Journal Entry #21

Reading through the list of self-defeating habits that my book had listed in Chapter 6 really was, in a way, kind of deppressing. This is because I could check off at least 3/4 of all the different habits, something I can say I'm not very proud of...

Of all the habits listed, however, one that stands out the most to me which I recognize everyday is the "doing more unimportant things" list. When I get home from class, the one thing I want to do is just go out and skateboard, hang out with friends, etc. These unimportant things have, indeed, became some of the most important things in my life and seem that they always will be. No matter how hard I try to sit down to do work/study, I always end up having the unstoppable urge to go out and do something. This ends up in me doing my homework at the last minute and late at night, if I don't end up passing out in my bed from a long day instead, of course.

I feel like this always happens mostly because I hate being alone or not having fun. I am constantly just looking to have fun and that is where my friends, skateboarding and all the other crazy things we do together come together. I also have realized that I do have quite a bad case of nostalgia. I just don't want to grow up and I absoloutely HATED the idea of graduating and going off to growing up. Still living at home and having many friends still in high school really doesn't help this much at all.

I really have thought about it and have realized that moving away from all of these distractions and just being able to grow up would be the absoloute best for me. The problem is that I just can't let go. I love my friends and everything we do together so much that even the thought of moving away makes me depressed. I have lived in the same little town of South Range for over 16 years now and have so many memories of both good times and bad. I just hate the thought of leaving all of it behind. And that's kind of how it is when I drive to class everyday. The same exact place where I would always go to skateboard with my friends back when I was still in highschool and get kicked out of everyday were now where I had to go and actually try my best academicly. All I would want to do is to just get home and get out with my buddies.

I really do have a serious problem here, and I just don't know if I'm able to address it yet. I have had some really big goals set for myself to hopefully become an astronomer working for NASA. Since I was about 10, nothing amazed me more than the night sky and nothing sounded better than achieving that dream. I have always loved learning and having that great feeling of being successful, but am grealty hindered today with many different self-defeating patterns. I'm just not sure if I'm ready to grow up yet and ready to take on those dreams, because if I want to achieve those dreams I would have to give up almost everything and focus on that dream, and that's just something I'm really not ready for yet.

I don't know too much about what I for sure want right now, but I can tell you that I WILL achieve my dreams. It is just a matter of when I feel I'll be ready to take that challenge on.


Extra Credit: Understanding Your Notes As You Write Them

Upon researching this topic, as I am actually fairly interested in it myself, I did find a bit about it which may come in handy.

Before you start taking notes, you'll want to have at least a general idea of what you'll be writing about before you start writing random stuff you don't understand. If you're going to class, reading ahead a bit, or at least understanding the topic that will be discussed in class will help you to understand what your writing as you write it.

Another helpful tip when taking notes is to not write too much or just blindly write down everything the teacher is writing. Try to point out key formulas, ideas, etc. and try to branch of those ideas. This will also help you to understand your notes as you go through them.

One other way that will help you interpret what you're writing as you write it is labeling certain parts of your notes to remind you of important ideas about those bits of information. Although this may seem to just be helpful in the sense of going back into your notes and reading through them, this could also help you understand your notes while you write them, as well. As you write down different peices of information which you may sort of misundertand, labeling them with key ideas could really spark an idea about that topic or give you some extra insight on it as you write it down.

These were just a few quick ways to help in note-taking that I pulled of of the internet here: http://http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/reading-and-researching/notes-from-research
but I am sure that there are plenty of other ways to help achieve greater note-taking abilities.