How To Study?

I never really learned how to study, so it seems. So rather than try to pattern myself around other people, I’ve been trying to analyze the things I can do that don’t make me spaz. If you gave me an hour and said, “Study this”, well, I wouldn’t know what you mean. What is studying?

No, there will be no esoteric expounding on the Meaning of Studying.

In observing myself over the past year, I’ve noticed these steps in “studying”. This is probably an incomplete outline, but serves as a basic skeleton to base my plan of attack.

1. Know what I need to know. Hard to study if you aren’t even sure what you’re supposed to be studying.
2. Find what I need to know. Also hard to study if you aren’t aware of what resources you have, whether in your notes, in a book, or between your girlfriend’s thighs. (I have no idea what I mean by that.)
3. Understand what I need to know. I can’t study if I feel overwhelmed by what I’m supposed to commit to memory. Simply doing a run-through for brute understanding helps calm me.
4. Outline or notecard what I need to know. The production phase. Still no memorization necessary. For my nutrition test, I simply rewrote my notes into a concise form, with only what I needed to know. For spanish, I notecard. Since I understand the material already, going through it and organizing it in a format I can commit to memory isn’t that hard.
5. Memorize. The work of isolating the material has already been done. Looking over any of my material, I’ll understand what I’m supposed to konw. Then I simply go over it over and over again until it’s commited to memory. Given the condensation of material, reviewing will not take that long per session.

Just an outline of observations on myself. Not something to do, but something I’ve already done. Far better to commit yourself to something that you’ve already done, rather than something that’s still in experimental phase.

I mentioned my strategeries to Ashley and she said it’s “Too complicated for her”. *shrugs* I don’t really understand how other people study. I don’t get it. Or, rather, I don’t know how other people study, so I’m just making it up as I go along.

The chick next to me in A&P has her entire A&P book highlighted. That makes me blink. I never learned how to highlight, or so it feels. I think highlighting is just too much pressure. I’m terrified of highlighting the wrong thing and screwing up. I make the obvious observation that I’m afraid of highlighting. Highlighting. Bizarre. So, I’m going to try to teach myself how to highlight. I have a bunch of highlighters at home, I can whip them out tomorrow. I’ll use different colors for different phases of studying. I have that entire page of what’s going to be on the A&P test. So, to prostrate my own fears, I’ll go highlight where the key shit is. Very little highlighting, to break myself in. Don’t know what I’ll do after that, we’ll see.

I remember in Expos, I highlighted the readings. But that wasn’t hard because I knew why I was highlighting. I was looking for quotes, things I could use later to put in essays. There was a context to what I was doing. I don’t know. Maybe I don’t need to highlight at all.

On an unrelated note, niggers are fucking loud. You know that whole keep-your-mouth-shut-in-a-computer-lab rule? Seems humans of dark complexion seem to enjoy laughing loudly and being rude to everybody else in the room. Does this look like a Harlem theatre to you? No wonder black culture is as bad as it is, some of these bitches need a tall cup of shut the fuck up. Even I follow basic society customs. Do you think you’re special? You’ve been off the boat for a couple hundred years, now assimilate. Or make your own Loud And Rude Computer Lab. Or freaking take it outside. Show some respect for your fellow man and woman. The rest of us do.

Anyway, where was I? Studying. No, laundry. I’m out of clothes. I’M WEARING NEW BOYUNDIES! Maybe I’ll take pictures each day and post them in TimmyPorn. Because a set of TimmyUndies shots is nothing but blatant TimmyPorn.

I was going to do spanish homework. Right. Then I was going to attempt to study for A&P. Whatever studying means these days. And food. I like eating dead things.