Chronicles of a Working Student - Weeks 6 - 10

Wow! I can't believe it has been so long since I actually posted. Since you already know how hectic the work/study balance is, I won't bore you with my whinging about how I had to get 5 assignments submitted in 2 weeks and how work has been nothing short of crazy, not to mention trying to get my wedding plans off the ground! No, instead I am going offer some words of comfort.

For those of you who have worked and studied before, you will know the sleepless nights (I have some first class luggage under my eyes right now), the worries about actually passing and not to mention questioning why you are doing this to yourself in the first place (I ask myself this question a lot more these days). I have realised a number of things over the past 5 weeks and hope to share in order to alleviate your own doubts about working and studying.

Firstly, you will have those days when you want to throw in the towel. You will feel overwhelmed and not know where to start. This is normal. After discussions with a few of my study buddies, I have noticed they have all felt, at point or another, that the studying thing is too much! I was certainly on the verge of giving it up! But then I reminded myself of why I am doing this. Simply put, I lurve science and can't imagine myself working in any other field. It may have taken some years to figure this out but now that I am so close (although some days it feels so far away) it would be the worst to just give up. Not only would I have nothing to show for it but I would have essentially wasted the past two years of my life studying some, albeit interesting, information that I will never use. So I know that even though I have been plugging away with moderate success up to this point, I simply have to look at the big picture. I have 20 months left of my degree (provided I pass everything) and then it's done. Considering most human beings are on this planet for anywhere between 60 to 100 years, 20 months is just a short amount of time to buckle down and finish the juggling act.

While motivating yourself to push through your degree is great at getting your head in the right place to tackle your studies, sometimes this simply isn't enough to turn the knowledge in your textbooks and study guides into decent results. Which brings mi to my next pearl of wisdom. Use the resources available to you. I will repeat this, use the resources available to you! Any correspondence student knows that sometimes, no matter how smart you are, you just don't understand the subject content. Not everyone is studying a science degree but that being said, wouldn't you want to know that once you completed your qualification, you did everything to understand your work? It wasn't until I was sitting in front of my Physical Chemistry study guide and realising that I really should have worked harder in my first year Calculus, that I thought to myself, there are thousands of students who have done this before mi, so why should I think that I can't do it.

So, knowing there are people out there with the knowledge, I thought best to start in the most logical starting point, my lecturer. Firstly, he would know exactly what is required from the dreaded assignments and exams but most importantly, he wouldn't cost mi tutoring fees, which let's face it, can get pricey and I did have a wedding to pay for after all! I made contact with him and arranged an appointment. I thought it would be a good idea to take my best attempt at my assignment to him so he knew I was serious about making it work (another tip, always try, I am sure the lecturer would get quite annoyed if you went there without even trying first). Well, this particular lecturer did not want to see my assignment. Instead, he gave mi a crash course in the subject and explained everything I needed to know about the first assignment in just over an hour. I couldn't believe it! All of a sudden I understood and could now attempt my assignment. Don't get mi wrong, it was still a lot of work getting the assignment done and not all lecturers will simply give you the knowledge you need. Another lecturer worked through my assignment attempt and pointed out where I went wrong. Once again, it took ages to fix but this is all good exam preparation so I don't mind putting in the effort.

Where my lecturers weren't available, I used other resources. The Internet helped a lot. Just one tip, always verify what you find. Don't trust one website with your answers, always try and find another one or two that say the same thing. I have also found a great site where you can post your homework questions and experts help you. just remember that they are human too and can make mistakes. I have noticed a few times where the principle was correct but the answer wasn't. I also tried to find videos explaining particularly difficult content. It does help to have some physically explaining something. I found some videos of a tutor guiding a group through some Inorganic Chemistry concepts. Ultimately, someone in the group asked questions I already had and they were answered in that video.

