Get into the groove

Time

As I write it is midway through the second week of uni. Have I been sticking to my study timetable? Of course not.
Have I at least been going to all my classes? What am I a first year? No!

Okay, so far I have missed two lectures, one of which I have since listened to online, the other I will listen to once it's been uploaded.

I have been putting in nowhere near enough hours of study. I am slightly behind in my readings, but have more or less been prepared for any classes that involve interaction and have studied sufficiently for the two tests I've already had.

Most of my subjects have an open book exam at the end of the year which requires concise and ordered notes. I have so far in my university career failed to keep up to date with this during the semester and end up putting these notes together when I should be revising. Together with not doing enough work this has really reflected in my grades. I passed one subject last semester by 3 marks. Yes 3! I have a suspicion they were pity marks.

I really want to transfer into a combined degree as soon as possible so it is really important for me to get into the groove of studying every day to get my grades up. I seem to have difficulty studying in my huge breaks at uni, so I'm going to try focusing on these times and getting my routine tighter there.

I have however been finding the time to go to the gym, which brings me to:


Health

Last week I once again managed to get my lazy derriere to the gym 3 times! Four if you count the time I walked down to renew my membership but didn't actually go in passed the reception desk.

I still haven't moved from 75Kg (although my weigh in day is tomorrow, cross your fingers for me) BUT, I did notice a dress I used to have to squeeze myself into was a little roomy. My family have also made some really supportive comments about seeing some difference. So whether the numbers change when I get on those scales tomorrow or not this week I'm feeling pretty happy.

And finally tomorrow the lovely lady whose blog was the inspiration for me to start is doing a training session with me at uni tomorrow. She tells me she is going to work me hard. If I can get results like she is getting I'm sure it will be well worth it and then some.

See you holidays, it's been swell but the swelling's gone down.

After what has felt like a very non productive eternity I am going back to uni as of next Monday. This means that instead of dragging myself out of bed to face a day filled with nothing (much like this http://nedroid.com/2011/02/morning-motivation/)I will now be running out the door in order to get to morning classes. And then frantically trying to squish study into as many moments a day as I can, getting burned out and watching tv instead... Well hopefully that last bit doesn't happen so much this semester.

The bare bones of my timetable looks a little something like this (sorry for the rubbish table, I don't know html):

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
7
8
9		Class	Class	Class
10	Class
11
12		Class
1	Class
2				Class
3
4		Class	Class
5
6
7

I read somewhere that you should do about 2 hours study for each contact hour, but a) that would make for a 66 hour week b) last year I ended up needing significantly less study than this for the science units. So for the time being I'm blocking in 2 hours per contact hour for law subjects and 2 hours per subject per week for science - a neat 24 hours study time. Putting those in as well as travel time makes my timetable look like this:

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
7
8		Travel	Travel	Travel
9	Travel	Class	Class	Class	Study	Study
10	Class	Study
11			Study	Study
12		Class
1	Class
2			Study	Class	Study
3							Study
4		Class	Class
5	Travel
6	Study	Travel	Travel	Travel
7
8

Honestly, this looks pretty intense to a slacker like me. It does have room for the gym, socialising and cooking which will hopefully preserve my health (especially mental health - gosh) but I'm not going to block them in yet because I want to see how this works and what times for the gym are going to be best for other people so I can have gym buddies sometimes.

I'm going to try and keep to my sleeping schedule. I haven't kept to it strictly yet (which will sure make next week a shock to the system) but my hours are much more regular than before.

Lastly in other time news, I have finally found time to tick something off my eternal to do list. I have never donated blood. After two false starts where I was too sick on the date to donate, I am all booked in for this Sunday. I am feeling fighting fit and looking forward to it. Still on my list is to donate bone marrow. That is a much scarier prospect - ouch - and not as quick set up so it will take a while. But I think it's really important.

Have any of you donated blood, marrow or anything else? What were your experiences like?