Stress and the Galloping Ghost

It always surprises me how busy my summers seem to get, especially when, if I think about it, I really only have a handful of things going on at any given time. During the school year it was overwhelming but controllably so, since usually going out and doing things required some extra planning, and you could organize events and classes and tests months in advance.

The problem with the summer is that a lot of plans that come up are very spur-of-the-moment, and it's easy to get incredibly stressed out any given day, even if you weren't stressed out yesterday and you won't be stressed out two days from now. During the year it's very much like a constant, grinding, mild stress that doesn't go away until the next vacation, and it almost fades into the background like when you have been in a room with a strong odor long enough. Summer? Well, it's much shorter, but it can be more intense. I don't really know which I prefer. I'd rather not have to deal with either.

Today is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Today as an isolated event was fantastic. But look ahead three days and it doesn't feel so great because--guess what--I already have summer session midterms on Thursday! Wonderful.

Okay, so some background on my day. One of my best friends had a party since she graduated from Eastern Illinois University not a month ago, and some long-lost relatives visited us today, just to say hello. And, not to knock my friends and family (sorry!), maybe the best part of today was my trip to the Galloping Ghost with three of my friends.

For those not in the know, which, if I had to guess, would be most of you, the Galloping Ghost in Brookfield is a video arcade. It's the largest arcade in Illinois, and the second-largest in the country. The owners collect old arcade cabinets (from sellers, dumps, and wherever else they can find them) and refurbish them and line them all up in this little storefront on Ogden Avenue for anyone to play.

The difference between this place and a regular arcade (and this must be the only difference as, just like the arcades of old, the place is dark, has no air conditioning, and the people there are just as crazy about games as you are) is that you pay $15 up front, and all the machines are set to Free Play, meaning that if you walk in right when they open at 11am, you can stay there working your thumbs on Altered Beast or Paperboy or Burger Time or Mortal Kombat until 2am without having to fish out a single quarter from your pocket! It's beautiful. I don't exactly remember how long we were in there, but it wasn't nearly long enough--they have more than 200 games, and they are always adding more and currently working on adding a pinball expansion. There was no way I even scratched the surface today and I am most certainly going back.

Great day, no? One of the best days I have had recently. The problem is I have a midterm to look forward to on Thursday, and I have homework due tomorrow evening and I still haven't watched the 3 1/2 hour lecture to get ready to do the homework, not to mention errands and the like. Ugh, and I have to find time to eat, too! So I have a lot to do tomorrow, and it has been nagging at me all day. Right now I am promising myself that I will get everything done tomorrow that I need to, but who knows if my promise holds up? I can usually keep my promises to other people, but the ones I make to myself are the ones most likely to be broken.

I think today would have been much better if I had gotten some of my work done over the weekend, but what can you do? In its essence I had a fantastic day, and I need to learn to be better at managing my time during the summer. I am sure I am not alone when I say that during the summer it is much harder to get things done that need to be done than it is during the semester. And since online classes almost seem abstract in that you are not in a classroom it's much harder to stay motivated and keep on top of your assignments. Here's hoping I can get things in gear tomorrow. I want to get back to the Galloping Ghost, but I want to do so without anything hanging over my head. I still haven't played Funhouse yet!

As horrifying as this may look, this happens to be my favorite
pinball machine of all time. I used to play this one all the
time in my uncle's basment when I was a kid.

Song of the Day

Rush 'N Attack OST - Level 1

Summer Classes

So school got out a few weeks ago, right? I am not imagining things. But the last time I checked I was still taking a class in Structural Design. OH WAIT, I am taking a summer class. My mistake. Ugh.

Your average summer class probably won't be this intense. Though

there might still be a chance for that romance bit. Or blood if

you get a pretty nasty paper cut.

In all honesty, summer classes aren't all that bad. I actually prefer them to the usual semester-long versions. Last year I took a class and an IPRO while I worked some hours at the office. Not too bad, and I compressed a whole semester of IPRO into something like eight weeks. Not too shabby, eh? The only downside to a summer class is, well, the fact that it is a class. In the summer. Woot.

Fortunately for me, though, the class that I am taking, CAE 303, has an online format. So instead of travelling two hours to get to class (or even travelling twenty minutes to the Wheaton campus to watch a class beamed live on a TV screen) I can watch lectures whenever I have time, and scan in my homework assignments when they're due. And all from the comfort of my own cave/bedroom!

One of the things I don't particulary like about summer classes is how they lengthen classes to three-ish hours twice a week or more so you finish in the compressed time slot. I am not that great at paying attention for that long. With an online class, I can watch a lecture in hour or half-hour increments so I can spread things out, give myself a chance to pay attention, and maybe play some Pokemon Yellow in between!

