Studying in Color

I’m a visual learner, and I like using mnemonic devices to learn terms.

This is called creative girl attempts to fit in to the shoes of an analytical thinker.  

I couldn’t blog yesterday because my brain was attempting to think analytically all day while studying, and I’m not joking.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a photographic memory and I don’t have the ability to just hear a term and know it, which makes it really hard for me to study and memorize straight-up definitions.      

I have to see what I’m studying, which can be a bit difficult when it comes to psychology since it is a study of thought processes.  Basically, thoughts are unseen no matter what, so how am I (a visual learner) supposed to learn what everything means without being able to see it?  

The solution dawned on me last night.

I could draw it.  I ended up making charts, graphs, pictures, tables… all in color.  By drawing them and visually reproducing the facts I memorized them and learned them much quicker.  I also made various mnemonic sayings and analogies for the terms.      

Will thinks I’m ridiculous.  “Why don’t you just say the term for what it is and learn it like that?” 

I probably explained numerous times that I simply can’t do that to save my life.  Even flash cards don’t work very well for me.  When we discussed the meaning of cultural “separation” he gave a very point-blank definition and I went a very roundabout way of explaining how someone was on an island and didn’t want to swim in the water with the rest of the world.  (Or something like that.  The point is, I actually remembered what it meant because of the silly analogy I came up with!)

He just looked at me like I was crazy.

I studied my notes several times through, reviewed my colorful tables and charts, and then called it a night. 

The next morning I woke up and slightly surprised myself with the realization that I remembered a lot of the things I had studied.  I was able to let myself relax during breakfast and laugh a lot.  There’s nothing worse than going into a test with a bad mood burdening you.

There were only a few questions that caused me to second-guess myself.

Otherwise, I felt like a pro.

My crazy learning techniques paid off.

F.I.N.E.

Finals week brings out weird feelings. 

Everyone tends to be unstable in general. 

Someone asked me how I was doing and I said, “Fine.”

You know what F.I.N.E. stands for right?

Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional.

(Thank you Italian Job for the perfect acronym.)

Freaked out because I realized how much I have to study for.

Insecure because I don’t know exactly what to study for the test I'm studying for. 

Neurotic because I don’t know how well I’ll remember what I’ve studied. 

And emotional because… well, because girls always are.

Good news is, I’m done with two finals.

Which means I have one more to go.    

Then I have to pack and say my goodbyes, which is a whole new stress in itself.  

Right now I’m really just F.I.N.E. and not much else.  

The Reward of Chocolate

I had my second midterm this morning.  My first one last night was for art and I’m pretty sure I did just fine.  

I was a much more worried about the midterm this morning.  

It was for my freshman film class.  It’s a USEM, which means I chose to take it because I was interested in the topic, even though I hadn’t ever considered majoring in film production. 

Turns out it’s the hardest class I have this semester. 

I made myself a huge study guide, I studied with my friends, I reread sections of the book, and went over all my in class notes.  I studied until my eyes were crossed and I couldn’t anymore.

I studied so much I couldn’t even sleep last night.  I ended up lying awake until almost 2 in the morning, which isn’t that surprising because that’s about the time I go to bed on a normal night anyway…oh college. 

When my alarm went off I was up immediately.  I knew I couldn’t dress too casual, but also not too fancy.  If I dressed too casual I would be tempted to fall asleep.  My idea of extremely casual is a hoodie and sweats/pajama pants, which really gets my body in the mood to shut off and take a nap.  I also couldn’t dress too nicely because, first of all, I did yesterday, and secondly, I wouldn’t be comfortable at all. 

Thus, I found a perfect “happy medium.”

I pulled out my favorite pair of jeans, my Sperry’s (best shoes ever), and a sweater that I kidnapped from my Mom.  She doesn’t ever wear it and I do, so I figured it was only fair.  It’s actually one of the best things I have in my closest.  It would easily fit into the “ugly-sweater” category, but I love it too much to consider it as such. 

Throughout breakfast I was going over facts once more, and trying to mentally prepare myself for the test.  I wasn’t doing too well.  I continued to get more and more tense until I felt like my brain was detached from my head… I don’t really know how else to explain it, but it wasn’t a good feeling.

By the time I got to the room where I would take my test, someone could have pushed me over and I would have toppled like a chopped down tree.  I was that tense.

And here’s the weird thing.  Never before in my life had I EVER been that nervous for a test.  I think it was partially due to the fact I had no idea what to expect and I didn’t know if I had studied for it right.  Plus there was a ton of information I had to remember and I didn’t know if I remembered any of it. 

My professor handed out the test and I began immediately.  There were no multiple-choice questions and no matching questions—we had to write everything.  He gave us ten terms and we had to define all of them through writing and then write an essay at the end.  I was partially peeved…picking only ten people/movies out of the dozens we had learned about didn’t make me feel like my comprehension on the first half of the quarter was being fully tested.  

In a way I wanted to be really mad about it, but I quickly shoved those feelings aside.  Feelings don’t have a place when it comes to a test.  If anything they make things worse.

I finished right on time and I felt like I had neglected discussing a few minor details, but overall I felt good that I was finished.  And I wasn’t mad at my professor anymore for making us write everything because half way through the test he walked around the room and handed each of us a fun-sized, dark-chocolate, Hershey bar.

If you don’t know me well, you need to know right now that I love dark chocolate.  I usually refuse to eat Hershey chocolate unless it's dark, and I was immediately appeased by my professor’s kind gesture.

On any other day I would have saved the chocolate for later, or maybe eaten only ½ of it.

Today I ate all of it.

I had successfully made it through my second midterm (my first official midterm in my opinion) and nothing was going to stop me from devouring it.

By the time my second class started, it was gone.

And I don’t regret it one bit.