Sunday, August 29, 2010

When the world comes crashing down…

Take a break and marvel as it crumbles around you. Okay, that’s terrible. I tried for profound and wound up with harbinger of doom-ish. At 730 AM this wonderful Saturday morning I rolled out of bed and over to my desk, hastily grabbed my Biochemistry book and settled in with my hot pink highlighter to begin a fantastical journey into the world of amino acids. Doesn’t get any better than that, kids. This is what my life has become and what it will be for the next year or so. I wake up, I go to class. I come home, I do work for class. I “weekend” and by that I mean study. I roll out of bed just to study. We do what we must for the things we want out of life, but sometimes I take it too far. And yes, I am using weekend as a verb. I can do that I’m a grad student.

Earlier in the week plans were made with a few friends to take a day trip. We wound up in Indianapolis, Indiana. I packed the essentials – a sweater if I got cold, comfy shoes for my aching feet, gum for stinky breath, Carmex for parched lips, my biochemistry book for light reading, an article (or two…okay three) for EXTRA light reading and a notebook for question answering. I tried reading on the way to Indy. My brain rebelled like a frat boy the night after a keg-stand binge. It finally dawned on me – my brain needed a break! It was overflowing with the vast world of neurobiology that it’d been forced into. It was crying for release. My temple literally drummed out the beat to “stop dogging me around (please just leave me alone).” I put the work away and had fun. For the first time in days.

We visited the Indianapolis Zoo and petted sharks. We stopped by the Indianapolis Museum of Art and had a “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” moment. We visited a local cultural district and had Mexican for dinner. We laughed, we joked, we took an exorbitant (yes, exorbitant. That GRE prep finally paid off) amount of pictures. I had fun. I gave my brain a break. And, now, as I sit on my living room futon and type this out – my brain feels much better. It absorbed the info, finally.

Moral of the story – don’t spend ALL of your time studying. Leave your books at home, your articles, your highlighters and your notebooks and spend a day in sheer mindlessness. Take a day to not learn. It’s just one day, and, if you’ve budgeted time accordingly and studied as you should, it’ll only be one day. Besides, there’s always tomorrow. At least until December 21,2012….we’ll see about tomorrow then.

5 comments:

  1. This is DULY noted. I've been racking my brain with this whole 'Time Management' thing that I'm trying to figure out.

    Glad you had a great relaxation day and was able to leave the zoo with both hands... little Miss Shark Petter.

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  2. Oh Bless you my sweet Sieed Bashak Mouadeeb, you have tasted the spice of Aracas and you like your father have awaken...And for you unfortunate peeps that have not watched Dune to get the lingo, I shall take your wet suite as Kristen...I mean Sieed uses the wierding way on your mind...Are your temples pounding again (he he) What's up Christopher.....

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  3. Time Management....Just ask me dawg, you know us military folk are withthe B-Ness on time management...Yes my attempt at modern slang...

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  4. Lol sharks? I love it, u know that right? Hi Mr Reynolds!! Today's slang isn't worth keeping up with. Ppl have just started humming the syllables there too lazy to speak! Oh yea hi Christobell lol idk why I keep calling you that but I blame Nicole. That is all

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  5. Please guys, no names. This could be famous one day. Maybe even turned into a movie..."Van Wilder Does Grad School" or some such.

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