My Messy but Fulfilling Week
And it's Monday again folks! Another week is upon us and thankfully this week is a lot more chill than the last one. I can honestly say that although last week was a disaster at some points, I am ultimately very happy with the way that it turned out.
I guess that the weeks starts for me on Sunday. Thursday or so of the week before I had gotten a bad cold and so I was still feeling pretty gross. To make things worse, I was feeling the pressure of having two exams and a project due the same week. I had made a decent amount of progress on my computer science project on Saturday, so on Sunday I mostly studied for my Spanish exam the next day. Although I was worried about this test because I didn't really know any of the vocabulary covered on the test, by the end of Sunday I felt a lot more confident with where I stood. I also got to have have a nice conversation wit h one of my friends from work after church and then hang out with my roommate Sunday night, so overall the day was not bad. Also, the sun finally came out after almost 4 days straight of rain and that did a lot to bolster my mood.
Monday was interesting to say the least. I felt pretty good about the Spanish exam I took that morning, but that didn't change the fact that I still had a computer science project hanging over my head. CMSC 341 (Data Structures) class was a lot of fun that day and I enjoyed learning about binary search trees. For an hour or so, I was really enjoyed comp sci and feeling great! However, my mood quickly changed when I spent 1.5 hours trying to figure out an algorithm for what should have been one of the easiest parts of my project. It took me about 4 different tries to find one that worked for all of the test cases and I very nearly broke down as a result of it. I think that I learned an important lesson on Monday about how much pressure I put on myself to succeed though. Once I took a step back from my work, handed the situation to God and started completely fresh, everything went much smoother. I didn't get everything done in time to play games with my friends though, and ended up coding until 12:30 am that night.
Tuesday is my crazy day. CMSC 331 was ok, and I really enjoyed my first math class (although I kept making dumb mistakes on one problems). Immediately after those two classes I had the discussion section that I teach for CMSC 201. Because I had spent so much time on my project, I was not super prepared for lab and the lab assignment for the week was particularly hard, so not all my students finished, which I felt really bad about. That ended at 2, and then I only had about 30 minutes to eat lunch before MATH 301. I really enjoy 301, but 1.75 hours is a really long time to be in any class, especially because it's basically all lecture. We did cool stuff in class though and after that I didn't feel terrified of my midterm in that class on Thursday. I don't really remember what else I did on Tuesday besides finish up my project, but it felt great to finally submit it.
Wednesday morning was great because I didn't have to go to Spanish and so I had sometime to get a head start on some 341 homework (although I really should have studied for my math test). My Catholic Retrievers board meeting went well, and so did 341 class. Office hours for 201 were crazy though and I was helping students basically the whole time. I was annoyed because I was hoping to getting some studying in during that time but whatever. Mass and the Eucharistic Procession was exactly what I needed at that point in the week though because I felt like I had already had a full week workload wise, but I still had midterm to take. Having time to rest and spend in prayer was much needed and helped to calm me down. I didn't get to watch Survivor on Wednesday which was disappointing and basically studied for my math test the whole night. My roommate and I both felt mostly prepared by the end of the night, which was good.
Thursday was basically the last day of all the crazy. 331 was not super fun because we had to do group work, which annoyed me, and everyone was pretty on edge because of exams later that day. After lunch I had my lab prep meeting, which is always one of the highlights of my week, but that day it was extra crazy for whatever reason. I feel bad for Alex, who was presenting the lab, because we were all such a mess. After that meeting, I had my math midterm. I was really hoping that I would at least feel good about the test because after a long week I wasn't prepared to deal with the emotional repercussions of not feeling good about it. Luckily, I got done in about an hour and was able to come back to my room and watch Survivor to decompress. The rest of Thursday was pretty normal. Adoration time at OLV was great and I had a good time at large group.
Friday was my oral exam for Spanish and that went pretty well too (I got an A!) and then I got to go to Patapsco Valley State Park with some friends to take pictures which was really fun because they are all super talented and I enjoyed watching them work. Not much else happened on Friday, but that's usually what I like my Fridays to be like because Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday can be rather hectic.
My takeaways from this week were that although having so many important things due was super stressful, I enjoyed what I was doing enough that it didn't completely ruin my mood. I felt like by the end of the week that I was once again on track and that I didn't have to be worried for this week. Also, I should try not to get sick because it takes so much out of me and I should take care of myself more.
