Back into the grind.

So school's on again and this semester, though schedule-wise it is much more forgiving and gives me more time to study and work on assignments, it is also shaping up to be much more challenging. My weaknesses, which I've struggled to conceal more than anything, since improving them seems so impossible at times, are becoming more and more apparent. The cardinal one being my inability to quickly and coherently regurgitate responses using learned information. A simple question makes me feel like I'm "on the spot" - in English as well as Japanese. It's apparently a trait of introverts, and I can't deny it. I often crave, need really, time to take in information, mull it over, and carefully think about what I want to say. As might be expected, this makes spontaneous questions or conversation a particularly embarrassing and painful ordeal. It makes me look and feel stupid, when I know I'm not. Well, not really anyway. I find myself struggling, more and more, searching for the right words and feeling lost in the moment, and minutes later having the perfect response come to me all too late.

Sometimes it feels like my brain is like a coffee filter. Information can only get in from one direction, and trying to make it flow the other way only earns me a shitty pile of grinds.

Image from Karirose's Portfolio