Newsflash: Chemistry is hard!

I had a hideously difficult Chemistry lab practical today.  It was about anions, which are atoms that have gained electrons and have a negative charge.  I just had to Google that, which is slightly worrying, as you'd think I'd've learned it already as that's what today's practical was about.

The lab involved mixing chemicals, using litmus paper and pipettes and test tubes and stuff like that.  I didn't really understand what I was meant to be doing and I was on my own when most other people worked in pairs.  I haven't been in a lab for twenty years, I didn't know where things were kept or what the procedure was.  I had to fight off that horrible sense of rising panic when everyone else seems to understand and you don't.

I had to keep telling myself that I have no option but to keep trying.  I've given up my job, I've paid my course fees in full (on my credit card, eek) and I have GOT to do this.  But I am very, very frightened.  I wish I had a friendly chemist to be my on-call personal tutor.

Also, I'm finding it really difficult to settle down and do 'college work'.  When I studied with the OU, they held your hand and told you what to do, whereas at college they just say things like, 'you should read up on this'.  I don't know what to read.  And my books haven't arrived yet.  And even things I could do, like starting a glossary of Biology terms, I seem strangely paralysed and unwilling to do.

I am going to have to get over this and fast.  Tomorrow I have a rare day at home and I'm going to write myself a schedule and stick to it.

I've been reading inspirational quotes on my phone in my lunchbreak to try to quell the terror.  Here are my favourites.  The first one is my mantra and I repeat it to myself when I'm trying not to cry.

You can always become better - Tiger Woods

Live your life in the manner you would like your kids to live theirs - Michael Levine