meaganelizabethmay - Tumblr blog

[meaganelizabethmay]

Here’s my weekly planner printable from my instagram, in 3 colours :-)

Links to download:

For those of you who were unable to open the file off mediafire, I’ve added a dropbox link! Hopefully that will work :)

blue version: mediafire + dropbox

pink version: mediafire + dropbox

black version: mediafire  + dropbox

My other printables:

Assignment Tracker

To Do Lists: first version, second version, third version

Weekly To Do: first version, second version

Daily Schedule Planner

Printable tag on my blog

thank you, and enjoy! - sarah, aka @studeying + instagram

[meaganelizabethmay]

We’re so obsessed with “the best version of ourselves” this version doesn’t exist. There is no final form where we are so sure that we are the best we will ever be. Humans by nature experience highs and lows that fluctuate, social media helps in our skewed perception of life, we see so many people at their best all the time that we begin to envy them and self-doubt.

Don’t invest in your final form, invest in your now. Each moment being present and continuous, enjoying or living through each experience as it happens and just trying your best. Find ways to enjoy being the you, you are now. If you don’t you’ll never find yourself enjoying life, you’ll always be saying “one day”.

[meaganelizabethmay]

Cultural Dark Academia

After my last post about the lack of representation in academia, I felt it neccessary to provide some examples of what I’m talking about. Obviously there are more countries in the world than I can list and provide books for, so for a quick list this is what I got. !! Keep researching !! If you have any more books by POC please reply them !! If a country isn’t listed, that doesn’t mean it’s not important, this is just what I could get together real quick. If I made any mistakes, please let me know, we’re all learning. We need to help each other end eurocentrism in academia, so value representation and educate yourselves 💓💓💓

Chinese:

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Dream of the Red Chamber

The Water Margin

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

The Journey to the West

The Scholars

The Peony Pavilion

Border Town by Congwen Shen

Half of Man is Woman by Zhang Xianliang

To Live by Yu Hua

Ten Years of Madness by agent Jicai

The Field of Life and Death & Tales of Hulan River by Xiao Hong

Japanese:

A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oë

Pakistani:

Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid

Ghulam Bagh by Mirza Athar Baig

Masterpieces of Urdu Nazm by K. C. Kanda

Irani/Persian:

Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji

Savushun by Simin Daneshvar

Anything by Rumi

The Book of Kings by Ferdowsi

The Rubiyat by Omar Khayyam

Shahnameh (translation by Dick Davis)

Afghan:

Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Indian:

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Aithihyamala, Garland of Legends by Kottarathil Sankunni

The Gameworld Trilogy by Samir Basu

Filipino:

Twice Blessed by Ninotchka Rosca

The Last Time I Saw Mother by Arlene J. Chai

Brazilian:

Night at the Tavern by Álvares de Azevedo

The Seven by André Vianco

Don Casmurro by Machado de Assis

Colombian:

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Delirio by Laura Restrepo

¡Que viva la música! by Andrés Caicedo

The Sound of Things Falling by Jim Gabriel Vásquez

Mexican:

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolf Anaya

Adonis Garcia/El Vampiro de la Colonia Roma by Luis Zapata

El Complot Mongol by Rafael Bernal

Egyptian:

The Cairo Trilogy by Nahuib Mahfouz

The Book of the Dead

Nigerian:

Rosewater by Tade Thompson

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Malian:

The Epic of Sundiata

Senegalese:

Poetry of Senghor

Native American:

The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King

Starlight by Richard Wagamese

Almanac of the Dead by L. Silko

Fools Crow by James Welch

Australian Aborigine:

Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe

First Footprints by Scott Cane

My Place by Sally Morgan

American//Modern:

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

Internment by Samir’s Ahmed

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurtson

Rivers of London Series by Ben Aaronovitch

[meaganelizabethmay]

“Live the life you’d be envious of if you saw someone else living it. This is my personal mantra. Whenever I’m going through a difficult time, like a breakup, and I’m wishing to be the person who could get over it and move on, I tell myself to be that person. Instead of waiting to be inspired by someone else and being jealous that they’re living a life I wish I had, I tell myself not to wait for that moment and to start being the person I want to be.”

