#i also used to have to rewrite every number in math class or doing homework until it looked and felt perfect

[gloriousmishaps]

figuring out you might have a diagnosable mental illness in your adult years and then looking back on everything you did as a kid and slowly connecting the dots is both a satisfying and terrifying experience

[yallreddieforthis]

My Summer From Hell: A Tale of Friendship

Fandom: It (2017)

Pairing: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier (minor mentions of Richie’s crush on Eddie)

Rating: T (for language)

Words: 2.9k

Movie canon-compliant.  Also posted on AO3. This is that summer experience essay Richie warned us about.

“Richie Tozier?”

Richie takes a reluctant break from the sick-ass game of MASH: The Wonder Years Edition he’s playing by himself in his algebra notebook to look up at his teacher, who is waving a blue note and glaring expectantly at him.

Blue note. That means Neil wants to see him. Damn, only five days into the school year! New—actually, not a new record. Richie feels like he and the principal should be on a first-name basis by now; Richie’s in his office a lot. He rarely gets punished because most of the things he does toe the line of punishable offenses magnificently—he usually just gets told to stop doing whatever it is he’s doing and then gets sent back to class. If he was down there getting detention every other day, he’d understand what the problem was. But alas, Neil shot down the suggestion of being called Neil right away. So they can only be on a first-name basis in Richie’s head. Too bad.

The Math and Science building is as far away from the Administration building as you can get without leaving Derry Junior High, and Richie takes his time during the walk to Neil’s office, stopping outside the computer lab until Eddie catches sight of him through the window. He makes a gesture that causes Eddie to give him a surreptitious middle finger, hidden from his teacher by the monitor, but his cheeks also bloom cherry red, so Richie counts it as a win because it’s the cutest goddamn thing he’s seen all day. It feels like every other day now Richie’s being hit in the face with how adorable Eddie really is. He’s torn between wanting to pinch his cheeks and kiss him on the mouth, and frankly he’s mostly still straddling the fence on that issue only because he doesn’t want to deal with the answer.

In contrast to having a pretty good idea deep down what direction things are headed in regarding his general feelings about Eddie, Richie has not the slightest clue why he’s being called to the principal’s office the Friday after school started. None of the things he’s done should have been discovered yet. It makes no sense.

Bill is in the computer lab too, and Richie can’t see him from where he’s sitting, so he heads over to the staircase at the end of the hall. Pausing to make sure no teachers are lurking around to give him shit for it, he sits down at the top of the railing and slides down. Actually, he slides about a fourth of the way down before falling off and sort of rolling the rest of the way, but no one saw that so it still counts as a success.

He walks past the yard to watch Stan and Ben running the mile in P.E. Stan is fucking booking it, and Richie dawdles long enough to figure out that he’s a lap ahead of everyone else. Running away from Bowers for a few years will do that to ya. Well, at least it will if you’re Stan. Richie still can’t run an 8 minute mile, so his P.E. grade has stagnated at a B-.

Richie stops in the middle of the hallway in the Language Arts Building, glancing into Mr. Tremblay’s French 1 class. Bev was planning on taking that this year, and she’d be in there if she hadn’t moved to Portland. Sometimes—and Richie hates thinking about this because there’s no use in dwelling on it—but sometimes he really wants to kick himself for not getting to know her sooner. She’s the best bro he’s ever had that’s a girl, and it just really sucks ass that they only got to hang out for like one summer.

Before he even realizes it, he’s walking into the front office. Bertha glances up at Richie through her horn-rimmed reading glasses.

“Mr. Tozier! What’d you do this time?” she asks brightly. Ah, Bertha. She and Richie have a rapport. Richie might go so far as to say she even likes him, at least a little. He’s made her laugh at least seven times, and once in sixth grade she told him he had a real gift after he showed her his best Rick Moranis impression. She doesn't bullshit him, and he doesn’t bullshit her. Well, not very much at least.

“I have no idea,” he tells her honestly, resting his elbows on her desk, which is decorated with a rubber band ball, a Hoberman sphere, several pictures of her nieces and nephews, and the biggest Hershey’s Kiss Richie has ever seen in his entire life. Seriously, it’s almost as big as his goddamn face. Apparently, she got it on a trip to New York, and she’s had it at least as long as Richie has known her. He has never wanted to eat a thing so badly in his entire life, regardless of how old it is. It’s a fucking Hershey’s Kiss. Do those things even go bad? Either way, it’s Richie’s number one goal to take a big fucking bite out of that thing before he culminates at the end of the year. He’s a thousand percent sure it will taste like sweet victory.

“Neil?” Bertha calls over her shoulder. “Did you send for Richie Tozier?”

Neil’s voice floats back through the open door behind Bertha. “Oh, yes. Thanks, send him on back.”

Neil’s desk always starts the year looking pristine, and by the last day of school it is filled with stacks of pure chaos. Richie admires him for trying again at the beginning of each year. It’s like how his mom buys him a binder for each class and book covers and sets up an organizational system for his homework and notes despite knowing that it won’t last a month. It’s nice of her to try, but Richie is pretty sure they both go into it with the understanding that it’s kind of a hail Mary situation.

So right now Neil’s just got like three pictures of his wife, a snowglobe with GREETINGS FROM ST. PAUL written on the base, and a manageable-looking stack of papers in file folders. Godspeed, sir.

“Mr. Tozier,” Neil says by way of greeting, “please have a seat.”

“How was your summer, Ne—Principal McCormack?” Richie asks, plopping down into the chair directly opposite Neil.

Neil’s eyebrows raise. “Not as interesting as yours, based on what I heard from Ms. Pfarrer this afternoon,” he says, reaching into his desk and pulling out two pieces of lined paper stapled together. “Care to explain?”

He places it directly in front of Richie. Richie peers at it. The top right corner reads: Richie Tozier, English 8A, Period 4, September 3, 1989. It wasn’t stapled when he handed it in, he’d just sort of folded the corners over together and hoped for the best, but Ms. Pfarrer must have gone ahead and stapled it for him.

“That would be yesterday’s English homework.”

“Correct,” says Neil. “I want you to read this entire essay out loud to me, and then I’m going to ask you some questions. Okay?”

Richie’s not sure if the questions are about the contents of the essay, or if Neil just can’t read his handwriting. Then again, that sounds like a Ms. Pfarrer problem; he’s not sure why she’d bring it to the principal if she just couldn’t read it. Normally she just hands it back to him and tells him to rewrite it when that happens, or at least that’s what she did last year. If his teachers have suddenly decided to send him to the principal every time he turns in an illegible assignment, it’s going to be a very long year.

But whatever.

  My Summer From Hell: A Tale of Friendship

  If you had asked me at the end of last year what the worst thing about my summer would probably be, I would have bet a hundred bucks it was going to be the trip I took down to Augusta to see my grandma two weeks ago, which sucked. All we did was watch Matlock all week and she made me get a really shi bad haircut, just like last year. It’s going to take me months to grow it out. But compared to what went down in July and the beginning of August, eating soup at Grandma Dottie’s house was NOTHING.

You know how kids just disappear off the face of the earth all the time here in Derry? If you didn’t, that’s a fun fact from me to you that I learned from my new friend Ben (he’s in your 5th period class). Well, while we were looking for my other friend Bill’s missing brother, we found out where they all went.

Underneath our feet, down in the sewers, there lives a killer clown. That’s right, you heard it here first. Like John Wayne Gacy, but 100000x worse because it’s for sure not human. Sometimes It’s a clown, sometimes not. Depends. On what? I have no idea. It was usually a clown when I saw it but one time it started turning into maybe a werewolf. It can turn into anything it wants and it eats kids.

