Sunday 25 April 2010

Revising

View of the river Leam from the pump room gardens footbridge
It is very difficult to be motivated about revision. It demands a discipline that I find difficult to summon up, and is a battle between two halves of my brain. At the moment, this side is winning:
"This is boring. You don't really care about how nutrition affects fertility, do you? You could see if anyone has emailed you in the last 10 minutes. Or see if there's a new blog post to read. Is there any news about the volcanic ash? What about some music? Better write down that household thing you just remembered. Is it time for a cup of tea? Oh good, the phone's ringing."
As the pressure mounts and the exams loom, the other side starts to dominate:
"No, don't get up, you need to finish this topic before you can go into the kitchen. No you'd better not just have a snack, just a drink, it's lunchtime in an hour. Go and sit down again. Why not unplug the internet completely, then there won't be any email or blog distractions? You can have a bounce on the trampoline when you've finished these notes."
The weather outside has been glorious for the past few days, and I've managed to get outside for about half an hour a day to enjoy it. Even though it's still three weeks to the start of the exams, one of those weeks is taken up with attending lectures, and fourteen days to prepare for five exams and complete one more bit of coursework just doesn't seem enough.

At the same time I'm gradually accumulating a memorised list of foods, portion sizes, energy and protein content. So far I've committed about 30 foods to memory, with another 20 or so to go. It's a strange activity, but I think it will pay off in the long run, not just in the test we are being given at the start of May.

And here's a taste of other home news. Booking our Eurostar tickets for the trip to Bruges went slightly wrong when the website lied to me and took my payment twice - no response so far from their 'Customer Service'. The dishwasher has been declared 'not economic to repair', and the towel radiator that our cowboy plumbers installed is leaking at both valves. I have to fill in a Criminal Records Bureau disclosure form for my research project, and a 24-page application for next year's NHS Bursary which pays my tuition fees at university. For the next five weeks, it's about endurance and stamina.

2 comments:

aims said...

I absolutely agree - you have too much to do. And doesn't it always seem that everything happens at once? It does! I swear. When things can go wrong - they all jump on the bandwagon and break the axles.

Good luck with revision. I know that you will ace everything like you always do (probably because of all the revision....)

Anonymous said...

Hang in there Lola- you're sure to storm the exams as usual. The trampoline bouncing and other stuff is just as important as the revising. Enjoy yourself and have confidence in your own abilities.