In any case, encouraging. The real test will be the practical written examinations on Thursday and Friday. Those require having a fair memory of all the chapters of all our main albums. Some of the study has been pretty quick and easy, but there have been sections that are quite challenging.
I think one of the problems is the limits of my mnemonic devices, like peg lists and memory palaces. They work great, but if I've got twenty lists I need to memorize a day, I can't keep using the same lists/memory palaces, or they get muddy.
A second problem is what I'm doing is rather high order thinking actually, a bit different than rote memorization, and by the end of a full day, I'm a bit fried, and I can't do it very effectively. continuing to cram into the night, even the early night, is far less time effective. I need a less brain intensive method of studying for the evenings, when my brain is weak and jellow-y from the mental workout I've been giving it, and all my peg-lists and memory palaces are full.
But really, its not a problem that bears much solving. I don't know when I'll have a situation like this again, and it will be over one way or another by Friday, mid-day. That's the end of my second written exam.
After that, I've got a whole week to study for my oral exam, which is way more time than I'll need, especially since I've already been studying for it during my solo and group practice. Which is really good, because I've got that week, and that week alone, to pack up everything and get ready to go to Austin Texas. I asked if I could have a break, a sabbatical, before I started work, and they said they'd see what they could do, but when they got back to me, they said that I would be sorely needed right away. So I'm taking my final, oral exam in the morning, packing everything up (that's not already packed) in the afternoon to evening, and hitting the road with my wife and two cats early the next morning. We'll drive till we get there, and I'll start work the next day.
I am really excited about this job, in terms of the work atmosphere, and above all the mentorship I will hopefully be getting. But I was pretty excited at the prospect of a nice long break. Especially since I didn't think I'd be getting another chance to do something like that for a long time. Hopefully we'll get a summer or two. But I don't know how long we'll wait to have kids, and once that happens, I suspect rest will be about 18 years in coming.
This means that I must continue with my prior strategy of learning how to relax and get stuff done efficiently in the midst of intense activity. I suppose that is just as well. I prefer being fairly active. My break was mainly going to be attending to all the open-loop todo items that I've been putting off because of more immediately pressing demands, and then getting some time in on some longer standing aspirational projects and skills.
I think the key is figuring out how to get balanced with work and rest and play. There's a certain optimal ratio, and figuring out how to maintain that is perhaps a worthy goal. Though I suspect there are complexities, like the fact that when you're doing work that you love it often energizes rather than drains you.
So many big things are happening, have happened, this summer. I got married, I'm changing jobs, I'm moving to Texas, I'm living through a pandemic, I'm starting to work under my mentor.
I'm only mentioning this because I wrote it in the title, but I've discovered that I love taco salad. I think part of it is the taco seasoning in the dressing.
OK, that's all for now. I'm gonna have dinner, and then see what kind of studying I can do that will still be useful. Maybe I can try creating some new memory palace rooms to use.
Good-bye for now ^_^
stay safe, live with love
-Isaac
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