Apperantly, I can't do it...

About a month ago I "decided" I'd try to do nothing but study; I uninstalled the few videogames I was playing, closed my facebook account and promised myself not to "waste" time here. I also started going to college earlier and leaving a couple hours after I was done with classes. All this just to study and read what I wanted with whatever free time I had. The first two weeks were kinda cool, I enjoy studying what I study, so reading and writing about it was entertaining; even the class I don't like that much, phonetics, went smoother because I was spending a decent amount of time studying. I also read a couple books during those two weeks. I was happy about my decision, there were enough things for me to do, to keep myself entertained.

But then, it changed... kinda. Since I was spending more time to read my homework and work with it (something apparently no one else does) classwork got boring: teachers would tell me that my questions, or that my participation in general, even though valid, wasn't "appropriated" for the class. Meaning that hardly anyone, other than teacher, would follow* and the idea is that classes make stuff clear for everyone, not the opposite. So classes like general linguistic or epistemology were a review of what I had carefully and repeatedly read already...

Of course it's cool to feel like I truly understand something, but my grades can't get better*, I don't have anyone to discuss my thoughts on whatever I'm reading, be it homework or otherwise, and I just have this feeling my effort is rather...pointless? I don't know. I enjoy studying, it's fun to find out "interesting" facts about people, education or language; so it isn't pointless. But I'm feeling stuck, classes won't help me get what I want from studying, education, college, life...

I thought the research group, that I joined last semester, would be a nice place to work, so I insisted in having more meetings and stuff, even if the topic wasn't exactly related to what I'm interested it would've been nice. As it turns out the group is dead because no one has more time for it: 1 meeting a month to discuss the exact same thing over and over, since I joined, seems to be enough for them. Even if I started my own study/research group no one would join because people aren't interested in extra work...

And I still had books. They're a wonderful way to spend time... and my wallet. Books here are stupidly overpriced; if I wanted to get a book for a fair price I'd have to waste a day going downtown, finding the book I'm looking for, in a decent edition and in decent condition. I made a thread about this months ago, iirc, and it still pisses me off. I tried searching in public libraries but nope, I'd have to spend even more time going to a library that's near the other end of the city for some of the books I want to read. pineapple it, I said, I'm buying a kindle. By the end of this month I'll finally have it and I'll be happy, I'll never be bothered with high price- no availability nonsense again.

Anyway, I don't have much to do. I'm still spending more time than I should studying, but I still have a lot free time. So I opened facebook again, I'm meeting some friends tomorrow, I also started playing D3 and now I'll take some time to read and write here every now and then :). If I ever feel like I'm wasting time I'll just think "I'm here to practice English".

*Note: I don't mean it like I know it all, teachers and students sometimes share stuff I missed or that I misinterpreted on any given subject, but that doesn't happen often. Also, it's not like I have some superior understanding of things or anything like that: I just like and fixate on stuff that, it looks like, no one else does. For example: words, most of the time no one cares why a writer used a certain word for a certain something, but understanding its' meaning and the reason behind its use can make the whole subject much more clearer. But that's just a silly example.
Also, I didn't mean that I have perfect grades. They're great and getting some better seems to be impossible with most, if not all, teachers. My grades did went up a couple of decimals, but in the end it won't make much of a difference.

I think a semi-mistake was completely shutting yourself in in the world of textbooks and academia. Don't get me wrong. It's great you're breezing through lectures and grasping concepts, but extremities never end well. I am in the midst of studying a crap ton as well (anywhere from 6 to 16 hours a day) but I'd go batpomegranate insane if I didn't take at least an hour or two just surfing the net and vegetating in front of my computer for a bit each day.

It's all about balance.

Edit: There's a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson I really liked and live by:

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

First of all, hi fellow linguist major! :blush: I love semantics and pragmatics.


@Mandalay's quote is perfect imo. I'd also really like to expresses the importance of taking the time to goof off. I had read an research article that stated how much more successful students are if they had a great balance between schoolwork and play. I believe it mentioned something about how your brain needs a little downtime to process information and organize it appropriately.

Hopefully you can start to find that balance :) And both enjoy life and do great in schoolwork.

I like them too but I'm just on 2nd semester, Felicitates. I don't get to see cool stuff in depth until later :(.
Anyway, yeah I get what you both say. This was just an attempt to... My life is sort of boring, studying and reading are the two things I enjoy the most, I wanted to make my days less boring by just focusing on those two. Under different circumstances it might have worked, different college, cheaper books, more money... who knows?
I just need to find something else that's fun and interesting and then I can have some balance between school and life.

Eh. I find joining a lot of clubs and activities (Humans vs. Zombies, mafia...) helped me move away from gaming (although dont' get me wrong, I still do it!) I just try not to game if I have homework to do or a mditerm coming up.

It sounds to me that you might also be perceiving your current studying to be related more to studying itself than fully enjoying the content. My advice for that would be that you're doing great for your later semesters, but just continue on with a few games and some Facebook first since you're going to have to step up in your later semesters anyway and it's not fun to be too ahead as the boredom will bug you. In general you should always pace yourself and allocate more time for your studies whenever you need it; a few hours spent studying and revising is good enough so that it doesn't clash with paper writing time.

You can also check out the Project Gutenberg website for books and download them onto your Kindle; that should help you to save money for more books as well.

That's what you get for abandoning me.

:3