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Today was the first day I spent more than a couple of hours studying for my exam coming up in just over five weeks. I had been wanting to go to the library with my roommate for a week now – he is studying for an important medical exam and has been at the library all day every day for the past weeks. Today I finally went. Originally we had agreed on meeting there at 9am. (Meet there because he rides his bike there while I prefer to have ten more minutes of quiet and rest on the bus.) After a night of little sleep (hello, my middle name is insomniac), I ended up sleeping until 10am. Otherwise I would not have been able to function at all (getting up at 10am gave me 6 hours of sleep).

By the time I got to the library it was almost noon, and I ended up having to sit somewhere else than my roommate (on a different floor) so while we had planned to go to the library together, we didn’t actually see each other, except when I got there. The library is the economics and social sciences library of our university so not really our library (me being a humanities major, him being in medical school) but my roommate always goes there because he likes it, and I have to agree. I really enjoyed it. The building only just re-opened last summer (before it was converted into a faculty building, it was a hospital that is now located elsewhere in a newer building). Meaning old building but everything inside is new, clean, well-lit, beautiful. Much better than the central library (humanities) or the sciences library (one of those ugly 1960s concrete blocks).

And, as some of you may remember, I did actually major in economics my first year of university (I later switched to Spanish). So it was kind of neat to see what building I would be in now (the old economics building was horrid, really really awful – from the inside), had I stuck with that major (but for all other reasons, thank God I didn’t).

Now, seven years later, I am almost done with my degree, and I think I will be making studying at that library a habit. It’s pretty close to my house (10 minutes by bus or bike), and I really enjoyed studying there today. I am usually not the type of person to study at the library, because I hate lugging around notes and books, but I have realized that home does simply not make for a productive environment for me. There is my laptop, the TV, my bed (and you know I love naps!), the fridge, and between all those things, I never actually get much done. I get distracted too easily.

Today, at the library, I felt productive. Listening to the music on my iPhone quietly and working away, I was surrounded by other students being productive, which made for such a great atmosphere to be focusing on my work. I like the library, the cafeteria (which allows for quick breaks to eat & drink something, and to unwind), and I just felt so good about what I achieved there today. It was probably the most productive I have been since I finished my thesis in early January. I got so much done. And not only that, I enjoyed it, too. That is a really encouraging feeling, because I know those five weeks will be over sooner than I think. And seeing how much I achieved today makes me positive that I can handle it, that I will be well-prepared by the time April 10th rolls around. I think I need that feeling to keep me going in the next four months.