Studying during a flare

Hi,

 

I’m about half way through my second diploma… And I’m REALLY struggling.

Today’s been the epitome of why. I’m on holidays from work, and I figured that I could use these few weeks to catch up on everything I’ve let slide during my work year. (Housework and school work.)

That hasn’t happened. I ran myself into the ground to get through the end of last year. I knew I was doing it at the time, but it’s only now I’m dealing with the flare up that I really appreciate how far I’ve run myself down.

ANYWAY. So I’m trying to do an assignment. I get achy, and find myself mindlessly wandering around the house. (I wander when I get achy. Around in circles usually.)

So I figure I’ll take some pain killers. I stop wandering around in circles… But now my brains squishy and I can only seem to recall one sentence of what I’ve just read at a time. So I watch TV until the pain killers wear off a bit.

I can finally read, and I read about two pages… But gee my legs are stiff… maybe I should stretch them out…. Annnnddd before you know it I’m wandering around in circles, unable to sit still or think because I’m achy.

 It’s been four hours since I took anything, so I take a second dose of pain killers. Now I can’t focus enough to read again.

 

It’s driving me crazy. The really, REALLY stupid part is that it’s a Diploma of children’s services, and the unit I’m doing is about inclusive practices, and how educators need to work to the strengths of students… And when I asked if I could get an audio version of the text book, I got a “Why would we have that?” When I’ve explained I just need more time I get met with “You just have to commit yourself to finishing.”

I’m feeling completely and utterly useless. I’ve been doing this job for 5 years. I know everything I’m studying… I just can’t get that knowledge onto paper.

And then because I can’t write it down, that little negative voice in my head starts questioning if I actually know anything at all… And now I feel like I’m rubbish at my job and everyone just humours me while I’m there.

 

Has anyone found a way to work through this? I know that there are some days when I need to just forget about studying because I’m just not capable of doing it, and trying to do so just leads to tantrums…. But what happens when those days come in 6 month blocks?

It can be incredibly hard. One thing I learned last semester is to read in my bedroom. We don't have a tv in there so no distractions and I have a bed I can move around on to get comfortable. Another thing is time management. I'm horrible at this, but I have a friend that has shown an example of how she manages her time. She makes weekly schedules and color codes them. She does everyday of the week and even schedules time for sleep. I need to start doing this.

Remember not to overwork yourself because you my find yourself unable to do anything the next day or so.

If you are at a university, there should be a disability services (my university has an office of accessibility). You need to go to them and let them know what is going on. They can help you get CD versions of the book, and if not, they might have a system to scan in your texts as a readable text document that a computer can read to you. Mine sounds a bit like Steven Hawking, but there are more natural voices as well. My university uses Kurswell software. I like it.

I do feel for you. I had to stop going to school for not. I just have too much of a brain fog.

I'm actually doing online classes and they expect more from you because you AREN'T going to the actual class on campus. Lots more reading plus a lot of time dedicated to posting on the online forum plus quizzes and tests plus class assignments like papers... Sometimes I think it would be easier to go to class but then I remember leaving the house at 7am and not getting home until 10pm and it reminds me why I'm taking online classes.

I went to the doctor the day after making the first post... He seems to think I’ve managed to pick up the flu. (In Australia. I’m about 2 months ahead of the earliest start to flu season.)
He’s also put me back on Celebrex (temporally doubled the dose), which seems to have returned a bit of brain power, and a bit more use of my fingers.
I actually have more than three brain cells to rub together at the moment.

I’ve temporally delayed the assignment I was struggling with, and just moved on to the next one. I’ve knocked out about a third of the new assignment.

My teacher is still useless, and can’t even answer a basic question about what I have to submit, let alone offer a bit of advice as to how to go about the assignment… But I’ve taken that to mean that as she doesn’t know, nothing I submit can really be formatted/structured wrong. So long as the content is good, then she’ll pass it.
I actually think that’s part of the problem. This Diploma isn’t challenging. I’m not learning anything, and when you’re not actually getting anything out of the assignments it’s all the harder to stay engaged when you feel like death.
I figured it’d be the other way around when I enrolled. That I could just splurge knowledge onto paper and be done with it… But when you already know the subject inside out and are studying as a mere formality everything you write sounds so horrifically, mind-numbingly obvious and stupid.

My new mantra is “Think of the pay rise.”
Once I complete the diploma I go up a few pay grades, that’ll cover me cutting back my hours…. More work now, more sleep later.

Over again I never would have chosen this organisation to study with, and I would have preferred to have class contact.
The first time I tried to get my children’s services diploma I was promised the moon and stars, saying that they understood I couldn’t do full time placement… (Two lots of 2 forty hour weeks, then one 4 week one at 40 hours a week.)
So I dropped down a qualification level, and got it online with a company who let me split my placement up to manageable sizes. I did the same amount of hours, I just stretched them out.

Then I try to do this one on campus… They have a condition that you have to be working full time in OSHC to enrol. That’s 7am to 9am, and 3pm to 6pm Monday to Friday. That gives a perfect opportunity to run classes from 10-2… But no. They ran them 8:30 to 12 on one day, and 2 til 6 on the other. As this course was using your full time OSHC employment as part of the curriculum, it got pulled from the curriculum before it even started due to “lack of interest.”
Frankly I don’t think they had any intention of running it.

But seriously. I have to write about why it’s wrong to call a child a racist name.