Lastly, don't think there is a quick fix to doing well at studying. It still takes a large amount of dedication and time but I can assure you that it should pay off. I have only received one mark back so far but it is a great mark (81% - can I get a hell yeah!?!) and even if it wasn't great I knew that I did that assignment to the best of my ability. That is the only reason why I know I can accept any mark I get, simply because I put my best effort in.

I know these concepts can seem a little obvious but to be honest, it took mi two years to figure them out and I know in the midst of looming assignment deadlines as well as work and personal commitment, it is nice to know that there are some solutions. Anyway, I am now off to tackle the secnd assignment due at the end of the month!

Chronicles of a Working Student - Week 5

For those of you who don't know, I am a stationery geek. I lurve highlighters, post-its, pens and well, you catch my drift. The whole of last year, I found myself with pens that would quit working for no reason, so I decided to buy a set of 10 not so cheap (and certainly not so expensive either) pens. And I bought 2 special exam pens (fine tip as opposed to medium - I told you I was a stationery geek!). I started my first pen back in week 1 and I guess I must be taking quite a few notes because I have already finished it. In fact, I am already a third of my way through the second pen!! So I can only draw one of two conclusions... Either I am not making concise enough notes, or I am getting through quite a bit of work. For my own sanity, I have elected to believe the latter.

Enough stationery talk though...

After my realisation last week, I can honestly say that I am doing everything I can to make sure that I am only a little bit behind on every subject rather than completely caught up in one and totally behind in another (I have given up thinking I will have all the notes done in time for the first assignment due dates, which BTW, are a mere 3 weeks away - eep!). I have even resorted to simply reading my Biochem chapters in order to do the first assignment (it is a multiple choice assignment covering all the work). The two subjects I am most behind in are Biochem and Inorganic, mainly because I don't feel as pressured for the first assignment for Biochem and to be honest, I don't really like Inorganic all that much. I have decided that since I am at events for 4 of the 5 days this week, I have taken a slight detour in my plans in that I am going to focus on these subjects for the week. I am about a week behind in the other 3 subjects and should hopefully have time this coming weekend to catch up a little. I am, however, 3 weeks behind in Biochem and Inorganic so since my days are a bit of a mess this week, I have decided to focus on bringing these two subjects as up to date as possible. My mini-goal is to do the multiple choice assignment. It may be the shortest assignment but when you do a BSc, any small victory is better than none. That being said, just being able to apply the t-test equation in Analytical on Friday made mi feel pretty clever!

I will end with a tip for all of you who study and work, or if you are thinking about it, don't be so hard on yourself all the time. I know I set impossible goals sometimes but I already know that I am doing better than last year and I have like I said before, every small victory counts, even if it's reading 5 pages during the ad breaks of your favourite shows.

Chronicles of a Working Student - Week 4

I have realised something this week. I am my own worst enemy. Seriously, I set this study schedule to make sure I can get my assignments done well in time to double check that everything is correct so I can get the best marks possible but I don't have enough time to stick to it. Take organic for example. I spent the whole of Sunday this week catching up so I can make sure I stay on top of it when I continue with it again this morning. I start what I have scheduled for today and I see that I haven't set myself a normal amount of sections to do, no, I have set 16 sections!! WTF! To put this in perspective, on a good day, 5 sections take about 2 hours, depending on the length of the sections and how many example problems and mechanisms there are. This morning I woke up at 05h11 and managed to do 5 of the 16 sections, well, I am still on the 5th one but you catch my drift. Now, we all know my job is not one that I can simply avoid for any length of time so now, I need to figure out how I can do the other 11 sections required 9as well as catch up with my other 4 subjects since I am behind in those too) before I attempt the first assignment next week. On the bright side, at least I understand why I am always behind since I am sure I am doing this in every subject...

I would like to say I can reschedule the schedule but I am on this path now and think I should do my best to stick to it. I guess if I do manage to even get close to staying on top of it, I can only assume that this will stand mi in good stead come exam time. Of course, this means that I will need to do my day job as quickly and efficiently as possible since it is getting extremely demanding there too.

