtrack to Broadchurch, so I looked up the artist. Turns out to be Ólafur Arnalds, an Icelandic neo-classical composer. I’ve been listening to a lot of his other work as well, but here’s my favorite song from Broadchurch.
I just realized this blog post sums up the way I think. It is all over the place, mostly random bits of everything, with some deep reflections on life in between, haha. And I never can resist meta-commenting. So on that profound thought, I’ll wrap this up before it gets any more complicated.
