{"id":22477,"date":"2014-11-24T16:13:24","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T21:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/?p=22477"},"modified":"2014-11-24T16:13:24","modified_gmt":"2014-11-24T21:13:24","slug":"how-things-got-bad-then-got-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2014\/11\/24\/how-things-got-bad-then-got-better\/","title":{"rendered":"How Things got Bad &#8211; Then got Better"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/umSlEYfYzK4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\r\n\r\nSuch was the advice I've needed over the past few days. I'm convinced that the most recent 25 views or so have been me hitting \"replay\".\r\n\r\nAs suggested by my lack of (and tardy) posts, these past few weeks have been rough.\r\n\r\nAssignments have taken longer than expected. I\u2019ve felt unable to be at full strength for either of my two jobs. And just over a week ago, I received some failing test grades.\r\n\r\nNow I have written about <a title=\"Total Test Result Turmoil \u2013 or how the Academic Success Center can save your neck\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2014\/10\/20\/total-test-result-turmoil-or-how-the-academic-success-center-can-save-your-neck\/\" target=\"_blank\">receiving poor grades<\/a>, and <a title=\"Prepping your Patronus\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2014\/10\/15\/prepping-your-patronus\/\" target=\"_blank\">preventing negative feelings<\/a>, but this was so devastating that neither seemed sufficient to explain how I felt or help me get through it.\r\n\r\nThe course in question was my final pick of the term, a course I needed to even out my schedule, but didn\u2019t necessarily need for my program requirements. But it quickly turned into my most demanding.\r\n\r\nThe lectures were hard to follow, and the course materials in an alternate format arrived a couple weeks into the course. This meant I had to rely on support from one of the course\u2019s two Teaching Assistants. I also formed a study group of people I hadn\u2019t met before to work through material and practice problems. Once I had access to it, I spent many a night reading the course pack and working through the examples it contained.\r\n\r\nAnd I still failed the first test, and just passed the second.\r\n\r\nThe silly thing was that the tests didn\u2019t feel too bad. I felt I was on top of the work and the material, more or less. To find I wasn\u2019t \u2014 right when I needed to be splitting my focus between all my courses to accommodate mid-terms and finals over December \u2014 was a shock. What do I do now? How can I save this term? The final\u2019s worth 60 per cent of the course grade \u2014 what if I don\u2019t even pass that? And my other courses! They\u2019re program requirements!\r\n\r\nNeedless to say, I didn\u2019t handle it particularly well. It made my other posts seem flippant.\r\n\r\nHere\u2019s what I did after receiving the bad news:\r\n<ul>\r\n\t<li><strong>Cried.<\/strong> To the course\u2019s second TA whom I\u2019d never met before (she had the test grades handy). To a friend I met for dinner afterwards. To my sister over the phone. To my mum over the phone. By myself. (I unabashedly cry in public; just ask the friends who went to The Fault in Our Stars with me\u2026)<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<ul>\r\n\t<li><strong>Got mad.<\/strong> Wondered aloud why I\u2019d spent so much time on a course that wasn\u2019t a program requirement at the possible expense of courses that were. Raged that I\u2019d done solid (as far as I could tell) work and still come up short. Questioned why I left school in my hometown to come back to U of T at all. Hated that I\u2019d even thought that.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<ul>\r\n\t<li><strong>Sulked.<\/strong> Tapped into my arsenal of therapy tools with some success. Finished an assignment for another course while questioning my intelligence. Did work but couldn\u2019t concentrate well. Slept fitfully and napped for the first time all term. Watched too many Grey\u2019s Anatomy clips on YouTube. Drowned my sorrows in a Grande Peppermint Mocha: my first Starbucks in a while. Spent too long flicking through my iTunes library to find an appropriately peppy song to get me going or reflective song to be in the moment with. Coldplay, The Dixie Chicks, Glee cast, Allison Hinds, Drake, Fleetwood Mac, My Chemical Romance, angry Taylor Swift, The Killers, Bedouin Soundclash, Lorde, and any non-Disney songs from the soundtrack to the Broadway production of The Lion King all made appearances on this week\u2019s playlist. Considered adding Les Mis\u00e9rables, but figured that was getting too melodramatic. Found One Direction and Taylor Swift\u2019s new stuff on YouTube. Questioned my claim to adulthood as a result.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<ul>\r\n\t<li><strong>Got sensible. <\/strong>Discussed matters with my parents, something I definitely didn\u2019t do the last time I was here. Realized the gaping holes in my knowledge. Sought a tutor. Spoke to the instructor of the course in question and had a rational and productive discussion. Considered late withdrawal as a last resort. Went to lectures and took some of the best notes I\u2019ve made all term. Used my very basic HTML\u00a0 knowledge (just because I could) to write down a master to-do list of everything I wanted to get done over the next week for each course, my jobs, and any personal miscellaneous tasks. Noticed my rising panic and second-guessing ebb away as this list of concrete things to get done by a specific date came into being all in one place.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nThough I constantly feared (and fear) a slide into behaviours of my past \u2014 where I eventually gave up on pretty much everything \u2014 this was not the case. It hasn\u2019t been a great week by any stretch, but I\u2019m slowly digging myself out of the hole I landed in, with much help from family, friends, and time.\r\n\r\nI wanted to share this with you because it not only has absorbed my mental energy all week, but it also is a thumbnail sketch of how things can get bad, but then get better with the proper tools and a bit of rational problem-solving.\r\n\r\nI will leave you with another inspiring classic movie quote to get you through the coming weeks.\r\n\r\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0Hkn-LSh7es?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-summary\">\n<div class=\"entry-summary\">\nSuch was the advice I've needed over the past few days. I'm convinced that the most recent 25 views or so have been me hitting \"replay\". As suggested by my lack of (and tardy) posts, these past few weeks have&hellip;\n<\/div><div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2014\/11\/24\/how-things-got-bad-then-got-better\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;How Things got Bad &#8211; Then got Better&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div><div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2014\/11\/24\/how-things-got-bad-then-got-better\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;How Things got Bad &#8211; Then got Better&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":248,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6669,1,67,68],"tags":[86,12837,24,1622,2214,12838,85,10827],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22477"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/248"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22477"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22502,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22477\/revisions\/22502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}