Trust myself

I'm going back to Canada in 6 days and I really wanted to be further along with my MCAT study than I am. So my mom suggested that I skip out on my cousin's birthday BBQ today while she and my dad took my son along with them, leaving me to take advantage of some peace and quiet to study.

I decided that I really want to focus on doing MCAT problems and not just reading the text books, like I did last time, since I think that especially for physics (what I'm focusing on at the moment) its the only way to really learn to do well on the MCAT.

But over an HOUR into doing ONE problem, I was sitting here, almost in tears, because I just couldn't get it. I kept looking at the answer key and the explaination and it just DID NOT make sense! I would flip back through the text book and re-read the same thing, than look at the problem and then the answer again.

Before I flung my textbook out of the window, I decided to take a deep breath, make myself some tea (and sneak a piece of cheesecake*) to see if it would help clear my head a bit.

And while I was sipping my tea, I remembered that my the physics prof from my MCAT course had at one point in time sent us an email to alert us that there were a couple of errors in our review book. I immediately found that email and lo and behold, but the question I had been stuggling with was the very first on his list and the reasoning was exactly what didn't make sense (basically, they had a typo in the formula they used in their answer key).

I was so relieved but also a bit annoyed with myself. Wasn't it Einstien who said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over but hoping for a different result each time? Why didn't I trust my intelligence enough to realize it was a mistake and just move on? Instead I've wasted a whole hour of child-free studying - which any student parent will tell you is priceless.

Anyway, I think that to be successful I really need to start believing in myself more.

Ok, now back to studying - I want to get enough done so I can watch some of the Euro 2012 matches tonight guilt free!


*About a week ago I started the South Beach diet, Phase 1 to help me shed some of the weight I've gained since being in Poland (bread here is amazing and there is no such thing as low fat/low calorie products plus my parents have been having dinners parties almost every night since I've arrived). I wish I'd read that email BEFORE succumbing to the sugar (absolutely not allowed during this phase of the diet).