Biology and Children

I have the weekly luxury of sleeping in on Tuesday mornings, since my biology class does not begin until 11:00 am. I frequently have the admirable aspiration to wake up early (or at least the same time as usual) to study before class. This morning, I actually did manage to rise a little early. This enabled me to avoid rushing through my morning preparations, check my online social networking profiles, and still leave early to get to school. After saying good morning to the security guard (my school is in an urban environment) I headed upstairs to a sunny table and finished reading my biology chapter.

In class it turned out that my paper was not actually due until Thursday, but I am glad I have it done early, so I can concentrate on test study. Our test is Thursday, and I still have a lot of work to do! I still need to memorize 1: a list of 10 animal phyla, traits common to all animals, and evolutionary trends from more "primitive" to more "advanced" animal characteristics 2: the definitions of coelomate, acoelomate, and pseudocoelomate, along with the significance of coelomation; 3: the difference between bilateral symmetry of coelomates , depending on whether one is a protostome or deuterostome. I also need to review basic information and vocabulary related to these and related topics.

Biology was my only class today. I spent the rest of the day working at the preschool. Rather than bring in my whole backpack today, I opted to pull out the sheets of notebook paper with the aforementioned lists on them from my binder. I quickly folded them up and put them in my coat pocket to bring in and study while the kids were napping. I arrived right at the end of their lunch, and the start of nap time. They actually went to sleep pretty quickly today, and after cleaning the room and getting their afternoon snack ready, I determined that I had a half an hour left to study. I retrieved my notes, opened them up, and began to read about the evolution of terrestrial autotrophs. . . I had grabbed the wrong notes! So I found some blank paper and a pen, and began listing from memory. I didn't actually get too far before I realized that one of my young friends had had a potty accident and needed my help. After that the rest of the class was waking up, so it was snack time, then time to read books, and then time to go outside and play.

My goal tonight is to finally work on memorizing those lists in preparation for Thursday's exam, and to complete some chemistry lab homework that is due tomorrow. A secondary goal is to try to get to sleep earlier, as I have a (bad?) habit of staying up too late to finish studying. Wish me luck readers!