Out of Touch

Kind of out of touch lately. I've been caught up in exam madness, and a lot of the time between reading I'm just a bit burnt out to write more than I really have to. Life has been good to me though. I came to London for my exams, and other than today it's been great weather. I've mostly just been reviewing but I've had the chance to do some wandering and see and do a few things.
First exam (Marketing Management) didn't go so well. I was so prepared and I was thrilled when I opened the booklet to see that I was very knowledgeable of most of the questions, and since I only answer 3, I picked the 3 best and went from there, only to find myself with horrible writers block. I barely finished (and my last essay lacked detail and was pretty sparse), and I'm pretty sure that the first didn't really manage to properly answer the question and I rambled a lot. All bad news. The good news is that I had Human Resource Management yesterday and that went pretty well! I wasn't any more prepared than I was for Marketing, but I chilled out a lot more. I went to a comedy show the night before. I think just the lack of overstudying led to a lack of nerves and it served me a lot better. I just have Strategic Management and Accounting left, and I'm only really worried about Accounting.

Where did the time go?

I've been trying to figure out why I'm not in a blind panic to study for finals this year. Sure, I'm reviewing a few hours a day, every day, but I'm not in this mad dash to learn every last bit of info either. I feel like I should be though, and I wonder, what's up? Is the course work a bit easier for me this year (maybe....I didn't have Stats this year!) Am I just getting complacent or lazy? I did look at the stack of reading I've done this year and though a voice inside me keeps telling me I should have read more, looking at that stack I don't know I really could have. It's pretty large. And I think I retained a lot of it. I'm reviewing main points and key articles.

I think the biggest reason for all this though is that when I thought about it, I realized that I started my course work a month and a half earlier. I took an extra week of a break over Christmas, but I still read somewhat over that, and I didn't take any time over spring like I did last year. Also, my last exams are almost a week later than last year. So I guess that's really it. I didn't have a course that didn't absorb half my study time like stats did last year, and I have been doing my course work for a much longer period of time.

I'm having a bit of fun with it though. I'm making Marketing flash cards while I watch Battlestar Galactica.

Fairly Productive

It hasn't been a half bad day. I got up and read a lot on the internet, but I got quite a bit done with it by reading a lot of content that was good for school, etc. I had a hair appointment at noon, which is something I always put off but always need because I'm going grey, and my hair gets really dry, ugly split ends. I came home and started some oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies and threw ingredients for bread into the bread machine, then went outside to do my planting. I'm thinking I might add a couple more things but I planted tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, jalepenos and a few kinds of chili peppers. I also planted spinach, and a couple of kinds of lettuce in larger containers, even though I've never really had much luck starting them inside (we'll see if the larger containers work). I did zucchini as well, but I'm not sure if these will be successful as the seeds are kind of old. I took them inside, because I'm growing them in mini-greenhouse flats until it's warmer and they can go back outside. I'd also like to do cucumbers this year but I've given up trying to grow them from seed. I've failed every year.

I'd like to start some flowers as well but I'm kind of bored with nasturtiums and snap dragons (plus snap dragons get EVERYWHERE). I'll probably pick up a few pansies, I have some geraniums I brought in from last season (which will bloom again), I'll plant some sweet peas to climb up the railing, and the tulip bulbs I planted in the fall seem to be coming up, but I'm not sure what else I want to do. I love to have a mix of flowers and edible stuff.

After, I tidied up the house a bit (not spotless but at least passable). Now I'm cooking trout for dinner, and I"ll have it with a side of leftover spinach and sauteed veggies. I'll also make some spaetzle since I need some carbs in there. I've been pretty low on carbs lately...Dr. Atkins would be proud, but I don't really think it's healthy.

After dinner I'll read a few chapters and work on reviewing accounting, because it's the subject I feel I have the least grasp on and it's probably time to start some heftier review other than just reading stuff.

I can definitely feel we're close to the equinox now. My energy levels are different and I'm really awake in the morning (I'm a morning person in spring and summer, and kind of nocturnal in fall and winter). I feel a bit cheerier as well...the winter cynicism is starting to lift.

EDIT: I did manage to do some chapters and some accounting review, and snuck in a documentary about 70's experimental music (well, mostly while I was eating dinner) and a guitar/voice practice. Now writing, German reading and bedtime!

Holidays

I'm on a self-imposed holiday of sorts. I think it's important to organize my studies, and I plan the occasional break from course work into that as well. I still do reading and review but I stop reading course guide books (these are the written material that replace lectures in my program). Doing correspondence requires that you create your own structure, after all.

Anyway, it's been somewhat of a nice holiday. I've caught up on my Gilmore Girls reruns, did some crafts and slept a bit more, but also caught up on Harvard Business Review articles, articles I missed in Economist back issues and my mountain of books to read (though I admit I've procrastinated a little with doing accounting exercises like I meant to. I'll still do it I swear!) I managed to do a bunch of research about MBA programs, which is a lot to take in but informative. And I've found the time to cook, blog and watch an internet video series called "Very Mary Kate" (see last post). Anyway, in all, not half bad!

2010...New Start

It's now past the halfway point of January 2010. I've decided to start blogging again, which I can add to my millions of New Years Resolutions that I may or may not keep. The list so far goes as follows:
-Spend less time on the computer (I realize that blogging might not be so conductive to this goal, but I can blog on my phone, which doesn't involve being on the computer.)
-Get back to the healthy diet I kept in the summer. So far, so good. I've had the odd junk food indulgence, but I never intended to cut junk food out of my life completely.
-Quit buying books on Amazon. So far, so good. Only books for school have been purchased so far, though it's only 3 weeks into January.
-Save money..we'll see how this goes in the long run
-Learn better housekeeping....going ok
-Practice French. Haven't really got started on this one yet.

I also made a commitment to do well in my studies, but that wasn't so much a new years thing as it was an 'I don't want to fail' thing. Studying via correspondence suits me well though. I can always find motivation to read and I learn well by reading. Statistics is a bitch though. I can do the math (it's really just simple algebra) but I'm not really sure sometimes why I'm doing it. I get the basic concepts fine (sample, population, blah blah blah) but some of the more invested concepts seem to only be skimmed through and I'm not sure what relevance they have in the greater world of statistics.