astudentsinsanity

[astudentsinsanity]

[astudentsinsanity]

[astudentsinsanity]

Haven't been in this website for so long but I just had to share my cute April pages

[astudentsinsanity]

good emotional skills to know 4 college but also in general

this is stuff that i’ve found helpful and am in the process of working on. they may not be achievable for you without help and may not work for your specific circumstance, but this is a list of suggestions that you might be able to think about. i am also not a mental health professional so please do feel free to contradict me!!

self soothing.  having a toolbox to take care of yourself by yourself. bc sometimes nobody else is available and you just gotta put some lotion on, listen to a tune, and go to bed early. 

checking in. checking in with yourself to see if you’re okay. knowing how to alter your strategies when your strategies aren’t working. knowing when your strategies aren’t working. this is just taking some time every day to reflect on what goals you didn’t meet and why and what you can do to fix that.

there’s nothing you “should” be doing. if you get caught up thinking “i should be doing x” that’s false! stop that! “should” be doing better implies that you have some obligation to do whatever it is that you “should” be doing. you don’t owe anybody except yourself. analyze why you think you should be doing that thing and change that into…. “i want to be doing x because…” or “doing x will make me happier, because…”. overall, more productive and less self-shamey. 

disconnecting from the crowd. eating in a crowded dining hall can be stressful! knowing how to be alone in a crowd and stay calm is helpful

being okay with being alone.  tbh college is kind of… being alone a lot, in my experience. even though you’re surrounded by people, a lot of time is spent alone. making friends is hard. your friends have different schedules. you’re busy. shit sucks. we make the best of it.

knowing yourself. this relates to a lot of what i’ve already said but like. knowing your emotional state and knowing what helps trick the monkey brain is helpful. stop repressing your feelings, friends.

talking to strangers. ordering from a menu! paying library fines. going to office hours. asking for a cashier at the register if there isn’t one. ya this is hard. ya you gotta expose yourself. sometimes i just try playing a persona. like this isn’t me ordering a sandwich. this is a cool me who knows how to talk to people who is ordering a sandwich.

you don’t have to be friends with your roommates. you just have to live together in a way that doesn’t make you two hate each other. ideally, you two will coexist in a way that doesn’t interfere with the other’s daily life.

give and taking. on the topic of roommates, sometimes your roommate can be a shitty person, but sometimes you are the shitty person! give a little but if they’re negatively impacting your life, communicate.

communicating during disagreements. explain what your emotions are instead of blaming them. “i feel hurt when you…” or “i feel frustrated when” or “i feel unappreciated when.” if things get heated, ask if you both can take a ten minute break and then come back. and don’t bring up disagreements when the other party is preoccupied or going somewhere. you can legitimately schedule a discussion.

it’s okay to apologize. learning to swallow your pride gets easier each time.

knowing that people work differently than you. some people are not gonna click with you and it’s gonna seem like they have this whole brain process up there that is totally unlike yours. and yeah! that’s how it is. and that’s chill if they aren’t hurting anyone else. work with them and be flexible!! 

comforting people. you will probably/definitely see someone cry! hell if i know how to comfort people. someone please help. but some things i’ve learned are: 1) different people need different things. different people need different things! 2) people need different things at different times. 3) you can ask them what they want and it won’t be weird. 4) apparently a lot of people like hugs? but ask. and it’s okay to not want a hug. 5) just show that you care in some way if you don’t know what they need. i used to think that if somebody needed to tell me what they needed it was a sign that i just didn’t know them well enough and we weren’t compatible or i wasn’t being a good friend. that’s fake! friendship isn’t based off of fitting naturally in every way and making an effort to be good for them is important.

knowing it’s okay to not be liked by everyone. it’s okay if strangers think you’re dumb because you said something dumb in public. you know you’re not dumb. it’s okay if not everybody you meet likes you. it’s okay if you do something cringey. everybody has their own shit to deal with and you will not shatter their world.  grow and move on!

forgiving yourself. i’m trying this new thing where when i feel embarrassed about something i say. out loud. “i forgive myself.” and then i just try to grow from that and move on without getting caught in a spiral of shame.

knowing what you need vs what you want and what is better at the time. what you need: a shower. what you want: to not do that. solution: take a shower! or maybe what you actually need is to go to sleep? but guess what. you probably know what is good for you. the hard part is actually doing it.

realize that building habits is less work than discipline. emotional effort is expended every time you have to make yourself do something. just make it part of your routine and you’ll just think it’s normal to do all the good things! like, for example, i’m trying to make it a habit to eat structured meals instead of a “eat when i’m hungry” thing because i know that makes me skip meals, which is bad!

