ゴール：成功と失敗

こんにちは！　ノアです。

It’s been 2 weeks since I set those goals for myself, and I’ve gotta say, it was quite a struggle. How did I do in keeping up with them?

日本語テーブル

I’m actually pretty proud of myself for this—I went to both Forbes and Mathey language tables over the course of these two weeks. We even had students from Japan come and eat dinner with us at Forbes! I got to speak with a student majoring in Information Science and learned about the kinds of assignments and projects he does, which was certainly very interesting.

I admit, this was a relatively easy task to accomplish, but every little victory counts, right? Especially because this past week was particularly stressful (many exams and due dates back to back!!), I’m glad that I made the time to attend these language tables. I realized that the mentality of “not finding the time” to do something is a little self-discouraging; instead, the mentality of “making the time” to do something is much more positive way of looking at it.

Calendar/Scheduling/Planning

Last time, I mentioned that I would try to get ahead on problem sets and would plan out my day with a checklist of items to get done. And so I did—and it’s great.

The idea of forcing myself to finish my problem sets a day in advance (rather than the night before it is due) was one that boosted my motivation to get through the week. As expected, I felt on top of my responsibilities (at least for a short bit…) and doing so really helped to not make me feel so overwhelmed.

A bit of my chemistry class (above) and work (below)

I know it may not be as fancy or as detailed as some other people’s calendars/planners, but a simple checklist gets the job done for me. Especially because I often underestimate or overestimate the amount of time it will take for me to do something, I find it difficult to plan out every single hour of the day and follow that exact schedule. Thus, the plain checklist is the perfect—despite how minimalist it is—way to keep myself somewhat productive. Plus, it is so satisfying to check off an item; I am probably more excited about doing it than I should be…

TOO MANY READINGS

Okay. I told myself that I would keep up with all of the readings for my classes, but here I am, already behind once again. It’s not that I don’t try to read—it’s just that I put more of my time on completing assignments that have firm due dates than I do on readings that are more for the individual’s own understanding and thus do not have due dates that count for a grade. It’s bad, I know.

As of now, I have a large amount of reading to make up this week and this weekend, as MIDTERMS ARE NEXT WEEK!! It’s crazy to think that next week marks the halfway point of the semester, and that I actually have to get myself to do the readings in order to do the best that I possibly can on those exams. It’s going to be a long journey of pages for me, but I’ll make it through (I’ll try).

New Goal: Get More Sleeeep

This is probably unlikely due to the fact that midterms are creeping just around the corner, but maybe by writing it here I will somehow get more sleep!

Screenshot_20180306-024108[1] — *Need Sleep*

That’s all I have for the updates on my goals this week! I am glad that I was able to succeed in a few of them, and I will definitely focus on accomplishing the reading component as well. Thank you for reading, and wish me luck!

-Noah

~Additionally~

PUO (Princeton University Orchestra) has concerts this Friday (March 9th) and Saturday (March 10th), both of which are at 7:30 PM EST. There should be a link to watch and listen to the concert live, which I will put below. Come listen to our wonderful soloists, as well as Emiri, Fumika, Nanako, and I in the orchestra!