New Beginnings...?

Here I am, once again, preparing to transition from one course to the next. Cell & Molecular Biology (which I may refer to as CMB) has been a bitch. Most of the material is stuff that, as I've said before, I should already know. SOME of it is new, but most of it is stuff I've learned before. The problem is, I learned it over the course of several years the first time around and didn't have to know ALL of it at once until now. So, you see, this is how an average school-day goes, for me. I get up, I have breakfast and coffee, I load up the days lectures, and I watch. If it's stuff I've learned before, I get VERY easily distracted. I'm quick to log onto Facebook, I check my e-mail 25 times, I browse Amazon, I read people's blogs... and before I know it, the lecture is half over and I haven't REALLY listened. So on other days, when I'm feeling bad about my study habits and trying to feign some level of internal motivation, I actually listen. I sit there through two 50-minute lectures and actually listen and take notes. And it is PAINFUL. I know I knew it once, and I understand it, but it just goes in one ear and out the other. I can't explain why, IT JUST DOES. And by the time I've worked through two lectures, done a few chores around the house, run to Target for some odds and ends, it's maybe 3:30, and I'm ready for a break. So I chill, maybe I watch an episode of something on TV, and then it's 4:30 and Ben will be home soon, so I start dinner, he gets home, we eat, we chat about our days and watch some TV, we go to the gym, we shower, and we go to bed. So, you see, I never actually *studied* anything, I just watched lectures.

So, along comes exam day (*cough*MONDAY!*cough*), annnnnnnnnd I'm screwed. It's like the fact that I already knew this information once works AGAINST me, because I know it's in there somewhere and I don't need to study it as hard as I might study brand new material. This weekend is gonna SUCK, bad. I haven't truly studied anything I've learned since I came back from break, so I'll be about 3 weeks behind to start the weekend. FAAAAANTASTIC. Pray for my poor pitiful soul. Not that I didn't bring this on myself, because I did. But please pray for me anyway.

Next Wednesday begins a new class - "Functional Systems" (aka Physiology). And, just as I thought at the transition between Anatomy and CMB back in November, I'm really hoping to start fresh and do a better job this time around. I have to do SOMETHING, because I have been simply miserable. This entire first semester was just one huge downer - so far medical school has done nothing but make me question my decisions, and cry, and eat. Although I will say it has helped me to change my eating habits for the better, given my new-found knowledge of nutrition, but for a while there I was just straight up EATING. Hence the unacceptable weight gain. ANYWAY, like I said, I have to do SOMETHING. I just don't know what. My motivation level is just SO incredibly low, it's hard to bring myself to "do" anything extra. I REALLY don't want to have to force myself to physically GO to school every day, but I just might have to. Watching lectures at home just doesn't seem to be cutting it. It's just so expensive to GO to school. I pay 80 cents in tolls per day (I know, not a crisis), but I also pay $5 A DAY for parking. That's $100 a month that I don't have (plus the studpid toll)!!! Not to mention the loss of extra sleep time - I'd have to be out of here by 7:15 :'( I know, "cry me a river", say the people with real jobs.

I suppose that I should let my recent success with eating better and exercising serve as inspiration for other areas of my life that need re-vamping as well - starting with school. Something that helps me find the motivation to work harder at life is remembering that in ALL THINGS, we work for the Lord. My body is a temple for the Lord, and I am to take care of it as best I know how. That includes eating right and exercising. And my current "vocation", if you will, is for Him. He brought me here, it is His will for my life, and I am to work "as if for the Lord", because in reality it IS all for Him. While that should be my chief motivation in all that I do, I often end up using it as a back-up plan for those days when I don't care about doing whatever it is I'm doing for my OWN benefit - I just have to remind myself that it's not really for ME anyway. So I'm really hoping that whatever it is that I need to do to get myself back on track with school, applying this principle will help me get there and help me stick with it.

Ugh... this whole thing is turning out to be WAY more difficult than I ever anticipated. Cheers.