internal vs external pressure

the motivation to work must first and foremost come from yourself. at the same time, you must have people and measures to help keep you accountable to your goals and to help steady you in times you can't do so for yourself. adam thought of my Instagram strategy - the one in which I post daily work reports to my friends and family - as toxic. he said it created too much external pressure and shifted motivation away from myself and to others. 

he's right. this is the same problem i had in early 2021. 

anyways, it's not a huge problem, i'll just be more chill from now on. it helps that i don't force myself to say anything in detail, that if i don't get any work done in a day i can hide behind the "C" grade i give myself. it's important that i continue posting. i need a way to ensure that 10-day slumps in which i don't get anything done don't happen again. but it's equally important that i ensure that the primary source of my motivation comes from within, and that i stay genuine and kind to myself. 

it looks like i have a few hours before i have to head to the marshall building for squash with adam, so i'll get a bit of work done.

_________________________________________________________

journal! 

i completely forgot! i. am. grateful. i am. genuinely and honestly. i have friends, which isn't something i could always say. i have people in my life, many people, that i know love me. i know what love is and that in itself is wonderful. they care for me, and i for them. i care. another thing i haven't always been able to say. i don't feel miserable today. i don't feel overwhelmed. i know i'm unlikely to achieve all firsts in the coming exams and yet i'm quite alright, because i know that i can get all 2.1s. an hour and a half on EU law for the next month will be more than enough to get to grips with everything. enough time to ponder all further readings and play with essay plans. three and a half hours a day on company law, and two and a half on evidence and property for the next 50 days will be enough to memorise the black letter law and grapple with the further readings. i can't make any promises about essay plans, though. and i think that's okay. i've proved, i think, 10 times - wow, 10 times - before that i don't need to do essay plans to get a 2.1. i will feel alright. 

sitting by the glass-paned door in the lower floor of the Marchmont Costa, watching as the green leaves outside rustle in the gentle march wind, vibrant in colour and life against the bright, blue sky. 

___________________________________________________________

weekly planning? anything.... not really. nothing to book. in fact, i need to refund my monday and tuesday bookings.

they didn't pick up. i'll go there in person since it's stopped raining. but before that, i'll practice my serves.

___________________________________________________________

today

130-2 - serves

2-230 - lsesu refund

230-5 - study

5-6 - squash

7- dinner

8-10 - study (till i study the daily minimum for all subjects)

_____________________________________________________________

tomorrow i think i'll come to the sports hall at 8 to practice hitting

damn i can't do that. it's booked at 8 everyday to the 29th. can i hit after 9pm? pls pls pls

i just realised i've been blogging as johanbfaisal@gmail.com, wrong one

 journal

hey. no, i'm not that anxious anymore. I've gotten back into it. it's 7.50, almost 8. today's a pretty good day. grateful for the good start. grateful for the support network i have: the bromunists; hamzah; my sisters. they're all rlly helpful. it's almost a magic bullet that solves all my problems, my support network along with my schedule. 

grateful grateful. 

attack plan

alright. today, tomorrow, Friday we have everything set up - an hour of sports already organised. saturday, none, but we can think of something on the day, maybe iftar. yep iftar at Malaysia hall on saturday. sunday tennis for two hours with mildrid - we can shorten that to one hour. shorten sunday tennis session to one hour. sports next week? book sports for monday and tuesday.

done. 

today, we're gonna go as we feel. we're gonna try get 4.5 hours done. then lunch. maybe. then another 4.5 hours hopefully. i hope we end the day at 6. 

Saturday is such a strange word

 it is. thinking about ariadne. wondering how she's doing. if she's doing alright. how she's managing with all her family troubles. thinking about pasiphae. surely her story gets better, right? i can't imagine an eternity of emptiness. she has died a divine death. i cringe when she cringes, i shudder to think of what pain she must have endured. poseidon you prick. minos you deluded misogynist. everyone is so high and mighty. there is much to learn from leaders who don't glitter. hank, I'm sorry for your loss. 

pity for the minotaur. pity for minos. pity for the gods. it applies to all. a swelling anger towards the notion that there is greater reason behind so much cause for pity. 

an albert camus styled anti-natalist story. one that reads as easy as the stranger. 

but no, i don't think it's morally necessary for humanity to end. it's just morally necessary for humanity to stop causing more suffering than it must. people can still have children, i guess. but then again, i can't judge a human like an animal when a human can consider the consequences to their decision to have children - specifically consequences on the child. no. they can't. 

