Study Summary 9/17/10 - 9/23/10

This week I managed to complete chapters six and seven of Journals of Ayn Rand, completing fifteen conceptual exercises afterward, and chapter six of Good Calories, Bad Calories, completing ten conceptual exercises afterward. Goal-wise, I fell but one short: I managed to construct five posts for this blog (including this one), look up an oversight of computer programming and request a book, complete two chapters of Journals, establish a separate journal for a specific entrepreneurial idea I have, and document the entirety of my online recipes to Plummelo, but I did not complete two chapters of GCBC. All in all, I'm proud of my consistency and pacing, but believe that I could still be more rigorous in my efforts and push harder.

Unlike last week, this week I have the pleasure of knowing that my coming up short was a result of my own inadequate efforts rather than physical malfunctions. My brain felt fine except for some pleasurable burning and twitching, so I simply didn't push hard enough to pursue matters. Also, I wasn't rigorous enough due to my having foolishly become aware of the Thursday deadline (for this article) and so have hurried up a portion of my studies for the sake of getting it "done." There is still a need for me to not be aware of time while I study, I see, and I should be more careful to get to my work earlier so as to have plenty of time to lose myself in it.

GCBC continues to show its worth as a study subject. Though each chapter is of a moderate length, I generate quite a bit of notes from the reading and am quite mentally stimulated the whole time. There is still the difficulty, however, of me not keeping well enough track of concrete facts and switching to broad integrations, so I must continue my efforts to improve there. Overall, I'm having no problems of real concern with this study section.

Journals, however, leaves more to be desired. I'm starting to wonder whether or not it's really a subject truly worthy of study. The chapters are substantially longer than those in GCBC, and yet I can hardly come up with more than a few lines' worth of notes. A lot of the material is redundant due to my having studied Objectivism for a few years now, and the chapters regarding her notes during certain books bores me and seems more appropriate for fans interested in a less-intense reading than I'm currently doing. Nonetheless I will stick with it since I believe the wide variety of content offered in this book will yield something worthwhile here and there, and I am gaining good insight on my own character regardless.

For next week I will again try to complete two chapters each of Journals and GCBC, as well as accomplish several personal goals, though I may add to the list mid-week if I determine it appropriate (but will refrain from subtracting from it, for the sake of integrity). Among those other goals will be to include two sessions of mental math practice (I haven't written about it yet), to organize the topics I need to write about in my special entrepreneurial journal (and start some entries), restrict my Facebook and Twitter activities to times only after 8 PM, and to do some career research, which I think I should keep private for now due to its connection to the Project. As for the writing pace on this blog, I'm conflicted. On one hand, I know I'm perfectly capable of maintaining five posts per week, but on the other I have to wonder about the benefits and whether its cutting into time I could be spending otherwise. Perhaps I'm not making my writing valuable enough, to both me and the reader. For right now, I'll aim to continue the pace.

Onwards, then, to contributing to the sum of life.