On the first day of school

I'm on a break between classes right now. The first day class is always short, so I have an unusually long lunch break.

The first day of school has always been happy to me. I always convince myself that I will work extra hard this term, attend every class, take tons of notes, read every chapter in the textbook, study weekly instead of right before the test, and in general have good study skills. I imagine myself getting understanding everything, doing my homework without getting frustrated, and getting straight As. It never ever turns out that way. Why not?

It usually starts with me assuming that I can do just as well without reading the textbook. Hardly anybody else does, so why do I waste my time? Then I try to do my homework, and I get frustrated because I don't understand a problem. Then an evening comes around when I had planned on studying, but I'm tired or my friends are going out or I have other "more important" things to do. So I don't study. Then the test comes around, and I do the best I can. I don't know how to do every problem, and usually I'm only really confident about half. So I get a B or C on the test.

This has been the cycle since college started. Now here I am on the first day again. My professor is going through the syllabus and I am daydreaming about completing every reading assignment, studying regularly, and seeing a bright red A on my exams. Maybe instead I should be daydreaming about spending hours each week reading and studying and doing homework. That would probably bring me back to reality.

I don't know what I can do to keep up that motivation and actually follow through. Maybe I shouldn't. I mean, if I can get Bs doing a certain amount of work, do I really want to add an extra 2o hours of studying a week to get As? I'm not really sure.

I had organic chemistry this morning and I am very concerned about how much I've forgotten. I think it's a little silly that the school has O Chem I and O Chem II before summer break, and O Chem III after. How can I not forget a ton of stuff? But at least the first chapter is easy and is a good review. I think I remembered more than a lot of people judging by participation in class this morning. My second class was statistics. I am really not looking forward to that class. What I've had of statistics in my normal math classes in high school was not fun. I did fine in it, but I hated it. The professor is very laid back, and he reads the test to us in the review session the class before. So how can I not do well, right? After lunch I have biology and then O Chem Lab. I am really dreading labs. I am so terrible and I get stressed out and somehow I manage to forget to do things, or do things completely wrong and get so many points taken off. I feel prepared for today's lab, but I'm still so anxious about it! I'm going to calm down and do the best I can.