cloudy-caspirations

[cloudy-caspirations]

Wednesday • February 26, 2025

DiffEQ/LinAlg: how it started vs how it’s going!!!

I know it’s not too impressive when the improved score is coming from my second time taking the class, but im celebrating anyway because I get it now🎉🎉

Got some midterm scores back over the weekend, and after the hell that was last semester this was pretty surreal! I got so used to either barely scraping by with a low C or just straight up failing tests that I forgot the rush that comes from getting a canvas notif and seeing a good score :D

Of course not everything was perfect, while I did get good scores for both calc 3 and diffEQ/LinAlg, I bombed my digital logic midterm and got a C 😵. Got too confident and didn’t study, and my lack of prep was obvious when I didn’t even finish the exam within the time limit 😭

When results came out for that midterm a couple of guys I’ve been working with (and low-key tutoring tbh) asked about my score, and when I told them I bombed it one of them gave me a Look and said “yeah that checks out” ???? whatever that means 🙄 So that pissed me off, but at least now I have free time that I *Used* to spend helping them to dedicate to studying solely for this class!

[cloudy-caspirations]

Wednesday • February 26, 2025

Had to dip last week to focus on midterms, sorry about that 😵‍💫 Can you guess which classes I had exams for based on last week’s forest stats? I had three midterms total and the world’s worst lab, but found a nice new roof spot to work at :D

Loving my classes so far, especially my EE ones, but as fun as those are I still miss my humanities courses. I’ve been trying to fill the void by obsessively analyzing Hozier songs and learning some on the guitar, but my curriculum has been sorely missing a good literature-heavy class and its showing in my ability to write and understand more complex text. I’ve never been the best at writing anyway, but I don’t want to be one of those engineering majors who prioritize efficiency over literacy/ethics.

Maybe I should pick up a minor in philosophy— those classes have consistently been some of my all time favorite courses ever, and its not like I’ll be graduating on time anyway 😭. Do any of you have any thoughts/input?

[cloudy-caspirations]

THIS!!!!!! majoring in engineering rn and the sheer amount of ppl here that don’t realize how much they overlap and feed into each other is so frustrating like ??? 😭😭 we are in a digital logic class WHY are you making fun of philosophy majors that’s literally your cousin—

Can we talk about how the idea that STEM and the humanities are mortal enemies with no overlap is actually incredibly harmful and is not only preventing people from pursuing their passions but also part of the reason why the humanities aren’t given their proper respect? No, artists are not all snobby pretentious assholes who think they’re more cultured than everyone else and no scientists are not all emotionless robots who think they’re smarter than everyone else and it’s possible to be an artist and a scientist at the same time. By acting like you have to choose between STEM and humanities we are eliminating thousands of potential careers and causing unnecessary divisions in a time where nothing is more crucial than unity. I’m so tired of people acting like STEM majors are incapable of understanding art and humanities majors are incapable of understanding math when the two fields are crucial to one another. Who would design our architecture if it weren’t for artful engineers? Who would discover the rules of composition? At the end of the day we are all just people trying to learn and make a living, and all of these careers are important to humanity. People can’t say that STEM is more important than humanities if there’s no such thing as STEM vs humanities.

[cloudy-caspirations]

I must not lie down. Lying down after school is the day-killer. Lying down is the little treat that brings total obliteration. I will face my exhaustion. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when I have made coffee, I will turn on the computer to do emails. Once lying down is gone there will be nothing. Only homework will remain.

[cloudy-caspirations]

hiii , do you have any tips for studying with adhd?

Hello :D While I don’t have that great of a routine figured out yet, I will say that what helps me the most for both completing tasks and just studying to learn with no task attached to it is to do everything in a public setting (to the best of your ability ofc). Personally I spend a couple hours at least twice a week in some coffee shop, but it depends on your schedule and work for the week.

I’m not saying never work at home, but when you do have stuff to get done and have the ability to go out and work in some public setting do it! It doesn’t have to be some fancy café either, I’ve worked everywhere from diners with free wifi to public and university libraries (at both my own school and other schools in my area!) to mall food courts, literally anywhere with decent seating and foot traffic works.

I think the reason this works so well for me is because it’s some kind of form of body doubling, where the fact that there are people around me and can see what I am doing forces me to be accountable and get work done, even if they aren’t being productive themselves.

Once you get to that public setting, I usually keep track of everything that I need to do using a notion that I update weekly (a super simple assignment tracker works better w/ my brain compared to the super fancy ones you see in youtube tuts bc it’s not too overwhelming to keep up with) and the forest app to track time spent/keep me off my phone.

Sorry for the long ramble, I hope this helps you as much as it helped me 😵‍💫😵‍💫 Good luck with your studies!