— Olivia Dunn

[meaganelizabethmay]

“We are all ordinary. We are all boring. We are all spectacular. We are all shy. We are all bold. We are all heroes. We are all helpless. It just depends on the day.”

— Brad Meltzer

[meaganelizabethmay]

Classic Author Asks

Mary Shelley: Were you a goth, prep, nerd, or jock in school?

Zora Neale Hurston: Do you write in your free time? If so, then what do you write?

J.D. Salinger: What was the last movie you watched?

Alice Walker: What was the first “adult” book you ever read?

Bram Stoker: Do you prefer suspenseful horror movies, gore, or jump scares?

Oscar Wilde: What book have you read more than once?

Beatrix Potter: Do you like reading inside or outside?

Ann Radcliffe: What’s something you’re known for among your friends or family?

Lord Byron: What’s a negative quality that you can admit to having?

Edna St. Vincent Millay: Do you have a favorite poem or one you can recite?

Jane Austen: Have you ever fallen in love?

Langston Hughes: If you could be part of a literary era, which one?

Emily Dickinson: What’s the last book you were reading?

John William Polidori: What was the last book you finished?

Stendhal: Have you ever hid a book you were reading because you were embarrassed? 

Charles Dickens: What book are you currently reading?

Thomas Hardy: Are you a city or country person?

Virginia Woolf: What book has been on your TBR longer than a year?

Edith Wharton: What’s your favorite season for reading?

[meaganelizabethmay]

So let's talk about the Lost Generation.

This is the generation that came of age during WWI and the 1918 flu pandemic. They witnessed their world collapse in the first war that spread around the globe, and they -- in retrospect, optimistically -- called it the "war to end all wars". And that war was a quagmire. The trenches on the Western Front were notoriously awful, unsanitary and cold and wet and teeming with sickness, and bloody battles were fought to gain or lose a few feet of territory, and all because a series of alliances caused one assassination in one unstable area to spiral into a brutal large-scale war fought on the ground by people who mostly had no personal stake in the outcomes and gained nothing from winning.

On some of the worst-hit battlefields, the land is still too toxic for plant growth.

And on the heels of this horrific war, a pandemic struck. It's often referred to as "the Spanish flu" because Spain was neutral in the war, and so was the first country to admit that their people were dropping like flies. By the time the warring countries were willing to face the disease, it was far too late to contain it.

Anywhere from 50 to 100 million people worldwide would die from it. 675,000 were in the US.

But once it was finally contained -- anywhere from a year to a year and a half later -- the 20s had begun, and they began roaring.

Hedonism abounded. Alcohol flowed like water in spite of Prohibition. Music and dance and art fluorished. It was the age of Dadaism, an artistic movement of surrealism, absurdism, and abstraction. Women's skirts rose and haircuts shortened in a flamboyant rejection of the social norms of the previous decades. It was a time of glitter and glamour and jazz and flash, and (save for the art that was made) it was mostly skin deep.

Everyone stumbled out of the war and pandemic desperate to forget the horrific things they'd seen and done and all that they'd lost, and lost for nothing.

Reality seemed so pointless. It's not a coincidence that the two codifiers of the fantasy genre -- J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis -- both fought in WWI. In fact, they were school friends before the war, and were the only two of their group to return home. Tolkein wanted to rewrite the history of Europe, while Lewis wanted to rebuild faith in the escape from the world.

(There's a reason Frodo goes into the West: physically, he returned to the Shire, but mentally, he never came back from Mordor, and he couldn't live his whole life there. There's a reason three of the Pevensies can never let go of Narnia: in Narnia, unlike reality, the things they did and fought for and believed in actually mattered, were actually worth the price they paid.)

It's also no coincidence that many of the famous artists of the time either killed themselves outright or let their vices do them in. The 20s roared both in spite of and because of the despair of the Lost Generation.

It was also the era of the Harlem Renaissance, which came to the feelings of alienation and disillusionment from a different direction: there was a large migration of Black people from the South, many of whom moved to the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Obviously, the sense of alienation wasn't new to Black people in America, but the cultural shift allowed for them to publicly express it in the arts and literature in ways that hadn't been open to them before.