Also, my professor does a really good job at going through example problems in class. He'll post the homework assignment not too long before the class starts, so I will have a shot at attempting the problems before the taped lecture gets posted online the day after. And when it does, I can fast-forward or backtrack to get the most out of the example problems, essentially working on my homework during class.

This has nothing to do with anything, but it came up

on Google when I searched "summer school."

So while class may be long, I can stretch it out to less than two hours a weekday plus homework. That means I still have time during the summer to, say, get another job or see The Avengers for the twelfth time (slight exaggeration). Or maybe see that family I hear so much about. The possibilities are endless!

Finals Finished (Finally!)

Okay, so you know how at the end of every semester, someone always says "Wow! Time just flew by this semester!" Well, this semester time was flying an SR-71 Blackbird and the only thing I noticed was the sonic boom. Now finals week over and I am having a hard time remembering what happened this semester--and summer classes start tomorrow!

This semester has been my easiest semester so far. Because of a hiccup in my schedule I only had 15 credit hours, and two of them were classes I could sleep through and still pull off an A. So it hasn't been too bad. Of course, next semester will be a kick in the pants, but I'm going to keep my happy-go-lucky attitude until I move back in to the fraternity house August 15th (how awful is it that my birthday is also the day I have to go back to school and remind myself that the future will be bringing me nothing but pain for the next few months? Pretty darn.).

But, of course, that didn't stop finals from being a pain in the neck. My first final was on Monday morning, and by the end of it I felt like my mind had already checked out for the summer. And this was an open-book, open-note, open-Internet final. How was I going to get through a regular exam? I didn't know, but I must've done something right for the rest of them, because I felt really good the week after when I got to see my final grades.

Finals Week.

It has also been the semester I have been the most productive. No one has ever told me how to study, and I have had to figure that out all by myself. While I still haven't quite gotten the knack for it yet, I have solved one problem: remembering to do my homework. I have the hardest time remembering what projects are do when, and there always seems to be one class where I can never remember to do the homework. In high school it was usually a science class, and at IIT it happens to be one random class every semester. The Office of Campus Life hands out free planners every year so I technically have the means to remember everything, but after a week or two of that my planner mysteriously finds its was behind my desk, never to return.

I have since then now found a way to keep track of all my homework, and it seems to be working pulchritudinously. A while back a link from a website brought me to Schooltraq, which is still in beta. It's essentially an online assignment book that lets you add and edit assignments by class and they are organized by due date. Nothing too exciting, except when I made it my browser homepage suddenly I started remembering to do my homework. It also has this neat "focus mode" that will display one assignment on the screen and a blank page. I will hit "full screen" and unless I have an insatiable urge to see what LOL's are to be found on Somuchpun.com there really isn't anything to distract me. I introduced my little sister to it a couple months ago and she says it's helping her too.

Something as simple as a browser-based assignment book can be a huge difference.

The main benefit of this site is that now that I am remembering to do homework, studying is getting easier. When you do the homework, for some reason you tend to know the material better and then studying isn't so bad. Weird.

This site also had a strange effect on me. Since I saw my assignments more often, I would be more likely to do the assignments before they were due. I found myself doing my homework a week before they were due just so I could enjoy the satisfaction of clicking the check mark and moving an assignment to the "done" pile. And then. AND THEN. I was able to relax after that. Relax like I have never relaxed before. I would have nothing hanging over my head. Nothing to bug me all weekend. Nothing to dread working on at the last minute Sunday night. I could just sit back and watch old episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 until my eyes bled. It is an incredibly wonderful feeling.

I really don't want to say this. But. I think I have a lesson to take from this semester. So if you don't like hearing the moral of the story, please stop now. Now that I have had a taste of what true time management feels like, I don't want to stop. So, advice time! Figure out what time management strategies work for you, and figure it out now! Because when you start college, it's going to be this fantastic and new and hella-hard environment, and if you are not prepared for it, woe to you. If you come to IIT (or wherever you might be headed, I won't judge!), all the better if you come already set to go with whatever helps you stay on top of your work, whether that be Schooltraq, or Post-It notes, or calendars, or a person strapped to your back shouting your assignments at you all hours of the day. If you have to find out what you need to do later, it won't be the end of the world, but when you do finally figure it out you will regret not finding it sooner. If you want some help with finding ideas for productivity, check out lifehacker. They have plenty.

Song of the Day

Gotye - Somebody That I Used to Know