I am taking drastic measures to be successful this semester

As I have said before, this is my last semester before I student teach and so I have to make sure I do well in ALL my classes and ALL of my tests. Well, my classes are actually not my biggest stresses right now (that's a first).

My biggest stresses right now are passing these dang prerequisite tests that are required for all Elementary Education majors at BYU-I to pass. I have passed the first one, but this second one is killing me and I've barely touched the third one because it scares the bejeebies out of me! I keep psyching myself whenever I try working on the problems on the practice test because I get test anxiety really badly and I think "I can't do this! I'm not going to pass these tests, so I'm not going to graduate!" And then I calm myself down and tell myself that I can do it. But when I try again, the same thing happens and its just a vicious cycle that's gotta stop.

I talked to my dad yesterday about it and he flat out told me that I have to stop doing that because its doing more damage than good. He told me that my primary focus this semester besides my classes is to pass those tests. Besides passing my actual classes, eating, and church, that was to be my focus this semester (I guess the whole sleeping thing is important too). So I have been cutting back on things I love. I am not taking ANY dance classes this semester, which is really hard for me since I love dance so much but I've wanted to be a teacher for too long to let dance stop me from graduating. I have also cut back on my social life a bit. It's mostly been limited to church, FHE, and maybe doing something on a Saturday with friends. After talking to my dad last night, I knew something that I had to do that would seriously make an impact on how much time I have to study this semester.


I have banned myself from my facebook account (temporarily).

I have found myself wasting way way WAY too much time on that thing and I decided that I was going to have prevent myself from getting tempted to go on there. So I told my dad what my password was and I told him to change it so I wouldn't be able to get on even if I tried really hard.

My first trial of that came today in my practicum when my cooperating teacher asked me if I had a facebook. She told me she has one and she said that's a faster way of getting in contact with her if I needed to ask her something. Immediately when she asked me that, I thought "Heather, don't give in. Emailing will suffice. You don't need to regain access to your facebook to keep in touch with her."

Well, now that I've spent a good 15 minutes on my blog writing this, perhaps I should get on to studying so I don't have to ban myself from blogging too.

My goals

This is slightly cliche, but I am going to write down my goals for this year. The difference between my goals for this year and the past years is that this is in the public eye. People may read this and may ask me about my goals, so it forces me to actually do them. Ok, so here goes:

#1 Pass all my math tests

#2 Get at least a B in all of my classes

#3 Earn enough money to pay for my books and both of my Praxis exams

#4 Pass both of my Praxis Exams

#5 Have a positive experience in my Practicum

#6 Finish my Letter of Introduction before the end of January

#7 Go on at least 3 dates with guys that ask me out instead of me asking them

#8 Earn enough money to pay for my semester of Student Teaching in the Fall

#9 Be more social while still getting good grades

#10 Spend more time with my siblings

I'm sure I've got more, but that's all I can think of right now.