General eeek about Diploma

[hmmm_tea]

I just want to go eeek now. Had a look at unit 6.

I don't know what it is about the Diploma, but I don't seem to be able to motivate myself with it. It's strange, because in general I'm fascinated by it, especially Fortified wines.

I think it's partially it just seems so much reading and it takes me so long to do it (I'm not a fast reader, never have been) and even when I've read it I find I can't remember any of it. I find I can read pages and pages without taking any of it in. It's as if I see the words, but that's it. I read one word move on to the next and forget about it without putting the sentances together.

I try making notes when I read as it helps to some extent. Well ok, it results in me having something shorter to read when I want to go over it later, I still don't seem to remember much about what I've read.

Having been told by Janet that I'm dyslexic last summer, part of me wants to just blame that, but deep down I know it can't be a problem because I've got a really good degree without even knowing about it to do anything about it.

I sometimes think it's that I don't leave myself enough time to do any Diploma work. Before being promoted I was quite often doing over 50 hour weeks at work, before adding any outside study for Diploma on top. I really don't want work to rule my life. I see people like Gareth and how they just live and breath the trust and although they're perfectly happy I know that's not me, I need more diversity to my life than that.

Then again I make evenings like tonight free to do the work and then just end up procrastinating (like I am now) instead.

Maybe I should have just gone to Morris practice instead to take my mind off things.

Maybe I'm just over analysing things again. Had a conversation with pinkmarshmallow about that at the weekend, she suggested that I just get someone to tell me to "stop it" whenever I start doing that.

In some ways I suppose I'm being very hypocritical. The number of colleagues at work, who have been paranoid about failing foundation, intermediate and advanced exams at work, that I've told it doesn't really matter to. I always tell them that even if they fail the exam they haven't lost anything so what is there to worry about.

Now hear I am doing exactly the same about my Unit 6 exam. Have been trying to tell myself the same thing. However, I know that because I've been to Cambridge and things like that people think of me as being fairly clever and so expect more from me as a result.

Oh well, maybe I am just being silly. I'll go in there and do the best I can. Lots of people fail diploma exams it's nothing unusual if I do and at the end of the day the library has taken up a lot of my attention recently and once that's out the way I may be able to think more seriously about doing it properly a second time around. Who knows, miracles could happen and I could even pass it tomorrow.

Comments

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I found with things like that I wasn't buckling down to it because (a) I was sure it couldn't be that much work, so I expected I could do ok by cramming, and that there would always be enough time for it without arranging anything special and (b) there were a lack of intermediate targets, so it wasn't clear if I was on schedule or not. Is it possible you have something similar?

If so can you make an estimate of how much time it could take and if you're spending that time? Reading does need reading, notes, rereading, and can be long?

Are you overthinking it? Not yet imho. But don't just worry about it, spend five minutes coming up with a plan and *then* stop worrying about it. Of course it's not vital if you pass, and everyone jitters, but you need a realistic assessment to circumvent that.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

No, can definitely see that it's a lot of work. Think that's more the problem. I just look at it and find it so daunting I can't get started.

What I don't understand is when it comes to things like creating the library at work, which was an equally huge and daunting task, but I managed to get that split up into lots of smaller ones easily and now it's just about done and a lot of that was fairly monotonous stuff (cataloguing things, sticking labels on things, etc), but I had no problem with it.

When it comes to Diploma that's less monotonous, but I just find that I read it make notes, reread it, over and over again, even turn notes into essays and after that I still haven't taken anything in. It just seems that even if I put all the work in, I still don't learn anything and it's really frustrating me.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. Well, you definitely have the right approach in breaking it down. Can you force yourself to do that? Sometimes I have to break down the task of breaking it down even. How to absorb it, I don't know? Maybe practice writing out answers to questions or summaries from memeory, so week 1 isn't "read this" but "be able to answer these"?

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're right.

Sleep is probably the best plan now though.

Do the best I can tomorrow and then look at the way I'm working through this afterwards and see if I can't pick things up from there...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

If it's not going well anyway then it doesn't matter if you spend even a couple of days getting it sorted, so long as you do. Start it afresh.

[chainmailmaiden]

Glad to hear there's another person who doesn't want their life to revolve round work. They seem to be very good, at that particular organisation, at giving people far more than can reasonably be done within normal working hours. Some of the things Bacchus has had to do have been ridiculous, but he always feels he should do his best to try and get them done. (Including working on finishing one of the books he's written, on our wedding anniversary, while we were away for the weekend!).

Hope the exam has gone well and don't worry about the outcome as you say you can always do it again if necessary. Fingers crossed you won't have to though!