September 19th, 2010

Lately I've been really nervous about the workload I'll have in college.  I'm really not used to doing a whole lot of homework.  I kind of regret slacking off as much as I did in high school.  I know I am a smart person, but I didn't apply myself as much as I could.  I've gotten in the habit of putting things off or not pushing myself.  Unfortunately, I've gotten comfortable with only doing things halfway.  I'll put some effort in, just to get the work done, but I rarely pushed myself unless it was something I was genuinely excited about and interested in.  I've been working on this paper and it's been kind of difficult for me to write because the chaos theory is fairly complex and I'm struggling to explain it correctly in my paper.  I'm trying to tell myself to keep working hard on it and push myself to get it done to the best of my ability.  I'm getting worried about college!  It's been so fun these first few weeks but my classes for winter term seem like more difficult classes and I don't want to get in the habit of putting things off here.  I want to make sure I'm getting things done and working hard on them.  When we were first assigned the research paper is IS 101 I didn't think twice about it because I  loved research papers in high school and I like to think of myself as a strong writer.  Then I picked the chaos theory because I was very curious about the background of it and what it meant.  The quote from the movie that intrigued me was from Doctor Malcolm: "Anything that can happen, will happen."
Now as I'm sitting at my desk attempting to write my chaos theory paper, I'm regretting my choice because the reality of the chaos theory is far more mathematical and harder to explain than that. 
I didn't expect it to be easy at Wartburg.  Part of the reason I picked the school was because I knew it would be challenging and help me grow as both a person and student.  However, my prior knowledge of the academic difficulty isn't making the transition any easier.