Classical Methods

“Sometimes we care, sometimes we don’t.” My physics teacher

This second workweek was a lot smoother. I planned and executed plans. There was less procrastination and more being present. I managed to make myself understand when to care and when not to. For example I should not care that much about my grades unless I am failing the year. This does not imply that I should not study, it just means that I should not make it more important than it is.

On that topic, I got back last week’s grades. It went badly. In physics the total grade was out of 45 and the teacher tweaked the grading system a little to change the class average from 5/20 to 10/20. Maths was almost as bad. The average was 8.8 but the difference was that this was a supposedly doable exam, not some voodoo physics.

Since I knew right after my exams last Saturday how badly they went I decided to change my methods. Yes, that’s right, I studied this week. I went ahead and forced myself to sit down every day of the week for just 30 minutes to study for my next exam. This was truly a game changer. My struggle was showing up for the work, once started usually it is not that big of a challenge to keep going. Furthermore the work payed off. I went into this week’s chemistry exam with confidence and came out victorious, a solid 15.5/20. Basically the perfect week: work, enjoy the work, get rewarded for work. Nice!

I am especially proud of not getting unmotivated by getting back the french dissertation which was done before Christmas. I remembered giving my all into this text. When exiting the exam room I was happy with myself and the work I had done, and now I receive a slap in the face. 8/20... I felt under-appreciated. Nevertheless after a little reflection I realised that this grade was (supposedly) only due to my misuse of methodology, not the lack of my ideas, and after all I am studying in France so I should lower my standards on the grades (I have been here half a year and I am still not fully used to it).

A friend of mine has made an Excel to display continuously his average based on the grades he has. So all there is to do is enter the grade and it's so-called worth below the subject for the spreadsheet to automatically calculate the subject and the overall average. Fortunately he was happy to share it and I must say that it is very satisfying to have that kind of an overview of the situation. I completed it while listening to A Little Night Music, the music played a big role in the whole aura of the situation.

The fact that I was procrastinating less this week made me enjoy everything more. I enjoyed studying, cooking and cleaning. Everything was enjoyable, since I did not have the burden of my subconscious telling me “Hey, you are not studying so you are a failure”.

For example: on Friday morning, while still a little drowsy, I decided to make pancakes. As one could have noticed I am an amateur of all sorts of electronic music so I decided to put on some tunes. That morning I decided to put my Spotify's Liked Songs on shuffle and came across this pépite of Charlotte de Witte: Rave on Time. So there I was, energetically jumping to techno in my kitchen at 7:15 in the morning while making pancakes. If that's not something worth living for, I do not know what is.

COVID cases in my class are coming in from left and right. In one day there were a solid 3 new cases not in my year but in my class. As of this Sunday I have a little cough and I just went to get tested. The moral implications of the situation are complicated. I have been going to my volleyball trainings, I have visited my sister and met up with my mother. It just weighs on me a lot that without knowing I could have brought this upon others.

This week's discovery is Wordle. It's a simple brainteaser: find the five letter word with six guesses, every time a letter is placed correctly it turns green, if the letter is misplaced it turns orange, if it is not in the word at all it turns gray. Everyday the word is updated. It's simple yet challenging enough to not be boring.

Have a great 3rd week of the year!