Student Activities Blogs

Andrea Lama

Blog 2

Monday, December 08, 2008

The first (and only) break in the Fall semester is over, and I had a great time! My family and I went to a Safari Theme Park in Mexico and I had a blast. Clearly, the photos indicate I had trouble with this one greedy camel, but, it was a fantastic time. I think that it is always a good idea to do something you used to love doing when you were little. I used to love animals (now, they kind of gross me out) and going to the zoo and getting to feed some was just like I remember it: smelly, sticky, hungry, furry, and fun.

On a similar note: playgrounds! When was the last time you tried to climb the monkey bars? A challenge from my sister gave me an “oh, I got this” mentality, but alas, it was hard. Recommendation: go to a play ground. Better yet, take other kids to a playground. The Office of Community Outreach has many awesome programs with kids, and kids love playgrounds. Therefore, kids + you + playground = amazing experience and a smiling child. Yay Student Activities!

On a separate yet more pertinent note: the semester is practically over! But first: Finals. Secretly, I’m that kid who loves to study. I’d make flashcards for a living if I thought there was a future in it. This semester, though, there are so many more important things I’d rather be doing that studying about the expected future value of a nonconstant growth stock. For example, study abroad! I want to book weekend trips to Paris and Dublin. I want to make sure I have the financial backing for that amount of travel. I want to see what I’ll need when I get there. I want to make sure my visa is all set. I want to find out what I’m getting for Christmas! Etcetera, etcetera. It’s making it extremely difficult to hunker down and study. Finding yourself in a similar situation? Here are some tips for getting through this ridiculously painful time in the academic year:

• Unplug Ethernet cable and turn off wireless connection. It’s only way Facebook can’t get to you and show you who put up photos of their last weekend at UConn.
• If you need to study in absolute quiet: barricade yourself in the library. But don’t fall asleep. Set your phone on vibrate and get it to go off every hour or so. Putting it in your sleeve or a pocket will keep you awake, at least for an hour.
• If you can’t study in absolute quiet, I’ve found a trick: put on the TV and the radio at the same volume and open the window. If any one is louder than the other, it’ll cause a distraction, but the dull mixing of the sounds will provide enough background noise to keep you focused.
• Snack! I’m a strong believer in the whole “if you study with certain tastes/scents around you, you should try to recreate them during the exam” theory. But, don’t break the rules and eat when you’re not supposed to, or light candles in the classrooms. This time of year, I have a couple candy canes while studying and bring one to the exam. Does it work? Who knows, but I think it does, and the placebo effect is stronger than you think.
• RELAX. Student Activities and other UConn departments are hosting lots of awesome things to give your mind a break during your twelve hour cram sessions. Lots of residence halls on campus are doing study-related programs, like food late at night, massage sessions, etc. Take advantage of these things when you realize you’re not absorbing information anymore. You can only read about the impact of Michelangelo’s art for so long.

For those of you who feel like you’re dying inside with every page you read or every flash card you complete, do not despair. This semester is almost over, after which you can go home and enjoy great food, the comfort of your own bed, and the company of people you haven’t seen in a while. So enjoy this time of year, regardless of what holiday, if any, you celebrate.