Anyway, It almost killed all of us on the fourth of July. We Bill decided to go try and fight It at the creepy ass house on Neibolt street, and that was an absolute shit show disaster. Ask Ben to show you the sick scar on his stomach if you don’t believe me. Eddie fell through a giant hole in the floor and broke his arm. I got mad at Bill for bringing us all there and he punched me in the face, and then I didn’t talk to him for a month.

Then It dragged Beverly Marsh into its nasty sewer lair and we all went down the grossest well in Derry to get her back. Henry Bowers followed us because he just has to ruin everything, even things that are already the worst. There’s this giant cistern that has a huge pile of broken toys and crap and the clown lives in there. There were hundreds of dead kids floating in the air.

It’s a long story but I beat the shit crap out of It with a baseball bat and we fought it back. We swore to each other that we’d all come to fight It again if it returns. Anyway, the moral of this summer is that you can achieve anything if you work together and also that there is no way Henry Bowers could have caused an explosion during the 1800’s. I want to see him go to jail for taking a dump in my backpack for sure, and I guess for killing Belch, Vic and his dad too, but I know for a fact that he didn’t kill Georgie Denbrough or Betty Ripsom or Ed Corcoran. This town is just cursed.

  Richie looks up brightly at Neil when he finishes reading. Neil takes a deep breath and rubs his temples with his fingers.

“I’m not sure you understood what the assignment was, Richie,” he says. “This is an inventive—and deeply disturbing—story, but this was supposed to be about what you actually did over the summer, not—”

“Yeah,” says Richie. “It is. I mean, I didn’t think Ms. Pfarrer was going to actually read them all. But—”

“This was a nonfiction assignment though.”

Neil’s being real slow on the uptake. Maybe his brain is still on summer break.

“Yeah,” says Richie, nodding. “As in, this is what actually happened to me. Here’s where we swore we’d come back and fight again when we’re old. If It comes back.” Richie holds out his left hand so Neil can see the freshly healed scar.

“Ouch,” Neil winces. “How did you get that?”

Richie rolls his eyes. “I cut it on glass. On purpose. Go get the others—they’ll tell you. Eddie Kaspbrak, Stanley Uris, Bill Den—”

“Please stop with the games,” says Neil. “Just—I’ve had a long week. We all have. Ms. Pfarrer wanted me to look into sending you to the school psychologist. I know you like to, you know, do what you do, but this is taking it too far.”

“Why would I lie to you about this?” Richie asks. He puts both elbows on the desk and leans forward. “Seriously. Why?”

“Attention-seeking behavior is common after the kind of trauma we’ve all experienced over the past year,” Neil says. Super patient, like he’s quoting a textbook and speaking to a preschooler. “I know what happened with Henry was a surprise to—”

“Wait, wait wait,” Richie interrupts. “You think I wrote this to get attention?”

Neil sighs and throws up his hands. “I can’t think of any other reason. If there is one, I’d love for you to give me some insight.”

Honestly? How fucking dare he. It strikes Richie in that moment how goddamn unfair this is. They had to do this with everyone—from explaining those nasty bites on Stan’s face to Eddie being grounded for the rest of the summer, to knowing exactly why there were so many more bodies in the sewer than missing kids from this past year and no one believing them…

“How about this for insight? ” Richie says. “I’ve been through too much trauma this year to come up with another bullshit story that all you adults will eat up. None of you care what actually happened; you just want me to tell you something that means you don’t have to do anything about it. Well, you’re gonna have to come up with your own lie to tell yourself. I’m not doing it for you.”

Neil is gaping. But Richie keeps going.

“I thought it was Bowers before this summer and honestly, I wish I’d been right. And it’s not like I’m sorry that he’s getting all this shit pinned on him even though he didn’t do it. My life is a million times easier without him around—he can get strung up by his ballsack for all I care.”

“Richie, there’s a mountain of evidence against—”

“I don’t give a shit about evidence,” says Richie. “I know what I saw. I know what happened. I know, and Bill knows, and Stan knows, and Bev… What do you care though? You’ll probably be dead anyway by the time It comes back.”

“Is that supposed to be some kind of threat?” Principal McCormack asks. His face has gone hard and stony like Richie’s never seen before; like Richie has crossed a real line this time. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows there’s going to be nasty consequences for this, but he can’t find it in himself to give a shit.

“You wouldn’t believe me even if it was,” Richie mutters. “Just… Fuck it. Send me to the school shrink or whatever. Give me detention; flunk my essay. None of this shit matters anyway.”

“You can bet you’re getting all three of those things,” says Principal McCormack with a mirthless chuckle. “And I’m not sure what’s gotten into you this year, but I feel like—”

“Do I sound like the grownups in Charlie Brown when I talk?” Richie demands. “Seriously, am I making like, actual words to you? Or are you just hearing wah wah wah when I—”

“I’m calling your parents,” Principal McCormack says over him. “Is something going on at home?”

Richie feels blood pounding through his veins. Like it could melt his skin. He looks Principal McCormack dead in the eye, reaches for his essay and tears it to shreds, standing slowly.

“In the end,” he says, his voice shaking and frustrated tears threatening to overpower him, “it’s not going to make any difference if you don’t believe me. We’ll come back, all of us. Me and Eddie. Ben, Beverly, Mike. Bill. Stan. What you think doesn’t change that.”

And as suddenly as it came, the anger evaporates. Just...poof. Gone. It clears, and there’s fucking gobsmacked Principal McCormack sitting there like a lump, staring at Richie. Maybe he heard the individual words, but one thing Richie know for sure: he still doesn’t get it. And he never will. And not just him; Ms. Pfarrer. Even Bertha, whether she thinks Richie is gifted or not. And his parents…

There’s a sick loneliness that kind of creeps in to fill up where his anger was, colder than a January wind. Every time his dad comforted him as a kid, when he’d check under the bed and in the closet for monsters, was a lie. When his mom told him he’d be safe sleeping in their bed. That nothing was coming to get him. That they’d never let him get hurt. Lies, all of it. And it’s not like the adults in his life are lying to him on accident. The truth is right there in front of their stupid fucking faces and they just refuse to look at it.

The chill settles into a stony sort of resolution. Richie has stared the truth in the face and didn’t flinch. Even getting suspended is fucking nothing compared to… Whatever. He’s getting detention anyway. Might as well make it memorable. He turns on his heel and walks out of the office.

“If you’re still alive in 2016,” Richie calls over his shoulder, “I’ll hit you up at your nursing home and let you know I was right all along.”

[lanas-academics-blog]

HAPPY SEPTEMPTER!

Hi guys! Just wanted to share an update, a bit of the work I’ve been doing for the past couple of days, and what I have planned to do for the upcoming holiday on Monday!

So first semester started, and I have officially completed my second week of Sophomore year! My classes are nice, but I’ve been having a bit of trouble with my online classes, which I can talk about later! Even though I only have two on-campus classes, I am taking 14 credits, so I’m very busy with schoolwork most of the time. Below I’ll start with a summary of my classes and how they’re going! I’ll then talk about my past and future work. Keep in mind this post is gonna be kinda lengthy so if that’s not your thing, probably don’t click below lol.

So, starting from my first class of the week every week! Human Relations.

To start off - my Human Relations class has a lot of notes. We take notes every class - which I like - but we haven’t really done any actual assignments. We did have a quiz over our book’s second chapter (that I missed because I mixed up a holiday and didn’t go to class - I’m dumb lmao) and we watch video clips, but there hasn’t been a big assignment or anything yet which I’m grateful for.