I guess that the weeks starts for me on Sunday. Thursday or so of the week before I had gotten a bad cold and so I was still feeling pretty gross. To make things worse, I was feeling the pressure of having two exams and a project due the same week. I had made a decent amount of progress on my computer science project on Saturday, so on Sunday I mostly studied for my Spanish exam the next day. Although I was worried about this test because I didn't really know any of the vocabulary covered on the test, by the end of Sunday I felt a lot more confident with where I stood. I also got to have have a nice conversation wit h one of my friends from work after church and then hang out with my roommate Sunday night, so overall the day was not bad. Also, the sun finally came out after almost 4 days straight of rain and that did a lot to bolster my mood.
Monday was interesting to say the least. I felt pretty good about the Spanish exam I took that morning, but that didn't change the fact that I still had a computer science project hanging over my head. CMSC 341 (Data Structures) class was a lot of fun that day and I enjoyed learning about binary search trees. For an hour or so, I was really enjoyed comp sci and feeling great! However, my mood quickly changed when I spent 1.5 hours trying to figure out an algorithm for what should have been one of the easiest parts of my project. It took me about 4 different tries to find one that worked for all of the test cases and I very nearly broke down as a result of it. I think that I learned an important lesson on Monday about how much pressure I put on myself to succeed though. Once I took a step back from my work, handed the situation to God and started completely fresh, everything went much smoother. I didn't get everything done in time to play games with my friends though, and ended up coding until 12:30 am that night.
Tuesday is my crazy day. CMSC 331 was ok, and I really enjoyed my first math class (although I kept making dumb mistakes on one problems). Immediately after those two classes I had the discussion section that I teach for CMSC 201. Because I had spent so much time on my project, I was not super prepared for lab and the lab assignment for the week was particularly hard, so not all my students finished, which I felt really bad about. That ended at 2, and then I only had about 30 minutes to eat lunch before MATH 301. I really enjoy 301, but 1.75 hours is a really long time to be in any class, especially because it's basically all lecture. We did cool stuff in class though and after that I didn't feel terrified of my midterm in that class on Thursday. I don't really remember what else I did on Tuesday besides finish up my project, but it felt great to finally submit it.
Wednesday morning was great because I didn't have to go to Spanish and so I had sometime to get a head start on some 341 homework (although I really should have studied for my math test). My Catholic Retrievers board meeting went well, and so did 341 class. Office hours for 201 were crazy though and I was helping students basically the whole time. I was annoyed because I was hoping to getting some studying in during that time but whatever. Mass and the Eucharistic Procession was exactly what I needed at that point in the week though because I felt like I had already had a full week workload wise, but I still had midterm to take. Having time to rest and spend in prayer was much needed and helped to calm me down. I didn't get to watch Survivor on Wednesday which was disappointing and basically studied for my math test the whole night. My roommate and I both felt mostly prepared by the end of the night, which was good.
Thursday was basically the last day of all the crazy. 331 was not super fun because we had to do group work, which annoyed me, and everyone was pretty on edge because of exams later that day. After lunch I had my lab prep meeting, which is always one of the highlights of my week, but that day it was extra crazy for whatever reason. I feel bad for Alex, who was presenting the lab, because we were all such a mess. After that meeting, I had my math midterm. I was really hoping that I would at least feel good about the test because after a long week I wasn't prepared to deal with the emotional repercussions of not feeling good about it. Luckily, I got done in about an hour and was able to come back to my room and watch Survivor to decompress. The rest of Thursday was pretty normal. Adoration time at OLV was great and I had a good time at large group.
Friday was my oral exam for Spanish and that went pretty well too (I got an A!) and then I got to go to Patapsco Valley State Park with some friends to take pictures which was really fun because they are all super talented and I enjoyed watching them work. Not much else happened on Friday, but that's usually what I like my Fridays to be like because Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday can be rather hectic.
My takeaways from this week were that although having so many important things due was super stressful, I enjoyed what I was doing enough that it didn't completely ruin my mood. I felt like by the end of the week that I was once again on track and that I didn't have to be worried for this week. Also, I should try not to get sick because it takes so much out of me and I should take care of myself more.
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