Nutrition Sciences Major: 'What You Need to Get Done Will Get Done'

Greetings, everyone. I hope everyone is having a beautiful day, and that they find whatever you do to be fulfilling for the heart, body, and mind.

Lately I’ve been feeling behind, and I know that it’s partially because I’m slacking in my academics (please don’t tell my mom). However, it’s not for the reasons you’d think.

...

Okay yeah maybe schoolwork is feeling a bit more tedious than usual, and it’s boring sometimes, but that’s beside the point –

I don’t know why, but I have been overflowing with creative energy lately. I’ve done at least two oil pastel pieces this past week (which is insane), genuinely enjoyed my time in culinary class, both cooking and taking a ton of photos, dancing in my bedroom, reading, journaling, etc. I feel as though my body or soul – or at least some very innate part of me – wants something more human than homework. To all the professors reading this, hear me out: I understand how important schoolwork is. It’s the whole reason all of us are at college in the first place. Yet, on the flipside, college is also a stage in one’s life that they are finding who they are as a person. Perhaps it’s not as villainous to embrace my creative spirit as my mind is making it out to be, but homework is homework, and I cannot have my grades slipping out from underneath me.

So, how do we solve this?

Well, time management. Plain and simple. I wouldn’t say I’m a procrastinator, but I do believe that I need to be able to recenter my focus again. For classes such as Organic Chemistry II, EMT II, Anatomy & Physiology, and my nutrition courses, a good deal of effort, memorization, and self-education take place, not to mention active application.

Speaking of active application, I worked 16 hours as a volunteer EMT Wednesday into Thursday. Did I go to class? Nope. Did I get clinical hours and have an absolute blast? Yep. How I didn’t fall asleep I have no idea, but soon enough I found myself back at my apartment thinking to myself:

What the heck just happened?

For the sake of everyone’s sleep and sanity, I highly recommend not doing this. It’s taxing, long, and while it does give you a good dose of clinical hours, you can always just do two separate 8-hour shifts.

You: “So ... why did you do it?”

Author, drinking a cup of coffee and looking you dead in the eye: "......why not?"

This is terrible reasoning, I know, and in result, I have definitely had some sort of EMS or sleep-deprivation hangover the last couple of days. I’ve been able to work through it, but it’s definitely messed with my ability to focus on a few things, which brings us back to my original point:

Time Management.

Normally, I aim to have all of my assignments done by Friday. Does this always happen? Of course not, but it’s certainly a goal I keep in mind. My schedule is free enough to allow me to bang out homework, do my job(s), and live life as a human being; I’ve just been scatterbrained and distracted enough for it to become a problem. So, it’s time to refocus and make a game plan. Feel free to use this as a template for your own studies if you’d like, or just as a general way to go about your to-do list:

Typically, when organizing my week, I start with all of the assignments that I have due. It can definitely be a little overwhelming to see them all written out, but once you break everything down and organize it, everything becomes a lot more manageable.

Assignments due this week:

• EMT
  • CH.41 Reading, Notes, Assessment (due Tuesday)
• ORGO
  • Test Wednesday
  • Study CH.12, 13, 14
• CHEMLAB
  • Pre-Lab Quiz (Due Monday)
• SPORTS
  • Not published yet
• DIET
  • Career Path (Due Sunday)
• SFH (Safe Food Handling)
  • CH.12 & 13 Reading, Notes, Quiz (Due Sunday)
• CULINARY
  • “What is Your Healthy”? Project (Due Thursday)

Alright, so nothing horribly bad. Remember that a lot of these involve reading and writing (i.e., chapter readings and quizzes), but a few will require supplementary studying. For example, I will be going over the nervous system from A&P I have to bolster my understanding of its application in A&P, so I’ll need to schedule that out. Additionally, let’s make sure I throw in any meetings, plans, workdays, or anything else that will stop me from my coursework, shall we?

Sunday Tasks:

• Prep CH.41 EMT
  • This means that I create a document outline with headers, a vocabulary page, and other fun stuff so that when it comes to actually taking notes, the organization is already done for me
• Blog
  • Finish research outline after work (no, you don’t get to know what it is)
• Laundry (in progress)

Monday Tasks:

• Meetings
  • 9:30 a.m. Coffee w/ a friend
  • 2:30 p.m. Dietician appt
• Assignments I want to get through
  • Complete EMT CH.41 (Due Tuesday!)
  • CH.12 Notes & Quiz SFH
  • Nervous System Review A&P
  • ORGO Review (!!) CH.12 + 13
    • Note: anything with an exclamation point means “important,” and means that I need to focus on that first above all other things
• Personal Tasks
  • Apartment cleaning
  • Emails
  • Send in blog articles

As much as I would like to write out the remainder of my week, that would take several pages and would get increasingly repetitive. Yet now you have an idea of how I filter things. Keep in mind that I only have one class on Monday – Organic Chemistry – which is why I’m able to get so much done. Already, we’ve bit off a good chunk of work that needs to get done.

So, there’s that all written out.

Maybe it’s just a me thing, but does anyone else think about just throwing it all away and going to go live in the woods to bake bread for the rest of our lives? Make friends with the ducks of a nearby pond, understand that you have an owl as your neighbor now instead of a bunch of teenagers, and that there is absolutely no Wi-Fi to be found. That’s sometimes what I imagine life to be. Before I could never rest with the idea of a simple life. I chased everything life had to offer, and I still do so to this day. However, sometimes, it’s extremely tempting to just put everything on pause and – I don’t know – chase my dreams of becoming a really, really good artist or chef. Those two are heavy passions of mine, and while I would pursue them, they do not create a very financially stable environment. Additionally, I don’t always want to sell my art. It’s not because I don’t want money, haha, but because I don’t want to make something I truly love feel like a job. Or a chore. I think the latter is worse, being honest. Even with the blog sometimes, all I can say to myself is:

“Ugh, what on earth am I supposed to write about?”

Which is where creativity comes into play as an extremely handy tool.

I don’t know. Sometimes when I’m just lying on the floor in the feels with Coldplay going, all I think about is starting my own cafe or the other “what ifs” I could’ve done with my life. The cafe would be vegan and vegetarian friendly and have an absurd amount of plants almost everywhere in it. There would be glass windows, and a very pet-friendly policy (though there would be a sign warning pet owners of the plants, which would be labeled with both their species and common name). I’d want it to be a home for people. I would want it to be warm, inviting, and a truly supportive atmosphere with all the employees pitching into the playlist to create a wonderful ensemble of music.

Floor thoughts, man. They getcha.

Anyhow, that’s kinda what’s been up lately. I’m sure homework ruts have happened to people before, so I’m not quite freaking out (yet). Honestly, I’ve just been gentle with myself about it. I’ve allowed myself time to do art, but I’ve also made sure to get through my studies first before doing so. If anyone else feels as though they’re being stagnant, I’d highly recommend drawing everything out – and I mean everything. Allot time for fun, for academics, and for all the other life-y stuff that may be happening during your existence. Make a game plan and stick to it the best you can. Life will never be linear, and allowing yourself the room and the grace to change and take up space will make everything all the easier.

What you need to get done will get done. How you go about doing so is a different story.

I hope everyone’s week, weekend, day, month, year, century, is going well and that all of you are enjoying all that life has to offer as I have been. Feel free to reach out with any questions, comments, or potential concerns to bglav1@unh.newhaven.edu and I’ll get back to you in a jiffy. Take care everybody.

With peace, love, and all the peanut butter, your blogger,
Beatrice

Beatrice Glaviano ’26 is a nutrition sciences major at the University of New Haven.