my life, my pace

But I'm not.  And I sit around debating why I'm not instead of freaking out and studying.  I think about freaking out and studying but I just can't quite get myself to do it.  Let's put it this way.  Everything is not going to be okay.  My qualifying exam is in less than a month and I have yet to:

1. Make my Powerpoint presentation of my thesis project.

2. Study everything that I was told to study (I conveniently ignored all the broad topics and the hunt-for-papers topics).

3. Think about all the holes in my project and how to plug them up.  Especially statistics.

4. Know anything and everything about my project backwards, forwards, sideways, and upside down.

5. Read my committee members' papers. 

6. Memorize everything that I supposedly already studied.

Can I really do all of that in less than a month?  Probably not, even if I didn't sleep for that whole time.  And yet what have I been doing?  Let's see.  Today, I slept in until noon.  Then I ate.  Then I watched an episode of a Japanese drama.  Then I surfed the web.  Then I opened my notebook.  Read less than one page.  Surfed some more.  Then I found some sweet online after-Christmas sales and wasted a good chunk of time.  Then there was dinner.  More online shopping.  Put Santa hat on my dog just to annoy him.  Memorized two lines on anesthetic mechanism of action.  Made ringtones for my husband's cell phone.  Cleaned the house because my husband's friend is visiting tomorrow.

What can I say?  I need a really loud wakeup call.  Because I can't seem to do it myself.  What's it going to take?  I wish I knew so that I could start studying again.  This is just bad.  Really, really bad. 

Related posts:

1. my brain is fullI've been studying hardcore (or at least what I would call hardcore) for my quals for the last 11 days and I still feel like I know nothing.  It's quite depressing.  It all boils down to the fact that I don't really know how to study for this highly amorphous test.  I now have 85 days left until my quals and I don't know if I'm making good progress or not.  I still don't know how inhaled anesthetics work even though I already finished studying my Basics of Anesthesia book.  How am I supposed to remember everything 85 days from now when I can't even remember things I learned only 7 days ago?  Gah.  I think I'm going crazy....
2. must…study…but…can’t…Man, this whole Wii thing has really gotten me into a funk.  I don't think I've studied anything worth anything since Monday.  And as much as knowing that freaks me out, I am utterly helpless.  Apparently, it's very hard for me to get into my studying groove once I've been spoiled by not studying.  The sad thing is that I wasn't even particularly enjoying myself during my little not-so-well-deserved study hiatus.  It all started with the Wii problem, which sent me into crazy-check-forums-for-any-news-every-other-minute mode, which wasn't at all conducive to studying.  Now that I think back about how many days I wasted not studying because of my disappointment over not getting my Wii as promised, I can only hang my head in shame because I can't understand why it was such a big deal to me.  Maybe it was a "reward" for all the studying I had accomplished and knowing that I wasn't going to get it when I planned made me lose my motivation?  Then, when I finally began recovering from my Wii funk after Amazon finally shipped it, I was dealt another incapacitating blow in the form of the whole let-the-holidays-begin-crazy-in-laws funk.  Just the thought that I had to spend yet another Thanksgiving with them was enough to make it impossible for me to study.  The thought that we would never be respected as our own family and that I would have to forever share my holidays with these crazy people.  What can I say?  I'm a glass...
3. my new and improved lab routine…...if I can stick to it (which I failed miserably at today, by the way). 9:00 am - Arrive (I My husband just can't seem to wake up any earlier). 9-9:30 am - Get my daily surfing routine out of the way in record time. 9:30-11 am - Study, study, study! 11 am - Start getting hungry...no, you can't eat until you finish this section! Force myself to keep studying. 12 pm - Whoo-hoo! Food! You know, your brain needs food to learn... 12:20-12:40 pm - Supplemental internet surfing ("study break") 12:40-4 pm - Study, study, study! 4 pm - Start anticipating time to go home. More supplemental surfing. 4:10 pm - Must...make...use...of...time. Back to studying, though at slower pace. 5:20 pm - Husband finally picks me up from this hell. Compare that to my old lab routine and you should be very proud of me. Now if only I can keep it up for the next 2.5 months....

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