week of june 21- 25

I know I said I wasn't really going to post on this site again, but I changed my mind about that. The newer website is taking a while since I'm going to put a lot more effort into planning the UI and appearance. I really want this new website to showcase my abilities as well as it can, so it's worth it even if it takes a while.
I remember looking at my teacher's website to "borrow" code in December, and I noticed he would write about himself and his experiences rather than just teacher-y stuff. This made me realize that I also want to do something more with my website. It should reflect me as a person rather than just my accomplishments to get a good picture across, so I think a good place to start would be to keep track of these values and how I built them to begin with. Conveniently, I recently had a lot to learn from a specific week in June. Alright, vent incoming:
I entered a competition where you submit a video taking a complex concept and explaining it in simple terms. I won't go too far into detail right now, but the competition opened in April. I couldn't start until June because school and AP exams had me swamped, but I guess I'm still at fault for beginning so late. Anyways, the submission was due on the 25th, so I planned out a schedule with self-imposed deadlines for scripting, recording, editing, and submitting the video, spanning from the 1st of June to the 20th, giving me some extra time for any issues that might come up. However, I didn't plan too well for what would come next.
I began taking government over the summer, starting June 7th. To put it simply: it was a mess. The course was online and asynchronous on a program called Edgenuity. It was structured pretty linearly: the student would watch videos explaining a concept, (sometimes) do an assignment on it, and then take a quiz over the information. Repeat those three things a few times, and then take a unit test over everything. Then repeat THAT a bunch of times and that's pretty much the whole course. When you watched the videos, there were no options to speed it up or skip ahead, and there was no way to go to the next sections until you finished the current one, so you kinda just had to sit there for like 20 mins. I was shown a tutorial video on how to use the program, but I noticed my first week that the course didn't have any deadlines, unlike the sample course shown in the tutorial.
I began my work, but I didn't have a way to contact my teacher for a week, since he or she took some sort of vacation. No big deal, but since there were no deadlines I wasn't sure how much I was supposed to finish each day, so I just assumed to complete a section each day. On Thursday, I received an email from my teacher saying I was behind, finding out from him that I actually had a TON of assignments to finish before midnight that night. It took me HOURS, I didn't even finish completely despite staying up. Once I managed to complete everything on Friday, I relaxed thinking that I didn't have to do much until the next week. However, I woke up on Monday with a million assignments overdue because deadlines had just been put in that morning, including for the PREVIOUS week when there were none. I don't blame the teacher too much for being disorganized since it was a new form of curriculum (asynchronous and online) but it seemed like trouble just continued to pile up.
I also started a new job at Johnson Space Center on the 21st, the same week the government course would close (so the same week I had to finish EVERYTHING or I wouldn't get the credit). At JSC, I was a TA at some of the robotics summer camps. There were multiple classes for the different age ranges there, but surprisingly enough, I ended up getting one of the most difficult groups for my first shift: 4-5 yos. It was a grueling task getting them to stay focused on the instructor and keep them together when we traveled around the buildings. I had planned my schedule around my shift timings, but did not plan for how tired I'd be when I got back. It's weird, I don't consider myself sedentary or anything, but walking/standing for hours seemed a lot more strenuous than doing any of my other sports like swimming/dancing; it's probably because of adrenaline (or lack thereof). but I was so tired that I couldn't really get myself to work on anything for at least half an hour after coming home. Plus the 90+ degree weather was not great either. I would start feeling feverish (???) when I got home. I ruled out any chance of sickness, so I'm pretty sure it was because of the summer heat. Texas am I right?
My day went like this: I would leave the house at around 7:30, clock in by 8. We were supposed to finish by 3:30 but would sometimes stay until 4 or 5 for meetings and extras. I'd get home by 6 and collapse. I had to make and eat dinner, shower, all that extra stuff, so I'd get started on work by 9 and stay up as long as I could getting as much as I could done. Obviously my sleep and mental health suffered as a result. And my skin. One of the students pointed out my breakouts. rip
In the same week, I was told the government course closed on Thursday. Only on Wednesday did our teacher let us know that the course closed at NOON and not midnight on Thursday. I'd be at work during noon, so I found out on Wednesday that I had to finish everything that night. Not to mention the video I had to submit the following Friday not even having music/sound in it yet.
TLDR: my plan sucked
I didn't really account for my energy levels, or basic things I had to do like cook and other chores. I think I got the reason why everything fell apart right here:
I respond to stressful situations by planning things out, because it makes me feel like I have more control over the situation. Because of all the pressure, I guess I overdosed on planning, working out exactly how and when I do things. This coping mechanism sometimes works out in my favor. Over spring break I studied over 6 hours a day for the SAT by planning out breaks and study sessions. Of course, I ended up scoring really well (1560)!
But spring break was predictable, I cleared out my schedule to study and didn't really have much else going on. So the whole plan 'til you drop thing really only works when I have nothing else to do, like a school break during a pandemic... Not very practical.
I'm trying to shift from overplanning to creating a more flexible, general layout. Creating complex hourly schedules only makes the plan fragile and makes me more prone to falling behind, basically defeating the purpose of a plan. Planning things long-term, like over the course of weeks, with general goals/deadlines seems to be a better way to allow myself to work around setbacks without feeling the pressure to keep up with self-imposed deadlines.
The only catch: how am I supposed to relieve stress now? I mean, I do things like baking and painting, lighting candles, a nice bath. But I feel as if I'm not combatting the problem, I'm just putting it off. Planning really is the only thing that I can do to ease the anxiety. So ultimately I end up resorting to it despite knowing it's not good for me, because what else can I do?
I guess that's just something I have to figure out with time.
Plus, to end on a positive note, the week was not all bad. Working at the Space Center, tiring as it might have been, was a great experience. The kids were absolutely adorable. Apparently our group was much more well behaved than the previous ones. Also, my coworkers were so friendly and kind, and I made a ton of new friends. My boss was fun and understanding too. I had a lot of fun getting to know everyone — one of the 5 year olds kept giving me (much needed) hugs. It was such a refreshing change from a year of pretty much total isolation. I learned/did a lot during quarantine with all the time on my hands, but it was definitely not great for my psyche. But that's for another post since this one is getting so long.
Anyways, yeah. This past week was a really weird mix of stressful and fantastic. But overall, things are looking up because it feels like my life is finally returning back to normal.