Dealing with rejection - from the rejector's side

In my Anatomy 2 class, I have found myself having become a class leader. With that, a group project was assigned and we could form our own groups. I found a couple of people with whom I felt that I shared similar level of engagement and we formed our group.

Since then, I have had many requests from other classmates asking to be in my group.

First, it's a nice compliment to have people want to work with me. At the same time, it doesn't make sense to make our group so big. 

I'm trying to recall where I heard the following strategy that I used. It may have been from Tim Ferris (tim.blog).

Anyway, I have had to learn how to say no to people. Being a "people pleaser" is something that has both benefitted me as well as create situations where I fail to fulfil responsibilities to their completion. 

My response has been, "We have enough people in our group. A couple of other people who don't have a group have reached out to me as well. Should I connect you to them?"

In this way, I've said no. I want to be helpful, so offering an alternative is still being true to being helpful, an important value to me.

Fun Fact: Blood Vessels

 If you laid out all of the blood vessels in a human body, they would stretch between 60,000 and 100,000 miles. (Child vs adult.) Yes - miles.

https://www.fi.edu/heart/blood-vessels#:~:text=But%20if%20you%20took%20all,arteries%2C%20veins%2C%20and%20capillaries.

Mask your lungs

Painting my front fence and stairs has been something I've been putting off for far too long. 

It's the cleanup. 

I hate it. It's the worst.

And, I could just as easily buy throw-away stuff, but that goes against my principles. Which, of course, is why corners of my house are cluttered. Brutal.

At any rate, I finally wrap my mind around getting the project done. Calculations of square footage are done, sanding and scraping are done, gathering supplies, and finally buying the paint. 

While sanding and scraping, I realized - why am I not wearing a mask? 

One thing that I hope we've all (most of us, anyway) have realized is that small particles get in the air. While we absolutely cannot avoid all particles, regardless of what level of mask we wear, we can reduce the quantity - or load - that we inhale.

So, I grabbed my gaiter and went to work. I also put it on while painting because, my logic told me that, while rolling paint on, there would be droplets invisible to the eye that would get in the air that I certainly didn't want to breathe. 

Am I certain that I'm right? No, as I have no way to test my hypothesis in a practical way. Err on the side of caution? We all measure risk. Protecting my lungs from harm is something that makes sense to me!

Study Habit Flow Chart

 The best study habit that I've developed through suggestion and experience is the ability to read without understanding. 

What???

I think that's one of the biggest challenges that I've faced in my limited time as a science student. My chemistry professor in the fall '20 semester said to read the chapter without working hard to understand it.

That is really hard for me.

What I'm learning, though, is that if I can plow through it and just read it and maybe learn some of the vocabulary before the lecture, that I can then go back and it will start to make sense. 

For example, in studying for a test, I'm going back and filling in my notes from class. The class moves way too fast to make detailed notes during the lecture. I find myself missing important information and discussion if I take too many notes, so I just try and get the highlights and make "bookmarks" of where in the PowerPoint it can be found. 

Now that I've laid that foundation, I am going back and filling in notes and making compare and contrast tables and it's all coming together.

Again, though, it starts with that first step of reading without understanding, which actually takes a good amount of fortitude because you keep saying, "What???" to yourself and the desire to go back and read and reread until you get it. 

Oh! And make questions about the things you don't understand, even if it's just, I don't get X main topic. Those become bookmarks for your mind and will actually help to reinforce the learning that comes from the lecture.

So: read without fully understanding -> form questions from the reading to take to lecture for discussion ->  take notes on the lecture and ask when your questions aren't answered in the lecture -> reread and make flashcards for vocab with new understanding -> review notes and fill in missing info and detail -> tables to compare and contrast concepts and processes -> flow charts to show the steps and components of a process