Exam Psychosis

It's funny what exams and deadlines do to the average student's mind. Even if you know that you can resit the exam and the mantra of 'you can only do your best' is repeated to you over and over again, somehow it never really sinks in. Because, what if your best isn't good enough to get the grade that you want?

I have a sociology exam coming up on Thursday and this morning I felt alright about it. I'd revised most  of the necessary things that are likely to be on the exam and I just needed to consolidate and revise a few more things and I' be fine for the exam. Then my first lesson this morning was Sociology and we did a few short response practice questions and I didn't get full marks on them (like I usually do) and I had a complete blank over one of the questions which panicked me a bit. And then I just got worn down with the prospect of how much I actually know in order to be prepared for this exam.

I usually end these blog posts with a bit of a resolution to my problem but I don't really have one for this. In saying that though, I have half a day's study leave tomorrow which I'm REALLY looking forward to strangely enough. I have my whole afternoon of revision planned out and it's going to be great.

How does everyone else mentally prepare themselves for exams?

In other news there was a dog in the college library earlier. Take that as you will.

This Year:
Books read: 1
Films watched: 2
Videos made: 2
Travels made: 0
Weight lost: 0

The Art of Laziness and Giving Up

I've realised recently that I tend to give up on a lot of things and it's something which I really loathe about myself. For example, last year I was going to do NaNoWriMo and I planned what I was going to write for about a month. But then I missed the first day and ended up not writing anything until day 4 and then it became a few days in and I had written a total of about 4,000 words and I just kind of gave up.

Writing is something that I want to get into, because I enjoyed creative writing in primary school. I mean, I wasn't amazing at it but I enjoyed it to a certain extent. I do hope later this year I can get into the writing bug again as I've got a good idea of what I want to do. But I may adapt from doing 50,000 words to doing a collection of short stories as I think that's more accessible for me.

Another factor to this I think is that I am SO LAZY. Like literally, so lazy. And also procrastination. I've been meaning to record a video response to crabstickz latest video for about a week now. Last Wednesday I was procrastinating, was going to do it on Saturday but I had a meeting at the bank, on Sunday I was too tired and I had to revise, then yesterday I had a family meal. In saying that though, I'm definitely going to do that on Sunday as well as book review or two.

In general I feel I need to organise my days better and actually do productive things. And when I wake up in the morning I want to have a clear idea of what I want to do which, I suppose links back to my 'goals' new years resolution and I possibly need to fulfill that a bit more.

If anyone's interested, my goals for this year are going well. I'm trying to eat healthier and read more. It's the middle of exams month at the moment so I haven't had much opportunity to watch TV shows and films. And this week I've been really slack on exercising. Other than that they've been going pretty well. Another thing I want to do this year is blog on here more. Not exactly force myself to do it but if I have something that I want to say in blog form then I'll write one. I also will be giving little updates/tallys on my goals at the bottom of my blog posts this year, for reference for myself as well as anyone who reads this and is interested.

This Year:
Books read: 1
Films watched: 2
Videos made: 1
Travels made: 0
Weight lost: 0

Merry Christmas and New Years Resolutions

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and your New Years celebrations were fabulous. We never do much on New Years, we just go to our favourite restaurant in our town and then come home and stay up until midnight watching the BBC broadcast of the New Years celebrations in London.
This year I have quite a few New Years resolutions, well not exactly resolutions more like goals to be honest. There are many things I want to do this year and I feel this is an efficient way to do it. I'm going to have yearly, monthly, weekly and daily goals after being inspired by Alex Day's video about goals, having achievable dates will help and motivate you to achieve. As whenever I set out to do something I never seem to complete it. For example last year I was going to do NaNoWriMo but I wrote about 4,000 words and gave up. But I really want to actually achieve something this year and do something that I deem productive with my time. So here are my categorised goals (categories mentioned above) and what I aim to do this year:

Yearly Goals

1. Read at least 20 books - I've become incredibly slack with my reading over the past few years and not been reading as much as I would like to due to me being incredibly distracted by modern technology. I'm not going to aim for the 50 books that people usually go for as I feel that's slightly unachievable for me, but if I could reach that then that would be amazing.
2. Watch a film every week - I feel like I need to watch more films as there are so many good films out there that people rave about, in which I have to meekly admit to never watching it.
3. Lose weight (up to one dress size) - My weight has been something that's kind of secretly plagued me for a couple of years now and this year I actually want to do something to combat it.
4. Watch more TV shows - I feel like I have quite little TV shows to my repertoire (?) as I compare myself to other Tumblr users (Tumblr is where I spend most of my time, so yeah) so therefore I want to watch more TV shows.

Monthly Goals

1. Add new photos to flickr - The profession I want to go into is photography and I need to start building up a portfolio for university and for when I get into my professional career. And hopefully if I add photos every month then my portfolio will be slowly building and create something reflective of my style.
2. Start watching a new TV show - This is mainly to add to my aforementioned yearly goal and it's a good target to try to actually encourage myself to watch more tv shows.

(Of course I will probably add more to this in due course knowing me)

Weekly Goals

1. Watch a film every week - I've already explained this one but this is just to separate the yearly factor of the goal whereas this goal is to make sure that I actually do watch a film every week.
2. Make a vlog - This is something that I really want to get into and I will have plenty of video ideas as I'll be reading more and watching films every week so I can review them and stuff.

(Again I will probably add more to this category)

Daily Goals

1. Exercise at least half an hour - This is clearly to aid my goal of losing weight, so of course I am actually going to have to exercise every day. In addition to doing practical dance classes at college and outside of college 5 times a week and walking to and from school 3-4 times a week on top of that.
2. Read - Again, this is going to aid my yearly goal of reading 20 books this year and the only I'm going to achieve that goal by reading every day.

(I will add more to this category (obviously as that's the point of having daily goals) of things to do every day but these are my main ones for now which aren't really due to change)

I also recorded a vlog on this matter which you can watch here if you prefer that format.

And again...Happy new year :)