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I realized that I only have like month and a half to fix my grade. I am going to start 100 days of productivity and bring my calculus and physics grade up.

I also need to register for SAT... or SAT Subject, but I really am not sure which to go with. What should I do?!

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Is my physics teacher okay?

Ant drinking Red Bull? Declawed cat on Gravitron?

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Finally managed to get last 10 colors of Mildliners. At this point, stationery is the only thing I'm spending money on (other than occassional coffee).

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I'm trying my best to get through this mess with my grade. I'm trying, but I don't think it's working out well. Frustration is real.

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Making a couple of paper airplanes for AP Physics lab tomorrow. Apparently, the only way to get 100 is to make a plane that flies the longest.

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Past two unit notes from AP Psych. So far, this class has been interesting. This class has been like a small break period.

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APUSH time period 1 reading notes & quizzes from last 2 weeks. This class isn't that hard... but it's time consuming because of all the required textbook notes.

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💕💗💗💗💞💞

:) :) :)

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Back to school: Freshman advice

It is a time of year that new school year starts to begin again. This is my second week of junior year. I saw bunch of freshmen trying to figure things out, and as much as I may not like some of them for being rude and such, I also do not like being lost.

I decided to write this guide to help incoming freshman in high school (U.S.). I hope this will be helpful to everyone entering high school this year.

Do your work. You may have gotten away with not doing homeworks or class assignments in middle school, but this will not work in high school. You are not going to get a good grade with that. Whatever it is, just do it.

Forget about what middle school teachers said about high school. A lot of times, they try to scare you and tell you that no one cares in high school. Some even uses high school as an excuse to teach and say: "They will not teach in high school," or something among that line. This is not necessarily true. A lot of my high school teachers were more generous in regards of extra credit and such.

Read more books. You will not have much time, but you have to shove reading time in between your works. This will help you a lot with your classes and essays. Also, read whatever you want, but start reading something other than YA fictions (nonficition, classics... etc).

Organize things however you want to. I have had middle school teachers that insisted on using certain school supplies/note taking method/organization method. Honestly, high school teachers don't care (just do mind the essential supply list). Note taking is your thing? Do that! You can memorize everything without notes? Do that!

Eat, sleep, and function correctly. As much as you are inclined to do all nighters, that is not that good for your biological clock. It will come back to you. Eat breakfast even if you don't want to. Your brain cannot function great without some food. Do your routine and try to function as a human even if you are going out at 6:30.

Join some clubs or other extracurriculars. It's not just for college app or graduation cords. It will help you find new people and passion (hopefully). Can't find the one you want? Make a new one and ask your teachers to sponsor it. Also, don't just join big ones - have some variety: academic, volunteer, sports/arts, foreign language... you will find something you'll like.

Take challenging classes. This is a debatable one, but you should try AP/honors/gifted kind of classes (honors and gifted aren't that hard, really). Try to challenge yourself; AP classes are doable if you work just little bit more (and go with faster pace). Don't be scared of the labels.

Have a good relationship with teachers. Not just as students/teachers, you should try to talk to them as people. This will help you with a lot of things including your college app and other miscellaneous recommendations you need. At the end of the day, they are humans, too. So why wouldn't you have a good relationship woth them?

Avoid drama and "friends." Those things will not help you in any possible way. You might have so-called-friends who just treat you terribly. Get away from them. There are plenty of better people out there. You don't have to be friends with everyone, but try to not make enemies. Try to not skew towards one side too much; you have to learn to stay neutral in certain situations to avoid unnecessary problems.

Use planner. This is very improtant. Write down test/quiz dates, dues dates, homeworks, and etc to not forget about things. It will also help you with your time management.

Start thinking about what you want to do after high school and plan accordingly. In other words, plan your classes, extracurriculars, and etc according to what you might want to do after this. Start early. Don't waste your freshman year.

I will not say that high school is necessarily easy. You might have rainy days. You might have days you just want to cry. You might have days that doesn't seem to end. But important thing is that... people get through it. They do. And you will, too.

Good luck, and I hope you'll have a great year!

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What's in my pencil case: 2019 side

Handmade pencil case (gifted)

Uni-Ball Signo UM 151 red, blue black, brown black, orange, green, pink, blue

3M Scotch tape

Expo marker black

Zebra Mildliners cool color pack

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What's in my pencil case: 2019 main

New Balance pencil case

Uni-Ball Signo UM 151 black, emerald & light blue

2 Megabrand yellow pencils

Kitaboshi Wood Note mechanical pencil 0.5

Xeno white mechanical pencil 0.9

Sharp mechanical pencil 0.5

동아 (Dong-A) 0.5 HB lead

Uni 0.9 HB lead

Eraser

Monami namepen

Expo vis-a-vis marker

Orange fluorescent marker

Moleskine × Starbucks KR ballpoint pen

Burt's Bees ginger spice lip balm

SanDisk USB

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My school's not letting teachers or students use Remind text system anymore... honestly, that was the easiest way to get reminders for school. Now some teachers are using Instagram... yikes, I deleted my app like 6 months ago (to reduce stress).

Well, I guess I'm going to make a new account and go back in there.

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Book review: Demian by Hermann Hesse

This post may contain spoilers.

This review is five years late. About five years ago, I first picked up this book in 6th grade. At that time, I found the subject slightly difficult and had a slight speed issue with reading in English. I put the book down and did not look at it... until the beginning of my 10th grade year. I only managed to get through few chapters, but I picked right back up this summer, finishing it in a couple of days.

