Conflicting emotions

Classes are nearing an end. Have I mentioned that before? I have taken a final exam today—it was an online exam, done with one hand on the book and another on the mouse—and while 54 out of 60 was not as well as I have hoped to do, it was still all right, enough to keep me in the A territory.  This is a far cry from how I did a year ago; out of four courses that I have taken, I had two F’s, a D, and a C+.  It was a shameful experience, and while much of them were challenging courses, with two of them being an upper-level biology courses and one of them organic chemistry, the D was from an introductory neurobiology course that should have been a breeze.  In fact, I am sure everyone but me got an A in the course… the shame still lingers.  It made everything crash down around me, and I have since taken a scenic route out of the college life—scenic, slow, but hardly eventful.

This first A, though, could signal a turnaround, which I hope it does.  While the classes are nowhere near the classes a year ago, getting high grades have to count for something.

The day went rather downhill from there, though.  I have lost my wallet since yesterday afternoon (which was on a computer case… long story), cannot find my key, and all of my parents have been asking me about my summer plan.  It is understandable, asking about the summer I could very well spend loitering around.  Terrible thing, that is.  They also asked me about what I will do as my major… that would have helped me with internship that might come my way, so I said “somewhere in IT field,” which was true but I have honestly not decided yet.  Oh boy.  Then there is an issue of a job… how am I alive in this economy again?

 

I have been doing a few things to keep myself from going insane as of late.  I have done a lot of things… let’s see, I have gone to the Centennial Olympic Park, which I have never been to despite the fact that I have been living in the city for a decade…

…and I have unwittingly stumbled onto a gem of a camera at an estate sale.

I will write more about them later; look forward to it.

Tackling procrastination?

Today was another disappointing day.  Granted, the day is not yet over, but it might as well be; after the class that ends in 9:45, I would have to go to sleep, get up at 6:00, and prepare for the presentation that will pretty much dictate my grade in the class (which would either swing between A and B… but anyhow).  There was an extra credit opportunity for the class that I will be attending in less than one hour, which is something I probably could have done in about an hour or two but is now lost.  Granted, it was only for 15 points (nothing when you consider the grade involved in that class is 500 points), but it would have been nice to get a little cushioning for my grades.  I am probably cutting too close for an A right now; I need to get at least 120 out of 130 for getting an A.  A-, though (damn you and your plus-minus scales, damn you to hell, except you are a university and you have no soul), I can take easily, with 100 out of 130.

This has been a problem of mine for the longest time.  I always put things off until the last minute… I generally do not care for anything until it is almost too late.  What would be going in my head when I slack off?  …is what my mother would say.  Frankly, I do not know.  Usually the procrastination is fueled by perceived urgency to do other things, or by pure lethargy—I succumb easily to drowsiness—and when I do things like playing games, it is either for letting out the inner frustrations (and as I am not the best guy at playing games, sometimes it works the other way and I quit even more spent than when I started—waste of time AND energy with NO stress relieved? Sucks!).  Of course, these do not account for the random times when I find a neat webcomic and just decide to consume over four hours looking through 300 pages of backlog… I have not read the Dinosaur Comics and Achewood in its entirety for a reason.  To look at those takes commitments.

I would look at ways to defeat procrastinations every now and then (when it is not fueled by sleep).  So far, though, I have not come up with anything except for the fact that this is inherent, I lack discipline, and I am hopelessly lazy when I have no certain goal that must be reached in the next thirty minutes.  I know that there is no magic pill for anything—remember, I was a runner, and I did not get fit (or unfit, for that matter) overnight—but I wish I had some kind of regimen to stick with.

Freeing from shackles

Many strange things are going around in my head.  I find it hard to concentrate; it has been a rough week or two, with harder projects and homework showing up one by one, with the hardest yet to come in a week or two.  It is all right, everything will be fine, that is what I tell myself, I have had harder times, it is much better than waiting like a swine in a pen, waiting to be slaughtered any day now when you know that  everything has been decided and it is simply a matter of when you will see yourself failing like you did a year ago.

