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.