step #1

Make a burrito.
This burrito ought to include several types of cheeses. Gouda and asiago are always good additions. While this won't get you any closer to wrapping your mind around the complexities of ligand-gated channels, it will raise spirits, subsequently making the aforementioned brain-wrapping seem like a much more doable task. It's helpful to get enough sleep the night before; also helpful to get up when your alarm goes off in the morning, though, as long as you make it to class on time--or so we're told--it might not be of as great an importance as one might otherwise surmise. The literature seems to indicate that it is helpful to include pouring one's self a cup of coffee in this step as well: truth. Think about game theory, the nash equilibrium. Think about how the next five years of your life may or may not be a study in this. Think about how no player has an incentive to deviate from the chosen strategy, since no player can choose a better strategy given the choices of the other players. Think about how this would all make a great(?) reality show.