I hate to admit it, but I did come a long way from where I was a year ago.  This hellhole, this aftermath of courses that left my GPA in shambles and the turmoil that gained me a girlfriend but betrayed the trust of family… how is it better?  It is hard to explain, but I will try to.

Until the end of the spring semester a year ago, I was basically shackled to my major.  By then, my GPA has already been sagging; there was no need for me to go for dental or pharmacy school, even though I knew that I would not like going to either to begin with.  That is the funny thing with your mind—even though you know things are not going to work out, even though this is not what you want to do… you go ahead and do it anyway, hoping that everything will work out as you would hope—or rather, everything will work out somehow as you progress through the ranks, or at least the course requirements.  Yes, I am still a biology major, if in name only; what does it make me, with physiology concentration (I should at least have change my concentration; I cannot stand looking at pictures of human body), then?  It truly was a pointless thing to have.  Neurobiology or even microbiology could have worked out better.  And working has had its merits, too… if only for being more comfortable with strangers during the job.  I probably will never have another sandwich wraps after I stop working at where I am working now, but the boss is nice (or I probably would have been fired by now) and I am earning some money—at least enough to get me through the days.

But is that all?  I am afraid so.  Some street smarts and social skills will not get you anywhere, especially when you have learned only a bit of them via working behind the counter.  It is obviously beyond my comfort zone, but what can you do?

At least I am out of the major.

Currently I am looking to get some part-time work or internship.  With my faltering GPA and limited knowledge and social links, it will be hard… but this is a grave that I have dug, so I must find a way out.

I also have a post about the childhood coming.  I am assuming that it should help me find out just why or how I turned out like this.

Speaking from the shadows: unsent letter 1

This is a letter that won’t be sent to my girlfriend, due to the content that is… not very suitable and might be detrimental to the relationship.  I shall name her “Maggie.”

Maggie--

How’s it been?  I’m writing as I told you after chatting on the IM earlier.  Nothing quite like a letter written from the motivation.

I’m not sure of what I’m doing right now.  What… are we doing, exactly? Are we serious about this and that, or is this but a fleeting love, just in a phase?  We are getting along nicely right now, but both of us know that the status quo will not last, and we must decide, once and for all, what we will do with our lives.

Of course, we won’t decide that right now; at least I don’t think so, as I believe neither of us is really qualified to do so right now.  Coming stateside for graduate school is fine.  Relationship is fine. My family also seems reasonably happy that I have a legitimate girlfriend (they even told me to bring you over sometime).  But, at the same time, you tried to look for a job in the  country; I am sure that it means you do not want to leave where you have lived the whole life.  Seeing as I do not want to leave America as well (I would rather take my gamble of life here than there), there is obviously a conflict of interest… do you know where I am going with this?

I am tired, so I will end things for now.  Love you.

Tom

Sitting on my ass, doing nothing

Please tell me that I did something this weekend.  Just today, I wasted a colossal amount of time.  Here is how my day went, with rough timeframe:

9:30 AM: woke up

10:15 AM: took off for church

12:45 PM: arrived from church

1:15 PM: sat on my computer, wasting away and reading manga, with intermittent bothering from my brother

6:45 PM: dinner

7:30 PM: continued wasting time

And right now, 9:15 PM.  I am a terrible person and I should feel bad.

I have made a resolution a week ago never to be late again after missing a bunch of classes the week before.  Of course, it has not gone so well, although it did stop me from skipping classes (go me).

So I will do this: I will limit my time sitting on my ass in front of the computer, and if I must do it for a long time, I must have a reason for it—and I will not procrastinate.

There. Let’s see how it will work out.

Keeping track of things I said / Will this haunt me later?

