Metacognition: Get Organized

It was the Tuesday night before break and I had a flight to catch that required me to wake up at 3AM. "Hurry up and get all your packing done!" my dad said. Unfortunately, my typical procrastinating self hadn't even opened my suitcase. I instead decided it would be a good time to replace procrastination with productivity and start working on this blog post. I'll make my blog assignment easy on myself and just sort through my records, I thought. As I started sifting through the records, I not only got a few facefuls of dust, but got bored of trying to be neat. Dejectedly, I took a couple of my favorite records back to my rooom and attempted to at least sort those few. But as I got more and more into the project, I ended up completely reorganizing my room.

Not only is my room slightly less cluttered, but my mind is too. It's easier to focus on your priorities when you aren't distracted by your surroundings. We tend to get caught up with computers and work and friends. And once it's all simplified, the stress eases away and the way is paved to focus on what is really important to you at that given point in time.

At the beginning of the year we read "Memoria ex Machina" where the author talked about how he associated memories with objects from his past. This project forced me to look at the memories I associate with my own objects, particularly with art and music. I can recall the exact moment I first heard a song just by hearing the opening chord--I was sick the Christmas I played track 3, I still hated that album until I heard the 4th song, the first track played that time when I had slammed my door in some sort of angry cry for attention. And there's something memorable about the anticipation of the waiting for a record I haven't heard in a while to start playing, waiting for those memories to come back. The needle is set, the record is spinning, and any moment the first track will sound.

On my quest for a cleaner room I found a small plastic box with a ladybug sticker on the side. I had stuffed the box with old drawings and paintings and sketchpads.
I always took it for granted that those types of memories would always be there when I wanted to look back on my history. I thought could just start listening to a record I forgot I owned or flip through old sketchbooks with drawings from a wannabe troubled artist middle schooler and I would remember everything. But the longer the records stayed untouched and the drawings started to stick together, the more dust everything collected. I don't remember exactly what I was thinking or how I was feeling when I painted that picture. Maybe something about it seems silly looking back, but it was meaningful to me at the time. Though I can't recall what the meaning once was, something about it had an impact on how I grew to be who I am today.

And to future me, reminiscing on this blog--go listen to some of those old records. You never know what you'll remember.

Metacognition: Beginning Quarter 2

We're currently in that inevitably awkward stage between quarters where students have to face the question of doom: how hard do I actually have to try this quarter? 

There's a certain level of adjustment we have to go through each year. With new classes comes new responsibilities.

In a previous blog post, I described my style of thinking as a puzzle, how ideas in my head slowly come together, and more often I know the ending before I know the start. But there's also always been something off about the way I process information. In 8th grade, I had a conversation with my English teacher that prompted her to give me a book on synesthesia. I'm not claiming to be a synesthesiac, but I do link the information in my brain in a similar way that synesthesiacs do. I associate pretty much everything with colors; from moods to music to letters to words to days of the week. 

I wish I could be someone who could sit through long reading assignments and notes and lectures and absorb everything I'm intended to. But a lot of times I have to force myself to focus. I'm one of those people who always has to be doing something with their hands. I'm always drawing or scribbling during class discussions or notes so I have a way to collect my thoughts without being otherwise distracted. I craft new ways to do things if I don't understand the way something is taught; in music theory, I made up my own method of transposition, in Spanish, I made up my own way of explaining preterite and imperfect. I suppose it's not the most effective way to learn information. It's easier to just learn things the first time they are taught, not a trial-and-error of various methods.

However, if I attempted to change the way I think, I would lose hold of my identity. There's a tendency to make it seem like our actions define our character, but I think what truly defines us is the way we think. I think academy really gives us the chance to explore what that means for us as individuals. We have the opportunity to learn in different ways and utilize every part of our brain as we continue to grow and enrich our experience. But this requires an incredible amount of effort, dedication, and focus.

So how hard to I actually have to try this quarter? 

Very hard. 

Very. Very. Hard.