i think this, but i too want children. for myself. and im proving my point. but maybe also for the child. maybe also to do good in this world by doing good to a child. but no, i still don't think it makes sense. i think its hard to argue that life is more good than not. that the unborn would like to be born. i think life is great and full of blessing arguments forgets that life is, at every point, even at its bests, full of insecurity. maybe I'm arguing the wrong point. i am. the better point is that the good parts aren't worth the bad. and that there's no virtue in bringing new life to the world and making their life good. you're not fixing anything. the fact is that they wouldn't have minded not being born. you're depriving them of the good you're gonna do them? they're not alive! they don't care! the proportion of good in the world will be increased in you doing so? if they end up living a life of more good than bad then what you say is true. still, what you say isn't important because its not good. I'm struggling to find the words to express why i think its a dumb argument. i suppose the words are these: it doesn't matter. the good you bring into the world through nurturing new life is false good. good that is good to no one but that new life, that wouldn't have needed the good had they not been born. and as for the good that new life brings to others? perhaps there is more strength in that argument. "i want to have children so that my children can bring good to the world". i'll have to think about that. i have some responses but they're not killer. m first response is: you still shouldn't because there is too much risk that that won't happen. my second response is: you can do the same by nurturing children already born. my third response is: no, actually, there is no third response. the third response is what I'm looking for, because the first two are insufficient. too easy to dismiss. i can feel it. it's there. it's on the tip of my frontal cortex. I'll express it one day.

how do people become better at critical thinking? i wish i was better. i read but i find i read passively. i don't engage. maybe i should use this blog to consider what I've read. hmmm. 

what i read abt yesterday: andrew state and masculinity, and why it appeals so much to young men, how there is something legitimately there that is missing in our culture, something actually beneficial that state offers, that we need to create a good substitute for. that thing is the feeling that they lack purpose, and drive to pursue that purpose. it's a difficult question to find balance to. i struggle to find balance everyday. we need to do. but at the same time, remember to take care of yourself, and that you don't really need to do if you don't want to, and that you need to stop doing things for others. still, we need to get things done. oh its so confusing. i have yet to find a satisfactory answer to the conundrum that reconciles the demand to get things done and the reminder to do things for oneself and remember to focus on what really matters. maybe the difficulty is peculiar to me, because i don't think anything matters. inherently. maybe the answer is: find things you yourself are passionate for, find what really matters to you, and get things done for that purpose. Adam said he doesn't think you can be happy in work you don't find interest in. i disagreed at the time but I'm starting to agree. what's another word for starting to agree?

i also read ariadne, as you can tell. do i objectify women? i certainly cling onto cute girls for an extra second if accidentally make eye contact, but then i do that to good-looking guys too. 

what it got me thinking about is that i somewhat, sometimes, regret being as apolitical, and apathetic about oppressed groups' problems as i am. reminds me of that time i said to zul that i agree those who don't fight systemic racism, whilst benefitting from it, are part of the problem. they allow it. he disagreed. do people not in the oppressed group have a responsibility to help solve their problems? will have to think about that.

anyways, I've wasted an hour. happy saturdays. but i got to get things done. 

________________________________________________________________

grateful: for the week thus far. it's been good. i haven't felt overwhelmed in over a week. yesterday wasn't the best - evi class was painfully silent - but it was good. attended everything, came to everything prepared and answer questions. more of the same please. i can do well for this exam. yeah! i can do well!!!!! i can get all firsts!!!! it's humanly possible. lmao. dom wth. grateful... to have a better understanding now of the path i want to take: pro bono over the whole of next year; i need to do relevant work experience over the summer; i need to do v well for my exams; i need to do v well in maintaining a v productive study schedule over the next two months. 

it begins everyday. it begins today.

____________________________________________________________

to do:

lunch

1 - 1.40 - pre-lecture-prep

1.45 - 3.45 - EMU lecture

3.45 - 4.- lecture notes consolidation

4.05 - 4.45 - reading session 1

____________________________________________________________

oh my god. why can't i be bothered? it's 1.12 and i haven't started.

i know why: because I underslept; i just ate a large meal; and my mind would rather continue watching tennis videos. 

i'm back. okayyy breathe. we have to prepare for the eu law class on Monday.... we have today, which is another 3 hours and 50 minutes.... we have tomorrow from lunch to 8..... we have Monday from 8 to 11am...we have 13 hours..... but preferably i don't want to use Monday for EU at all, so we have 10 hours.... ah shit dinner tomorrow with Muhammad, we have until 6pm tomorrow.... so have to be strict on tennis after 11 and lunch and shower. but I'll probably start at 2 anyways... ughhhhhhhhahh! i'm feeling like caps lock right now. 4 hrs today. 4hrs tomorrow. 3hrs before class. this isn't enough time to be sufficiently ready for class. and then lunch on Monday. 2-6 lectures... ugh..... okay. i can't finish all the readings. i need to prep for both eu and property. today is EU. that lecture is mine. 4hrs of EU. tomorrow is 2hrs of EU and 2hrs of property. monday is 3hrs of EU in the morning, and 2hrs of property after lectures. tuesday is 3 hrs of property in the morning and property class. okay. can do. 

