anxiety hits hard on my face
Today I attended a class on Linear Algebra after a long time and finally had a free slot during the time hours. The class was 2 hrs long and the professor was presenting his notes which he wrote last year and going through them, asking us to take photos of them, or solve them on the paper. While I am not very good at listening, I do prefer to read on the board and then write it down on the paper. This is far better and convenient for me in terms of my day-to-day adaptations.
I was sitting in the class and after 20 minutes anxiety hit my face. I could feel the twitching of my face muscles and skin. What was it ? I don't know. It was just there making me uncomfortable. A part of it was probably due to sitting in a class where I get no practical outcome except for attendance and another was my unconscious failure to understand the contents of the class. Lately I have stopped feeling bad about how the classroom affects me. Rather it is anxiety that hits my face. At the end of the class I went to a café and got myself ice tea.
While also sitting in the classroom, I set up my iPad and installed apps which I think would be useful for me once I join my new job. I would probably have to do a lot of paper reading, learning cs fundamentals, writing better codes. I think I will be fine, just need to be consistent with the efforts which I am already putting in my everyday life.
During the class I was having thoughts on what I used to do in my regular semester days. I would not go to classes those days too. I would watch ML videos, animes, or something. But interestingly the real studies I have done so far are mostly in the last 2 months. Probably because I followed the "study the right thing" instead of just studying anything that I am coming across. It is very 80/20 effort which I was not even aware of.
To revise my machine learning concepts, I had a choice to go over the YouTube videos or take up a course. I chose the latter, and to be honest, the results are much better learning-wise. If you are wondering, I took the Machine Learning Specialization course on Coursera. It is a very good course and 10/10 recommended.
Coming back to my point, I believe anything can be achieved in a right manner if you know the exact materials or steps to follow. While it seems scary at first, I think it is also the time and effort of those exact steps along with the trust and not doubting those choices that also bring results. Like Yacine (kache on Twitter) says, anything can be learnt in 2 weeks. I pretty much have started to agree with him now that I have started my own journey in machine learning.
After the classroom, I had decided I would write a blog about it. So I did. I think conscious writing does a lot to your head in a positive manner and takes good care of your thoughts.