First Year Recap

Classes are over and exams are finished. It seems like a good time for a little recap on how the first year went.

First Semester:
I had no clue what I was doing 90% of the time. Everything was overwhelming and I felt like a complete failure. My grades were the worst they've ever been. I had no idea what I was doing wrong so I didn't know how to fix it. I realized yet again that I'm terrible at making friends; I come on too strong then don't know how to follow up with people. It was basically four months that destroyed my confidence.

Second Semester:
I started with a blank slate, not letting the mistakes from last semester make me lose hope for this one. I found a good study place that was quiet and made me feel guilty if I didn't study while I was there. My focus was staying optimistic. I studied better and my grades got higher. Also, I realized that it was stupid to beat myself up over not doing well on co-requisite courses because they weren't my focus of study. The first four months destroyed my confidence but these four months started to build it back up again.

Overall I'd say my first year didn't go too bad. I think I'm starting to reach the point where I can actually enjoy university which makes me really happy. I ended this year wanting to continue studying so I think that's the main thing. Even though it was tough, I never wanted to quit. I'll see this through until the end and one day I'll thank myself for it.

Wisdom Teeth Surgery Fears

In a couple of days, I will be getting all four of my wisdom teeth surgically removed. As of now, only one tooth has started to poke through the gums while the other three are still underneath. I have no pain but on recent x-rays, it showed that my teeth will impact as they come in so they need to go.

I'm currently nineteen years old and besides from when I was born, I've never been in the hospital. I also don't really take medication since I can't swallow pills. Although I'm grateful I've lived such a healthy life so far, I'm even more scared since this is my first medical procedure.

It's not so much that I'm scared of them doing the surgery on me but I'm more scared about the before and after. Weirdly enough I'm terrified of the IV. I don't have a fear of needles and I'm completely fine getting shots but I've never had blood drawn (to my memory) so I'm really worried they'll have problems getting the IV in me. Other than that I'm scared I won't be able to deal with the recovery process very well since I can't swallow pills so pain medication will be tough.

The only thing keeping me calm is knowing that after a week or two of recovery it will be all over and I'll never have to do it again. Although I'm scared, I'm going to have to do it at one point or another so I may as well do it now since recovery is easier when you are younger. I'll try to be brave so wish me good luck.

Dating: It Never Gets Easier

Back when I was a kid I always thought dating was simple. You like someone, they like you, you date. However, it's hardly ever that easy.

I'll admit I got into my first relationship really easily as we knew each other through our families. Moving from an ambiguous stage to a dating stage happened easily too. Even though everything lined up perfectly, dating was still hard. The first time was a learning experience filled with many, many mistakes.

For some reason, I thought that once you started dating it became really easy to find people to date. After my relationship ended I thought I would find someone new in a matter of months. Because I now had "experience" I thought guys would just start coming up to me and showing interest in me but that didn't happen. I was shocked to realize I was just as awkward as I was before I started dating.

Currently, I'm at an ambiguous stage with a potential second boyfriend and it's giving me a lot of flashbacks to my first relationship. I thought having experience would make things easier this time around but it just makes it harder. Although I should have the upper hand, I'm just as clueless as I was before. I still get so nervous I feel like throwing up, I still have no clue how to make conversation, and I'm still unable to make any sort of move.

I wish it got easier as time goes on but it doesn't. Every relationship is different just like every person is different. Every time you have to adapt to something new so it's hard to have everything go smoothly from the very beginning. No matter how many relationships you've had, your heart will still flutter like it's the first time.

(The picture of bell peppers doesn't have much relevance but it's cute)

False Sense of Confidence: Exams

I had my last day of classes a couple of days ago and today I had my first final which was for chemistry. Despite the fact that I had plenty of time to study, I maybe spent three hours studying over a seven day period. I had notecards prepared already and I circled all the questions I should do in my textbook but I couldn't make myself study. Some may say it's a simple case of procrastination, I say it's a false sense of confidence.

What I mean is I don't study because I feel like I already know the material. In reality, I do not know the material. Thus a false sense of confidence.

Despite this, I felt like I did pretty good on my exam. I was able to solve the majority of the questions with only minimal guessing. I got tired near the end of the exam and I hadn't eaten much that day so my condition wasn't very good. Strangely I don't regret not studying. Even if I had studied, I don't think I would have done much better.

I did feel sort of bad about my habits when I was waiting to go into the exam. People around me were talking about how much they had been studying and how they only got three hours of sleep each night because they were up late studying. Meanwhile, I got around seven hours of sleep every night and had way too much free time. I felt like I was a slacker but I've never been the type to hardcore study. Even when I'm most productive I do maybe five hours of studying a day and I never let it interfere with my sleep. I'm not sure whether my way or their way is best.

Either, way I need to shake this false sense of confidence before my other exams. I'll do good on my math one regardless but I have no clue what's going on in physics so let's hope I actually study for that one.