Study and exercise

While I have a few other finished knitted items to share with you, I'm dedicating this post to my priorities this week: study and exercise.

This coming Monday, Wednesday and Friday I will be taking the PhD comprehensive exams. It's 8 hours each day, and I've been spending the last few months studying, and the last couple of years taking classes in preparation. A few weeks ago, I decided that no matter how much more studying I felt I needed, I also needed some time for myself, especially to exercise.

When I trained for a marathon a couple years ago, I found that running the marathon itself was difficult... but not nearly as difficult as the four months of training that preceded it! Usually, when I run, I find the first 3rd of the distance to be difficult. Once I'm past halfway, I have a lot of motivation to finish. Especially when doing the marathon, I couldn't give up once I got more than halfway because I knew that would mean another 4 months of training to try again.

I fully expect these exams to be easier than the last four months of studying. Passing those exams is also the first of 3 hurdles to graduation. The next two are my dissertation proposal and the dissertation writing/defense. Hopefully, getting through the first 3rd of grad school will prove to be the hardest part. Maybe not, but taking exams gives me a lot more anxiety than it used to. However, writing and presenting does not.