We do this thing in the class called a reading where we talk about a certain celebrity in a given book and what they have to say about surviving college / advice they have altogether, and I really like the vibe it brings to the class. We are going through each student and doing one every class, and it’s a really nice way to start class every day. We all discuss the advice and give our input, which I think is a good way to get everyone involved.

Over all the class is a bit slow as of late, but discussions make it worth it for sure. I’m excited to see what’s to come with this class!

Next is my Digital Communications class!

This class is entirely online, so we do weekly modules and have until Friday of that week to finish all the work, and it’s all very in-depth assignments. Videos, discussion boards, and quizzes are all major parts of our grades for this class. I love all the feedback and discussions we have over certain topics in this class, because it really opens you up and makes you see other’s POV on things!

It’s a very modern class, and I feel like I’m learning about things happening now in real time (just last week I learned about AI Cars and computers that mimic brain activity to work more efficiently) and it’s something I feel is really important when it comes to digital themed classes! Technology is moving fast, so it’s important we keep up.

Just this last week we learned about viral video trends and the era of “The YouTubers / Online Influencers” and it was so interesting! If anyone is interested in the video (which also talks about YouTube’s history and is a really educational video at its core) I will link it here: Viral Video : YouTube Marketing.

If I’m not using an online website to complete an assignment (just last week I had to look up my name and relatives names to see just how easy it is to find people’s information online), I’m usually writing a long reply to a video for a grade, or responding to other student’s replies for a grade as well. Even though it’s a grade it’s all very open and doesn’t feel too grade-ish. We all have great discussions.

The next class I’m not too fond of, just because I slept my way through high school Algebra, is of course: Algebra. Paired with the sleeping and my state just not caring about our education at all in the past, Algebra is really difficult for me this year. I have to re-teach myself everything from scratch and get the help of some of my friends who are good at Alg (u know who you are). It’s been really difficult, but I’ll get there. On the other hand, also been very rewarding when I understand it!

My book for this class was expensive ($103) and I’m trying to take really good care of it. I bought as apposed to rent because I was told to on the syllabus (it came with an online code which we ended up not even needing so hey! waste of money!) but now I’ll probably sell it back to the school library after this term ends to get some of that money back. 

The number one thing that has helped me, funnily enough, is memes! My friends and I have made memes relating to rules for certain problems, and it’s really helped. I even went as far as printing off one of the memes and stapling it into my math notebook, just so I can see it when I’m studying! I’ll show it to you just because it makes me laugh:

( Any ARMY’s out there - HMU )

As you can see I rewrote my notes for Math just last night (which I plan on doing from now on) just to refresh my memory and study a bit more on the topics I knew I needed to. Figuring out how least common anything works has been literal hell for me, but I’m slowly starting to learn. It’s a work in progress, for sure.

Apart from that, my teacher never gives us set due dates, and we can take all our tests at home, which is a complete life saver for me. I’m about a week ahead in the class because of all the extra work I’ve been putting in trying to re-learn everything, and I plan to keep it that way. This class is challenging but rewarding. In class my professor lectures for about an hour and a half - two hours depending on how long the chapter is (which is usually maybe like 15 pages?) and we take notes the whole time.

The class is pretty silent so I’ve been trying to ask a lot of questions and talk to the people next to me to help the awkward atmosphere as well. I’m a shy person in general but I can be friendly and this class really needs that sort of attitude from the students. The professor is old and he’s really nice, but he’s not too keen on involving students, so I try and help.

Over all, I like the class. It’s challenging for sure, but that was expected. I’m excited to see where this class goes in the future though!

So to finish this off, I’ll talk about my last class, which has proved to be the most difficult regardless of me doing no work at all for it yet. Geology.

The reason I’ve had so many struggles with this class already is because the way it’s set up is just a big mess if I’m being totally honest.

To make things short (because I wrote this once and it literally deleted on me) I have to use three different websites for this one class, a giant textbook (that should have come with an access code to one of the websites, but didn’t), and the way my teacher creates assignments is Messy. It’s all stuff I’ll have to get used to I guess, so we’ll see how things play out. I really hope I like the material though because if I don’t I won’t hesitate to take a fat W on my manuscript (I’m kidding, but it’d be nice to be able to drop fml).

So, moving on from that, let’s talk about my weekend!

THURSDAY:

So my weekend started early because my HR class was cancelled for Friday, so I went ahead and did all of my Digital Comm. work on Thursday. It was all due that next day on Friday so it was a good thing that I finished it all (it took about four hours) but it was interesting so it wasn’t too bad to do. Apart from that I did a lot of misc. stuff like filled out paperwork for my college and tried writing a little bit. I didn’t do a lot of my homework on Thursday because I knew I had all weekend, so that was pretty much all I did academic wise that day.

FRIDAY: 

God himself couldn’t tell you where I was or what I did on Friday. I had a really bad day I think so I kind of just slept the day away. I truly can’t remember. Oh well though, we’re all human, we have bad days!

SATURDAY:

So Saturday (last night) was when I actually got shit done. I finally found motivation to rewrite my Math and HR notes (coffee. coffee was the motivation), and I got them looking really pretty as well as put those memes in, haha. Here’s a picture of a couple pages I rewrote!

So on top of consuming two whole cups of coffee, and binging on MNM’s, I rewrote my notes and then wrote out some emails I needed to send to a couple of my professors. I got a lot done last night which means I’ll have more time to finish what I need to this week!

FUTURE ASSIGNMENTS:

SUNDAY: 

So, today is going to be busy. I’m going to spend today doing all of my Geology work, which means catching up on Chapters 1-2, and then starting the work for this week (that is due on Thursday). I’m already a little behind because of getting my book late, so the work is piling slowly. I’ll have to work hard to finish it all by Thursday.

MONDAY:

Monday will be spent finishing any Geology work I didn’t finish today (Sunday), and then doing my Math test (due Wednesday), and all of my Digital Comm. work (due Friday). I want to finish all my work for this week in a big clump by Tuesday at least so I can finally just relax and spend a few days relaxing and then picking up my study routine again on Friday. 

So it���s clear these last two weeks have been a mess, but I’m slowly starting to get into a routine. I want to plan a few trips to the library this week to get some work done, and then maybe to the gym on campus! Just so I can see if it’d be somewhere I wanna go in the future. I also want to make it a goal to make a few more friends, and possibly join a club.

I will for sure keep you guys updated, and if you’ve read this far, thank you! I hope you enjoyed reading my ramblings, haha.

Happy September and happy studying!

-Lana.

[sunscreenstudies]

Hey! Congratulations, you did really well in your LC! I was wondering, do you have any tips for people who are going into 6th year? Also, how did you study for Geography? It's so difficult to learn off lists of information 😰

Thank you so much!! :D

And believe me when I say that you already have most of the work done in 5th year! 5th year was wayyy more stressful than 6th year because by April you honestly are just so done with this whole Leaving Cert thing you don’t even care anymore! The *best* study tips that I can give you for going into 6th year, however are:

Take rough notes in school and then rewrite them over the weekend, making them pretty and colourful and breaking all the information down into small bullet points, because lets face it, teachers give wayyy more info that what’s necessary, and by rewriting it, not only can you cut things out, it also helps you remember the topic better, and when your notes are cute and pretty looking, you’ll actually want to study from them!

Download or print out the syllabus for each subject and only write notes for those topics! I found that in a lot of subjects, especially theory heavy ones like biology, the teacher gave way too much information than what was required, and you can still can full marks by cutting out those unnecessary points!

