let's talk about stress

Alternate title: Organic chemistry is for the birds..

I am stressed. STRESSED. Pull your hair out (if I had any), do nothing but study, cry and study kind of stressed. Ugh, how much do I not want to be doing prerequisites anymore? I'm not sure if my increased stress is just something that always happens to me and is a pattern that those closest to me will just recognize as something that I do relatively often throughout the semester, if it's the content of my horrid organic chemistry class that I just don't understand, if night shifts are finally getting to me, or if it is some crazy combination of all of the above. Whatever the cause, I have been trying to seek ways to reduce my stress so that I can actually function like a relatively normal person. These steps have included trying to remember to exercise (isn't that always the first thing to go when you get really busy?), organizing an organic chem study group that has actually been quite helpful, watching youtube videos of a organic chem professors lectures at UC Irvine who is really great at explaining things, getting library books on organic chemistry, taking baths with notecards on hand, and breathing, or at least trying to remember to sometimes breathe. Unfortunately none of these seem to be helping. They are helping me learn my chemistry, to some extent, but they aren't having much of an affect on my stress levels. Perhaps this is because they all involve continuing to study rather than things to do while taking a break from studying. I told you I'm going crazy! All I can talk and think about is studying! I even dream about it, which incidentally stresses me out more because I can't be sure if I am dreaming about the correct things or if I am somehow mixing up equations and functional groups and making things worse..which makes me have to check my notes first thing in the morning. Don't worry, I have in fact thought of every possible way to include more stress in my life. PHEW people, PHEW. I just thought I would get that out there. Because now I have to go back to....yep, well I'm not even going to say the word again. But you know what I am going to go do, and tonight after my back-to-back o chem and microbiology exams I am going out for a drink with my new friend who is also a full-time-night-shift-hospital-CNA-stressed-out-studying-student-fool just like me.

We no longer have table space because it has been turned over to my ever growing pile of school crapola. See the youtube lecturer on my computer? It's kind of saving my sanity. Can you tell?

Zooming in for a close up on all the things I am using to get through this class. I borrowed five books from the library to consult, and when I have to bring my materials with me I need a wheelbarrow to get it all there without breaking my back.