| < | 2006-10-08 @ 4:24 p.m. - |
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I just spent the past 2 hours sitting in the library studying for the tests I have tomorrow: 'Mind, Brain and Behavior' and 'Drugs and Behavior.' So there's the good side, that hey, most of this stuff overlaps anyway.
It was really nice though. I haven't had a real library-style cram session so far this year. So that was refreshing (cause hey, sometimes learning is actually extremely fun... sometimes).
Also, this isn't my first exposure to many of the topics I have to memorize. In fact, it's nice to know that in three years of college, I actually already know some of the things I'm being tested on.
I'm reading like crazy about neurotransmitters, hormones and drugs-- so coming out of the library feeling a little manic had me to thinking about the relationship between neural pathways involved in intense studying and satisfaction/pleasure mechanisms. Especially since so much of the neuroscience of drugs involves this idea of "rewards"-- I wonder if that's why studying is more satisfying NOW than it was when I was in high school. So much of high school studying is rote memorization because the material is entirely unfamiliar. In college (or at least now in my last year of college) studying is all about making associations amongst what you're trying to learn and what you already know. You have enough pieces of the puzzle already to be able to make the connection between the piece in your hand and the picture on the box. Really, this calls the system of rewards in BIG TIME since every five minutes or so I'm going "Jeez, I remember learning this last year! I'm gonna kick ass on this test," which just makes me study even harder for another five minutes.
You know, the sheer excitement I derive from this shit is what makes me think I'm not ready to leave school. Not twenty minutes ago, I was crazy excited because I started feeling that connection between "the more you know" and the more real the world feels. There's this quote I vaguely remember from a Nabokov interview I saw in Petersburg-- reality and knowledge are intertwined. The less you know about something (for example, the way a technological device works), the less real it feels to you (look at the computer you're reading from and realize that it only feels real to you in regards to what you KNOW it does-- something with which you check your email and news without understanding the circuits/chips/whatnot behind it all). So really, a "computer" is something COMPLETELY different to a programmer than it is to someone who only plays solitaire on it (sorry, Mom)-- and technically, neither form of reality is wrong, it's just a matter of utility and informedness.
What? Ok... well... sigh. Yes. This is the kind of thing I think about when I've been studying all day. But hey, I also learned in my reading that, contrary to what I had originally thought, a diuretic is something that makes you pee, not poop.
There. That's more like it.
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