Burning out
Mar. 24th, 2004 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirAd Mundo Exteriore,
Ugh, I just remembered that I need to do Korean homework. I'm so sleep-deprived at the moment that it's not even funny. Am considering whether or not to uninstall AIM, mIRC and any other potentially distracting programs...oh wait, that means I should pretty much create a quarantined account that can only access Harvard server web pages. Which in itself would take more time than simply trying to exercise self-control. "Simply"...::sighs::
I seem to have this persistent problem with remembering test dates. All last week, I kept thinking the math midterm was on Wednesday, not Tuesday, but luckily I figured it out during the weekend. And until this morning, I was certain the Korean lesson quiz was today, but actually it's Friday (right after chemistry, oh joy). Well, at least I know when my chemistry hourly is.
My problem with organic chemistry at the moment is that I now do have a rough grasp of the principles and problem solving techniques, but they're not at my fingertips, as they ought to be. In AP Chemistry, I could answer questions instantaneously because it seemed all so intuitive and self-evident--really, chemistry made more sense than any other science, even biology. Now, our head TF tells us during review session, "Well, this is obviously--," and I just stare at the chalkboard dumbly because it's not obvious to me anymore. I mean, I do figure it out after a while (or after someone explains it to me), but I process it very slowly, which makes it hard to keep up with the TF. (Who, by the way, talks a mile a minute and doesn't pause to take a breath, ever.) It doesn't help that everyone else seems to be following him just fine and asks questions--while I'm so bewildered that I can't even think of what questions to ask.
I wish I was competent at chemistry again, with the pKa values firmly entrenched in my brain the way the periodic table once was, with the ability to spit out resonance structures and addition reactions without thinking, with trends in nucleophilicity memorized like the palm of my hand. At the moment, the only area that I feel any sort of familiarity with is the structure of cyclohexane and its derivatives. Oh well, at least I can draw the chair, boat and twist-boat conformations in my sleep. I can't visualize the other cyclic compounds so perfectly though.
What's even more terrible is that I get the feeling that I could really enjoy this subject if only I had a chance to pause and get a firm grip on all these molecules and numbers and arrows whizzing by me. I know several people who detest organic chemsitry (they mostly happen to be chemistry concentrators, curiously enough), but I don't think I'm one of them. I rather enjoy drawing all the complicated structures we come across in examples because they're related to sugars and nitrogenous bases and amino acids. I think, this is what life is made out of, and from the reaction mechanisms we copy so diligently in class, I can almost visualize the primordial soup changing into the first protocells. Well, in an extremely vague and more-poetic-than-scientific way of course.
I think during spring break I'm going to sit down and just drill this knowledge into my head. Repetitive exercises are boring but you do come out of them feeling like you understand something inside out, not just its mere surface.
...Tari
Ugh, I just remembered that I need to do Korean homework. I'm so sleep-deprived at the moment that it's not even funny. Am considering whether or not to uninstall AIM, mIRC and any other potentially distracting programs...oh wait, that means I should pretty much create a quarantined account that can only access Harvard server web pages. Which in itself would take more time than simply trying to exercise self-control. "Simply"...::sighs::
I seem to have this persistent problem with remembering test dates. All last week, I kept thinking the math midterm was on Wednesday, not Tuesday, but luckily I figured it out during the weekend. And until this morning, I was certain the Korean lesson quiz was today, but actually it's Friday (right after chemistry, oh joy). Well, at least I know when my chemistry hourly is.
My problem with organic chemistry at the moment is that I now do have a rough grasp of the principles and problem solving techniques, but they're not at my fingertips, as they ought to be. In AP Chemistry, I could answer questions instantaneously because it seemed all so intuitive and self-evident--really, chemistry made more sense than any other science, even biology. Now, our head TF tells us during review session, "Well, this is obviously--," and I just stare at the chalkboard dumbly because it's not obvious to me anymore. I mean, I do figure it out after a while (or after someone explains it to me), but I process it very slowly, which makes it hard to keep up with the TF. (Who, by the way, talks a mile a minute and doesn't pause to take a breath, ever.) It doesn't help that everyone else seems to be following him just fine and asks questions--while I'm so bewildered that I can't even think of what questions to ask.
I wish I was competent at chemistry again, with the pKa values firmly entrenched in my brain the way the periodic table once was, with the ability to spit out resonance structures and addition reactions without thinking, with trends in nucleophilicity memorized like the palm of my hand. At the moment, the only area that I feel any sort of familiarity with is the structure of cyclohexane and its derivatives. Oh well, at least I can draw the chair, boat and twist-boat conformations in my sleep. I can't visualize the other cyclic compounds so perfectly though.
What's even more terrible is that I get the feeling that I could really enjoy this subject if only I had a chance to pause and get a firm grip on all these molecules and numbers and arrows whizzing by me. I know several people who detest organic chemsitry (they mostly happen to be chemistry concentrators, curiously enough), but I don't think I'm one of them. I rather enjoy drawing all the complicated structures we come across in examples because they're related to sugars and nitrogenous bases and amino acids. I think, this is what life is made out of, and from the reaction mechanisms we copy so diligently in class, I can almost visualize the primordial soup changing into the first protocells. Well, in an extremely vague and more-poetic-than-scientific way of course.
I think during spring break I'm going to sit down and just drill this knowledge into my head. Repetitive exercises are boring but you do come out of them feeling like you understand something inside out, not just its mere surface.
...Tari
