Dear Anita

Thank you for your encouragement. I have been working on building a schedule to keep track of my assignments. My meditation class professor extended the research summary that was originally due February 6th to February 8th and I managed to find a study on how heartfulness meditation (focusing on the heart’s space and cultivating loving-kindness for each situation that arises) helps healthcare workers reduce their stress levels and I found the clinical study interesting and inspirational. I finished the research summary for my meditation class on that clinical study for heartfulness meditation for healthcare workers and I decided to look into heartfulness/loving-kindness meditation techniques for my own practices. I liked the heartfulness meditation techniques that I found because most of them are about focusing on your heartbeat and feeling the warmth of your heart’s light radiating compassion and loving-kindness with each heartbeat. Since my chest gives me dysphoria, I find that focusing my attention on my heart’s space and just embracing the feelings that I have and being aware of my heartbeat helps me de-stress. Whenever the thoughts wander, I say “Thinking” and return my awareness to my heart. When I feel my heart race with anxiety, I allow myself to feel the emotions in my heart and not judge them. The heartfulness meditations say to focus on the emotions and embrace them rather than fighting them because fighting them often stresses us more, but embracing them, the emotions seem to weaken because we start to acknowledge them and see them for what they are. By allowing the emotions to flow and not judge or fight them but just remain focused on the heart’s space and spreading loving-kindness helps me feel better and realize that things are okay. I am currently working on the heartfulness meditation and am thinking of using it as the meditation presentation that I will be presenting for my meditation class on February 27th. People can be their own worst critics and sometimes I feel like I’m consistently fighting myself because I want to look masculine but it’s quite straining trying so hard. So heartfulness meditation practice is helping me realize that who I am is much more than the dysphoria but that I am the love in my heart and by focusing on the love in my heart with each heartbeat, I say to myself “I am every bit masculine enough and my heart is filled with loving-kindness for myself because I am okay. Who I  am is enough and with each heartbeat I am letting go of things that don’t resonate with my heart. I am expressing myself with love and things will be okay.” I took a day off from Organic Chemistry lab on February 4th because I was feeling quite stressed and I had to take my car to the car repair shop. So the car repair shop said my car likely has a catalytic converter problem but it’s safe to drive, but since my car is getting older I am working on getting a new one just in case the older one isn’t easy to fix or ages out. My genetics lab class goes quite fast with the professor explaining things quite quickly and the classmates only help a little. Sometimes we do three experimental exercises in one lab session and the teacher goes through the instructions quite quickly. I do wish that he would go slower and that the classmates would explain things more when I ask them questions but both the teacher and classmates only explain things briefly and I often have to figure things out on my own. The Organic Chemistry lab professor is very thorough with explaining lab experiments and I went to his office after missing a lab class on February 4th and he was very helpful in helping me get more caught up. I am working on the Prelab for experiment 3 due this Tuesday February 11th. Since I missed lab experiment 2 class, I wrote an excuse note and I uploaded it online to where lab 2 assignments would be posted. Since I was struggling with gender dysphoria and car, I didn’t have time to complete lab report one for February 4th. So I am missing one assignment for Organic Chemistry lab, but that’s okay. I am hoping that since there are still more days in the semester that my grade will improve. In addition, missing only two lab assignments puts me at a B+ because my quiz grades for lab have been good. I am going to work out a schedule where I organize time to dedicate to each of my class assignments so that I can keep track of them and also work on managing time in case of stressful situations that come up I will still be able to get things done without missing more assignments. My genetics lab class has a lab report due march 5th and I am working on the draft of it. My lab partner and I counted fruit flies and did a mating with them to see what offspring would result. I do wish that my lab professor in my genetics lab class explained things better and slower. I have asked for a note-taker to help take notes for me in genetics lecture so that I have more complete notes to study from since I have the same professor for lecture and lab and he goes fast. The note-taker will take notes in genetics and send them to me via email so I have them as reference. it would be helpful if the note-taker could help take notes in genetics lab as well but since lab experiments are individually done there usually aren’t note-takers to take notes in lab so students have to take notes about lab experiments themselves. I hope that my genetics class goes okay this semester because lab is a bit stressful but there is only one lab report that has a relatively simple format but working on understanding the data from genetics lab experiments to writing the fruit fly lab report is a bit stressful because I am not sure if I fully understand the data I collected and since I worked with a lab partner I am not sure if each of our notes seems to fit together because both of us will be submitting individual reports but the reports will have both our names on them. For Organic Chemistry lab, there is a lab report due after each experiment and the format for the lab reports are more complex but they aren’t too difficult to follow, Organic Chemistry labs usually have more steps compared to genetics labs. the professor and the classmates are very helpful for Organic Chemistry lab experiments and I find that I can work on them quite well. My Organic Chemistry lecture professor is good at explaining things as well but sometimes I feel like she explains certain topics in a less clearer way like she will take time to explain something that isn’t too complex in more detail and it helps give the students more perspective on how the Organic Chemistry problem may be applied in the real world but when it comes to the shapes of molecular orbitals and electron densities that help determine how atoms bond that is more complex she doesn’t give much detail about that and sometimes I feel confused. But the good thing is that she tells us where to find practice in the Organic Chemistry textbook to build our knowledge and she takes problems from the book to help explain the more challenging concepts which is helpful. Since she knows that some people may be Strugling in Organic Chemistry she offers extra credit which helps boost grades. So far in the week ahead, I have a genetics exam monday February 17th, a meditation class exam February 14th,  genetics lab introduction and methods write up for the fruit fly experiment describing what we did in the lab, and Organic Chemistry prelab due February 11th. I just finished my genetics ch. 3-5 homework today. I finished my meditation research summary yesterday (it was due today) and I wrote the outline for my meditation presentation yesterday (due February 27th). I also posted a response to the research summary that the other students wrote saying which meditation research study was the most interesting ( had to do two one response today, first response was yesterday and it’s due Monday February 10th)

Wishing you well in the week ahead!

• This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by Janus.