mud pies to medicine: Beat The Clock

Friday, September 30, 2011

Beat The Clock

I mentioned in my last post about how days full of studying usually go for me.

Procrastinate, Sleep, Proactive Procrastination (like cleaning), Study for 20 minutes, Spend an hour on Pinterest. Realize I didn't actually learn anything today.

We're all guilty of it, whether we are trying to study for a neuro exam or complete a project. Talking to B last night, he told me about a study tactic his academic counselor suggested. Take a stop watch or timer- we prefer the stopwatch portion of the clock on an iPhone/iPod- and start it every time you sit down to study. Anytime you deviate, whether it be to check your email or gchat or fix lunch or make your bed or zone out into space as I often do, STOP the stopwatch. You only earn time when you are actively studying. You'll be surprised at the outcome. It is a great way to stay on task and realize how much time you are actually spending studying. Some people can sit down for 12 hours and only get 2 hours of work done! I tried it out and really like it. You'll be a little sad the first time you try it when it is 5:00 pm and your timer reads 2 hours. eek! Tomorrow I'll be having a contest with B to see who can clock more hours (I just judged myself for how nerdy that sounds).

If you're looking at the time of day, it's incorrect. The only thing I did before 9:24 am was sleep.

1 comment:

K M MillerOctober 3, 2011 at 9:44 PM
I like this! Though I just had to procrastinate in order to learn about it. I'm going to try it later this week.

<3 you!
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The inspiration you ask?

I miss making mud pies. There is this huge rock in my front yard. To call it a rock really does it a dishonor. It is a boulder, brought home by my father on a huge dump truck after he blasted it out of a work site. My mom one day told me that even though it is nearly 2.5 feet high, 6 feet long, and 2.5 feet wide, that it was, in fact, only half-showing. The scientist inside of me was disbelieving and set out to get some proof. Clad in a dress, bow in my hair, and my best accessory, a shovel, I trudged outside ready to prove my mother wrong. That is when the digging began. I dug, and dug, and dug, and nearly all 3.5 feet of Danielle fit in that hole when I had reached the bottom of the rock. That became my digging spot, my mud pie kitchen. Each day it was dug, and each evening it was filled back in. Sometimes the holes were small, sometimes they were enormous, and most days the hole was turned into my mud mixing bowl with that rock as my counter. The novelty never wore off. The ebb and flow of my childhood was, in many ways, measured by the ever-changing depth of that hole in the front yard, the hole that never really disappeared even each day after it was filled in. Even though the grass has grown back in that spot, there still remains, an indentation, the scars of a childhood well lived and the disbelieving scientists I have always been.

So, you ask me why I want to be a doctor? I do not want to be a doctor. I want to open a mud pie bakery with the cash register on that rock in my front yard. But, somehow, I doubt I would stay in business long, for the world seems to have lost its taste for mud pies. I guess being a doctor will have to do.