It's not as easy as I thought

I've always been a good student as least I thought I was. I've jumped in a little over my head this semester though and it's been a struggle to get enough air to see where I need to go from here. I'm putting a shit load of pressure on myself and it's really making me very stressed. I've officially bombed a couple of huge test so far and I'm trying to think about this in terms of "leaving myself room to improve." Not only am I learning new material but I'm learning how to learn again and it's not as easy as I remember. I can't just look over a piece of information now and have it in my brain. I have to go over and over and over the material until I feel comfortable and then I doubt myself afterwords and jeopardize everything that I have learned. I'm going to move past the negative and ace the rest of this semester. It's an uphill battle with everything I have going on but I will make it happen I must. (there I go again putting too much pressure ton myself damn it)

And then

The history of Christianity is very interesting. Whether or not someone believes in the divine idea of Christ they can't deny the amount of evidence that points to the existence of Jesus of Nazareth the person. The life of Jesus isn't mapped out as well as one would think. As important as Christianity has been to the shaping and developing of the western world it's interesting that very little is known prior to his public ministry or death. It certainly leaves a great deal to faith, or in the instance of the early church, it left a great deal to interpretation. Which is what they did. The important part about there interpretation is the fact that the ideas the early church devised about Christ became so influential that it nearly took over their world and in turn ours. Amazing.

Stress: Is it a reaction?

I think so. Things are going along pretty fast for me right now. I've found that learning to learn again is a challenge to say the least. My priorities have changed drastically but I'm, for some reason, still holding on to some old habits that aren't helpful. I feel that the good should push out the bad; however, in practice that is certainly not the case. I just compound everything together and it feels like 1 + 1 = 4 at times. I try to tell myself that I can put one hundred percent into everything I do.. school, work, being a husband, exercise, healthy eating habits and the list goes on and on. In my mind this shouldn't be a problem but I feel that I'm shortchanging things that are important to me.

How do I do it? How can I focus nearly completely on school, which I must to keep up with the course load that I am taking, continue working so that my wife and I can pay bills, stay healthy by eating right and exercising and help out with the day to day chores that at one time I was able to do. Thank goodness my wife is understanding otherwise she would be really pissed at me at this point. The first thing I neglected was my chores at home. I'm not so sure I had to do this but I did. The second thing was work. I've had to call out the past two weekday shifts that I have because I couldn't find coverage for them. That's a strain because I don't want to jeopardize our income otherwise I will not be able to do any of the other very important things.

Over the past two or three weeks school has dominated my mind and my actions. I must find a happy balance so that I can continue to do all of these things well.

Where is the balance? First of all I do things that hinder my progress and drain my energy. These must go. Tobacco, alcohol, unhealthy eating and laziness must go now. I see that very clearly and my goal over the next three weeks is to get rid of these things so that good habits can take there place. I must exercise and plan my meals. That's not as easy as it sounds because I am somewhat of a compulsive eater. This affects me very negatively because when I eat unhealthy I feel drained and I don't want to exercise. Then my mind isn't sharp so I lose focus in my studying and find that I don't even care about work. It's a vicious cycle.

Just writing these aspects down helps me to categorize the things I must focus on and the things that must be let go. It's a constant struggle that leads me back to thinking about stress. Right now I feel like I am pushed to the absolute limit and of course this makes me very afraid of failure. I am sitting at the crux of my future with limitless possibilities. I've worked so hard to get to this point and now that I am here it seems that I may not be able to continue.

First of all, it's a good problem to have. I'm stressed yes, I react to this stress by feeling overwhelmed and out of control. I must regain control and mold my path toward things that will support my success not lead me to failure.

At least I have the ability to make these decisions even though they are difficult ones. I can do this no problem but my current path of actions will certainly make my life much harder than it should be.

My action steps:

1. Plan my food and stick to the plan.
2. Develop an exercise schedule with my wife and stick to it.
3. Set a date, now, and stop using tobacco and drinking alcohol. It's a no brainer I know
4. Set up specific times that I will study.
5. Make things right at work and maybe think about a part-time job during the week and continue weekends as I've been doing.
6. Don't react to stress, rationalize and find out where the stress is coming from and deal with it. Don't let it compound.

I hope to continue blogging about my problems and success on this crazy journey. I have a feeling this blog will morph into more of a-how I reached my goals- instead of -what's in my way right now. We shall see...

School and Whatever

I'm finally working towards my ultimate goal, finally. Whether I land in medical school or a posh phd program where they pay me to learn I will be ecstatic about it!

Wait a minute, I forgot one small detail.. I still have to master all of my classes to reach my goal.

It's not near enough to make it to school now I must excel and that scares the hell out of me. I'm taking general chemistry one and two in one semester, one class!!

That's not all, I'm working 48 hours a week and taking 16 hours of class. I'm crazy I know but it's exciting not to mention challenging.

Here we go, I'm up to the challenge but a little scared. I gotta do great otherwise I am stuck on a fucking ambulance for ever....

Here I am

At the last minute I finagled a way with the help of my schools financial aid department and my gracious father-in-law to attend my first choice college. Wow, so here I sit in the library blogging about what will be an exciting and adventurous two years or so. I plan on learning all I can and being as involved as I can be. I will continue to work full-time on the meat wagon for now but may reevaluate for the next semester.

It's exciting but I'm feeling a little out of place. Probably much like the rest or the new people here. I'm older and a transfer student which has some disadvantages unfortunately. I've felt left out of much of the welcome week activities which is a bummer. This is partly my own fault though, as I have not been on campus following the crowds around to each session. The college could have done a better job at arranging transfer/commuter student activities during the welcome week though. I've found nothing specific about this online or in the school.

Regardless, I am excited as hell to be here and I plan on making my mark and doing great things. Here's to a completely new phase of my life!!