Will let you know how the rest of the week pans out.

P.S. About the triathlon I was roped into, two of our team members dropped out so I didn't have the pleasure of getting up before the sparrows to drive to a distant town and swim my 400m. My thoughts are summarised in one word "Phew!'

Chronicles of a Working Student - Week 3

Right, so how do I say this... I fell of the wagon!!! Well, the study wagon that is. Work has been productive but extremarily time consuming and since that actually keeps a roof over my head, food in my tummy and provides a little extra for tattoos, beer and general mischief, it is a good idea to keep it my main priority for now.

I have managed to stay on top of Organic Chemistry, I think more out of fear of not understanding the stuff than anything else. It's a pretty heavy subject this year. I have also developed a strategy for Introductory Biochemistry. Each section in every study unit has a number of questions which apparently, if I can answer I can pass. While a pass is what I need, I really want an A. This forms part of the type A personality I have developed over my working career. Before I started working I was like a type Z (is there a type Z? well, the laziest type there is).

To make my life even more hectic, because studying and working is truly not challenging enough, I have been roped into the Xterra Lite. Thankfully, I am just doing the 400m swim and the rest of our team will do the run and cycling. Considering I haven't swum, except recreationally, since 1999 (literally!) I figured I would have to locate a pool, preferably one that doesn't involve a monthly gym contract, and actually swim the distance. I managed to find the lovely public pool about 8kms from my house and I roped a friend into coming along. I could call it moral support but frankly, I needed her to make sure I didn't sink to the bottom (the 'lifeguard' was asleep when we got there so it was probably a good thing to bring someone more, um, awake).

Surprisingly, I managed to go the distance. That was 16 whole lengths of the pool! Considering the only exercise I've done recently is walking (quite briskly might I add) around the block every afternoon with my fiance (it is a big block, just over 4kms), I was pretty proud. A little less surprisingly, I was shattered, to put it mildly. The second I got out of the pool, my body was not happy with mi, nausea and pain was all I could remember. Bringing my lifegu... erm, moral support paid off. She got mi home and I think I even had to sit on the couch for some time to pull myself together. Granted I haven't been back to the pool since things got really busy and I fully intend on going tomorrow morning. I can hear you say 'yeah right' but I will go, I hate being ill-prepared, once again, one of the lovely qualities of being a borderline type A. After the swim, I will have to catch up with the rest of my subjects. I don't want to see myself 6 weeks from now complaining that I have too many assignments due and not enough knowledge to do them.

Once again, I foresee studying on the weekend... hmmm, maybe it's time to rethink my plan...

Chronicles of a Working Student - Week 2

Although my blog is a general commentary on, well, anything I can think of that day, I want to add a sort of log of how I cope with the work/study balance. I finished my first year subjects last year and I am doing all of my second year subjects this year. Work is bound to be busier this year so I think it would be nice to document what each week brings and hopefully look back on it once I am done with my degree and remember it. Why do I want to remember the torture and sacrifices? Honestly? To remind to be grateful for the spare time I have once I am actually done with this degree.

I am starting with week 2 because week 1 was pretty uneventful. Work was relatively quiet since everyone was still on leave and I managed to get a good idea of what was expected of mi in my studies. This week was not as good. Even though I work from home (my company is one of those forward-thinking, results-based companies and are wickedly awesome to work for) I have a ton of things to do to start the year off properly and it means things will be pretty manic during January and probably February. I have already had a couple of meetings that were very productive but took way longer than our normal policy of an hour max. I think it's because we all want to achieve so much this year. We have a bunch of ambitious individuals in our company, so ambitious, in fact, that my goals are the most conservative in the whole company.

On the studies front, I have 5 subjects this semester (I always try and push myself in the first the semester so the second semester is a bit less hectic because I am generally more energetic and I don't want too many exams around my practicals, which are all in the second half of the year) which means I have 5 exams in May. I have decided to set a pretty tough schedule for two reasons; 1) Unisa always have the first assignments due in the first week of March (covering most of the work!!) and 2) if I fall a little bit behind it shouldn't affect my exam preparation too much, I hope (I am going for A's you know?).

