How to Enjoy Learning: Do It Your Way

Studying is hard for anyone—all you need to do to be convinced of that is log on to Pinterest or Tumblr for a while, to see what students have to say about the process.  (Personally I find Tumblr’s assessment of the subject more interesting than Pinterest’s offerings of ways to optimize study time; to the left is one of my favorites, borrowed from user the-dutch-student.)  I myself have never been very good at studying, which may surprise those of you who know me as a conscientious student.  The thing is, my high school never challenged me enough to elicit much studying, and by the time I had made it into college my habits were set.  I would often tell myself the night before a big test that if I didn’t already know the material, I wasn’t going to learn it in a few hours. 

But now I’m running into a problem.  I am a Christian, and the past few years I’ve been trying to get deeper into my faith, to understand its history and culture so that I can enrich my own beliefs.  The natural starting point for this is to read the Bible, but I am coming to understand that it isn’t quite so simple.  You don’t get very much out of the Bible if you just read it; it requires study and interpretation.  Different passages in the Bible can interpret one another, while there are several hundred years of history behind the stories and laws.  Unless you really take the time to study and pay attention, you miss a lot.

Hence my problem.  I want to get everything I can get out of the Bible, but it’s hard to persuade myself to sit down and put the necessary effort into it.  However enjoyable and fulfilling this text may be, studying is studying, and I find myself immediately transported back into the mindset of a student not wanting to do homework simply because it is homework.

I had to make the task more agreeable somehow.  How can I bully myself into getting the work done?  Well, to take a new perspective, of course.  What if I had the Bible in an electronic format, where I could search for certain names and place, keep track of my own opinions and interpretations alongside those of eminent biblical scholars, and color-code trouble spots and favorite verses?  That thought appealed to the bespectacled little person in my self-image who thinks it’s fun to organize things.  But, I thought to myself, I don’t know where I could find such a thing.  Ergo, I’ll have to make it myself.  So here I am, engaged in a project that will probably take me several years: typing up the Bible into a computer document.

“Wait, what?  But Eileen, why would you do such a dumb thing?  It’s twice as much work as just studying.”  Yes, you’re quite right, my imaginary critic.  But funnily enough, this project suits me.  I type very quickly, and so it isn’t hard to get through a few chapters a week—I’m in Leviticus right now.  And the act of copying makes me pay more attention to the text than I would if I were simply speed-reading my way through.  I make footnotes of my own assessments and questions, to which I can refer back when something new reminds me of something I read a few weeks ago.  And sometimes I find myself spending extra time researching a particular passage or verse, trying to find something that will make it more clear.

The point I’m trying to make is that however silly this idea may seem to many of you, it works for me.  I’m not only learning, I am retaining what I’ve learned, which is the whole point of studying.  And I’m enjoying the process, which is definitely not the point of studying, but maybe it should be.  So the next time you’re having trouble on a test or wanting to educate yourself about something new, maybe don’t bother with those tips and tricks on Pinterest.  Think about the way you learn best, and come up with an idea that works for you.  Everyone is different, but we should all be able to enjoy learning, and the only person who can make that happen, really, is you.

It's My Party, But I Don't Want to Cry

Like most people, I like to think that I’m in control of myself.  And most of the time, I am.  (Of course that’s me saying it; there might be others in my acquaintance who’d disagree from time to time.  But this is my blog, so I get the final say on what’s true and what’s not.)  But there are moments when I lose control, and those moments are always very uncomfortable to me.  This week, I’m talking specifically about crying.

I spent a good amount of time on Thursday night in tears.  Now you might say that there is nothing wrong with a good cry, but I would have to say that yes, there is, especially when you are expected to take charge of a situation.  This was definitely the case—I was on the clock at my job, and the problem that was upsetting me was something I had to take care of as the manager on duty.  But there I was, hiding in the office and trying to stop crying long enough for my eyes to not be red anymore.  Any expression of sympathy set me off again.

I wanted to be reasonable and firm, to be able to talk about the problem and come to an acceptable solution.  Failing that, I at least wanted to be angry and put the offending party in their place.  I don’t even really understand why I was crying—up until that point, it had been a good night, and I can only remember one other slightly stressful encounter that might have contributed to the problem.  But wherever they were coming from, the tears just keep coming.

When you’re alone and having that good, cleansing cry that I mentioned earlier, you don’t care much about what you look like.  Not so in this situation—I was deeply aware of my shaking voice, my swollen eyes, and my trembling mouth and chin.  Plus, this was the first time I’ve ever really had to worry about streaks of mascara.  I went into the office and closed the door, sitting in the dark and covering my mouth to muffle the sobs.  I don’t tell you this to elicit sympathy (although we are always accepting donations) but to give you an idea about how humiliating I found it.  The tears made me feel weak, and I was worried that my coworkers would consider me to be using them as manipulation to get what I wanted.  It wasn’t the case—all I wanted was to mop myself up and get my work done so I could go home.

I’ve done a bit of research on crying.  Tears are always an emotional response, but not just to sadness or hurt.  Everyone knows that sometimes people respond to beautiful things with tears, and then there are “angry tears” which occur when you believe you’ve been treated unfairly.  I think this last was the primary motivation to my own breakdown.  I don’t often cry—I get teary fairly often, when I am watching a sad movie or recalling a touching memory, but the out-and-out crinkly-faced tear fest is something I rarely indulge in.  Before this, I don’t think I’ve really cried since last year.  That being said, I usually feel much better after I have cried.  Well, maybe the next day.

I think what bothered me most about this instance was that it happened in public.  I didn’t like others to see me that way, and that embarrassment contributed to the problem.  Is that vain of me?  Maybe.  But I think it’s natural to want others to see you a certain way, and when your own actions might diminish the image you’ve built for yourself, it can be upsetting.

My solution?  I’m falling back on one of the mottos of my childhood: “get over it.”  It may sound harsh, but it works.  Once I’d calmed down that night—and yes, I did get all my work done—I realized it wasn’t all that big of a deal.  Yes, I was hurt by someone else’s actions, and those feelings were and are valid, but I know now that the insult wasn’t intentional or personal.  It was just a mess, and messes are common when you’re human.  All I can do is take my short end of the stick and run with it, and eventually things will look better.  That is something else that I’ve learned—that messes do tend to get cleaned up over time.  Just look at me—dry-eyed and streak-free.  That being said, I might in future be investing in a better waterproof mascara.

If you're interested in reading the articles about crying that I looked at, you can find them here:

Angry Tears

Why We Cry: The Truth About Tearing Up