I used a colour-scheme for highlighting which actually helped a lot! For example, I used yellow for headings and subheadings, orange for definitions, blue for people’s names, green for examples, purple for quotes and pink for dates. This way, when you’re revising or doing your homework and you’re looking for a particular definition or an example, you can immediately find the colour highlighter and the information that you’re looking for!

This website : https://www.examinations.ie/exammaterialarchive/  should be your best friend! I know you’re probably sick of hearing this, but doing exam papers and checking the marking scheme afterwards really does help! That way you can learn exactly what you need to get full marks

Subject wise:

When it comes to studying maths, especially for higher level, just reading your notes and doing the same example questions over and over again won’t cut it. I did this throughout my 5th year, and ended up doing great on class tests before almost failing my summer exam. Teachers usually use the examples they gave you in class tests, and I ended up memorising these examples instead of actually learning the methods! So once again, exam papers are your friend.

For English, even though there is an awful lot to learn, you just need to remember key words, and you’ll sail through. In the comparative, for example, you need to compare your texts in every. single. paragraph. You could write a fantastic essay, but if you don’t say “In comparison to this…” “Text 2 however differs from this…” “Similarly…” “The two texts are different in the sense that…” etc. you will get veryyy low marks. In the same way, when answering your poetry question, you need to keep referring to the style of the poet. Every past poetry question can be broken down into two simple questions: What did the poet write about? and how did they say it? If you can answer both these questions on every poem you learn, you’ll do brilliantly! Also, don’t bother learning any more than 5 poems from each poet, and don’t learn more than 5 poets to begin with. By doing this and learning 25 poems in total, you’re covering yourself completely!

Languages are more tricky to study for, but what helped condense the information you need to learn for me, was treating the oral and the written paper as the same exam. For example, if I learned off a paragraph about my family for the oral, then I would learn that paragraph again for the written paper, instead of learning a new paragraph or adding sentences. This way, when you’re studying for the written exam, you won’t have to learn off new paragraphs, because you’ll still remember some of what you learned for the oral! Aural tests are the worsttt and very difficult to study for, so your best bet is to just learn off the most common place names that come up, numbers and dates, and (for German at least) types of weather. Be sure to read the syllabus for the aural exam because in some cases, if you just guess and write down what you *think* the tape might have said, they’ll give you half marks!

Biology is all about the diagrams! That’s what got me through that huge ream of information. If you learn off the diagram, then you already have a rough idea of what’s going on. Learnt the diagrams as if you’re trying to teach it to someone else, and honestly, this makes it so much easier to learn! It especially helps with similar topics such as respiration and photosynthesis, the carbon cycle and the nitrogen cycle, etc. and really helps you to distinguish one from one another. Then, in the exam, you can just draw a quick sketch in pencil at the top of your page, and refer to it every time you get confused or stuck when explaining something.

Geography did have a lot of information to learn off and is marked rather harshly. However if you go through past exam papers you will find certain topics that come up every single year eg. Fluvial processes. For me, I studied those guaranteed topics (or mostly-guaranteed topics) really well, and then had a rough overview of the rest of the book. Also, in every answer make sure that you give an example and for the love of god, learn your damn exam diagrams!!! They are literally the best thing ever because if you need 15 points in an answer, then a diagram can count for up to 3 of those!! And even if you’re certain that you have written enough points, put one down anyway because you never know how mean your examiner might be! With that note, for every 2 marks a question is worth, you need 1 SRP (significant relevant point), a sentence that contains a solid fact or example. Eg. For a 30 mark question, you need to give 15 SRP’s, for a 20 mark you need 10SRP’s, etc. etc. Also, learn the theory and the case studies as one answer! So instead of writing down that an earthquake happened in Japan on March 11, 2011 and it was magnitude 8, write down how earthquakes occur and what magnitude means and that for every 1 jump you make on the Richter scale the earthquake becomes 10 times as powerful. You need to pretend that the examiner is stupid and has no idea what earthquakes or volcanoes or tertiary activities are, and that way, you are maxmising your SRP’s. Answer every question as if you’re explaining the topic to a 3-year-old! Your short questions, individual long questions, elective, and option answers are all worth the same exact 80 marks. So do not disregard the short questions because they’re worth the same 16.66% as every other question you answer. Also, if your option is Geology like mine was, then your fucking sorted man! Every single year has at least one questions on biomes, whether it’s the human activity or the characteristics so just learn that and you’re sorted! No joke, there were 10 people in my Leaving Cert Geography class and not a single one of us knew anything about soil or soil processes or characteristics. We all just learnt our biome, and that was it!

6th year is scary and stressful and at times you will want to just bury yourself in your bed and cry, but you will get through this! Just calm down, breathe, take a moment, and remember that even your worst days can only ever last 24 hours. Millions and millions and millions of people have survived the LC and you will too! And this time, next year, you will be collecting your official certificate from your school and wondering just what the hell the fuss was all about!

I hope that these tips/pieces of advice helped, and if you have any other questions please please please feel free to ask me because I really could have done with an Irish studyblr back when I was in your position!

And always always always always alwaysssss remember, that you are more important than your grades! It doesn’t matter if you’re aiming for 10 points or the full 625, your health and your well being and your happiness is so so so much more important that what you get at the end of the day! Do not let your good grades be at the expense of your mental or physical health because while the Leaving Cert is such a huge deal to you right now, in 5 years time, it won’t matter anymore. So please please pleaseee take care of yourself and always put yourself first! 😘

[autstudy]

Study Monday #7: Maintaining a Work/Rest Balance

(or ‘how to get stuff done without being absolutely drained 24/7’)

Disclaimer! This post is written by an autistic student and is mostly aimed at other autistic students, but some of this advice can be applied to anyone who uses spoon theory of chronic illness. So if you’re not autistic, feel free to use this info and add your own advice, but keep in mind that my main target audience is autistic students.

 So tell me if this sounds familiar. You’re a disabled student in school/college/uni and your mental and physical energy is limited. You work hard to meet your goals and generally try your best to be a good student. Somehow, you never have days when everything goes exactly as you planned: you either get practically nothing done, or seriously overwork yourself – and it’s annoying. You read every single time management guide out there, but nothing written for neurotypical/abled people seems to work – and it’s frustrating. And it doesn’t stop.

While some of your classmates get straight As, have active social lives and three different hobbies, you have to work twice as hard just to pass all your classes. You get even less done on ‘bad’ days, and on ‘good’ days you try to catch up and push yourself beyond the point of no return into a void of exhaustion – a vicious cycle fueled by guilt and executive dysfunction. You fall sleep hugging your planner. Life outside academia? You don’t know her. Your soul has been replaced with ECTS points. You… okay, a bit of hyperbole there, but I think you got the point.

If this is relatable for you, congratulations, you are not alone – this basically describes my freshmen year of university. I was very motivated to be a perfect student, but the problem was, there is no definition of perfect student, and constantly comparing yourself to your classmates is a very bad idea. As a result, I was perpetually tired, often miserable, and definitely not getting the grades I wanted. Well, this year I am determined to not repeat my own mistakes. Here’s what I learned about balancing work and rest as an autistic student.

 First of all, you new study motto should be ‘Work smart, not hard’. The key to actually getting stuff done with limited energy is to get the most out of every minute. That means analyzing your to-do list and throwing out everything that is not necessary. That means focusing on active learning instead of repetition. That means being honest to yourself about your goals and abilities. Etc. You can read this post for more info.

Below are my tips, tricks and advice on how to apply that motto to studying. Obviously, everything I list here is subjective and I won’t guarantee it will work for you – try it for yourself to find out.