So, back to this week, work kinda took up quite a bit of my time but I managed to stay on schedule with 3 of my 5 subjects (namely, Analytical Chemistry, Organic Chemistry and Physical Chemistry). I have sadly fallen a little bit behind in Introductory Biochemistry and Inorganic Chemistry. Without boring you with the details, the challenges I am encountering right now are that both textbooks are quite text-heavy and trying to summarise the main points is proving somewhat difficult. In fact, I would say that removing the operculum off a moss capsule is an easier operation. The plan in the beginning is to keep my weekends free so I can enjoy some family/friend time, which was sorely lacking last year and also so I can catch up when in this exact situation. I have a feeling this may happen more often than not...

Now that I have set the scene, best I hit the books so I can have better news next week.

An Ode to Boo!

Anyone who even remotely knows mi, knows that this post was inevitable. This could be a long one but I will try not to get carried away. There are few things that I am truly crazy obsessive about and my favourite band Boo! is definitely one of them. Thankfully, I have never been the mad, "I want to have you babies" groupie. No, it has always been about the music and the whole Boo!dist ethos really. I am sure everyone has that band that makes music that bypasses all the thinking and genuinely speaks straight to your soul. (And if you don't, you just haven't found them yet, keep looking) Well, Boo! is that for mi. Even when the band broke up for a while, I always maintained they were my first, best and only favourite band. Don't get mi wrong, I still lurve other bands, and my music collection grows tremendously every year (right now, mainly in the metal genre) but honestly, if I was told that I had to pick one band's CD collection to listen to for the rest of my life, it would be Boo! and I wouldn't even feel like I needed anything else.

When I first became a fan, after listening to OO AA on the radio (which is still my favourite song to this day), I was still in Vryheid, where bands never come to visit, hell, I'm even surprised we got a cinema. So I had to be satisfied with a few radio interviews and a few magazine articles to get my Boo! fix. I was only able to really start watching them live when I moved back up to Joeys. I discovered a friend (Graham, who's favourite song was Champion) who was almost as obsessed as I was - we did have a discussion about who was number 1 fan, I believe I won that debate. So every weekend, number 1 and number 2 fans went wherever Boo! went. I remember we met Chris, Ampie and Leon and asked them to sign a poster for mi, which I proceeded to laminate to ensure it was safe from any possible damage. Sadly, that poster was lost in my last house move last year - I know it was so old you could barely see the signatures, but I knew they were there. I don't want to talk about that loss much further. (I was excited that when I won their new album this year, that they would sign the CD, sadly, they didn't so I am still without my autographs.)

Weekend, after weekend, we sought Boo! out and they never failed to deliver an amazing show. I think I even got to introduce 'Frankie' the one night. I even remember after a show at the Easter Rock Show (now I'm really giving away my age) someone asked Graham for a lift home, which he was happy to do until the poor soul declared that she 'hated' Boo!, well, for all we know, she walked home. Not very nice of us I know but you can't diss something that is so close to our hearts. And hate is such a strong word...

At the naughties launch, where we had to dress up naughty, (although Ampie thought it was naughty and nice - oops) I even got interviewed. I have no idea what it was for but I totally froze! Oh it was terrible, the only three words I could muster were 'I don't know'. Eep, I am sure that camera man was annoyed I wasted his tape. I guess it was difficult to express exactly how a band got you through just about everything in your life with a simple choon. Break ups, exams, fighting with my parents (as teenagers do), looking for a my first job (their songs calmed my nerves before one particularly gruelling interview), driving to various Woodstock festivals, Boo! was there keeping mi safe. I even remember asking Chris when he planned on recording the "Girl... I like your type" song.

