Exam Anxiety, Mood Charting, and Self-Discipline Issues
As I type this, my first exam is three hours away, and I'll be leaving for campus in an hour and a half. It's actually the easier of the two, for me: This exam is in college writing, and I just need to answer an essay question related to a reading that I have had a chance to read for a week now per the English department policy on campus. I should be okay but I am somehow still scared. Probably because I haven't been sleeping well with any consistency.
The mood chart has lasted the first two days...for me that's really good. I can't help but notice that my anxiety is running high, though...and I had to note last night that I'm worried about letting my interests literally take me over. In part I think that explains why I could only sleep 4.5 hours the first night. Last night was better (6.5), but not enough to guarantee I can think straight all day.
My interests keep changing and I continually hear taking them too far because of a bad experience I've had with them, which I want to talk about here. I should warn everyone right now that this will make the entry long, so if you only have a few minutes, you may want to come back when you have more time.
It started innocently enough...I simply picked up a magazine of word search puzzles from a CVS near my home. I like stuff that forces me to think (I can't seem to do that on my own merits much), and I wanted something for my commutes to what was at that time an accounting job (which I regret moving into, but that's another story for another day).
Then curiosity killed the proverbial cat, and it all went downhill from there. Remember when the sudoku craze hit worldwide (around 2005)? These are actually nothing new, having first appeared as Number Place puzzles before my time, but the Japanese (in particular the now world-famous-among-puzzlers publishing group Nikoli), in their quiet way, perfected them.
I got hooked on those things, especially in the now-defunct newspaper Boston Now that featured three of them daily. I liked them, and it really wasn't that long before I started thinking, "So what else is out there?"
That was where my problems with self-discipline started. Within two years I had a collection of various puzzle types that was much bigger than would be considered healthy...for anyone. I had an entire desk drawer loaded with books and magazines. Crosswords. The aforementioned sudoku. Variations on the sudoku idea. Scrabblegrams. You name it, there's a reasonable chance I'd tried it at least once.
I can't explain why, but I was also having stress problems at that time, so I had this really twisted idea that just maybe I could drown my sorrows in these things, hence the overload. That didn't work...if anything it became more like a second job. Somehow I was also flashing back to a bad day in my life when my high school was smoke-bombed, and the afternoon immediately after I wanted to drown that memory playing a golf board game (Let's Play Golf) that I no longer own. That didn't work either.
Eventually, I gave most of this stack away. But the connotation with avoiding that took hold with this mess remains. To this day, I really don't enjoy my interests the way that I should, because I fear I will have another time (like right now) when I will just break it out and not want to leave, ever.
If you've actually read this far, let me know and I will drop you a hug...you'll have earned it.
The mood chart has lasted the first two days...for me that's really good. I can't help but notice that my anxiety is running high, though...and I had to note last night that I'm worried about letting my interests literally take me over. In part I think that explains why I could only sleep 4.5 hours the first night. Last night was better (6.5), but not enough to guarantee I can think straight all day.
My interests keep changing and I continually hear taking them too far because of a bad experience I've had with them, which I want to talk about here. I should warn everyone right now that this will make the entry long, so if you only have a few minutes, you may want to come back when you have more time.
It started innocently enough...I simply picked up a magazine of word search puzzles from a CVS near my home. I like stuff that forces me to think (I can't seem to do that on my own merits much), and I wanted something for my commutes to what was at that time an accounting job (which I regret moving into, but that's another story for another day).
Then curiosity killed the proverbial cat, and it all went downhill from there. Remember when the sudoku craze hit worldwide (around 2005)? These are actually nothing new, having first appeared as Number Place puzzles before my time, but the Japanese (in particular the now world-famous-among-puzzlers publishing group Nikoli), in their quiet way, perfected them.
I got hooked on those things, especially in the now-defunct newspaper Boston Now that featured three of them daily. I liked them, and it really wasn't that long before I started thinking, "So what else is out there?"
That was where my problems with self-discipline started. Within two years I had a collection of various puzzle types that was much bigger than would be considered healthy...for anyone. I had an entire desk drawer loaded with books and magazines. Crosswords. The aforementioned sudoku. Variations on the sudoku idea. Scrabblegrams. You name it, there's a reasonable chance I'd tried it at least once.
I can't explain why, but I was also having stress problems at that time, so I had this really twisted idea that just maybe I could drown my sorrows in these things, hence the overload. That didn't work...if anything it became more like a second job. Somehow I was also flashing back to a bad day in my life when my high school was smoke-bombed, and the afternoon immediately after I wanted to drown that memory playing a golf board game (Let's Play Golf) that I no longer own. That didn't work either.
Eventually, I gave most of this stack away. But the connotation with avoiding that took hold with this mess remains. To this day, I really don't enjoy my interests the way that I should, because I fear I will have another time (like right now) when I will just break it out and not want to leave, ever.
If you've actually read this far, let me know and I will drop you a hug...you'll have earned it.
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