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.
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