·        You know those hour approximations next to ECTS points in the syllabus? That’s useless information. They are written by professors who have no idea how much time it actually takes to prepare for tests/exams, and honestly, nobody can even make those approximations, since everyone learns very differently. The hour numbers, ignore them. The only thing they’re good for is estimating whether the subject is lecture/class based or homework based (like whether you should focus more on class attendance or your own research).

·        However it is a good idea to know approximately how much time it takes you to read a chapter or write 1000 words or solve a math problem. Measure the time needed to complete each task a couple times, get an average and write it down. Do that for as many tasks as you want. It will give you some idea of how time actually flows for you, since our brains aren’t always great at making estimations.

·        Start preparing for exams from day one. This is a piece of advice that annoys me a lot, but it is true. There should be a period of exam preparation (three weeks is what works for me), but you are much better off studying throughout the semester/year consistently. It is much easier to catch up on material if the exam is two months (and not two days) away. So try to create reliable study habits.

·        Find study methods that work for you. Try every single one if you need to until you find out what works for you. Focus on active learning: ask questions, research stuff, quiz yourself, etc. Everyone is different. I learn great at lectures, but some people get nothing out of them. I love rewriting my notes, but for many of you, it is a waste of time. Be wary of neurotypical study advice! Sometimes it is brilliant, and sometimes it is utterly useless. Unfortunately, you can only find out by trying.

·        Now we get to the tricky part. Thing is, energy levels and abilities fluctuate a lot from day to day, and there is no way of predicting where you will be tomorrow. Some day you might have all the time in the world, but no executive functioning. Some days you have energy to achieve so much, but no time to do it. And that’s why it is so easy to get caught into this cycle of either doing nothing or overworking yourself.

·        First thing you need to do to break out of that cycle is to realize that hard work isn’t always productive work. You can rewrite your entire textbook in perfect handwriting and that might do zero good. Often I end up doing useless work just because I feel guilty and feel like I need to do something to be productive – and I end up achieving nothing and feeling even more guilty. Part of that is unlearning ableist ideas! I might write a post about this in the future.

·        Now what I try to do is to decrease that gap between my good days and my bad days. I aim for getting more stuff done on days when I would otherwise procrastinate, and resting more on days when I would work non-stop till I collapse on my bed. And it is difficult, but achievable.

·        Again, study habits! For me it means re-reading my lecture/class notes every day before bed and typing them down on weekends. It also means doing my homework as soon as possible and setting my own deadlines closer than they are in reality. And it means not missing lectures and class, ever, because that’s where I learn best – and for me it is like 60% of passing my exams. Habits are great, because once they become part of your daily routine, it is much easier to do them.

·        Remember that you don’t just have deficits, you have superpowers as well. Embrace unusual study methods! It doesn’t matter how weird they are, as long as they work. Find your superpowers and use them. For example, I recall information better if I explain it to someone, or simply infodump about it, so I talk to myself a lot – and it works. Embrace the weird.

·        And finally, remember about self-care. That doesn’t mean eating a smoothie bowl for breakfast at 7am in the morning and writing in a journal about all the things you are grateful for (although if that works for you, sure keep doing that). Often it just means going to bed half an hour early, or dropping an optional class you don’t like, or asking people for help. In the long run, it will do more for you than making those flashcards even though you are exhausted. You will learn much better as a happy, well-rested human being.

 Conclusion:

When your energy is limited, a good work/rest balance isn’t always about keeping a bullet journal and getting up at 6am every day. It is about knowing your limits and using your abilities to the max. You need to be honest about your goals and remember that studying doesn’t look like those aesthetic photos in the studyblr tag. You aren’t perfect (nobody is), but you can achieve a lot. Even if you don’t get straight As. Even if on some days you feel like giving up. You survived every single bad day so far, and you can survive much more.

I hope this helped, at least a little. Have a great week.

 What are your thoughts on this topic? Share them in the replies and/or asks!

[florandfawning-blog]

Tips for College Classes (Sciences)

1.   If you know what you want to pursue, don’t take too many classes you don't need. Not only does it add to your debt but some states (such as Florida) have an excess hours law, which doubles your tuition if you pass a certain number of hours.

2.  Your advisors may think its good to take ‘fun’ classes with your hard ones, but in my experience fun classes only tack on more work and projects to my already busy schedule. If you have to take something fun make sure its an easy pass class you’ll truly enjoy without too much out of class work.

3. Research ahead of time what prerequisites are needed to take each class. Your major might not necessarily require something but a particular class will (which is stupid, but it happens).

4. Take Chemistry I and Biology I together. I learned the hard way that a lot of concepts in Bio I reinforce concepts in Chem I and vice versa.

5.  Don’t take more than 4 classes per semester. I made this mistake by taking five science/math classes all at once since I was used to having 5-6 classes in high school. It’s incredibly difficult to make time for them and the concurrent labs. For example, any given semester I may take Physics II+Lab, Bio II+Lab, Social Psychology, and first aid. I try not to take more than 3 hard classes at once.

6. Don’t skip class! It’s easy to do so since most professors don’t make you go, however, a lot of what’s on the tests is usually from the lecture! Also, if there are points given for participation (aka going to class) DO NOT take them lightly! 50-100 points may not seem a lot but it can make the difference between an A and a B.
 Side note: depending on your college going to class really isn’t that bad! Most lecture halls are huge so if you’re really not feeling it you could sit in the back and snack, or watch netflix, or even leave if you’re really not feeling it. So just go because (usually) no one is making you stay!

7. If you’re not a morning person DO NOT take morning classes unless you have to. Trust me, it’s easy to think ‘this time I’ll be different, I can change!’ but no, chances are you won’t so don’t put yourself in a situation that makes it harder on you to go to class.

8. READ THE SYLLABUS! Sometimes teachers write things like “Do the end of chapter questions, they’re similar to the test questions” or “Tests will be lecture based”. This will allow you to study more efficiently.

9. Along with number 8, figure out your teachers style early on. Are their exams lecture based? Text book based? Are exam questions identical to the homework or end of chapter questions? This prevents you from studying unnecessary things and overall, saving a lot of time!

9. The syllabus usually has the due date of every project, homework, and test for the entire semester. Take time during the first week to put everything on your calendar or whatever you use to stay organized, that way you never miss anything. There’s nothing worse than losing easy points because you forgot a homework assignment was due.

10. Read the textbook chapters and look over the notes if your professor posts them online, so you can answer your professors questions during class and make a good impression for recommendations later on.

11. Keep up with the work so you can frequent your professors office hours to ask relevant questions. This is another way to get to know your professors so you can hit them up for recommendations later on.

12. Check your email every morning and every night! Actually, just quickly check it all the time. Sometimes I would get an email ten minutes before class started that class was cancelled.

13. Try to evenly space your classes together if you live off campus. One thing I noticed was that I had the urge to just leave and go home if I had to wait an hour or more for my next class. I ended up missing those classes completely.

14. Bring healthy (or unhealthy, to each his own) snacks with you and water! There’s nothing worse than feeling dehydrated or hungry during class. It makes it so much harder to concentrate.

15. Try to score as high as you can on everything that’s not an exam (homework, online quizzes, projects etc.), those are usually incredibly easy points that can save your grade. Also, do the extra credit assignments! You never know if an exam in the future will be exceedingly difficult and drop your grade.

16. If your university has free tutoring, use it! I know it seems like an extra thing to tack onto your schedule but in the long run it’ll save you more time. You can get a good grade the first time and not have to retake the class another semester!

