Snotface@Uni

I have never been so grateful than I am in this moment that I decided to only study part time, which means two subjects, for my first semester to see how I handle the workload and get the hang of this whole study stuff. Learning to juggle this whole being a mum, and making sure to stay on top of the household so that my house doesn’t look like a bomb has hit, while also getting through my required reading is certainly going to prove to be an interesting over the next few weeks.

But anyway! Today I came across some really interesting stuff on the different types of communication and socialisation with how it is key even to our physical health let alone our mental health. And the theories that I was reading had my thoughts running to how society has been functioning over the past 12 to 18 months with covid and having to isolate away from society with only social media to keep us connected, while also asking if this is really enough to bridge that gap in order to keep our minds and bodies healthy.

Okay that got a bit serious for a moment there and I was going to try and keep these posts as light hearted as possible while poking a bit of fun (mostly at myself, and my partner, and my best mate, and… ok, well you get the point). So, cheers to the stupid amount of procrastination (which consisted of two cups of coffee, shaving my legs, and longer than I care to admit scrolling through TikTok) I did this morning before finally planting my backside in front of the computer to work through my readings.

And for sure, transferring the documents to my phone so I can read them in the car while I wait for the kids to get out of school totally counts as study time… strangely enough I always seem to do some of my best work sitting in the car waiting for the kids to get out of school. I like to think that the change of scenery every now gives me a refresh because what I know, for sure, that it does amazing things for my motivation and concentration!

Ok that is me for tonight! Until tomorrow.

I have to admit that the last week or two or even three I have had a rising anxiety about studying at a university level. It has had me rather tied into knots. However! Now that I have survived my first day I am feeling just a little bit more confident in my ability to finish this bachelor degree let alone do well in it.

I read in one of my text books that after each study session “Write a blog post…” (Burns, T & Sinfield, S [2016]) and thought that was dead set one of the absolute the best thing I had read yet, ok so maybe not so much the best thing but most certainly one of the best tips they gave when it comes to being the driving force and being able to maintain control of the time used when it comes to your studies especially when it comes to online/distance education.  The reason that a blog post was suggested was so that when you have finished studying for the day you can reflect on what you have learnt simply by writing it down and sharing it! Which when you think about it is rather ingenious. So here I am typing up my first blog post in the hopes that something I learnt today will stick!

Outside of this blog post idea something that really stuck out in running through all the introductory reading, that was set for this week is how organisation appears to be at the forefront and the be all and end all key to success in surviving tertiary studies either on campus or via online/distance education. It covered things like setting up a study schedule, sticking to it (haha yea my brain nearly went into melt down at the thought that I would have to be in a ridged schedule but I decided to make it flexible… what can I say it’s the teeny tiny rebel in me and I am painfully aware of how my brain works... most days...), being aware of assessment due dates and working steadily on those assessments throughout the lead up to it and not leaving it to the last possible second where you end up having a mental break down because you have procrastinated on it for so long… sadly I remember doing this myself in high school so I am actually (maybe not actually but kinda) terrified moving forward.

However, another thing I noticed is that I wasn’t the only one that was have high school PTSD when it comes to assessments, and what I learnt was that the difference between assessments set at high school and now is that I have chosen to study this and am passionate about it where I really didn’t give a crap about a mathematic assessment based on… Oh I don’t know I kind of redacted that information from my memory banks… but I feel like my point has been made.

With all that said I am super excited to be on this journey and living this new and unknown experience, as much as there are hundreds if not thousands of those who have already gone through this before me, this is new for me and I can’t wait to see what tomorrow has to bring.

Until tomorrow