Hey everyone,
So I’ve decided not to read any news on Sundays from now on. I think having a break once a week would be good for my stress, especially during these next three weeks as I really have to focus on studying. Statistically, I only have about a 45% chance of passing this sitting, and only about a 25%-35% on the upper examinations based on historical evidence. Realistically, I have to keep in mind that I might fail at one point, and even most good students fail somewhere along the way. Most of us are pretty open about when we fail an exam – and there’s no stigma against it, although it doesn’t feel good when it happens. I feel OK about this test, and my study progress is slightly better than that of MLC so we’ll see how it goes, though there is more information to learn this time around.
That being said, I don’t want to put all of my eggs in one basket, so I still make sure to spend time on other things that I find important. I went for a 3 hour ride Saturday morning around Clear Lake before visiting my parents. Chris Langley, a fellow racer on Bike Barn, decided to forgo racing at Coldspring because he was “out of shape,” and pulled for the last 20 minutes at 30mph while I barely managed to stay on his wheel, my heart pounding at 176 bpm. It’s nice that I’m still able to hold that heart rate, which is a sign that I haven’t lost too much fitness. I’m pretty bummed out about missing racing this weekend, or having to miss 2-3 months out of every year to study for these tests. The material itself is actually pretty interesting, but the pressure of exams can be mentally exhausting, and I think most statisticians would agree. In the end I think, it’ll be worth it.
I sacrificed some of my study time to finish up a Sociology book I’d been reading for the last couple of months. It was really fascinating, although a lot of it went over things that I already knew so it wasn’t the most efficient use of my time. It mainly focused on inequality with respect to wealth, rights, and gender, and discussed some of the theories by Marx, Durkheim, and Weber. I was somewhat disappointed as it didn’t focus much on human interaction on an individual or group basis. On the contrary, the style was more macro-oriented and dealt with human relations by class or nationality. Overall, I’d recommend it to most teenagers…I’d be disappointed if a high school graduate weren’t aware of the huge gap in living standards between Denmark and the DRC, for instance…or perhaps, the fact people in other countries have a greater life expectancy than those in the United States, even though they spend less on healthcare.
I’ve got a lot of interesting projects planned as soon as June starts. I’ll finally get around to reading the Cyclist’s Training Bible, and after that I’ll get started on Vonnegut’s Player Piano and Perry and Bratman’s Introduction to Philosophy. I also have some races planned this summer in Louisiana, where I went last year and had a lot of fun. I’m really looking forward to it.