Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays to all! My blog will be returning when classes return next semester in January. In the mean time, you can check out my personal blog here.
Good luck on your finals and have a fantastic Winter break! : )

Finals!

"You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you."

- James Allen

Our last day of classes is almost upon us, and as the semester starts to end I find myself wondering more and more about finals.  Passing my classes is the main goal I have created, not expecting to obtain a certain grade.  Despite that most people want B's and A’s, I would be content with a C or a D, just as long as I pass the class.  Some could say that I lack the motivation but I’m willing to admit that I slacked off a bit when it came to studying, and it’s coming back to bite me in the end.  At this time of year, slacking happens a lot more because of the season.

Winter break is almost here, depending on when your last final is, and plenty of students are ecstatic at the thought of it.  There are Christmas movies playing on TV, snow is on the rise, and most are cheery after getting into the holiday spirit.  Celebrating this time of year is a tradition to a lot of the population, especially with me.  I get to celebrate my birthday five days after Christmas, and this year it’s the big landmark of 18 years! The only problem is getting to that point without having an anxiety attack because of finals.

10 Tips to Maintain Your Sanity During Finals will definitely help out during this time of need.  Sanity is something that needs to be kept in order to ignore ‘bombing’ your finals, unless your ‘sanely insane’.  It may not be understood what I mean by that, but if you are ‘sanely insane’ you’ll definitely understand.  As it states on the website, ignoring caffeine and sugar is a very good thing.  There’s no use in studying while hyped up from caffeine, especially if you’re not going to retain any of the information and end up crashing during the exam.

Listening to the instrumentals of a song while studying could also help; you could imagine the instrumentals in your head while taking the exam, and remember the information you had obtained.  Try to avoid sad songs; I can only imagine how it would work out if someone listened to “I Will Follow You Into The Dark” while studying.  There are probably other tips out there that I have yet to discover and will hopefully discover soon; does anyone have any? Remember that you can always email them to me through my Frostburg student email! :)

I wish luck to all of those with finals coming up!

Self-Doubt

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

- Mark Twain

Have you ever had any doubts about life? Where are you heading? Did you make the right choice? What would life be like if you had chose the path opposite to the one you did take? The ‘what ifs’ are an endless sea that will lead you to no shore.  Even worse, the what ifs force you to doubt yourself and your abilities.  You’ll wonder where you went wrong and how you could have fixed it.

Perhaps fixing the problem isn’t the answer.  Maybe there never really was a problem, but you’re the only one who knows.  Never doubt yourself or your decisions.  Doubting things will never end well, so avoiding it would be best.  If you feel like you’re doubting yourself, I recommend 10 Ways To Stop Doubting Yourself.  You’ll find tips on how to stop the issue when it comes to hand.  The best thing to do is to think “I chose what I did for a reason,” and keep doubt far from your mind.

Self-doubt is inevitable; everyone will come in contact with it eventually, whether they want to or not.  You just have to learn how and when to deal with it.  I’ve been going through a lot of self-doubt these last few days.  Finals are coming up sooner than I anticipated and I’m nervous that I’m going to fail my classes:  typical freshman worry.  This worry has caused me to think about the 'what ifs'.  What if I had chosen not to go to college? Where would I be? What if I fail out of college? I’ve been trying my hardest to push all of those thoughts to the back of my mind and focus on the now.  I can stop myself from failing, but I need to keep the self-doubt at bay until then.

Now is the time when I need to figure out how to keep focused; maybe make a plan/schedule marking the appropriate study times.  There’s also the issue of studying, as I am a procrastinator, which puts a tremendous amount of stress on a person.  For once, I have no resources on how to help with this issue.  To all of the students who read this blog, what are some ways that you cope with finals? And do you know of any resources on campus that could help me out?

Good luck to everyone!