Even when I met my fiance, I dragged him (I say dragged because he did not understand my obsession, although he did tolerate it) to gig after gig. Shame, we even got lost in Pretoria looking for Cool Runnings and their beach party some years back, little did we know there were actually two Cool Runnings. Thankfully, we stumbled upon the right one and I had an awesome time!!

Then came the break up... I remember reading an article in the newspaper about it. I was devastated. There was even a comment in that article that caused mi to send a very stern e-mail to the band. I don't even know how I got their mail address. Looking back, I couldn't have been mad with them, they were just doing what was best for them at the time. Chris responded, and quite graciously at that. I went to the last gig, full circle, exactly 7 years to the day since their first gig. I cried... Graham wasn't even there to share in the sadness. I don't want to get dramatic here since I am a trooper but I really felt like someone had taken a piece of mi, never to return. Roxy's was packed that night so it even felt different to previous gigs that Boo! had done.

I carried on with my life, of course, I always had my CD's, videos and tapes (yes, they released a tape, Banana Flava, although I have a sneaky suspiscion that was lost in the move too, I can't find it). Graham and I reminisced sometimes. I bought Chris Chameleon's solo albums and even managed to watch Ampie before the NOFX concert so I still had some small link to what was such a big part of my life for so long.

And then a few years later I found out they were back together, albeit without Princess Leonie (Boney Leonie to some). I was thrilled... my fiance... not so much, although he always let mi have my obsession. Ramfest was the highlight of my year! I think some girl actually tapped mi on the shoulder and asked if Boo! was my band. I simply nodded. Aaah, everything was right with the world again. Sadly, since I work and study I have not been to another gig (I know, shame on mi) but my love for everything Boo! remains.

So, enough of my rambling and to make this a true 'ode' I must thank Boo!

Thank you for getting mi through the yucky times (with songs like Come) and being there through the fun times (with songs like Stiki Choon). Even if no-one else feels the same way about you, at least you will know you have touched someone they way you intended all those years ago.Thank you for always maintaining that it is fine, if not preferred, to be different. Walk to your own beat, in fact, dance and never be apologetic for being you. Ok, now I'm just getting Soppi. Here's to catching you at another gig, hopefully soon.

From your number 1 Boo!dist.

My Cross Polo

Aah!! The wait is over! After ordering my new car in July (yep, thanks to the strikes, my car was delayed by 3 months - now is a good time to note that normal production of a vehicle is 1 week!), I finally took delivery of him on Friday. Wow! is really the only reaction I had. Since I had never test driven him or even seen a 2010 Cross Polo in real life, well, besides the time one zoomed past mi on Main Road, it was almost like getting a suprise package. Don't think I was going into this blind either, I did drive the old 1.9 TDI for a month so I knew exactly what I could expect from the newer version.

It took a while to sign all the papers, since, not only did I finance him, I got every warranty, guarantee and policy under the sun. I can officially say that I should have some worry free driving for 5 whole years!! It sort of added to the excitement though. Once I was done there, I waited while my super efficient sales manager (she truly was excellent during the whole process from the beginning) finished with another customer and took some pictures of my new addition (they even put a bow on him, how sweet!). Then it was my turn. I received the low down on every button, nob and light in my new car (his name is Spanky by the way). Seriously this car can do everything, well, except help mi pass my exams. It has all the usual things that a car comes with these days (that my previous car didn't). In addition to that it has cruise control, heated side mirrors, all round electric windows, which I can control from my side (sorry for anyone travelling with mi) and my personal favourite, the best cup holders I have seen in a car ever. While I know most people do not place much emphasis on cupholders, I need them to be functional. Some cars have rickety ones that come out of the dash (and interfere with radio usage) others are too small or too shallow. Mine are just right for mi, they are deep and sized perfectly for my purposes. And, on top of all the 'bells and whistles' there are some awesome storage compartments to hold anything I need to bring on my future journeys!

Honestly, I can certainly recommend this car, not only for girls but I think the guys will like the sporty looks and styling too. And, of course, 77Kw is nothing to sniff at for a 1.6.