17. For note taking, I usually print out the lecture slides if the professor puts them online and take notes on them. Then, I’ll go home and rewrite everything onto a separate piece of paper to have uniform, pretty notes.

18. Actively engage with your notes. Read them in your head or out loud as you write them. Really think about what you’re writing and make sure you understand the first time.This is an effective form of studying. Don’t put your mind on autopilot, otherwise you’ll have to go back and reread what you already wrote and that’s a waste of time!

Everyone is different. Depending on what school you go to or your major, these tips may not be relevant. But they’re things I learned throughout my college experience that were super helpful for me. Hopefully, they’ll help you!

[imperfect-study]

Imperfect-Study's Study Survival Guide

Disclaimer: I’m an Aussie so some of this advice will relate more specifically to VCE than other international systems. Also this is what works for me personally, it may not work for you.

1. COMPLETE PAST EXAM PAPERS I can absolutely not stress enough how valuable these are, I complete as many as I can possibly get my hands on. (For Victorians, VCAA has previous exam papers for every year and every subject published on their website. It’s a new study design this year for most subjects (2017) so keep an eye out for any questions on topics you won’t need to know. You should also be able to find stacks of “unofficial” papers from various companies) -I didn’t usually worry about time limits or being under exam conditions. Reality is that your parents are going to interrupt you to ask you to unpack the groceries or you’re in the middle of babysitting your siblings or something. There’s nothing wrong with completing sections at a time.

-The more you do, the faster you’ll become. Your thinking processes will become more efficient, you’ll write faster, and you’ll begin to whip through any multiple choice sections.

-If you really struggle staying within time limits, my psychology teacher recommends practicing “one minute per mark” e.g. Only spend 4 minutes on a question worth 4 marks

-I found, especially with my science classes: one mark will equal one dot point.

-Try to stay within the space you’ve been given. Sometimes you haven’t been given enough space or you need to go over to get your point across but most of the time you’re just not being concise enough. Work on it and think about how you write your answers before you commit them to paper.

2. GO THROUGH YOUR COMPLETED EXAM PAPERS AND EXAMINER’S REPORTS This is just as important as completing the papers themselves. Here’s some specific advice: - If you’re going through the 2016 Biology Exam and see that only 16% of the state got full marks on a cellular respiration question, you should study cellular respiration inside out. Make it your strength. Cohort’s don’t change much, weakness don’t change year to year. If you see that under 50% of the state is getting full marks on questions about a particular topic, you make sure you know that topic and you’ll have one up on most of the state.

-Make a list of every topic you got wrong, be specific (do this for every test or set questions you do for a class). Note if you got it wrong because you didn’t read a question or if you didn’t know enough about a topic. You’ll see patterns. In math, I kept on missing out on the end of a question that mentioned how many significant figures to round to; I picked up my mistake and fixed it. In biology, I regularly got questions about whether a solution was hypertonic, hypotonic, or isotonic wrong: I focused on osmosis for a while in my bio class and got better. There’s always a pattern in your errors. Find it.

-Look out for topics that reappear pretty regularly. Questions about that topic can be VERY similar in each exam E.g. If you go through VCAA biology exams you’ll find pretty much the same transcription and translation question every year. I became familiar with responses out of examiner’s reports for these types of questions and was able to use them out in my exam (or at least apply them). It’ll make you feel more familiar with your exam when you sit it, maybe even make it more predictable.

3. DISCIPLINE > MOTIVATION

For the first 2-4 weeks of the year motivation will have you studying from the minute you get home til the second you shut your eyes to sleep. You won’t even feel like having breaks. Next minute you’re in the midst of the month of hell (i.e. May), you have three assessments this week, you managed to get an hour of study done this weekend. I don’t really think of discipline in the normal way when it comes to study, for me it means knowing how I work best and how to keep myself on track without relying on random energy spikes.

-Get in the habit of breaks from the very first day of term 1. You may not feel like it because you’re well rested, fresh off the beach, and motivated to get sh*t done. But take them. You’ll get so so sick of studying early on and you’ll burn out well before Easter holidays.

-Work out when you work best. If you are one of those people who can get up at 6am and work productively (please tell me your secrets) then do that. I study in the afternoon, usually from 4:30-5:00pm onwards.

-Work out how long you’re able to work at your best each day.I study 45-60 minutes per subject (I have 4 ¾’s) with 10-15 breaks in between. A guy in my class will study in 20 minute blocks with 5 minute breaks in between. Sometimes I don’t worry about timing myself and will just have breaks after I’ve completed a task. Don’t be afraid to change it up, especially if you’re tired.

-Also this may be contradictory to my main point, but “if you don’t feel like painting, don’t paint” (Credit to random ATAR Notes guy). You need to keep an eye out for when you need to take a night off. Sometimes you just need to take a nap. Interpret that quote however you want, it just felt like good advice to me.

4. COMPARE THE PAIR I’m really conflicted about comparing myself to others. VCE is a system entirely structured around rankings. Your study scores are ranks based of where you sit in the state which are based of where you rank in your class. I’m a very competitive person, so comparing myself to others motivates me. However there’s a line to this. It’s significantly less stressful to run your own race. I can’t just tell you to stop comparing your marks to others, because I know it just isn’t that easy. Just try and recognise your own progress too.

-Try working on your perception of failure. Harness it to motivate you to do better next time.

5. TEACHERS Your teachers teach the same content every year, they know it all back to front. Use them.

-If at any point in time you think “I don’t get this” write it down, sticky note it, set a reminder to ask your teacher about it. Question, question, question.

-Learn their approach to teaching early on. My math teacher lets everyone work at their own pace while my health teacher is free with detention slips when worksheets are handed in late. Try and get on their good side.

-Your teachers mark your assessments, if they hint at anything to do with how they mark, write it down and keep it in mind. Also they may have previously marked exams for VCAA, if so they’ll what you need to include it certain types of questions to get full marks. They’re like a walking, talking previous-exam report. Ask for their advice.

-If you really struggle learning from your teacher, ask your classmates (remember you guys are a team NOT competition), visit forums, and seek out other teachers who also teach the subject. Even if your teacher is great do this. The more people explain something to you, the more you’ll get it and the easier you’ll remember it.

-Don’t be afraid to send them emails, they take their job home

-Ask them to mark any extra questions you do out of your textbook. You often will not have the answers yourself and they can give you feedback

6. GET AHEAD DURING THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS Phew I feel like this stuff is getting out of order by now, but here we are. Doing this will take a whole heap off pressure off you at the start off the year.

-Number 1 thing to do is to complete set holiday homework. There’s nothing worse than starting the school year behind in your work.

-Read your English texts. I had four novels. Write or find chapter summaries for them. Reread them if you have time. You need to be familiar with the characters, themes, and plot. You do not want to be reading 1984 in the middle of August.

-Skim through your textbooks. Summarise chapters.

-Start a list of terms you need to know for each class

-Practice writing, doesn’t have to be essays or anything. The worst thing is coming back to school feeling like you’re wording your sentences weirdly.

-Get to know the study design. Know what you don’t need to know. 7. ACTUAL STUDY It took a more that a few paragraphs to get to the point. -I hate cue cards, they don’t work for me at all. If you haven’t used them to study before, don’t spend hours writing them out for a whole textbook. Try them out with a few definitions and if they work then continue. Don’t force it just because it’s a popular technique.

