"Winter is the time for study you know, and the colder it is the more studious we are." Henry Thoreau
Winter term began last week and so it is time to begin studying once more. There is something about the winter that lends itself to studying; the cold, grey days and long dark nights are perfect for spending time with a pile of books. I quite enjoy studying, though it must be said that I am not always in the mood for it. That is why winter is the season which colludes with us in our book work, for who wants to go out into the cold anyway, when you can snuggle up indoors and read for hours on end?
There is a lot of reading to do this trimester - about one or two books per week, every week, without a break. As a bookworm I love to read, but reading for academics is completely different to reading for fun, even if you are studying literature. Firstly, you don't get to choose what books you read. Secondly, you are put into reading-pairs and have to give presentations on the set text, so there is no getting out of it - you must read what is put in front of you and you are held accountable, not only by your tutor, but also by your fellow student and reading partner. You can't just say you've read it when you haven't. Plus, this also means that we have reading deadlines to meet, so there is no slacking off!
That said, I try to make studying as much fun as possible. I make the house all cosy and I gather together all that I need to see me through a long stint. I want to enjoy my favourite season, so even though we haven't had any snow in Yorkshire yet, today I've been playing my Winter Snow ambient DVD in the background as I study. I've also had Gingerbread Spice candles burning, which has made the whole house smell like a fairytale. Often I'll burn frankincense oil in my oil burner too as it is said to aid concentration.
Some people like to have music playing when they study, but I prefer silence or the sounds of nature. My Winter Snow DVD has lovely nature sounds of icy rivers bubbling over rocks and the wind blowing snow off fir trees - it's just beautiful and it sets the seasonal mood perfectly, giving me the thrill of winter each time I look up from my text books or laptop. It makes me smile. Sometimes I play the Fireside DVD instead, which is really cosy and perfect for late night studying in bed, when I'm burning the midnight oil.
I gather the books I need, my lecture pad to makes notes on, my laptop, highlighters and a ton of study tabs. I do highlight my text books if I need to, but only if I know I'm not going to be using them again beyond the course. I much prefer clean copy and for me it is some kind of sacrilege and vandalism to paint over lines of text in neon highlighter - even though I bought the pretty pastel pink and lilac highlighters, it still seems wrong to defile the books!
So I prefer to use study tabs and I have a colour coded system for this when I stick them to the page - orange is for quotations I can use in my essays, yellow is for facts to remember, blue is for motivation and insights, while pink is for anything that I feel is relevant to life in general, not just the course work. The more I have enjoyed reading one of the set texts, the more study tabs there will be, because I will have got so much out of it - so many snippets that I want to remember and be able to refer back to easily. Very few study tabs means that I found the book a chore to read - and there have been a few such books on this Masters course!
Once I've got all my stuff together and set up a cosy scene, I make sure I have a hot drink and snacks to hand and then I get my head down to some work. If I have an essay to write, I find that looking for appropriate quotations is a gentle way in to it. Once I have my quotes, I can build up my essay from there, so finding quotes is quite motivational for me and always my first task.
Reading a few books might not seem like hard work to those who have never done an academic course, but a day of studying can leave you feeling exhausted and head-achy, with tired eyes from all that reading, so I try to have breaks when I can. After a day of reading books for university, I like to watch a nice film, or read a book that is completely unrelated to my course - or write a blog post! It's important to rest as well as study and so I'm now going to put all the text books away and start reading a lovely collection of short stories, all written around a theme of winter and magic! That sounds like an enchanting way to spend a cosy, winter's night.
Bright Blessings,
Marie x
xxx
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