[cloudy-caspirations]

Sunday • February 16, 2025

Back again to work on differential equations homework for hours, but this time at a fun new location! (my grandma’s house) Had to share a table with assorted fruits and plants (re: the aloe vera leaf draining behind my laptop), but the menudo and pan ranchero made up for the lack of quiet space.

This weekend was supposed to be a break from academics for a bit while some of my tias are in town, but unfortunately my midterm schedule wouldn’t allow it. At least I was able to overhear some of the chisme they were catching my grandma up on while I was working 🤷

Anyways, pics for today are working at the kitchen table and my forest hours for this week. Started tagging my time based on the specific class I’m studying for instead of the general “study” tag. I’m also loving that new focus challenge feature they have, giving studying a game-adjacent mechanic tricks my ADHD brain into enjoying studying a little more :D

[cloudy-caspirations]

Tuesday • February 4, 2025

Pictured here we have a responsible electrical engineering student double-checking her circuit’s functionality before her digital logic lab using simulation software rather than going in blind and praying that it works correctly. Not pictured however is that same circuit approximately 4-5 hours later in said lab, smoke visibly coming from the breadboard and a pile of burnt components laying abandoned on the workbench as my lab partner frantically apologizes for turning the input voltage up to 7V.

Yeah, Friday’s lab got a little hectic to say the least. It was fun though! I spent a long time prepping for the lab and even pre-built the circuit (XOR function made of 4 NAND gates) because I’m not as confident with digital logic as I was with circuit analysis, and I had no clue how to wire up logic gates. I’m glad I did all of that prep though because when disaster struck, I was ready. There wasn’t even anything wrong with the circuit itself, my design worked fine and both the XOR and NAND-equivalent portions were functional, but my breadboard was too stiff for my cheap jumper wires and my lab partner turned up the voltage when the LED’s flickered instead of adjusting the wires. Meanwhile, I left the bench to grab the lab professor to re-check my circuit, and I came back to $45+ worth of my own equipment completely burnt 🥲.

I was a little ticked off at my lab partner, especially because every EE student has to buy their own materials for labs short of power supplies and oscilloscopes and everything is expensive when you’re a broke college student, but it was an honest mistake (partially due to my own faulty wires at that) and I can just use his supplies for now while I’m working on replacing my own. I just hope we don’t have a repeat this Friday and break his equipment too, then we would just be screwed 😭.

[cloudy-caspirations]

Friday • January 24, 2025

First week down !!! :D Take this circuit analysis study timelapse from last semester to celebrate I guess 😭.

Well, almost down technically, but it’s Friday so I’m counting it as done. I still have my calc 3 lecture in an hour and my digital logic design lab at 7pm, but other than that then I’m basically done with the first week. I just got off the waitlist for that lab yesterday and I’m so glad I didn’t end up having to show up at 7pm to beg the professor to let me enroll.

Okay anyways, first impressions of classes so far: DIGITAL LOGIC DESIGN OMGGGGGGGG !!!!!!!!!!!! oh yeah and everything else is there too I guess,,,, 😭. I am loving digital logic so far, the professor is just ok but the subject itself is so satisfying that I don’t even mind being one of two women in the entire class of forty people. All of my other classes are kind of just there, except for DiffEQ/LinAlg which somehow seems worse and makes even less sense than last semester 🥲.

I’ve been yapping a lot in my posts lately, so I’ll keep this one short and end it here. See y’all later and good luck with classes!

[cloudy-caspirations]

2025, week 3 (jan 13th - jan 19th) 📚

the year is ramping up! I've started studying for my next work-related course & I'm properly getting back into language learning. I'm using a common planner as a language notebook to log what I do each day and take notes in the back. work is going well enough, but I feel like I'm just on the edge of doing too much and getting tired. I think I'm going to scale it back a little bit next week.

accomplishments this week:

finished the first week of the couch to 5k plan

read a news article in Spanish

went through the first two units of the NVIDIA AIIO course

took some notes on Dutch grammar

I had a pretty productive week at work

highlights this week:

I finished reading Gravity Lost by L. M. Sagas & I really enjoyed it!

I went to a bookstore & got some new books!

I called my dad & we chatted about ham radio stuff

[cloudy-caspirations]

100 Days of Productivity [8/100]

🌿13/01/25🌿

🎧 song of the day: How to disappear - Lana Del Rey

Got a new weekly planner and It was the best decision I could’ve made, I love the filofax but I think I will be using it as a journal and to take notes on site visits. I have a lot to do this week so I don’t really think I will be getting bored at all. I had to finish my mind map today because yesterday I was falling asleep. Also did my monthly spread for my reading journal

[cloudy-caspirations]

|| studyblr introduction

hello! i've been lurking around studyblr for a while now. and with the spring semester coming up, i really wanna lock in. so i thought this would be a nice and fun way to keep me accountable.

|| about me ! mars. any prns. 18. hawaii, us. freshman in college, 2nd semester. studying art + education. hawaiian chinese || interests ! candles. crystals (selenite is the best crystal change my mind.) perfume (an interest i cannot afford.) travelling. reading (currently trying to get through wicked WISH ME LUCK.) drawing (hence my major.) music (currently fixated on "nostalgic piano" but i love folk and am a pop girl @ ♡) coffee & energy drinks that hurt my stomach. stationary || what to expect ! study notes. (i apologize going forward, my handwriting is bad.) digital diary entries journal spreads (whenever i do them lol.) photos... aesthetics... the lot. || conclusion... feel free to reach out & chat! i love to talk. wishing everyone a good spring semester !