1.30 - 2.40 - lecture prep

2.45 - 4.45 - emu lecture

4.50 - 5.10 - notes consolidation

and go!

The Streak is Broken, This must be Thursday.

"This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays" - Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - and a few minutes the earth is destroyed.

I haven't read the book, though I've heard from many sources that it's a must read. I just couldn't think of any connection Thursday has to pop culture and found this on Wikipedia. It's so apt! Or, appropo. A new word I found in some book I read. Can't remember which. 

The HC9.25BS rule is so important. Night time is, i think now, the most important part of the schedule. i messed it up on Monday and overslept till 10.44, 4 hours late. i slept late on Tuesday night and arrived at school yesterday at 9.30, almost 10. 2 hours late. i slept at 3 last night and woke up today at 11.30, arrived at school at 1, and only just started writing this at 2.20. I'm 6 hours late today. 

from Monday to now (2 on a Thursday), i've lost 12 hours to a poor sleep and wake schedule. 

that's 3 hours a day. that's like if my schedule was to start at 11. poor poor. 

you wondered how people got things done in the week? you wondered how your batchmates are able to prepare for every class? this is how. they have strict sleep schedules. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

how to fix my sleep and wake schedule...

1. electronic curfew

• maybe a new rule should be, you cannot use your phone for anything; i.e., whatsapp or tennis or news or football, once you arrive home and walk through the front door. 
• finish all notifications and checks before arriving home
• the phone must be turned fully off before entering
• the phone must be charged and kept in the kitchen cabinet
• if you need it
• tell and ask kakngah

2. avoid eating large meals 2-3 hours before bed?

• if you sleep at 9.30, last large meal is at 7.30?

3. avoid physical activity to close to bed time

4. maintain a clean, calm room. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to do

1. notes consolidation

2. eu and governance chpt 7 reading session 1...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

it's 8.48pm now, i did notes consolidation and read a bit from eu law and governance, but i haven't finished.

9 - 9.40 - eu law and governance reading session 1 (pre-read: headers, then first and last sentences; then skim skim skim)

9.45 - 10.25 - Dano (pre-read and skim skim skim)

10.30 - 11.10 - De Witte (pre-read and skim skim skim)

11.15 - 11.55 - V.M.A (pre-read and skim skim skim)

12.00 - 12.40 - Right to Silence lecture notes revision

12.45 - 1.25 - Abenaa (pre-read and skim skim skim)

1.30 - 2.10 - R v D (pre-read and skim skim skim!)

sleep.

study with hamzah 8-9, class, evidence prep, class, lecture, chillax. 

both the meme and the show, it's wednesday

i am so, so, so, so grateful for this blog right now. It's strange. I opened my school work to start the day and I was feeling so bitter about it. ugh, i have to do work and i don't want to do work right now. at least not yet. i haven't even done anything fun in the day and I have to work. that's not really true, i was laughing to Dear Hank and John for a while just now, i for 2 minutes just now that's how i felt. and then I remembered, wait a minute, I'm not supposed to do work just yet! I'm supposed to blog for a bit! that's right! i find this really fun. many times i think that if I were two people, i'd be best friends with myself. a much better friend to myself than i am in my current consciousness-self relationship. 

anyways, journal dournal. 

it's Wednesday my dudes. yesterday went fairly well. went to an hour's class, great. did about 5 hours of studying, wonderful. grocery shopped. followed all my rules at home, didn't procrastinate my bedtime routine, amazing. but. i overslept (1). i woke up at 10:44 when i was supposed to wake up at 6:30. I forgot to set an alarm and slept for 13 straight hours. (2) i went to bed at 11:30, not 9:30, causing me to wake up today at 7:50. but i wasn't procrastinating, i was mealprepping and shopping. not sure the fix there. (3) i left for school at 9:30, not 8:30, when I could have really done that. that was procrastination. it was snowing and i couldn't bear the idea of cycling in the snow. so i ended up waiting a bit and cycling in the rain. haiya. altogether, (1)(2) and (3) took out six hours of otherwise school time. so this is how people become ultra productive. can you imagine someone who can pull off perfect days many, many, days in a row? everything would become so easy. maybe that's what's in store for me. maybe that's how i get a first in these law exams. maybe, hey, that's how i become friends with my professors?

