It sounds like the title of a wonderful movie from the 80's, doesn't it? I am a master procrastinator in my own way. I can be busy but not actually memorise anything much, and because my brain is vaguely cheese-like, I need to sit down and memorise things (or pace the room and memorise) rather than just listen in lectures and have things magically pop into my brain.
My procrastination techniques include:
- Looking for and buying/borrowing textbooks rather than concentrating on the subject matter at hand. I somehow reason that if I have the book with me, I will magically understand the information it contains. Ha! I might as well sleep with it under my pillow.
- Avoiding the actual memorisation and writing out lecture summaries. I'm not quite sure how effective this one is. I learn by physically pacing the room and practically stuffing the words into my brain. Writing things out gives me a vague idea, but I don't learn it as well as I would want considering the time invested in this one. I'm considering memorising from my lecture notes, testing myself on the Learning Objectives at the end of each week, and looking to some of the premade summaries that are doing the rounds for any further reinforcement/quick revision.
Mental note: printing something multiple times does not equate to learning.
- Finding pictures of things on Google image. I love Google image for histology slides and diagrams of processes. Being a visual/tactile learner, these things really help me. Plus, many of them are just damn cool.
- Blogging! (No, if I felt it was interfering with my life at all I wouldn't do it.)
So while not being entirely negative procrastination techniques, I'm not sure that I am doing things as effectively as I could. However, as tea-at-ten says on her wonderful post entitled "mantra": medicine is meant to be hard. Whenever I start to feel overwhelmed, I just remember that I am studying Medicine, and nobody in their right mind expects it to be easy.
I would like to be more philosophical or interesting, but I have been lacking in sleep due to the aforementioned fact that medicine is hard. But I'm enjoying it.
Speaking of cool movies from the 80's, I bought a copy of the Dark Crystal on DVD the other day. (Yes, all of you sad people like me who are getting excited, you can now reminisce about your childhood, muppets, and the sad fact that Jim Henson died at the young age of 54 with so much still to give.) I'm keeping an eye out for Labrynth. I doubt that David Bowie's purple tights would get past any kid's movie censors these days, but none of us were too badly scarred by the sight. Perhaps we were distracted by the hair.
5 comments:
Hi GWTBS (Hmm, catchy! I think I'll think up something else... :)
Just thought I'd pop by and say Gi - pleased to see you're addicted!
Glad med school has started well for you. Remember, appropriate self care probably includes the odd timtam.
Thanks for the comment, and for the prescription!
How should they be taken? With coffee? :)
I am a terrible procrastinator! Really, I'm much worse than what you've just described.
Seriously, although I'm biased, I'd strongly advocate drinking tea or some other beverage with a lower caffine content. Caffine actually makes your brain more resistant to learning new facts, so it's not the best choice unless you've got a heap of work to get through and no need to remember it for more than 24 hours.
Nice post!
Milk & two sugars, it is funny that you say that about coffee - I just gave up coffee on Friday (again) as I have been drinking too much of it and I am very sensitive to the caffeine. It does funny things to my blood pressure and makes me very jittery, so as much as I love it, I really shouldn't drink it. One a day probably isn't to bad, but who honestly sticks to that?
Luckily there are some coffee substitutes on the market that I quite like, and the availability of a lovely cup of tea when I go out for "coffee"! I'm quite partial to some of the herbal teas, myself. :)
Lol, perhaps you'll become a convert.
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