Demian is a short read; it's about 140~ pages long. However, its contents are not something instantaneous. The readers have to understand Emil Sinclair's life and his inner self journey. Its philosphical and deep thoughts can drive some people away from reading it, but at the end, it all makes sense.

Sinclair is from the world of light. His family has a reputation, but he falls into the "dark." He lies and ends up owing money to Kromer. He drinks too much in boarding school and drops his grades and reputations. Somehow, he still gets back with "masters" he meets and learns from.

Sinclair meets multiple "masters" throughout the story who help him get through his "miserable phases" (as Sinclair himself quotes): Demian, who clears out Kromer issue and eventually helps him out of his phase, Beatrice, who technically never talks to him (and he only paints her and worships her), and Pistorius, who teaches him about Abraxas and new religion.

He is lost or with a outside master for the most of the time. He struggles to find his own identity, but he reaches the point that he is now living in his own dreams, not ther others'. It is only at the end, after Demian talks him for the last time that he finds a new master: himself.

Many people aligned themselves with Sinclair's life and found themselves. I, myself, had a time to think about my life and control of it. It really is a hard thing to describe when it comes to something I saw in that book.

To put it simply, this is not the book that I can describe well enough to people. I can only tell them to read the book, see the journey, and somehow find themselves at the end.

[I need only bend over that dark mirror to behold my own image, now completely resembling him, my brother, my master.]

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My friend went to California and brought me some Daiso stationery!

Marker pens (look like.. highlighters)

Page markers (actually, I need these)

Plain spiral notebook (don't know what I'm using these for)

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I went to a school club fair today for my new club. This was part of a freshmen orientation thing, and it was a disaster. Freshmen... they were quite rude; look, I get it if you don't want to take a flier, but you don't have to stare at people like they are crazy or ignore outright someone who's talking.

I knew that our school cluster does not have a thing for computer science, but I did not know that it was this bad. Oh well, my partner and I got some sign ups from upperclassmen, so it's fine.

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Getting a 5: AP World History

Each year, AP World History has about 8 ~ 10% of students getting a 5 on the exam. That is not that high percentage. I have a few tips that might be helpful to incoming students, as the content might be overwhelming (though they are cutting out some time periods this year).

Listen to teacher's lectures and take notes on what your teacher says; do not copy down every single thing on board (unless your teacher says so). A lot of times, things they write on the board (or presentation) are used as a guideline for themselves, so they do not forget about something. What I did with this was using them as my titles and topic bullets. Other than that, I did not copy all of them down, as my teacher gave out all info verbally.

Read the textbook when you get assigned reading homeworks or quizzes. Even if you don't get assigned to read, read it anyways. They might be boring, but they will be helpful for getting contexts and evidences for your essays there. The textbook is the basic source for this class. If you have a hard time with the school provided book, try AMSCO's Advanced Placement World History.

Know how everything fits together in the timeline. At the end, you have to put everything together before you take the exam. As you go through each time period, understand order of event. You should also be able to identify cause & effect, change over time, compare/contrast (i.e. with different empires, systems...), and similar thing seen in another timeline (very improtant for essay). (Things I just listed are essay themes)

Don't focus on every minor detail of event. This exam does not exactly tests you on details of some battles or years; it tests you on your ability to analyze and connect things together in general sense. Entire multiple choice section is document based, meaning it is not all about contents. Focus on big ideas and look at Collge Board's syllabus (one that lists all AP themes and such - might need to ask your teacher). Be able to relate historical points to the themes.

Reading skills matter. Like I stated above, entire multiple choice section is based on documents. You have to read them fast; otherwise, you will not have enough time to finish the exam. I have seen this happen to few people (and if that happens, just bubble in random things - no point reduction for wrong answers). Practice reading older writings (like revolution era or colonization era), as these are what you'll be reading. Start understanding the wordings.

Get used to writing questions. There are three different writing portions on exam: short answer, long essay, and document based essay. Short answer is where you answer 3 out of 4 questions given. For these, you have to give them a brief answer to the question and little bit of explanation (get straight to the point - this is not a language arts essay). Long essay is more of a fact based essay out of two essays. For this type, give them three reasonings to the prompt and then give them two examples per one reasoning and explain them. Be sure to tie them to the prompt and have similar instance from different time period (+ explanation) at the end of essay. Last essay is document based one; this will take the most time. They give 7 documents, and you need to use 6 of them to get full point for evidence point, but do not use direct quotes (that is a waste of time) - just put '(Doc #)' at the end. Group them into 2 or 3 groups (by "side"). Briefly summarize and point out importance of each document accordingly with the groups. Choose change over time, compare/contrast, cause/effect, or etc and write accordingly. All of these needs some practice.

This turned out to be a lot longer than what I intended, but I hope this will be helpful to someone. Some of them might not make sense, but it will when you start.

Thank you for reading, and good luck on your next semester!

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Back to school season is back for where I live. Here's everything I had to get so far.

Barron's AP Calculus - This is a required book for our school's AP Calculus classes. I heard that this is actually a good prep book.

AMSCO Advanced Placement United States History - This is also a required book for our school's APUSH classes. I've used this publisher's world history book, and it was pretty good.

Stabilo point 88 30 colors - I needed fineliners, and I found these for okay price on Amazon. I can now with something other than gel pens.

Uni-Ball Signo UM 151 - One that I'm using is running out of ink. Well, it's slightly pricey, but it's worth it.