-I don’t usually hand write notes, it takes a lot of energy and I get sores from pressing on the paper too hard. I type out my notes. It’s up to you as to what you do

-To memories a concept I’ll retype a whole document paragraph by paragraph to remember it (with the paragraph i’m copying scrolled up out of sight). If you prefer writing then try rewriting each paragraph. (This is my main study method)

-To do well you need to know your content and how to play the game. I can’t specifically tell you how to do this but you need to know how to answer questions. This goes back again to doing practice exams

-Have a conceptual understanding of the context. Memorisation can only get you so far. It ultimately comes down to being very familiar with content. To explain: By the time I completed four units of VCE biology I had been introduced to around 600 new terms. Every year there is at least one question that’ll ask for a definition. Now biology is already a very content heavy subject, I couldn’t go out and learn 600 definitions by heart. In the exam I was asked to define ‘vaccine.’ I didn’t know the textbook definition of ‘vaccine,’ but I knew about vaccines, I knew a key word would be ‘attenuated.’ So I came up with a definition from there. Ultimately you need to be able to apply the information you know to unknown situations.

-Immerse yourself in the subject. Make posters and stick them on your fridge and on the toilet door. You may not even read them, but the topics will always be in your face keeping your knowledge fresh in your mind

-Look at as many sources of information as possible, if you see the information in different forms you’ll develop a far better understanding of it. Read your textbook, old textbooks, your notes, company notes, teacher PowerPoints, articles. Trade notes with your friends. Watch YouTube. 8. LOOK AFTER YOURSELF I actually hate that I’m putting this in here. So stereotypical of a study guide.

-have little control of what food I eat, I get what I’m given in my household. So if I’m not eating well I can’t change that. I’m sure nearly all students are in the same position. As much as I would love to have a detox juice for breakfast it’s not going to happen. Just make sure you’re eating enough energy-wise

-Life gets in the way of exercise. I walk to and from school every day and this is enough for me to have a break and think.

-Get to bed before midnight. Sleep is the one thing I will stress about to you. If you aren’t getting enough rest you will burn out. School is tiring even when you’re getting 8 hours of sleep. I’m still working on this one (btw it’s 12:48am atm). School is so much more enjoyable when you’re well rested.

-If you’re overwhelmed, take a long bath or shower. You need to give yourself some time out sometimes

9. ORGANISATION

-I recommend having a diary or at least a notebook where you can write things down

-Write down every piece of set homework, even if you think you’ll remember it because you probably won’t.

-My diary is more of a to-do list. I write down everything that I want to get done in a week, including set homework and study. That way when I have free periods at school and when I get home I know exactly what I can do with my time.

-Highlight important events such as tests and due days so you won’t forget them or look over them in your planner

-Apart from my diary, I write very specific to-do lists for each day. This is especially helpful on weekends and holidays when you don’t have the routine of school

-Pack your bag the night before. It’ll mean one less thing you have to do in the morning and 10 minutes of extra sleep.

[rivkahstudies]

General IB Tips (Part 1, because I have a lot to say on this topic)

Whether you’re just entering the IB program or, like me, you’re almost done with your first year, here are some tips that I have picked up from my experiences as an overwrought but successful student!

For those of you that are unaware, International Baccalaureate is an international standard for education that is employed at schools around the world. It is an extremely rigorous program. More below the cut!

My experience as an IB student:

I am finishing my Junior (Grade 11) year in a Florida, US school on May 24. This is important because my school puts the most work on the Juniors so Seniors can focus on applying for colleges and scholarships and taking exams. They still have a lot of work though.

I am not taking any IB exams this year, all of my classes will be tested for in my senior year.

I am a full IB student, which means all 7 of my hour-long classes are IB.

I have 6 extracurricular activities but I will not get a paying job until next year.

I have generalized anxiety disorder, depression, and insomnia/chronic nightmares that impact my ability to work.

general - the conditions

PLEASE banish the advice that “You’ll be perfectly fine if you don’t procrastinate! IB is so easy if you’re a hard worker!” There are so many other factors, a lot of which I will cover, that will impact your ability to work, and even though IB is standardized across the boards, each school does things slightly differently. There are going to be difficult days. You’re going to have breakdowns and want to quit, and hate yourself and IB. There will be really bad days, or really bad weeks. I have done very little procrastinating and have worked really hard, and I’ve still had difficulty dealing with the workload. 

IB does take a lot of discipline and routine. You will have to sacrifice. I chose to sacrifice sleep and my social life, but I’m working harder to take care of myself now that the worst days are clearing out.

IB is not just for the intelligent kids. It’s for the kids willing to be chewed up and spit out. This takes a lot of character beyond book smarts, and if you decide to do the IB Certificate Program (some IB classes) instead of IB Diploma (full IB), or just full on drop out, that is okay. It is always okay. Not everyone is made for a program that expects an inhuman amount of effort and work. If you have complicating circumstances or even just issues with your personal condition with taking IB, there’s no shame in quitting or dropping classes. There are other options past IB if you want to succeed in life. IB is a choice. 

Don’t go through this alone. My rule of thumb is to always have 2 kids my age and 1 adult I can rely on to rant to, get advice from, or just cry on the shoulder of when I’m having my hard times. This preserves your mental health and helps people help you if you get to a really bad point.

And despite all the negativity (read: honesty) in these points above... Be excited! Keep an open mind. IB fosters creative and critical thinking, and opens you up to an international mindset useful in all aspects of life. It doesn’t teach all the life skills I would like, but that’s what your mentors and peers are for. If there’s something you want, go for it, and always attempt to find a good side to every adversity. I keep a lil jar called the Good Things Jar where I put in slips of paper of good things that happen to me. I have been neglecting it due to busy schedules lately, but even on bad days I try to put one good thing in. It’s seriously helped my outlook this year.

general - completing assignments

Remember: Extra Credit is your best friend, but your priority is to get the assigned work done. EC is for when something falls through or no amount of studying will get you passing that Thermodynamics test. If your teacher doesn’t give a lot of EC and offers some, jump on it! You won’t regret it.

Always prioritize based on size of the project and the deadline. If it’s a longer deadline but a bigger project, start as soon as possible. No matter what the size, always work on the things due the soonest first in case you can’t get to all of your to do list.

Talk to your teachers. Especially when things come up. Whether it’s extracurriculars, family issues, personal issues, emergencies, etc, if something keeps you from completing an assignment or you aren’t grasping the materials, talk to your teachers. It is very important to have a close relationship with even your disliked IB teachers because you need to be able to get cut breaks. IB teachers know the issues of IB, they’re usually understanding. Chances are, as long as you’re a good and honest student, they’ll take late work or bargain with you, and help you make up work unless they already have a procedure or bulletin for you to reference on your own time.

Don’t always chunk your workload by assignment. I will break up even simpler tasks into certain milestones so that I can cope. I want to rewrite all my math notes? I want chapter 5 done by Monday. I never write my schedule so strictly that I have specific times for each assignment. I see some people say 1:00: Read, 2:00 Eat, 3:00 Take Notes. Even the most organized students can’t conform to that rigid a schedule. Instead, schedule periods for general aspects - the morning is for studying, the afternoon for writing, the evening for relaxing, etc. And make sure you program in breaks, because it’s not healthy to sit for too long, write for too long, etc without proper self-care!

notetaking

Good notetaking skills are very valuable! I don’t have time to make my notes super embellished like a lot of studyblrs, but I still seriously value clean notes and I will retake notes multiple times if necessary. Not only does it help when you need to reference them again for test or exam time, but it helps you cement the knowledge in your mind more.

