"It Always Seems Impossible Until It's Done"

The title of this post is a quote by Nelson Mandela, a wise man who knew what he was talking about. That quote pretty much sums up my usual homework experiences. I spent a lot of my time at university last year being very stressed out over all of my homework and making sure I got it all done on time. When I was in high school, I hardly spent any time doing homework. As long as I paid attention in class, and took notes, I didn't really have a hard time doing well on my assignments and tests. A lot of times I would finish my homework the day it was due, an hour or so before I had to turn it in. This sounds like a really bad habit, but these were the assignments that were never really challenging to me. Of course I spent more time on the bigger assignments that required more research, preparation, and thinking. I was never really a procrastinator on the big stuff. If I had a big speech or paper due, I made sure I gave myself enough time to get it done, and to do it well while many of my friends and classmates started working on them a night or two before the deadline. And since I went to a pretty small school, I guess I was used to being one of the "smarter" kids. All of that changed when I went to college.

Haha pretty sure he was glaring at me because
I snuck a picture without paying him! 

There were people here that were so much smarter than me and knew so much more, and it was really hard to get used to. I found myself getting upset, and really stressed because I felt like I had to try so much harder than most people to get a good grade. I'm studying a very demanding course that involves a lot of math. Ironically, math is one of my least favorite things in the entire world (I ask myself a lot why I chose this particular course). I'm not very good with numbers at all. It was really annoying for me to have to constantly sit down and concentrate on studying while all of my friends got to do whatever they wanted because they hardly ever had any homework, and if they did, it seemed to be very easy for them. It got to the point where I felt that there wasn't enough time in the day to get everything done, and sometimes I didn't even have time to eat or use the restroom. Also, I always had the pressure of my older sisters' near perfect grades throughout their entire college career looming over me. There were many times when I would talk to my mom who would always tell me that it would be fine as long as I tried my best. (Typical Mom stuff) However, this caused me to over analyze what my "best" actually was. Thoughts that crossed my mind were "Was I really trying hard enough?" "I could always fix this, or spend more time on that. Maybe if I just read it one more time, I'll catch another mistake in this essay." 

Yep, these are my crazy sisters :) 

It took me a while to learn when to call it good, and stop working on something. One of my problems, I realized was not giving myself enough time to do something to the best of my abilities. I got into a really bad habit of saving all of the practice problems for the entire three or so chapters to do the week before the test, along with reading those chapters, and studying the notes I had taken during class. And oftentimes, I would have several tests to prepare for around the same time. This semester, I'm trying to make it my goal to keep up with my school work in a timely manner and pace myself. I'm also trying to sit back, take a deep breath, and relax. I have a tendency to stress and worry over tiny things that I shouldn't even be bothered about. It's always good to take time and appreciate all the little things. That is why I've included these pictures, because they always make me laugh, smile, or bring back some really good memories.

This post is getting quite rambly, and probably more information that you bargained for. I only intended it to be a short list, but I guess I got a little carried away. Basically what I really wanted to say was that I found some quotes that I really like and wanted to post them. Blame Nelson Mandela for the long narrative that came before this ;) I'm not usually the type of person to read inspirational quotes, but my notice board had a lot of empty holes in it between the pictures I pinned up, so I looked up some quotes that I thought would be appropriate. They all have one thing in common: they all reference smiling. That's because "I like smiling, smiling's my favorite!", to quote everybody's favorite elf. It's true, I do love smiling. I mean really, who doesn't??

"You're never fully dressed without a smile." ~ Martin Charrin

"A smile is happiness you'll find right under your nose." ~ Tom Wilson

"Beauty is power, a smile is it's sword." ~ John Ray

"If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it." ~ Andy Rooney

"Wear a smile and have friends, wear a scowl and have wrinkles." ~ George Elliot

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." ~ Dr. Seuss

(My personal fav, since I tend to dwell on the past a lot)

"A smile is a facelift that's in everyone's price range" ~ Tom Wilson

"Nothing you wear is more important than your smile." ~ Connie Stevens

Apparently this is what I look like when I'm
freezing! 

Keep Smiling,