Tuesday, May 11
The Somewhat Inevitable Catching-Up Post.
Oh come on, you knew it was coming!
Apologies for a complete lack of posting activity on my part for the past few days, I have been revising pretty solidly from about Wednesday onwards. Well, apart from Thursday, when I quite stupidly decided to reward myself for doing a day's revision on the Wednesday by, erm, taking a day off.
It's not even as if I did a huge amount of stuff that day! I watched a few too many episodes of Family Guy (after I'd promised myself that I'd watch one and then do some revision), and then it was dinnertime, and then there was football on the TV, and then it was 10 o'clock, which meant no revision at all. It's funny how these things add up, and how it gets to the very late evening before you realise that you have in fact thrown away an entire day of your life.
Oh, how many days have there been recently where I've done that?! I'd say 90% of my days between Easter and the middle of last week were completely wasted, in that I managed to accomplish absolutely nothing worthwhile in them. I wasn't even wasting my time that I should have spent working by going out too much, I was just wasting them by doing absolutely fuck-all!
I did keep telling myself to do something, even if it wasn't revision of any kind, but laziness and laxadaisicalness (is that even a word) took over. Lethargy, that's the word I want. I was very lethargic for pretty much an entire month, which is probably not the best way to spend your life.
Thankfully, the past 3 or 4 days have seen an upsurge in my energy and readiness to do something. Unfortunately, that "something" has been "cramming an entire year's worth of classes and notes into 3 days of revision". I am the master at leaving things to the very last minute.
I am also the master at finding little things to do whilst I am supposed to be revising. I should learn not to turn my computer on in the mornings, because it means that Minesweeper and Freecell are just a double-click away for the entire time that I'm sitting on my bed, trying to learn the exceptions to the general rule that a defendant is not liable when the plaintiff suffers a pure economic loss (amongst other fun things).
I only turn my computer on so that it can run KaZaa all day, but the lure of Minesweeper is too great for me. I have no willpower when it comes to not playing it. Freecell is even worse when I start. No matter whether I win or lose a game, my fingers have this reflex action of hitting in quick succession F4 (to check the statistics), Enter (to close that window) and F2 (to start a new game). I can't help it, they now do it by themselves!!! And of course, once a game is started, you have to try to win it, because it affects your overall statistics. I'm currently standing at a 73% success rate, with 842 games won and 314 lost. I'm most proud of my highest win streak of 16 games. Remember, this is all since I had to reformat my hard-drive at Christmas. Too many lost minutes and hours to Freecell...
Since you asked, my Minesweeper best times are as follows:
- Beginner: 4 seconds on 20.04.04
- Intermediate: 27 seconds on 20.04.04
- Expert: 80 seconds on 19.04.04
I seem to go through "hot" days on Minesweeper. I can go for ages without beating my best time on Expert, and then when I do I usually beat the other two times on the same day. Must be a confidence thing. Either that or complete overuse...
So yeah, anyway. See, I'm even getting distracted whilst writing!
Revision. Christ did that hit me like a ton of bricks. I spent the majority ot the time (or at least the non-Minesweeper time) sitting on my bed, my back up against the wall with two textbooks on one side of me, a pile of notes and lecture handouts on the other, and a writing pad on my knees. The ideal working environment? Probably not, but it worked for me.
Excuse me for one second, but I'm just going to blow my own trumpet.
I make fucking good lecture notes. Honestly, I really do. I'm not the kind to rewrite my lecture notes after each lecture, mainly because I'm a lazy cunt, so I make sure that I write with clarity whilst in the lectures. I'm usually working about 30 seconds behind the lecturer because I wait until I've heard everything he says on a case / piece before I translate ("translate" is definitely the word in law lectures) it into my own full sentences. I've often looked at other people's notes, and they are all over the place, without much coherency. How are they going to be of any use when it comes to revision?!
My revision notes are similarly neat and clear. I figured that if I take my time to make them neat and tidy, I will be able to visualise them better come exam time. I'm a very visual learner (we did a test back at secondary school once to find out), and I need to rewrite things in order to revise.
It's actually very difficult to rewrite a summary of a case when it has been summarised in a textbook, and then I've summarised it again when making notes for that week's class. It is quite an effort to avoid making it a copying exercise when it comes to revision, because that way you don't learn anything. If I have to think a bit on how best to rephrase or summarise an already summarised piece, it goes in and sticks.
I should take a photo of those revision notes, to be honest, because they were so very neat and organised. Just like me, sort of. Except that I'm not neat. I like things to be neat, but I don't make an effort to keep it that way every day. I'll have a sudden thrust of energy, from which I will fairly obsessively tidy for an hour or so, and then I will let it go to pot again for another week. If only I could be more strong-willed every day, it would save doing these big tidy-ups! Meh.
I ramble when I write, don't I? I guess it's just my style.
That will suffice for this post. I'll start the next one with the details of my exam today. It was, shall we say, interesting.