My notetaking strategy: four pen/marker colors. 1 for titles, 1 for subtitles, 1 for important details (names, dates, key points, etc) and 1 (typically black) for supporting information/regular text. I like to change up the colors so I can remember separate note sets in the same subject/notebook, so you’ll see one of the many taxes that provoked the American revolution in greens and blues, the next in reds, and the next pinks and purples. Diagrams get their own sets of colors depending on complexity and keys.

The reason I like this notetaking strategy is it still allows me neat, color-coded notes without getting overly fancy. I draw only what I absolutely need to, and sometimes I’ll doodle if I need to relax and my hands are itching to draw. But generally I find that aesthetic notetaking just spends time I can use to relax or complete other work, so I refrain! Practicality over aesthetics in IB.

working past mental illness

A lot of us have it. I have firsthand experience, and it’s not fun. Just Wednesday night, I ended off all of my homework at 12 AM and had a mental breakdown until 2 AM. There will be really bad days, and you just can’t avoid them. IB has some flexibility for students, but it still doesn’t have much wriggle room for chronic mental illness.

Be aware of yourself. I know I get sensory overload, I know I have anxiety attacks and that my average resting heartbeat has been 100-120 lately wITHOUT COFFEE and I need to take care of that. I know I have insomnia and nightmares and it’s hard to get to sleep. Use that knowledge to your advantage to prevent procrastination, situations that are triggering or overwhelming, and people that aren’t good for you. 

Don’t overdo the extracurriculars. They’re good for the resume and they’re fun, but trust me, it’s not a good idea. I have 6, and at the peak of their work I was so overworked I didn’t sleep for an entire week. I had 8 before I started full IB, and I dropped 2 and still had issues. My advice is 2-3, and devote all your energy to it within reason. As it is, I don’t believe you should join anything you can’t give at least 65% to. Sure you might not be able to attend every meeting or take on extra responsibilities, but you should be attentive and dedicated to it. I love all my extracurriculars dearly and I cope with the stress because it’s rewarding, and by this time of the year most of them have finished for the year anyway.

Don’t bottle it up. As stated earlier, you should have 2 kids your age and 1 adult you can rely on to talk to about one subject at any time. They can be anyone you trust, but people should know what your state is so they can help if things go wrong. I like the magic number of 3 people because it allows you to express yourself multiple times without putting too much energy into one person. They are people with lives too, but you are not a burden and you deserve to be heard and validated. I like to rotate my 3. One time it’ll be my boyfriend (who’s usually in every group anyway because he likes to know that I’m okay and I like to know he is) and my best gal pal and my TOK teacher, next time it’ll be my mom, my classmate in English and my other gal pals. Don’t be afraid to reach out.

If you can’t reach out, be honest with yourself. Talk about what’s bothering you to yourself. Say “I feel mad” or “I have a headache” or “I’m panicking.” Identify the sources and try to ground yourself. There are multiple grounding and breathing techniques I use and I’d be happy to go into more detail if y’all ask about it. If grounding doesn’t work, try other coping methods such as mapping out possible solutions or taking time to self-care and medicate. If you know yourself, you’re a step closer to overcoming whatever mental boundaries you have or, at least, being more comfortable. If I start crying for “no reason” I think about what’s been stressing me out and run through recent events. It helps me rationalize and stop my anxiety from ruling me and blowing things out of proportion. I also view my intrusive thoughts like “you’re nothing, you’re worthless” as a backseat driver. “No, Karen, I’m not, I’m the driver, hush.” It seems foolish, but it really helps me because it’s both humorous and also me being rational. 

Anyway! This turned out waaaay longer than I intended it but this is just the tip of the iceberg, so if you guys wants a TL;DR version I will post it tomorrow or Saturday by request and if you want more tips just message me or ask me!! I love getting asked specific questions because it’s easier for me to answer any specific concerns or curiosities you have! If you’d like, my next post can be about suggestions on how to tackle specific aspects of IB like the EE or the CAS project!

Tagging people that specifically wanted this post:

@hunny-studies , @unfortunatelackofaliens 

[rivaco]

Technology and I: From typewriters to messaging apps

Old to new technology: A world apart

Do you remember typewriters?

I certainly do. When I entered high school, I sat down with my counselor, Mr. Z, and mapped out my classes for the next four years. With only one elective, he insisted that I take typing; on a typewriter no less.

He asserted it would make homework go faster and would encourage me to think before I typed, as every word counted and couldn’t be changed without messy white-out.

I hated the class.

It took me up to an hour to complete a flawless paragraph. That was what was considered productive in 1990.

Enter word processors. What took an hour before, could be done in 20 minutes.

Mistakes could be made and erased quickly. Between that and the fax machine, technology had hit an all-new high and one that many of us couldn’t imagine would ever be topped.

Boy, were we wrong.

Email gained popularity during the last couple of years while I was in college. It was an exciting thing to see two or three emails a day.

My productivity rose dramatically. No longer was there a need to walk a mile each way to ask my professors a question.

A 90-minute trip became a 5-minute email.

Those were the days, because in the working world, email became something different. It went from being a productivity enhancer to, at times, a suck of time and resources.

With email becoming the primary method of business communication, the number of emails waiting to be read has increased dramatically.

According to McKinsey Global Institute, an average employee spends 13 hours a week reading and responding to email. This equates to 650 hours a year spent on completely reactive, low-value work. Doing simple math, that means that 28% of a work week is consumed with email — much of which is not relative.

As high as that number is, I really believe it low-balls the amount of time we spend on email.

I could, of course, add more studies and stats, but I don’t need a study to state the obvious.

Email not only creates a lot of noise (I get about 100 emails a day in my personal account) but sometimes can take awhile to get done.

I can take 15 minutes, for instance, to write a simple email, especially when talking to a co-worker, manager or CEO.

The email could have four lines in it, but everything must be perfect.

I write, read, edit, rewrite, make sure I’m absolutely clear, do another check…and then hit send.

For an important email, I’ll wait for the response, and should I not receive one — I’ll send out that all annoying “gentle reminder” email. Sometimes, an email contains a simple question but as an email has become a formal document, everything must be perfect.

As a worker and team member, you can be judged based on your emails.

Technology continues to evolve and we are slowly pulling out of both the noise and formality of email.

Thanks to the widespread adoption of texting, we have learned to communicate directly and quickly, which has led to the proliferation of communication and business-focused messaging applications.

These messaging and collaboration platforms have not only increased our productivity, but also spurred creativity in us.

The modern workplace is made up of collaborative teams.

It is a fact that collaboration and creativity rely on effective, direct, and fast communication among coworkers.

Messaging dusts off the formality of emails and alleviates the waiting game for answers and frankly, eliminates confusion.

It allows banter to happen and a stream of consciousness for brainstorming. You can have direct communication without picking up the phone or sending an email. I can read body-language via video, clarify a misunderstanding via questions, create a team or to-do list, and save a history of the conversation.

Effectively speaking, I can get more done in a shorter amount of time, with more creativity and a deeper understanding of what the task demands.

Although I can’t clock the time spent — this much I know is true:

I receive about 10 emails a day, which is down from 100 emails at my last job. Five are relevant and those emails take time to read and craft.

I can tell via video conference how our teams in Brazil and Russia are doing that day based on body language.

I can brainstorm and shoot out ideas without having to worry about whether my sentence structure is perfect.

And I am much more productive than I have been in the past.

Oh, and did I mention the 10 emails a day?

Typewriter be gone.

-Authored by Christina Andrea Sarracino, who secretly misses writing on a typewriter. Also handles PR for Flock.

Want to make your marketing team more productive?

#Workfact: Tuesday is a team’s most productive day

Technology and I: From typewriters to messaging apps was originally published in Flock Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.