Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 11

Today's Daily 5:
  1. A mostly peaceful day
  2. Not feeling too panicked about tomorrow's exam
  3. the benefits of a mid-day nap
  4. old episodes of Grey's Anatomy on dvd
  5. escaping the house, even for a few minutes, on random errands.

Final Push

This is it.  Final push day.

In case you haven't guessed, most of the posts happening this week were scheduled on the weekend.  This is the crazy week.  Two finals, a quiz and an assignment.  And then I'll be done.

Yesterday I wrote the first final (stats) and was pleased with how it went.  I also submitted the assignment that I'd completed the day before, and I did the final anatomy quiz.  (Not stellar, but better than I'd hoped, I think.)

What's left is my anatomy final, tomorrow afternoon.  This is a class with pages and pages and pages of very detailed notes to cover, and my brain has been exhausted.  It's really just too much information to absorb.  But this is it, and I have a plan, involving chapter by chapter review, and answering lots and lots of multiple choice questions.  Today, I feel relatively peaceful.  I know myself well, and I'm quite aware that that could change as the day goes on, and as I hit roadblocks that demonstrate how much I DON'T know in certain areas. 

I've been reminding myself all week to be gentle with myself.  To offer the best that I have to this school work, and to be okay when the best means that it's less than I know I have been capable of at other points in my life.  To not feel guilty for the fact that I've needed naps every day this week so far, and that I've lost a precious four or five hours of studying to those naps.  I've already acknowledged to myself this morning that I will likely need to nap today, as well.  And I've reminded myself that it is okay to take the evening off, and not study, study, study until bedtime.

Tomorrow morning I'll do some final review and then I'll write the exam.  And then the rest of my day will be full.

But, in the meantime, I'm doing a little bit of puttering.  Settling myself in for the day.  Writing this blog post.  Tackling a bunch of little online tasks - some fun stuff, and some things that are just part of the daily routine.  I'm eating breakfast.  And I'm telling myself that I'm going to do my very best to hang onto this "calm before the storm" feeling, even when the storm starts in earnest. 

I'd appreciate your prayers as I study today and tomorrow morning, and as I write the exam tomorrow afternoon. 

And, I'll be back, with some scheduled and some unscheduled posts through the next several days as well!  See you then!

Our Chief Preoccupation

A quote to chew on today:

"Our wish, our object, our chief preoccupation must be to form Jesus in ourselves, to make his spirit, his devotion, his affections, his desires and his disposition live and reign there. All our religious exercises should be directed to this end. It is the work which God has given us to do unceasingly" (St. John Eudes, The Life and Reign of Jesus in Christian Souls).

Is forming Jesus in myself the chief preoccupation of my days, and of my "religious exercises"?  It is the chief preoccupation of yours?  What stops it from being chief in our lives?