you won’t be able to do everything. forgive yourself for that. write down  things that are top priority and focus on them. everything else is not important right now and you shouldn’t beat yourself up for not being able to do them.

your health is important. i’m not saying health will solve all your problems. it won’t! but health will cause a lot of your problems to go away. because let’s face it. not sleeping causes a lot of problems. 

it’s okay to ask for help. we say this a lot but it’s hard to internalize it. here’s a thought: there’s so much shame and hesitation about asking for help so by doing that you’re actually being proactive (which is respectable) and mature, and therefore… not weak or stupid. ask for help even before you need it! most people love to help others. and especially take advantage of people who are OFFERING help. for example: counselors at school or TAs. it’s literally their job. they want to do it. and if you don’t want to talk to anybody in real life, my inbox is always open.

[astudentsinsanity]

Reblog if its okay to message you on anon until I am comfortable enough to reveal myself to you

Yeet

[astudentsinsanity]

reblog if you’re a new studyblr!

most of my dash are posts from popular studyblrs, and i feel like i’m not giving the newer ones enough love and support! i want to see knew stuff, so, if you’re new here or don’t have many followers, reblog this and i’ll check your blog, perhaps reblog some stuff, and follow you! 

if you want, send me your original content tag, so i can reblog your posts easily!

(the period you’ve been on tumblr is relative and not crucial, you could be on the studyblr community for half a hear and still be new or have almost no followers, so don’t be afraid to reblog)

also, if you want, consider following me too and/or chat with me! :)

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Need more studyblrs to follow!

I will be going to uni this october so I decided I would revive my blog.

Reblog if you post original/reblog studyblr things, so I can follow you!

[astudentsinsanity]

Get to know me, send me a symbol.

📱 Show your phone lock screen and/or home screen

💕 Your two top fave fictional characters

🕹 Video game you are currently playing

🌡 Fave season

🏫 Are you in school, what grade

 🎒 Are you in college, major area of study

🏢 Your job (You don’t have to be specific) or dream job if you don’t work

📷 Post the 12th photo from your phone’s gallery

📅 Your birthday

🎂 How old are you

📏 How tall are you

🔑 Key to your heart

📖 Fave book

📝 Fave quote

🌐 Languages you can speak and/or are learning. Which are you fluent in

💻 Desktop/Laptop/iPad/other

📔 Do you keep a traditional diary

☠ Something that angers you

🐷 Junk food you can never get enough of

🌼 Fave flower

📺 Fave anime

🎥 Fave film

📻 Fave song currently

🎙 Can you sing

🎁 Best gift you ever received and why

👾 Do you believe in aliens

👻 Do you believe in ghosts

⛪ What is your religion

🌎 What country do you live in

📸 Post a selfie

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What to do if you suddenly find yourself homeless

FOOD

Find your nearest food bank or mission, for food

grocery stores with free samples, bakeries + stores with day-old bread

different fast food outlets have cheaper food and will generally let you hang out for a while.

some dollar stores carry food like cans of beans or fruit

SHELTER

Sleeping at beaches during the day is a good way to avoid suspicion and harassment

sleep with your bag strapped to you, so someone can’t steal it

Some churches offer short term residence

Find your nearest homeless shelter

Look for places that are open to the public

A large dumpster near a wall can often be moved so that flipping up the lids creates an angled shelter to stay dry

HYGIENE

A membership to the YMCA is usually only 10$, which has a shower, and sometimes laundry machines and lockers.

Public libraries have bathrooms you can use

Dollar stores carry low-end soaps and deodorant etc.

Wet wipes are all purpose and a life saver

Local beaches, go for a quick swim

Some truck stops have showers you can pay for

Staying clean is the best way to prevent disease, and potentially get a job to get back on your feet

Pack 7 pairs of socks/undies, 2 outfits, and one hooded rain jacket

OTHER

first aid kit

 sunscreen

 a travel alarm clock or watch

 mylar emergency blanket

 a backpack is a must

 downgrade your cellphone to a pay as you go with top-up cards

 sleeping bag

 travel kit of toothbrush, hair brush/comb, mirror

 swiss army knife

 can opener

[astudentsinsanity]

How I organize papers

Quite a few people have asked me how I organize my literature reading, so here’s a walkthrough of how I do it. This is a method that works for me right now, and I’ve been consistent with doing it this way since I started reading more seriously for my oral qualifying exam.

Paper reading set up:

Printed copy at 85% (for space to write in the margin)

Black pen (for summaries, writing things in my own words, writing things to keep in mind, etc.)

Blue pen (for notes on experiment ideas, how these experiments/findings are relevant to what we study, things to take notes of, things to look up, etc.)