i wonder if anyone here manages to do that. maybe no one does. i see the gap. this is how i become the best law student in my lse cohort. 

ah! no I'm feeling down again, no! what i am grateful for, is how much I'm already doing! AND, and this is important to remember when improving at something, how much i have improved, because i have! (1) I don't dread the day anymore so much so that I choose to lay in bed for hours after I wake up. (2) I don't procrastinate for so long on my phone in my room for so long that I end up doing no work, whatsoever in the day. (3) I don't choose to skip my lectures anymore, and I don't skip my classes anymore. (4) I have stopped oversleeping by a lot. the open-door rule worked! (5) i have killed my addiction to youtube, Instagram, and all kinds of doom-scrolling. the app bans, accountability buddy system and phone-in-kitchen rule worked! (6) i am much more connected to my family and friends than I was a month ago, and last semester. the Instagram stories are a great idea! (7) i did like, 8 hours of work on Monday, and 6 hours of work yesterday. that's a massive, massive improvement to how productive I used to be. 

i'm on the rise. summer exams here i come. 

sebastian, i'm gonna frickin' ace your EU law class. 

god, if my EU law class goes well this week, I will be so, so happy. you don't know how happy it would make me. you don't understand how anxious EU class has made me. how small it's made me feel. how sad i get after EU class. how stupid i feel to everyone. how inadequate. 

i need this class to go well. i need it to. for my confidence. 

this is what will happen: EU class will be amazing, and then Evidence class will be spectacular. why? because for both classes I will have done (1) pre-lec-prep (2) lecture notes (3) lecture notes consolidation and review (4) pre-essential reading prep (class questions, quizzes, headers) (5) essential reading notes (6) essential reading notes consolidation and review (7) class questions.

one sec, i forgot to message edmund that i don't have time for the Christian thing today. 

i decided against cancelling. it'll be my motivation to study as much as i can for as long as i can before 6pm. 

let's see what i can get up to!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11 - 1 - eu citizenship lecture notes

1 - 1.30 - lecture notes consolidation and review

 I ate so much, so no lunch break. i have jelly donuts to eat

1.30 - 2.30 - pre-essential reading prep (I'm not entirely sure how long this will take, but I'll try do it comprehensively but quickly)

2.30 - 3.15 - reading session 1

3.15 - 4 - reading session 2

4 - 4.45 - reading session 3

4.45 - 5.30 - reading session 4

5.30 - 6 - notes consolidation and review

annnnddd go!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I need to revise this schedule a bit.

2.20 - 3 - lecture notes 

3 - 3.30 - lecture notes consolidation

grab my laptop from kaklong, eat lunch. retake that photo.

4.30 - 5.30 - pre-essential reading prep

5.30 - 6.15 - reading session 1

church thing. home by 8. Hot shower. Cook. 

8.45 - 9.30 - reading session 2

9.30 - 10.15 - reading session 3

Brush. Sleep.

Tuesdays with Morrie

Except, today I'm with Shahmi, and I'm not highly concerned with the state of human apathy on worldwide suffering, or with my own levels of apathy on it, which I think must be rather low, at least right now, given I'm not thinking about it even while writing this. I should be more like Morrie's student, though. Not just in that he's passionate, at the time of the book, about those worst off in the world, but also in that he's a good student. He was friends with his professor. Now, that has to be the best kind of student, because I have yet to find anyone that spends enough time with their material to have regular, friendly, challenging, and extensive conversations with their professors about it - enough so that they can call their professors their friends. That could be the nature of studying law. Maybe we just don't have the time. Or maybe we do, and I like finding excuses. All I know is, is that I'd love to be friends with my professors. I think about it all the time. Engaging so much with my coursework that I have it sufficiently together in my head that I can converse about it deeply, not just come exam time, or even class time, but before class, in a 1 to 1 session between me and my professor. Maybe. Maybe that's impossible. This isn't important. I'm procrastinating. 

Okay! Journal!

