Wednesday, March 24, 2010

To let my brain work!

Being awake whole night, and trying to study is not a new thing for me now. And I am pretty sure, this thing will stick with me throughout my life. But for most of my nocturnal studying experiences, I have realized that caffeine pills, coffee and other waking methods do not help me as much as being positive and let my energy flow. So what do I mean with my 'my energy'?

Well... basically whenever I feel mentally drained, I let my brain drift for a while about some ambitious creative stuff. Mostly, it is a bunch of daydreaming or trying to create music in my head or some way of motivating myself by organized planning for future, but still, its all in my head. The good thing about this method is that when I am done thinking, and my mind feels all fresh, I feel like really ready to 'do it'. And get done with things like wham bam bam.

I have realized over past several years that I am sort of attention deficit. I can focus lots of energy on something and put in all my effort in to accomplishing something but I cannot linger on with it. 15 minutes of concentration and then my mind has to take a break or I will just waste time. From USMLEs to MBBS profs to other professional exams, I realized this poor concentration ability of my mind, but with experience over time, I have come to realize that I still have methods to use my mind to its best. For most of now, its used in reading lengthy reviews and research papers, alot of which seem dry and monotonous but atleast I do find joy in doing what I do. Even if I have to sometimes push my brain a step further for that.

Time to get back to work!

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Spring is here!

So its 23 March today, and I am writing on my blog after about 5 weeks. Its been a long long looonnggg 5 weeks. About a month ago on 23 February, my friend Alexey got mugged and shot. He survived! And he is able to walk now with a limp and also able to go to work.

But that incident put my university schedule totally at a backburner and we had to move to a totally new location in Ridgeland. My research got affected for about a month and I was so much backlogged on a lot of stuff that it feels like I am still recuperating. But all that aside, here is a summary of all the things that happened:

23 February: Alexey got shot.

28 February: I moved to Ridgeland.

Next 2 weeks were all about unpacking and getting settled. I was desparately waiting for the mini-break in mid march and it came by and went really quickly. At least I got enough time to organize things, especially my schedule for the upcoming 2 hard months. During the break, I also did some fun activities though.

Flew kites.

Heard really good news about my fellowship this summer.

Enjoyed like crazy on St. Patrick's Day. My friend Galen came down from Oxford with his 2 friends Anjel and puppy, and they somehow knew Eva, so we all had a blast for 2 days. It all was really good.

Also, Sehar had her CS exam taken care of, so that was also a relief. She went down to Houston, and later stopped at Austin on her way back. It sounds like it was a lot of fun times she had there. Am really happy for that.

Also, talked my youngest uncle, who is more like a cousin, after about almost a year. We talked for almost 5 hours on phone.

I wasn't able to accomplish much on studying front but I am catching up on it. Downloaded tonnes of papers and reviews today for some reading and got some slides to go through tonight.

Things are fine back home, except that the country of Pakistan is unfortunately in the same way as one would expect it to be.

Spring is here, and the weather is super awesome, except for yesterday when temperature went down to 37F like crazy. Its back in 70s today. Sun is out, things look fine and life is beautiful :)