I'm Going to Scream!

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I'm taking pharmacology right now. It's a lot to do in 5 weeks with 3 kids that are out of school and a husband who works long hours.

I have a test tomorrow, so he worked from 10 yesterday to 10am today so he could take off today and I could get out of the house and do some serious cramming.

I finally get to the library (which is more like a little study room at our satellite campus) and there's a young guy here. His cell phone is going off almost non-stop, loudly, alerting him and everyone in the room to every email and text message he's getting. I guess he needs the volume all the way up so he can hear it over the iPod he's listening to. The iPod that is also on some ridiculously high level so I can hear his techno through his ear buds from across the room. At one point his phone rang and he had an entire conversation at a normal volume in the room!

I asked him if he could silence his phone (letting the iPod thing go) but now I feel extremely old. Especially because I got an uber attitude from him and his phone is still going off, just a little quieter, and now he only has the first half of his convos in the room before leaving.

At 27, have I finally kissed my "cool" years goodbye? How in the world do people study like that? Maybe I'm just a rare person that likes absolute silence when I'm working - but what about consideration for the people around you? Honestly, if you work fine in chaos, staying at home would probably be just fine.

Ok, vent over. Back to work.

He'd have been kicked out my school's library. If not by staff then by any students that were nearby. :)

I feel guilty if I open up a protein bar in the library and the wrapper crinkles too loudly. I can't believe how clueless some people are...

Okay, I have 7 kids, 6 still at home. I'll share some tips I got that have really helped me. I bought from Amazon a 99 cent relaxing nature sounds song. I also have an app on my phone for white noise & nature ambience. I have headphones. I put those bad boys in my ears turn it up to whatever I need to drown everyone out. I still have to go in another room sometimes, but sometimes I can even sit in my living room now with the TV on and not hear a single thing and be relaxed all at the same time. My kids and husband now have to make quite a bit of noise now to get my attention. Sometimes they find it annoying, but hey it works. (Ear plugs by themselves were not enough to drown out the noise, but the white noise does the trick for me.)

He'd have been kicked out my school's library. If not by staff then by any students that were nearby. :)

I feel guilty if I open up a protein bar in the library and the wrapper crinkles too loudly. I can't believe how clueless some people are...

Haha. I feel the same way in movie theaters when I'm opening candy with noisy wrappers. If I can, I'll do it before the movie starts and the lights are still on. But, if I forget, then its real hard to do it silently when the movie is going. :lol2:

Specializes in cardiac-telemetry, hospice, ICU.

"people are just so self absorbed now that either have no clue that their actions affect others or they just don't care."

is it just me, or does it seem like everyone in the grocery store seems to try to block as much of the aisle as is physically possible? then they seem to not notice your existence, and repeat in the next aisle.

I have discovered a miracle when confronted with noise....silicone ear plugs.The foam ones don't work, but the "smooshi" wax-like ones are wonderful.You can eliminate rude peoples' cell phone chatter as well as all other buzzes and bings.

Specializes in Geriatrics, Home Health.

When I was in school, the library was a hang-out spot, and the "quiet zones" were anything but. to concentrate, I listened to classical on my MP3 player, with active noise-canceling headphones.

Specializes in Forensic Psych.

Oh, I was so caught up in stress, I totally forgot about this thread!

THANK YOU everyone for being a shoulder to vent on :) I'm glad I'm not the only one with silence issues. Like someone else said, it's not so much that I can only work in stealthy silence; there's something more frustrating about "almost silence" or being frequently interrupted. And thanks for the study tips! I'll definitely be putting them into use.

And I finished pharm last week with an A and moved onto my very first official day of nursing school yesterday! It's going to be a crazy two years :)

Specializes in Peds PACU & Peds Psych.

I can't study unless I have music ON. However, it can't be blasting away, it just needs to be subtle background noise. I think it's pretty damn rude for someone to go into an area that is clearly designed for studying, with people there trying to study, and then turn your music up so loud that it can be heard through headphones, let your phone go off constantly at full blast, etc. That would irritate me to death as well.

I'm only 24, so I don't think it's an "old" thing. Haha.

I'm 29 with 4 kids trying to get through Pharm as well. I also need silence in order to concentrate not because I'm getting "old" but because this material is more complex then other classes I've taken in the past. I admit that I'd watch TV with the kids while studdying for psychology or sociology but now that I'm in the program I have to actually concentrate lol. I also know plenty of "younger" people without kids that would have been just as annoyed with that guy in the library. I've had that problem before and if they don't turn it down when nicely asked the librarian usually steps in due to others complaining as well.

I am lucky in the fact that my husband has no problems taking the kids to the park or the pool so I can have the house to myself so I can study. Although as I'm typing this, my husband has his football buddies over who also brought their kids with. I'm hiding upstairs trying to finish my flashcards for Mondays test and it's very noisy grrr.

I have a friend who is going through the program with me who has four children, 2 are 4 and 5 years old, as well along with a husband who works 3rd shift. She has no way to study during the day because he is sleeping and the kids are unable/unwilling to entertain themselves. She has to wait until the kids are in bed before she can study.

I've set my children's bedtime at 10 for the summer and that gives me a few hours of quite where I can really buckle down and study. It works well for me because my kids are between 11 and 7 and I don't have a job so if I sleep in a bit here or there its fine. The kids know how to get cereal and work the TV lol....that sounds kinda bad...

I couldn't deal with that kind of distraction. Someone tapping their pencil would make me scream. I might have gone to jail if I were you! lol

Um, he sounds extremely inconsiderate and immature. I'm sure everyone else in that room appreciated you kindly asking him to stop distracting those who are studying. Who in this world can study while listening to techno music and hold multiple conversations anyway? I wouldn't learn anything!

I think you did the right thing. Are there any rules posted for this study room? Is there someone in charge who can back you up? Write an email to the right person?

I also go to a tiny satellite campus and they have no study rooms. So, I go to our local university's huge library to study because it's open to the public during certain hours. They take the noise issue seriously and students are pretty compliant.

By the way, you are NOT old! You have a specific style of learning and this includes a quiet area to study. I'm the same way :-)

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