More than likely, what I said here will not be known by anyone that I know, at least not intentionally. That is my intention, actually; some of the things that I say or write here, I am usually very uneasy to unravel in person. Is this the comfort of anonymity?  I cannot say otherwise, you know.  I have no real close friends to speak of (at least close enough to reveal my all), I do not want to go to a psychiatrist (although seeing a shrink may help me in getting things off my chest), and I do not think I will reveal anything to my girlfriend, for reason that… I will get to later, if I can.

That was actually one of the things that I wanted to write about.  Have I talked about my girlfriend before?  She is in a country across the Pacific, and we have some moderate language barrier that probably will not be overcome.  I have no idea how far along (or serious) we are, and seeing as I will not be visiting my home country anytime soon (which she happens to be living in) and I do not know when she will be visiting stateside, it is a long-distance relationship that has a very questionable fate, although she seems to stick around me longer than any American girls would…

But have I talked about this before?

I am quite terrible at keeping track of things.  What I have said earlier in this blog could be said again (and again, and again…) and I would not notice because I am basically using it no more than like a journal, at least for now… but was that not what how I intended to use this, like a discovery / progress journal?  Nonetheless, the thought of me repeating everything like a broken record is unsettling.  I do not like it, not very much.

And despite revealing this blog to nobody in particular, I still feel scared of someone finding my real identity—do not get me wrong, I rarely speak wrongly of anyone or leave any scathing comments (I heard one too many horror stories of those who said too much with their names revealed or tracked down), but I feel that some things are still better left unsaid… which may be true, but which may also go against the intended purpose of this blog.

So I am split—how much do I diverge here?

How should we do this?

The last few weeks were hell.  I have faced some of the more vicious assignments, as it usually occurs near the end of the semester.  Yes, a semester has passed since I first started writing—what was the blog that tried to track what I was doing to improve my life turned into nothing more than a day-to-day update (if at that) of my life.  Not good!  It did prompt me to take some action, though. I would not have seen a career counselor and took some information if it were not for this.  I would also very well have done even less productive things if I had not written here.

But still, I do not think I did enough.  If I were truly motivated, I would not have had phases that incapacitated me from moving forward in the first place.  Sure, I am not the type that will keep the focus in one spot, nor am I the one that can sustain it, but I seem to have a knack for being turtle-slow.

So, four weeks left of semester is left.  I should try and work my butt off and do some extensive research, but instead I feel as though I am falling asleep, a part of vicious cycle involving late naps, sleep deprivation, and procrastination from hell—have I told you that I do most of my homework past midnight?  I am an extreme nocturnal.

Never mind that nocturnal people tend to be more creative.  I know that the lifestyle is unsustainable.

Things to be done, but what?

(Found via StumbleUpon; link embedded on picture)

I have mentioned earlier, yesterday in fact, that I am very scatterbrained.  You could see me toiling away in front of the book one minute, and surfing the web the next.  I know I did not say that I was, in fact, a scatterbrain, but it is very easy to deduce that, is it not?  I am finding it very hard right now to keep typing and stay away from the web browser (I use Windows Live Writer to write blogs, which I found to be quite useful), or doing anything else for that matter.  Other thoughts preoccupy me as well; I should be working on a report paper that is quite long and due in two days, and I should go back home and mow lawn and tidy up the room, and I should be choosing my major and get a summer job and/or an internship.  Well, it is not really happening right now.  I am trying to tie myself down to one task and one task only.  Take it for what it is.

I do find ways to remedy this situation, this series of distractions from hell, that is preoccupying my life, preventing myself from having one.  Now, I would also like to say that I do not necessarily mind this lifestyle; rather, I am deeply troubled by the fact—and my knowledge—that such lifestyle is unsustainable.  Never should I have to depend on my parents for shelter, food, or health insurance unless I have to, especially if I am already close to the mid-20s.  There is another depressing thought—while I was lollygagging at nothing in particular, others are getting ahead in life, moving beyond what I ever was.  So far, a few things I found that works (to various degree, and no pun intended) to get things done are:

• Setting timeline
• Setting schedule
• Making outlines / steps and following it
• Being asked by others

But I cannot set up a deadline or schedule or make step-by-step instructions if I could not be arsed to do it.  So, basically, I only do things that others tell me to do.  If I had something to stand behind and such, I would already be in Harvard, finishing up medical school, probably.

