The Library is My Home Now

By Cameron Rusin

 Hi friends!
I don’t really have much to update you on this week, so this will be more of just my general thoughts on some things, specifically school work.
I’m writing this while sitting at a table in the library with some XC runners. This is also library shift number two! I spent a solid 5 hours here this afternoon and am in hour 2 this evening, with a break for dinner and sundaes in between. This blog post is serving as a convenient break from work, but just barely because this too is checking something off of the to do list because I haven’t blogged since last sunday…
But anyways, I don’t want this to be too boring or complainy about how many hours I spend in this library, but I think that there are some interesting things to say about the college workload. I think I’m going to make this a list because my brain is a little fried.
  1. I spend a lot more time doing work here than in high school, but somehow it doesn’t feel that different, and I’m not really sure why. Partially, I think that I expected the workload of college to be insane and the fact that it is in fact doable makes it seem less bad. But I also find the majority of my homework interesting enough, which is a nice change. However don’t get me started on my online spanish...
  2. The biggest difference from high school so far (the chem and the spanish have been eerily similar) has been the reading! I am writing to you after reading 180 pages for a class tomorrow in a day! I am lucky that I am a fast reader, but reading can be a struggle for me because I don’t tend to prioritize it and it’s hard to cram 60 pages into breakfast before class… Also some of my readings have been very dense and hard to absorb, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed most of my sociology readings. The 180 pages of today were all from a book about competitive chess, dance, and soccer in children. I probably found it interesting because of how I could tie basically every word to my time in softball and other endeavors. Believe it or not, competitive dance is super similar to competitive band, especially jazz ensemble! I think Keith would be embarrassed by this, which brings me both joy and frustration.
  3. Along with increased workload is also increased free time! I do actually do things with my free time sometimes, but I think in this post I’d like to talk about the relation of free time and homework. So theoretically I have a fair amount of free time. Like only one class on Mondays? But I’m really not used to having free time, so I don’t really know what to do with it. I also always have something school related I could be doing, so whenever I have a minute of time my default is to see what school work I could be getting done. There’s also the issue that even if I have free time, most of my friends will probably be doing work. Like tonight for example. I met up with the cross country freshmen for dinner and planned on going back to my room and chilling afterwards, but the group ended up going to the library together straight from dinner so here I am doing more homework during my “free time.” I’m happy to be getting work done, but I also have to wonder if it’s actually healthy to do homework for what will probably be 8 hours in a day. However, I’ve been struggling to figure out alternatives. I talked to my RA today about aggressive self care when you spend a lot of time in the library, but I do’t really know what that is for me. Suggestions appreciated.
  4. However, despite all this talk about lots and lots of work, my sleep schedule has been fine! I have yet to stay up past 11:00 doing school work, and am fairly confident in my ability to keep that streak up. The one issue with this is that I tend to avoid having to stay up late by marathoning homework on weekends so when weekends are busy I tend to freak out a little bit… but basically I’ve been happy to learn that the college myth of lots of all nighters can be avoided!


So yeah. I had to put a blog up and all my life has been today is work so that’s what I’m writing about! Sorry that was super dry. I am fried. Oops.

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 1, 2017 at 7:29 PM

    "I think Keith would be embarrassed by this, which brings me both joy and frustration." any blog post with this sentence is not dry, i appreciate you.
    Suggestions for minimizing hw: if you havent already figured it out, I schedule in things to do that are not hw such as yoga and meditation or playing flute or piano and that's super nice bc it's a set thing to do with a set amount of time so it sort of feels like it's part of my checklist? also just campus events in general, assuming tufts is like vassar there's probably always something going on to stop by for a study break. also my self-care list: reading (not for class), coloring/art/room decoration, writing letters, creative writing (lol or blogging), facetiming people!
    idk if that was any help, but good luck!

    ReplyDelete

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