I'm really trying to feel better about myself

[Music_Freak]

I don't know where to start with this, there's so much in my head right now...

I've got nothing, but my cat...no job, no friends, far from a family priority etc. etc.

My mum died 10 years ago on 26.2 and I still miss her so badly, she was the only person I had who was in my corner. Everyone else (family, friends that currently aren't talking to me) say I play the victim and am all "woe is me"

My sister's said I look like a silverback gorilla and other such things. She's a bully who gets away with it all, because she's the favourite and "normal" (kids, married, no mental illness - although I have doubts about that last one). My dad's called me fat and said that "You're bent like your mother" (she was bipolar). He lives with me and getting him to do anything is such a battle, he doesn't feel like paying the rent, so it's left to me, goes to work when he feels like it, helps my sister with her house but won't with me etc. etc. etc....I could go on and on with them!!

I have a GP and a psychologist that I should go back to (sessions are free and they're within walking distance), but I wonder if it's worth it when my psychologist said me running an instagram account for a celebrity is me living in fantasy land

I won't write any more, because I can't see anyone replying. I've got nothing and nobody and just want to forget...

[Music_Freak]

I just have to find one and figure out how I'll pay for it.

What a day!!!

I've had a shower and moved books and laptop to my room. Maybe I'll do readings and stuff. I'm off to the vet tomorrow with Buddy and then online shopping...

Please let tomorrow be OK.

[Music_Freak]

Sorry about the messed up last posts, I hit the wrong part of my phone - d'oh!!

It does kind of match my day though. I'm sitting in the dark and silence, trying to psych myself up to put my bin out

[Guest_1055]

Ah Narelle... just been reading through the last few pages of your thread.

Even though you are facing lots of new challenges in your life. It all sort of sounds exciting to me. It truly does.

What have you learnt about brain development in the early years? Is that like how the brain changes in a baby. If so that sounds quite interesting.

[Music_Freak]

Thanks Shelley, and yes, that's basically it, though more in depth (which I'm struggling with). It was an elective for me, I wanted to do one about reading/writing fiction works, but it wasn't available until next year 😞

Two loads of washing, dishes and trying to get my head around brain development since 9am and my brain is fried...and I've got a study workshop in two hours.

How do you uni people take notes for lectures? Mine are recorded/written and I struggle to keep up/know what to note!

[Music_Freak]

Oh boy...

Finding referencing hard, finding note taking hard...is this all worth the stress?!

Struggling with this brain development assignment...I need an example or three, but no, there's none...I feel like I'm driving blind, I've driven exhausted and that was bad enough. When will I have a clue what I'm doing?! Feedback for this would be nice, but I'll have to submit first, I think. I guess there's only one way to go from bottom/failing...

So stressed out lately, I hate it...

[Birdy77]

Hi MF,

Until you get used to referencing, it might be helpful to copy and paste an example from the study skills section or "how to reference" section from the department you are studying in. Each discipline can have slightly different rules. Then swap in your article name, author, year, page etc. That way you'll have the order correct, and the italics, underlines, commas etc right. Painstaking and annoying but necessary. Keep in mind they will usually be forgiving for first year subjects, but it's just something you need to learn.

With note taking, the advantage you have is that you can pause the lecture if you want to take furious notes. It can be tempting to want to write everything down. But try to just take salient points. If you think something's really important, write down the mins:seconds on your notes and you can go back and listen to it later.

You still have a few days for the submission, you can find three examples in that time, you may just need to do some extra reading? You should have access to online scholarly articles, those archives are your best friends right now.

🌻birdy

[Music_Freak]

You make it sound so easy Birdy...

I just wish there weren't so many tears...I really started to wonder if uni was worth the energy and effort today. I seem to be doing so much for so long and working harder than anybody else seems to. It's wearing me down big time...

I slept through my alarm until 10 this morning and got out of bed in a panic, but turned the laptop off and had a shower at 4pm...not the longest day, but still the tears came.

I looked at real estate again yesterday and it seems like such a huge fantasy right now 😞

[smallwolf]

On Referencing.... Does the University or lecturers tell you about or give you a link to a program called EndNote. It is used at CSU and formats references according the style selected. All you have to do is fill out the fields such as Title, Author, Date, Publisher etc.

With that said... About 4 years ago I started my BTh. It is a Arts degree. Way different to Science degrees in the 90s. In the very first assignment I used the wrong referencing style. Did I fail the assignment? No. Why? It is a first year subject, and most of the marks are based on the argument presented. Correct referencing will become more important in 2nd and 3rd year level subjects.

So ... (1) what style of referencing is used? And I can give you an example. (2) Do the lecturer use powerpoint presentations? If so, they generally make these electronically available to students? Both in the 90s and today. They typically record lectures for distance students, so you should also be able to get access to that also.

Tim

[Birdy77]

Dear MF,

Sorry there have been tears and that you're feeling stressed.

Uni is hard, and takes lots of hard work and dedication.

It will take time to get into the swing of things and get a routine going and find your mojo for study.

It will feel like you're working hard, because you are. That's just part of it.

I can't tell you how many tears I shed whilst studying. It's stressful! But with determination, you will get through it and you will be proud of yourself that you did.

🌻birdy

[Music_Freak]

Tim, I have heard of EndNote, vaguely, will have to download it to the laptop. I need all the help I can get. I have heard that it isn't exact, but I have a printed out guide I can check. I'm at UniSA and I'm meant to use their version of Harvard referencing.

There's some powerpoint presentation slides we can save, but the lectures are just recorded from theatres and posted on line. One I've had has just been written text and embedded videos. None of it seems to be sinking in or being retained by my brain though...

Birdy, Thanks again for talking sense. Finding my mojo will be hard since I'm working at uni stuff all day, every day - good thing I have no friends, family or a life - no time for that to exist!! I'm barely even watching TV!! I got out of bed at 9am and that's a late start, I'll probably be setting my alarm for 6am next week, instead of 7am