| S p e c i a l S h a r i n g P h y s i o p s y c h o l o g y F i n a l E x a m J u n e 2 0 0 2 |
| June 28 2002 looking back on June 27, 2002 Came out of the exam room, I was quiet. Mellow, i guess. didn't feel like talking particularly. But in my heart, I was filled with joy, full of thanksgiving! I was in awe to see God's blessings. And it's the first time, first time, for me to experience God through my academic work. Thinking back three weeks ago, on a Thursday three hours before my second midterm test in my Biopsychology Class, I was panicking. I was so worried I was crying. I didn' t know what to do. I felt like my mind was paralyzed. I could not initiate an incentive for myself to even study. There were so many times during the past month and a half I felt like that. I knew with reasons that I needed to study. But I could not pull my energy together to do it, I didn't want to. It was so hard a course, I didn't want to have to face it. There were many other times when I was just simply scared of the thot of failling the course, troubled by it, so that I was frozen by it, and couldn't focus or do any school work. There were many times when I would be upset that I'll look back one day and regret and get mad at myself and decide that I am a lazy person. I would feel so guilty, so bad and so low. |
| It had been such a turbulent experience.... I was crying about the course, my anxiety, my worries, my self-blaming for so many times. Sometimes, alone in my room, other times in front of my friends. I would be frantically trying to go to different places to study because i just couldn't study in my own room. Precisely, I often cannot study intensively on my own. I just get very nervous that I am on my own. But as I was crying in my heart, I started calling up people. I remember a friend telling me one time that when I can't pray to God on my own, I could ask my good friends to do the praying for me. And God does answer prayers! The one week before my final, I went from feeling all hopeless, "Oh man! I hate this. What if I fail? What if I have to do this all over again? I don't want to and I can't!" as if the course is the end of the world to a point when I can say, "even if I fail, so what? Now, even I fail, I would know how to do better. And I would know how to handle myself". |
| YES!!! It is amazing!!! I think it is too! This past week, I've experienced God so much! So much! How? 1) I felt so warmly and immensely loved and cared for. Throughout my lowest of the low, God provided me wonderful friends and a wonderful family to support me. Spiritually and emotionally. I called my camp counsellor Fenton up. Fenton asked me, "did you pray?". Then he asked me, "who did you pray to?". He told me that there is the Spirit indwelling inside me. "Have you pray directly to the Holy Spirit who's indwelling in you to comfort you, calm you and give you strength?". And he would pray for me too. So after that, I learn to pray to the Holy Spirit for the first time. I asked the Holy Spirit to comfort and calm me and give me strength, especially before I study, and also during times when I felt so anxious. And God is faithful. He calmed me down, he gave me strength. Look at the final three four hours right before my final exam, which was 2pm to 6pm on that thursday. I was actually sitting in my room, calmly studying, looking through the notes. I could not read any of the text book. In fact, I didn't really more than ten pages of textbook studying for the final. But I studied what I had confidence studying for, my lecture notes. So I reviewed what I have learnt over the weekend and make sure I remember them in the final hours. I was actually calmly doing what I could possibly do before the real thing. And this is a positive attitude. I was peaceful. And this is remarkable because looking back on the final several hours before my second midterm two week ago, if you ask Loretta, you'll know. I was crying, so scared, so helpless, I couldn't do anything on the day of the midterm. My mind and my heart was paralyzed. All I could do was to despair and feel angry. So you see, that was a big change! And I think God made it happen! On the other hand, about one week before the final, Amelia knew that I failed the second midterm. I was concerned and started to think about how to prepare for my final exam. Of course, I had no idea. Sometimes, I just thought it would never be possible for me to do it. But Amelia offered to help me. Even in the very beginning, before my first midterm, she has offered to help. But I just kept thinking, I'll try to do it on my own first (even though I had already been huge challenged then). Partly, I also thought that I wouldn't know how to ask for help. I wasn't able to treasure it. But after the second midterm, now that I've fallen flat on my face with a 39%, I thought it's about time. And I should have done that a long time ago. So Amelia encouraged me; she tells me how to remember a mass amount of material under different keywords. And she reminds me to think that we've never studied enough. So just continue to study them. It's called hardwork! All the sudden, I have some cool study tips to go with, which were things that I have long forgotten because I was bitter, angry and tired from the school year. Amelia supported me very well. She prayed for me and told me to do well. And studying got much better! And remember I couldn't study on my own? The psychologists call it "Separation Anxiety". A large part of me, I was very homesick. And especially when I am stressed out, I just feel helpless and fidgety with myself. So I have to be with someone to feel safe and forgetting about worrying about my being alone. Yes, it sounds strange, but it's not. I am sure many people experience too. So what happens is that whenever I realize I cannot study, especially at nite, sometimes during the day, I call up my friends. They are good friends, and they care for me. Yeelee, provided her home for me to stay over for an afternoon just to study. Her mom was so kind and cooked us hamburger lunch. Yeelee is always so hospitable, taking care of how comfortable I feel studying at the living room table. Or she would try to see what she can do to help me. She'll explain some study tips for me as well as I went long. All of those meant so much to me; otherwise, I wouldn't be able to be on my own. And I thank God for such a wonderful sister in Christ! 2) God gave me the peace in my heart. (To be continued.) |