Which brings up the picture at the start.  Could my apathy—or laziness, if it were—the cause of all this?  If I had something I truly cared about and not lived merely another day, perhaps I would be in a better situation.  Never mind that I am like this because I am introverted; I could have learned more things if I went out to try new things.  Never mind that I have an accent from hell; it could have been remedied—to what extent, I do not know—if I took classes or used the learning material I have at home.  Everything can be tied to how I did not care enough.

So, what would make myself care?

Energy, tardiness, and the relationship of the two

(from Flickr by riotjane)

It is Friday. I have a test tomorrow, yet I cannot get myself to work. Never mind that I have a big test tomorrow, that I had to turn in a somewhat critical homework assignment for accounting class yet I could not, and that I have a six-page, single-spaced paper to write for Business and Law class that I have to type in a single letter for. I am tired, a constant phenomenon that refuses to let up until some 11 in the evening, continuing on until 2 or 3 in the morning, when I have a sudden loss of energy fueled by sudden urge to do work and compounded fatigue of many nights of uneven sleep schedule.

That is my usual day, and I am not proud of the fact. How many times have I fallen asleep in the twilight of the night, but a few minutes of the dawn that inevitably comes sooner than I would hope to encounter? I have lost countless days procrastinating, sometimes through napping and other times through coercion to do other things, by myself or others. I would count blogging among the list of things I have done instead of working, but it, too, is working—just not the “it will raise your grades and arguably improve your future outlook” kind. And, look—I am procrastinating even on blogging. It should not take two hours to write two paragraph of worthless crap.

Anyway.

I wanted to talk about lethargy. It has been with me since the beginning; I fell asleep in virtually every class I was in (and was penalized for that in one way or another, with varying teacher interventions), and it was probably a sight to behold—a sleeping kid, acing much of the tests, yet too tired or distracted to do some actual work unless it became a really pressing matter. What is the matter with that? Well, the problem is not when i am doing well, but when I am doing bad—bad habits die hard, and I find it very hard to change pace (or behavior) as I entered college and started struggling. Staying in the dormitory, while fun, did little to change my lifestyle; if anything, without oversight, I have worsened my habit, so much so that I have never shaken off my nocturnal lifestyle.

And that, in turn, makes matters worse, energy-wise. Working a part-time job in addition to college—I now work 20-hour workweeks—my energy seems to be nonexistent. Rarely am I able to make it to school without being tardy, if not missing the class entirely (with yesterday being an exception; I attended a court proceeding). I take naps before heading off to work, and consequently, I arrive late, to varying degrees. I even lost my freelance interpreter gig partly due to dozing off.

This has got to stop.

I envy one of my friends. He seems to be working hard (or harder than I do in most times), and does not seem to show much fatigue even in the face of all-nighters and continual abuse of body with lack of sleep time (which he supposedly makes up for in the weekend by sleeping like a log, or more appropriately, like a man in a coma). And what am I? A man of little discipline and a need for sleep. A lot of sleep.

Do not tell me I have not tried to remedy the situation, though, because I have. I am a caffeine junkie; right now I can feel that the withdrawal symptom—headache from hell—is just around the corner. I tried to work out, which had a mixed reaction (better overall energy, but god help me once adrenaline wears off). Knocking myself out with Benadryl works—for a day. That is after getting rid of the extreme drowsiness that will not leave for hours after I am done sleeping, though.

My mother tells me I should stop napping and go to bed earlier. But am I napping because I do not go to bed earlier, or do I not go to bed earlier because I nap? And napping is what keeps me going throughout the day. So I don’t know.

So, what can I do? How can I wake up earlier, be energized, and keep going until bedtime? And how can I keep going when I have underslept and must not fall asleep but still am stuck with sedentary lifestyle?