There was also horrific -- and state-sanctioned -- violence perpetrated against Black communities in this time, furthering the anger and despair and sense that society had not only failed them but had never even given them a chance. The term at the time was shell-shock, but now we know it as PTSD, and the vast majority of the people who came of age between 1910 and 1920 suffered from it, from one source or another.

It was an entire generation of trauma, and then the stock market crashed in 1929. Helpless, angry, impotent in the face of all that had seemingly destroyed the world for them, on the verge of utter despair, it was also a generation vulnerable to despotism. In the wake of all this chaos -- god, please, someone just take control of all this mess and set it right.

Sometimes the person who took over was decent and played by the rules and at least attempted to do the right thing. Other times, they were self-serving and hateful and committed to subjugating anyone who didn't fit their mold.

There are a lot of parallels to now, but we have something they didn't, and that's the fact that they did it first.

We know what their mistakes and sins were. We have the gift of history to see the whole picture and what worked and what failed. We as a species have walked this road before, and we weren't any happier or stronger or smarter about it the first time.

I think I want to reiterate that point: the Lost Generation were no stronger or weaker than Millennials and Gen Z are today. Plenty of both have risen up and fought back, and plenty have stumbled and been crushed under the weight. Plenty have been horribly abused by the people who were supposed to lead them, and plenty have done the abusing. Plenty of great art has been made by both, and plenty of it is escapist fantasy or scathing criticism or inspiring optimism or despairing pessimism.

We find humor in much the same things, because when reality is a mess, both the absurd and the self-deprecating become hilarious in comparison. There's a reason modern audiences don't find Seinfeld as funny as Gen X does, and many older audiences find modern comedy impenetrable and baffling -- they're different kinds of humor from different realities.

I think my point accumulates into this: in spite of how awful and hopeless and pointless everything feels, we do have a guide. We've been through this before, as a culture, and even though all of them are gone now, we have their words and art and memory to help us. We know now what they didn't then: there is a future.

The path forward is a hard one, and the only thing that makes it easier is human connection. Art -- in the most base sense, anything that is an expression of emotion and thought into a medium that allows it to be shared -- is the best and most enduring vehicle for that connection, to reach not just loved ones but people a thousand miles or a hundred years away.

So don't bottle it up. Don't pretend to be okay when you're not. Paint it, sculpt it, write it, play it, sing it, scream it, hell, you can even meme it out into the void. Whatever it takes to reach someone else -- not just for yourself but for others, both present and future.

Because, to quote the inimitable Terry Pratchett, "in a hundred years we'll all be dead, but here and now, we are alive."

[meaganelizabethmay]

Getting Stuff Done: How to Deal With Lack of Motivation

“How can I stay disciplined?”

“How can I get things done if I don’t feel like doing them?”

“How can I overcome my lack of motivation?”

As a college student who has had their fair share of being absolutely unmotivated to do anything, I know it can be hard to get things done if you don’t feel like doing them. Luckily, there are some things you can do to become more motivated to finish your homework, write your paper, study for your exam, or whatever tasks you have on your plate.

Part 1: Increasing motivation

Break up your tasks

Just thinking about one huge task is going to intimidate you so much that you’d rather leave it till later, when the urgency of time pushes you to complete it, than start now.

Breaking up your big tasks into smaller ones will make your tasks seem less daunting. Since you won’t be as intimidated by the amount of effort it might take to complete these tasks, you’ll be more likely to start doing them.

For studying, this can be something like ‘make flashcards for units 1-3’ or ‘practice past exam papers: 2015 + 2016’. For writing papers, this could be writing an outline, doing research for each point of your outline, writing the first 3 paragraphs, etc.

Working on small tasks at a time will also make you less prone to distractions since you only need to focus for a short length of time.

Make small goals and reward yourself

These goals could be accomplishing one of the smaller subtasks above, or achieving a certain grade on a practice test, or finishing a section of your study plan - as long as you’re working towards something.

The rewards? Maybe going out to eat, watching something, or even just time off. Hopefully these rewards will motivate you to complete your task.

I know some people are more inclined to do their work if they’re punished for not doing it, rather than rewarded for doing it, so if you wanna take the ‘punishment’ approach, you could do something like not allowing yourself to use social media until you finish a set of tasks - this is essentially the same thing, just thought about in a different manner. However, you should always be careful with these punishments/restrictions, because sometimes they can end up harming your health and productivity (e.g. ‘I can’t take a break until I finish all of my homework’).