Yellow highlighter for general highlighting

No phone/computer/tablet

Cup of tea/coffee

I used to read on my iPad using Notability. I liked that option because it gives me more colors to work with, but I was also getting too distracted with what colors to use, all the apps on my iPad, and such. These are dry academic papers with a lot to process, and it’s really hard to compete with apps like FB and Reddit with their endless scrolls and easy to understand posts. I find that with my current set up of having just the bare necessity and no distraction means I’m more likely to read my paper and stay reading. Photo above was taken when I was summarizing, so I had both my phone and my laptop and took 2x as long to summarize…

Digital organization set up:

There is a “Paper” section within my OneNote lab notebook

Under this section, each tab has its own topic

Sometimes there are overlaps (interneuron deficit leading to Tourette) would have a main section in Tourette, and that just gets copy/pasted to the Interneuron with a note saying, “duplicate from Tourette”

In each tab has a “Table of Content,” which is a summary table of all the papers I’ve read on that topic

ToC is subdivided into several categories: paper, summary & conclusions, *something specific to this section, and notes & additional questions

Paper: contains title, *first author’s last name* et al., ### (*PI’s last name*)

Summary & Conclusions: things I’ve written in black or highlighted from the paper

*Specific to this section*: I don’t really know how to describe this section besides giving examples. For my Tourette tab, this section is Area Implicated since we’re interested in the regions of the brain associated with Tourette. For my protein of interest (PoI) tab, this section is PoI’s Condition since I want to distinguish the effect seen with heterozygous KO, homozygous KO, conditional KO, and point mutations, to piece out the function of the various domains

Notes & Additional Questions: everything I wrote in blue will go here. This section makes notes of the experiments I came up with while I read, lists questions I have during reading that can guide further reading, etc

This serves as a summary of all the papers I’ve read with enough information to know the paper without having to reread it. In my experience, it’s immensely helpful as I write my qualifying proposal. Having everything about one topic in one place allows me to quickly compare and contrast the different papers and see what has or hasn’t been done before and how to possibly fill the knowledge gap.

Physical organization set up:

My implementation of @cancerbiophd​‘s method:

I currently have 1-1.5 inch binders containing 2-3 topics per binder

Each topic is distinguished from the other in the same binder via color coding tags

Each tag is labeled with *first author’s last name* et al., ### (*PI’s last name*)

Papers are stored in plastic sheet protectors to protect all parts of notes from hole punching, and this plastic sheet protector is flagged with the label above

The order of the paper is not really organized. Right now I have it by the order I read it in, but if I come up with a better way of sorting papers, I will adopt that instead

These photos are a bit outdated. I’ve switched my CELSR3/Tourette/Interneuron papers into the 1.5 binder since my research focuses on this particular area, and there’s a lot of papers that I’m reading that pertains to these topics.

Usage

When writing, I have the “table of content” side by side and read through that for a quick summary. If further info is needed, I can go through physical copy for more information, and since it’s organized in a way that makes sense to me, I can find it easily instead of leafing through all of my papers, some with very similar titles and authors.

Hopefully this is helpful to you! If you have any suggestions on how to make this process more efficient or comments on how you personally keep track of your literature reading, please let me know! 

[astudentsinsanity]

You ever see a pretty dress, a well-organised notebook, a peculiar balcony or read one line of poetry and get the overwhelming urge to reinvent yourself

[astudentsinsanity]

if english isn’t ur first language what is?? tag it

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Today is Father's Day here, which means all I really wanted was to watch Harry Potter movies and work on my bullet journal, but I can't because I'm supposed to hang out with my family.

This is bullshit, I say. BULLSHIT.

[astudentsinsanity]

YET ANOTHER REBLOG IF YOU’RE A STUDYBLR

Hello! My timeline is pretty dead right now because it’s summer but if you’re an active studyblr reblog or like and I’ll check out your blog!

[astudentsinsanity]

August 10th, 2019

Thought I'd took the day to rest and relax a bit (this first week of school was already so exhausting), made some cookies and actually was able to get the readings I was supposed to do for Monday's and Tuesday's classes. I'll work hard to keep this level of discipline throughout the semester.

🎶 Hippo Campus - simple season

[astudentsinsanity]

Law School: You cannot possibly succeed here unless you take impeccable care of your mental health, eat right, exercise, and study a minimum three hours for each hour of lecture, and stay off of social media 

Law Students: 

[astudentsinsanity]

If you are beginning your semester of school this upcoming week or sometime soon; I am wishing that you transition smoothly into your academic environment. I hope that you develop comfortable relationships with your professors and instructors. I pray that any financial burdens that have arisen be resolved timely and easily.