[cloudy-caspirations]

21.1.2025 | forensics day 2

i have decided for my own wellbeing that i won’t be giving this rotation 100%. i studied while videocalling my mom because everyone else in my flat is on holiday and i’m scared

📖 - monstrilio, Gerardo Sámano Córdova

🎧 - waiting for, taemin

[cloudy-caspirations]

[ 14th january, 2025 • 128/152 days ]

now that it's exam time again, all the problems are back. can't focus, can't sleep, can't do anything. i'm getting very upset, but i know that won't help with anything so i'm trying to be patient with myself. mentally-drained person woes

-> ASA notes (dynamic programming)

-> pharmacy run

-> volleyball game (total: 3h00 - got to play the whole game! i know it was just because some people couldn't attend that day, but that's ok)

[cloudy-caspirations]

January 22, 2025 • Wednesday

--- 15 days of productivity • COLLAB CHALLENGE WITH @winryrockbellwannabe and @nanthegirl • Day 4/15 ---

📝 AJ'S study time: 2h 45min

📝 Nan's study time: 6h 13min 👑

📝 Iris's study time: 1h 40min

Nan properly destroyed us today damn...

I gave my psych exam today. Couldn't finish it because I started flaring up :( I spent the rest of the day in a weird kind of exhaustion so I only got to study a little.

I also helped @studaxy perfect their presentation for a class so that was fun!

🎧 Yaarenna Sonnalum — Hiphop Tamizha

[cloudy-caspirations]

✦ 22. 1. 25 ✦📓✦ Wednesday ✦ exam week 1 ✦

Today I had a break and tmr I have physics. I have a feeling it's either going to be really easy or really difficult. I didn't prepare the best I could, but hopefully enough? The "it´s common sense" thing is haunting me, but at the same time I know for a fact that I don´t have the ability to freestyle like that lmao. I just want it to be OVER...

But let me tell you about yesterday, oh my god

✧⋆｡✎

It was wild. I´m not gonna say I liked the feeling, because it can´t be healthy, but from 7am to 5pm I was purely running on adrenaline and like 2 sweet treats. Couldn´t eat anything bigger because of i think stress? 3 hour exam until 12, one hour break and then another 3 hours until 17. (Because they keep us in the room longer to check). My hand was hurting, my back was hurting, and my knees were also hurting for some reason?? I wrote 12 full pages for eco... And it still didn´t feel like enough. But after it was over - the RELIEF I felt it was like a physical weight has been lifted from me. And it was 2 of the easier ones, I can´t wait for physics and math to be over omg. I don´t like exams <3

Countdown ⊹₊

L2 & Eco - Physics 0d - L1 1d - Math 4d - Art 8d

[cloudy-caspirations]

📖 20.01.2025 // Full studying day! I worked with @winryrockbellwannabe, @a-fox-studies and @nanthegirl (okay my mistake is corrected ahah) and it felt nice to not be alone with my notes and my lectures along the day 🩷

I did a 10 min workout (which took me 30 minutes because I took breaks all the time ahah), I want to keep doing it everyday because I really need to improve my health.

I ate rice with a mushroom omelet and it was super good! I also read a bit.

📖 The Wave - Todd Strasser

🎧Blondie - Current Joys

[cloudy-caspirations]

Saturday • January 18, 2025

My spring semester officially starts today, but I’m not in any weekend classes and have Monday off for MLK Day, so technically I don’t start until Tuesday. 3 days left of break and only 1/5 of my professors have opened up their canvas pages 😭. For some reason, I’m a lot less nervous for this semester than I was for last semester despite being WAYY less prepared.

I think the only thing making me nervous is my digital logic design lab, but that’s because I’m still waitlisted for the class. I’m first on the waitlist, so I know I have a good chance of making it in during the Add/Drop period, but if I don’t than I’ll be delayed by ANOTHER year and I don’t even want to think about that rn 😵. I’m just surprised the lab has such a long waitlist when it’s from 7-10pm on a Friday night 😭😭 I guess engineering students don’t party much anyway though.

Anyway, the pics for today are from last semester’s circuit analysis lab cram sesh before finals week. Saw that goofy chalkboard on the way up to lab and had to take a photo. See y’all in a couple days !!