Part 2: Not relying on motivation

Of course, you can’t always expect yourself to be motivated all the time. In fact, it’s very ineffective to rely on motivation to get things done; motivation is fleeting. Here’s an alternative: self-discipline. But how does it work?

Establish a study routine

Humans are creatures of habit. Even if you’re a P-type (like me), habits are hard to break. So making a habit of accomplishing your tasks/studying at a set time every day will help you, well, accomplish them. For example, it’s a lot easier to get your homework done every day if you do it at the same time - e.g. once you come home from school - rather than doing it ‘whenever you have time’.

Having a study routine will also make you less likely to be distracted since you know that that period of time had a purpose. If you’re trying this out for the first time, you might wanna completely get rid of distractions so that you can focus (e.g. putting your phone in your bag, on silent). However, with practice, I found that my phone or any other sources of distraction don’t really bother me anymore since I’ve had tons of practice resisting the urge to pick up my phone whenever there’s a notification, for example.

Schedule in time for breaks

This ties in well with the point about rewards: the break might be the reward for your studying. However, this doesn’t always have to be the case. You shouldn’t always think of relaxing as merely a reward for studying or accomplishing your tasks, but rather a necessity for the well-being of your mind. This sort of approach to breaks ensures that you actually let your brain rest once in a while.

After taking a break, your mind will be refreshed and revitalized, and you should have more than enough energy to continue with your other tasks.

Some of you asked - with regards to my previous post on The Mandatory Midday Break - how I can limit myself to exactly an hour, and to be honest, the answer is habit. It’s like having a habit of showering at the same time every day and not extend the length of time you spend in the bathroom (except in certain circumstances, like during a day off, I guess).

This is why it’s important to schedule your breaks and establish a study routine or habit - not only does it ensure you get enough rest, but it also prevents you from extending your break so that you don’t become unproductive and leave a ton of tasks unfinished.

It can be hard to motivate yourself to accomplish all your tasks, but there are things you can do to increase your motivation. However, you can’t expect to be motivated all the time, and you shouldn’t rely on motivation to get things done. Discipline and habit are the most important tools you can use to be efficient and productive without having to be motivated.

Hope this post has been helpful, and, as always, feel free to drop me an ask if you have an ask. Have an awesome week :)

[meaganelizabethmay]

042420

As most people are working and studying from home right now, I wanted to share some concrete, implementable ways you can help yourself feel better. Though I believe productivity and quantity of work done (or lack thereof) doesn’t/shouldn’t translate into your self-worth and how you view yourself, when you get work done, you actually do feel better in your own body. 

By the way, it’s the first time I’m formatting a tips/guide post like this, so I apologize that I couldn’t be more concise.

I’ve spoken to a licensed professional counsellor as well as to some professionals who have been working from home for a long time, and some of the advice above is from them. I’m also sharing from my own experience as someone who used to be very productive and an (ex-)overachiever, and still attach a lot of my self-worth to grades and other tangible accomplishments. I hope these slides can help you. In case it’s hard to read, I’ve included it (reworded) in text form if you’d like to read more. 

Keep reading

[meaganelizabethmay]

Do you know what people really want? Everyone, I mean. Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who'd be kind to me. That's what people really want, if they're telling the truth.

— Doris Lessing

[meaganelizabethmay]

If you believe in peace, act peacefully ; if you believe in love, acting lovingly ; if you believe every which way, then act every which way, that's perfectly valid — but don't go out trying to sell your beliefs to the system. You end up contradicting what you profess to believe in, and you set a bum example. If you want to change the world, change yourself.

— Tom Robbins

[meaganelizabethmay]

A Truly Happy Person …

1. Is able to experience a whole range of emotions. He or she is authentic and doesn`t wear a mask. They don`t always seem upbeat, or are never, ever down. Also they don’t project their moods and their feelings onto others, or blame other people if they’re having a bad day.

2. Is able to appreciate the beauty of others, and is happy for them when successes come their way. They are someone who’s secure in their own identity - and doesn’t need to criticise, or want others to fail.

