Friday, March 4, 2011

Workload woes


So I thought I was caught up on everything until I realized I have a midterm in about a week and I know absolutely nothing on the topics being brought up in it due to the fact that I never cracked the textbook open. I was lazy, yeah. I tried reading it though, but I always hate reading textbooks. I read a pargraph, but it's so dull that my mind wanders off on its own. So even though I'm reading the words on the page, my mind isn't absorbing them because I'm too focused on other things. 

Because of this, it takes me like an hour just to read one page, because I constantly have to go back and re-read what I wasn't paying attention to. I'm usually like this with textbooks, especially History textbooks. I'm just much more of a visual learner, I guess. I don't like learning from texts, I'd rather learn in video form or something. So I was thinking I'd just look up a documentary for the subjects I'm supposed to be studying. Nothing on youtube but a bunch of kids that uploaded their history project online (and it seems like the whole class did it, and all of their results show up as the first thing, isn't that just nice?)

So I guess I could search the web for some videos. Maybe the History Channel website has some of the stuff I'm looking for. I just don't want to take the chance that I spend time looking for these videos, and in the end find nothing that goes deep enough into the topics for me to really build an essay around for the exam. At least the review sheet tells us what essays will be on the test. The problem is he gave 8 essays and said of those 8 he'll only use 4 maximum on the test, and of the ones he picks we choose 2. Not a bad bargain really, but knowing my luck he'll pick the questions I focused least on studying.

On the bright side, I ended up procrastinating on my History studies by focusing more on my Japanese studies. That's fine, I guess. Not good for my History class (or really my Japanese class either since my studies are usually learning stuff not covered in my course at the moment) but at least I didn't spend most of my time procrastinating on the internet.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go procrastinate more by doing some kanji grinding.

~ Kirari ミ★

8 posts:

Cpt.Awesome said...

I know that feel with textbooks. I can read huge textwalls of something I'm interested in, but I can barely get through a single paragraph of something that bores me.

At least you're avoiding learning by learning something else. I would probably be on the Internets or playing vidya.

MixedNuts said...

Sounds like a good idea. I recently just figured out I can read text books while listening to music with headphones( I tried studying recently back then).
Assignments is what gets to me especially if I have to go in a team.

Faiz Faults said...

I know the dread of going through the wall of text in textbook. As for me tho, I'm more of a kinematic (?) learner - I have to do a bit of writing or illustrations if I ever going to get the notes into my head.

And now I remembered that I still haven't studied for my text next week, damn.

Tigoris said...

Textbooks are horrible, but I've learned some methods for getting through. Put on some soothing music (like the Aria soundtrack, it's perfect for studying) and then read a paragraph or section. Then go back and take down notes on the most important parts. In taking the notes, you force yourself to pay attention. By reading and THEN going back and taking notes, you make sure that you only bother with the most important parts.

Jerry said...

When will the world learn that textbooks are an inferior form of learning. Procrastinating is never a bad idea.

serenity said...

At least if you're procrastinating by learning kanji then you're still being productive somehow. I just end up refreshing web pages for hours on end.

Ningen said...

I actually laughed when I read the part with the kids uploading the things you have to study.

link said...

That used to happen me all the time back in school. I could go through several walls of text without remembering anything.

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