Grateful for? How I felt at the start of the day! Hey, how I felt yesterday. How yesterday went so smoothly. Yesterday was productive and kind of fun, even though I didn't do much else aside from studying and cycling. Grateful for how I'm feeling right now. Just writing what I'm grateful for is giving me such a warm feeling. Like the feeling I get when I get the chance to compliment people and tell them how they make me feel. Warm. Grateful to have mustered the will to get out of bed! Grateful to have gathered the courage to go to class despite being 20 minutes late! Grateful I bumped into Shahmi just now and am now in a nice place to study (Kingsway). Grateful to have a nice group of people who love me and watch my Insta stories, making them work. Making me feel like people are checking in on me. Grateful to Hamzah for bringing that up. 

Yesterday and today have been a good start to this new routine. Still, there are a few things that could use improvement. My schedule for when I arrive home at the end of the day I think is the biggest one. It's very important for the following day. What I did last night caused me to wake up at 10:44 today. I didn't set my alarm. So: arrive home at 8; hot shower; change; cook and eat whilst listening to Hank and John; do whatever until 9:25; brush teeth and sleep. HC9:25BS: Hot-shower Cook 9:25 Brush Sleep.

God, I really wanna play squash right now. This is an exercise in will power. I overslept and have to catch up on the day's work.

Okay! Planning!

3ish - 4 - complete lecture on trustee's duties and consolidate class notes

4 - 4.30 - eu citizenship lec prep

4.30 - 6 - eu citizenship lec

6 - 6.30 - silence in court lec prep

6.30 - 8 - silence in court lec

8 - 9.30 - practice HC9.25BS

mondays and lasagna

Not quite lasagna, though, but spaghetti. been having that a lot the past 2 months. first, journal. feeling alright. grateful for the early start to my day - it's 8.40. half an hour behind schedule but wow am i feeling more up to doing stuff than i ever do. am grateful for hot water, am grateful to be here, am grateful for all the wonderful people in my life! friends and family here and back home. am grateful to have so many people that love me for me and genuinely want the best for me, and to whom listening to me isn't a burden or duty but a pleasure. thank you guys, appreciate it. you won't read this, but thanks. hope you're doing well in times i'm thinking about you, and not thinking about you. 

on to the day's to do!

9 ish to 11.00: last week's property lecture; 

11.00 to 12: two property essential reading sessions

lunch

1 to 1.30: property lecture prep

1.30 to 2: evidence lecture prep

2 - 4: evidence lecture

4 - 6: property lecture

6 - 6.30: property lecture notes consolidation

6 - 6.30: evidence lecture notes consolidation

6.30 - 7: one last property reading session for the day

sweeet hoome aalabaama 

I couldn't fall asleep

 Hey Johan,

cinflicted as to whther i this post should be private o r public. i want to start journaling, and i want to be able to write whatever i'd like in that journal. at the same time, i want to update those i love? what will most likely happen is that some of these posts will be made public, and others remain private. 

2:25 a.m. I'm feeling good. the fact that i didn't get any work done yesterday is tugging at me. an uncomfortable thought at the back of my head I've done a good job so far of represesing, but aside from that, I'm feeling alright. because, there is a plan. a plan that if i were to follow can only get me firsts in my modules. i find comfort in knowing there is time. i also find comfort knowing others are in the same boat as me. the other day someone in the law gc asked if they could get a 2.1 with only 4 2.1s and 4 41's. apparently you can! it won't look impressive when propespctive employers ask for a breakdown of your results, but hey! still a 2.1. 

journaling for 2 reasons: (1) i read that studies show that journaling is effective at mitigating symptoms of depression and anxiety and is helpful at improving one's mood; (2) it's a nice way to start the day. 

I'm looking for an easy to follow routine that can get me up in the morning. the problem I've had so far in making routines is that they've always, thus far, been unsustainable. so the easier to follow the better. I'm also pretty sure my routines thus far haven't been the most healthy for me, so i hope that this routine will do that. 

bfast - get ready - cycle to school - journal your feelings and plan the day - start the day

that's what I've got so far. 

alright! 2:38. let's imagine it's 8 a.m. and I just arrived at school. the above is me journaling my feelings. I've done that. next, work. not sure whether i should focus on classes this week rn or company law. hmm. definitely classes this week. and I'm gonna try hit them all. property for tuesday, then eu, evidence and company for Friday. wow, Friday is terrifying. 

I'm gonna:

pre-prop lecture prep

pre-eu lecture prep

pre-evi lecture prep

company law (corporate veiling) lecture notes

1/2 prop lecture

1/2 eu lecture

1/2 evi lecture

8 a.m. bfast----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

company law (tort) lecture notes

prop lecture

eu lecture

evi lecture

12 p.m. lunch, tennis, and probably, end of day --------------------------------------------------------------------