3. Can let offenses go, and doesn’t take things personally. That’s because they have a healthy, and balanced, self-esteem.

4. Is concerned when others suffer and will offer them support. This person’s a true friend and, thus, they truly care for you.

5. Is not in competition with others in their life. They compete against themselves, and try to raise their own bar high.

6. Doesn’t magnify the bad or distort reality. They work on their shortcomings, and they recognise their strengths.

7. Appreciates the small things, and can make the most of “now”. They’re not tripped up by the past, and they’re not quick to run ahead. They know that both these matter – but what “today” matters the most.

[meaganelizabethmay]

Tips for Surviving Tough Times

1. Remind yourself that you still have options (even if they aren’t all that appealing at the moment).

2. Focus on those few things that are going well (even if you have to scratch your head and really, really think!)

3. Decide what you can do … and then just take the next small step. And then, when you’ve done that, take another tiny step.

4. Admit how you are feeling. Admit your greatest fears. It’s important to be honest, and to feel all your emotions.

5. Let go of all the oughts, and the musts and the shoulds. Demands and expectations will only wear you down.

6. Ensure your life is balanced – and make sure you make the time to relax, have some fun, to chill out, and have a laugh.

[meaganelizabethmay]

9/100 days of productivity.

Our winter has finally arrived. I spent majority of the day reading.

I watched a few crash course psychology courses while knitting.

Psychology absolutely fascinates me

[meaganelizabethmay]

8 /100 days of productivity.

Today was a breath of fresh air.

Have you ever discovered a book on your bookshelf that you did not was there.

I discovered this Oscar Wilde book on my bookshelf today and it immediately captivated my attention. After having read and loved "The picture of Dorian Gray " I could not wait to start exploring his poetry.

I am in love. His writing style intrigues me.

Apart from having a literature fan moment I manage to get a tiny bit of french practice in and alot of geometry. I am currently doing a Geometry course through Udemy.

By the looks of it I will probably be doing my first semester ever of college (fall semester) online as the world continues to battle COVID. I am grateful that this will be the way that it will be done.

I also manage to do some relaxing stretching today

[meaganelizabethmay]

latin phrases worth knowing:

(in case you wanted to know because i fucking love this language) 

ad astra per aspera - to the stars through difficulties 

alis volat propriis - he flies by his own wings 

amantium irae amoris integratio est - the quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love 

ars longa, vita brevis - art is long, life is short 

aut insanity homo, aut versus facit - the fellow is either mad or he is composing verses 

dum spiro spero - while I breathe, I hope 

ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem - with the sword, she seeks peace under liberty 

exigo a me non ut optimus par sim sed ut malis melior - I require myself not to be equal to the best, but to be better than the bad

experiential docet - experience teaches 

helluo librorum - a glutton for books (bookworm) 

in libras libertas - in books, freedom 

littera scripta manet - the written letter lasts 

mens regnum bona possidet - an honest heart is a kingdom in itself 

mirabile dictu - wonderful to say 

nullus est liber tam malus ut non aliqua parte prosit - there is no book so bad that it is not profitable in some part 

omnia iam fient quae posse negabam - everything which I used to say could not happen, will happen now 

poeta nascitur, non fit - the poet is born, not made 

qui dedit benificium taceat; narrat qui accepit - let him who has done a good deed be silent; let him who has received it tell it 

saepe ne utile quidem est scire quid futurum sit - often, it is not advantageous to know what will be 

sedit qui timuit ne non succederet - he who feared he would not succeed sat still 

si vis pacem, para bellum - if you want peace, prepare for war 

struit insidias lacrimis cum feminia plorat - when a woman weeps, she is setting traps with her tears 

sub rosa - under the rose 

trahimir omnes laudis studio - we are led on by our eagerness for praise

urbem latericium invenit, marmoream reliquit - he found the city a city of bricks; he left it a city of marble 

ut incepit fidelis sic permanet - as loyal as she began, so she remains

[meaganelizabethmay]

classic lit hits different than modern lit not because modern lit lacks depth but because there’s something so incredible about reading something and knowing that hundreds of years before you people were living, breathing, loving, the same way you do now. like one hundred years ago someone read these same words and felt them and read them just as you do today, and you’re connected despite the times that separates you