Tuesday, March 8, 2011

tips for doing last minute assignments with less amount of stress.

'Lawyer is not my thang!!'
TIBER!!!!! (ignore this so called commercial break...=p)

Alhamdulillah...

That is all I can say right now. Relieved!

As of today, I'm no longer having a relationship with M...

Sape M??? M.Nasir ke?? M.Daud Kilau??? hahahaha
No lah....M stands for 'MOOTING!'...
This assignment carries the most carry marks among all law subjects I took. 40 percent! so if you want to excel in this paper, Mooting is one assignment you MUST give attention and commitment to.

While other people started to do their moots; preparing memorials, skeletal submissions, and bundle of authority weeks before the date of presentation, my partner and I found ourselves to have more time watching movies and facebooking!

Yes, I am an excellent procrastinator!! Always I said to myself...no more procrastinating! Stop doing last minute work, this reminder only stays for a few days, or a week at best. Then it's back to square one...LOL!

So anyway, we only started our submission on Monday, which is 2 days before mooting presentation. I'd like to stress out here that doing mooting submissions is not like the normal assignement where you can just write out or for some people 'copy paste a.k.a plagiarising' from any books and internet articles that you found, have it binded and submit to the lecturer, either by hand or by slipping it inside their office from under the door...NOOOOO!!! It requires more work than that. And not to mention more money! hahaha... And when I told some friends we haven't started writing down our submissions, they have this '=O' look on their face. I was surprised myself because I didn't freak out when I should be...

I managed to complete my part around 3.30 a.m., and later in the morning around 10.30 a.m., I went to see the lecturer for some enquiries...Luckily for me, he was available...and despite there are some disturbances, (his cellphone kept ringing and there was one foreign student stopped by to give him questionnaires to fill in...=p) I managed to gather useful, very useful information from him. Indeed, he is one great, helpful lecturer... =) I rushed back to add those info into my memorial. And by the time it was 5 p.m. we were done! weeeee~~~ hehehe...1 day...quite impressive eh? LOL! Okay lah...not gonna blow my own horn further...hehe

Then, the presentation day. As expected in every situation where the preparation was done at the eleventh hour, it will never turn out perfect. Never. Not even near to good. Maybe just satisfactory. That is just what happened during presentation. I presented my submission well, as best as I can...though I know I can do better. Well, you deserve based on the effort right? So, no regrets...plus it turned out better than I expected...hehe

If there's one thing I learn about this is that...don't be stressful in doing something. If you keep in your mind and keep saying that this is difficult, this is stressful, this is impossible, then it will turn out that way. Stay focused, relax, and be smart in organizing your time. Sacrifice some enjoyment like sleep, eat or the internet. It'll give you more time, it'll surprise you. Also, if you know that you are procrastinating and find yourself in a hard, tensed situation, don't blame others. Accept your fault, I find this to be less stressed out than putting the blame to others. There's no point in doing that anyway. be understanding, especially when you are not working alone. Your partners will be having either same or different character than you. If he/she is different, don't push them to become or work according to your way. Understand them respect them, communicate and most of all, trust them. If you don't, the work will never be done, and you'll find yourself annoyed...for no reason...adding more stress and tension, which you certainly don't need it.

It doesn't mean that you have to be nonchalant, and doing the work without caring about the marks. Nope...that is wrong. What I mean that, when you know that you are running out of time, be determined and focussed in getting the work done. In other words, organize your time right. Of course you have to sacrifice some things, but that doesn't mean you don't eat, sleep, pray or even bathe. That would be unreasonable. Gather all the information needed, make a draft on how you want your work to be, consult a person who have knowledge on the matter, and all you have to do is to type them inside your laptop. It's easier than writing and searching for materials at the same time, because you'll tend to be distracted. I mean, the internet is very tempting right? haha...

Starting the first sentence is always the hard one. When you have writer's block, you don't know where and how to start, keep calm first. Go through the materials, you might find some ideas from there on how to start. The rest will just go with the flow. What's important is be confident of your work. Don't be afraid of writing what you think. It's YOUR assignment, YOUR submission, and don't mind about the language barrier, not everyone is perfect. People do grammatical mistakes all the time, even the decisions in the Journal have wrong grammar...as long as you can send the message and people understand the message, that is good enough. The language will improve itself slowly. There's no need to rush...

Emotional control is what's important. As well as understanding and respecting the partner. If you can cope with the stress, you'll do just fine. Maintaining good communication and relationship with the work partner is also important. Don't snap or blame the partner, they have as much stress as you do, so it is best not to add more to them just to make you feel better. And another thing, you reap what you sow. If you know you cannot handle stress for doing last minute work, DON'T DO IT. Do the assignments earlier...and you will have more time to improvise and to prepare yourself for the presentation. =)

p/s: these tips are only based on my personal experience. If it suits you, then good for you. But if it doesn't, there are many other ways that can be used...what's important is to maintain a positive attitude and thinking... =D

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