Sources

I've been doing some thinking and I can tell what a lot of my problems are stemming from.

First: I cannot cope well with stress, which is completely and totally ironic, because I put so much of it onto myself, you would think that I would be an expert at handling stress.

Second: The means by which I handle stress are fundamentally not healthy for me. Duh.

Third: In order to improve and rid myself of my badness, I have to find that healthy alternative. I'm trying to figure out what it might be--something that doesn't cost a lot of money. I've tried walking, but unfortuantely, I don't do enough of it to be effective. I would have to walk maybe 3 or 4 hours, and my dog cannot last more than 20 minutes.

Fourth: I need to put less pressure on myself to excel to unreasonable levels. I'm getting a little better at that. I figure that I'll get A's in French, Biostats, Logic, and bioseminar pretty easily. Biochemistry looks like it'll be a firm A also. That's 14 pretty much guaranteed A's. If I can get A's in the rest of my classes that are not thesis (advanced immunology [this is the one that matters most], genetics lab), then my thesis isn't a huge deal. So long as I get at least a C on my thesis, I'll be happy, because it gets me my degree. That's all that matters. In 40 years, having a 4.0 all of college won't be a huge deal. I mean, I've taken so many classes that even if I did get a C, I would have a 3.74 on the semester (it would knock me off of the Dean's List, so I would prefer to get at least a C+) and a 3.97 GPA overall (assuming I get straight A's in the fall). A C+ would let me have a 3.97 overall and a 3.77 on semester. So if I get all A's except a C+ in thesis, I would still get on the Dean's List. A B- would give a 3.82 semester and a 3.98 overall. A B would give me a 3.86 semester and a 3.98 overall. A B+: 3.90 semester and 3.99 overall. An A-: 3.96 semester and a 3.995 overall. Seriously not too phased.

Fifth: I procrastinate too much. This leads to much stress. I've been trying to correct it, but I haven't had a whole lot of luck on that, especially this semester. I mean, I could be working on my philosophy thesis now, rather than typing on here.

Speaking of thesis, guess who has 30 pages done??? I DO!!!!! The only problem is that I'm about 1/2 done, i.e. my thesis is going to be about as long as my last majorly huge paper.

I'm going to try to get five more pages in tonight before I go to bed, so if I can do that, I'll be impressed with myself.

Things I have to do still:
Discuss complex genetic stuff like transposons, immunoglobin genes, and CD40
Develop the milieu of mechanistic materialism.
Argue why it is so wrong for biology
Demonstrate that current alternatives are not suitable enough
Develop a dialectic of genes
Discuss implications

That's easily going to be 30+ pages.

Living alone does some good things for me, but there are still a lot of distractions around, ones that weren't there as much when I lived in the dorm. TV and Internet prove to be my undoing.

I need to clean house too, now that I think about it. Certain parts of the house are pretty messy. I should get on that promptly.