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“The fear of getting hurt again has only led you to hurt yourself. Come out now. Come out while there’s still some living left to be done. This person who hurt you doesn’t deserve to still dictate your life decisions. Your discipline and dedication to structure is an illusion. You’re still powerless because you’re letting certain incidents define your life. If you really want to be in control again, you have to learn to let go again. It’s the only way.”

— Ryan O'Connell

Good luck! (ᵔᴥᵔ)

How to learn a language fast

1. Learn a sizable vocabulary, there is a good list of 625 words you should know in your target language. Spend time building this up and be sure to practice your pronunciation that is vital. To learn vocabulary there are many methods: flashcards, lists, apps, mindmaps etc. I personally use the app Quizlet as it has many learning tools and flashcards so you can practice on the go.

2. Learn basic grammar, for this you can use a book or there are plenty of websites online that will have resources. You just need to have master a section at a time so you have the basic learnt.

3. Listen to the spoken language, if you are in the country awesome but chances you are not so some ways to this are: listening to audio files, using apps (I know Duolingo has a aspect that reads stories), watch YouTube videos in that language, watch films and listen to the radio (there are lots of streams online).

4. Practice speaking, pronunciation is vital plus saying things over and over again can help move it to the long term memory. It will make you feel much more confident in your abilities. To practice speaking it would be ideal to find someone who is fluent in your target language but if not there are speaking exercises online, you could try read a book out loud or even learn a song.

5. Stick to it, this is probably the most important part if you don’t keep practicing regularly you will forget it all. Even if it is just something small it is better than nothing and will be worth it when you can speak a whole new language.

Good Websites

BBC Languages

Duolingo

Dictionaries

Quizlet

Memrise

Babbel

Fluent Forever

Feel free to add more helpful tips, tricks etc below.

I’m going to learn Spanish.

So, it’s that time of the year again, back to school. And right now, some of you are probably panicking a little because, let’s face it, school starts soon and you have not glanced at your to-do list since June. But don’t be afraid, lots of us are in the same boat. I myself ambitiously drafted out a long list of things to do this summer, including studying C++, studying Chinese, preparing for new course work, studying quiz bowl, and exercising. However, I was abroad for five weeks, spent lots of weekends at the beach, slept in, and generally slacked off. Now, it’s not too late to pick up the pace and get into the study grind to get a good start this school year. Below are some useful tips!

Academic Tips:

Print off your new school schedule immediately and build your personal schedule around that. (Figure out which time blocks are for studying, exercise, sleep, mealtime, extracurriculars, and chill time.)

Buy a planner and start using it. It doesn’t have to be personalized or fancy, just make sure it suits your taste and is usable. Even though you may not have classwork right now, start using it to complete tasks and get in the habit of writing in it.

Search up your teachers/professors on RateMyProfessor to (kinda) know what you’re in for. Obviously, those reviews are a little skewed so read them with a grain of salt, but know which professors are lecture heavy and which classes rely on the textbook. This really helped me last year.

Get in the habit of reading and writing a bit everyday. That way, your first assignment won’t be nearly as painful. Just write a little in a journal or read some NYT articles to critically engage your brain. 

Look over the first chapter of your textbooks. The first chapter and introduction in books really explain what the course is about, so if you’re afraid of feeling stranded in class, read them.

If you have questions or concerns about your courses, email your professors or teachers. They want to help their students.

Map out where you have to go for each class. Whether it’s changing floor in the same building or booking it across campus, make sure you know where you’re going the first week of class. Highlight your routes on a map of the school if you need.

Lifestyle Tips:

It’s nice to sleep in over summer break, but start waking yourself up earlier. Figure out what time you need to wake up, factor in the 7-8 hours of sleep you need, and determine the ideal bedtime. Set an alarm and start slowly winding back your wake up time. For example, if I need to get up at 7:00 AM for school, I’ll sleep until 8:30 for one week. Then I’ll wake up at 8:00 the next week, and 7:30 the week after that so my body can slowly adjust to the earlier mornings.

On a similar note, start going to bed at the appropriate time. It may be frustrating to do so when it’s still bright out at night, but this really helps your body adjust. The lights from devices keep you up, so get accustomed to ditching the electronics before you get in bed.

Make sure your outfits are school ready. I know my math lecture is in a really chilly old building, so I’m pulling out a few sweaters to bring with me to class. If your school has a dress code (which can be annoying) or uniform, make sure your outfits comply.

Get your bag and supplies ready. This is fun for me, because I usually end up shopping and getting some new cute accessories and stationery.

Start a new healthy habit with the school year. This is a good time to try to stick in something new. Get a reusable water bottle and try to drink 8 cups a day, or add meditation to your night routine. You won’t regret it!

Now, most of these tips are applicable to both high school and college, but if you want high school or college specific tips, let me know in my messages or ask box and I’ll make another post. Have an amazing school year!

– studyboba (Janet)

How to study w/ mental health problems

Hi everyone! I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression a while back, and these are my tips on how to manage to be a student while also having mental health problems. If you’re struggling too much, however, please please please see if you can take a break from school- your health is so much more important than anything else!!!!! However, if you can and want to keep going, I hope these tips are useful.

1. Be realistic about what you can do

When I’m in a really bad anxious/depressive spell, things take me so much longer than usual. It’s important to take that into account when planning out your tasks, so you don’t end up with an enormous unfinished to-do-list and a mental breakdown. For example, last week, I had an essay to finish, and I spent a full day proofreading it one final time, since I could only do one paragraph at a time. Make sure to give yourself enough time and only do the tasks that are absolutely essential!

2. Know your own signs

In my case, my mental health goes up and down- I might be having a great time for a few weeks but then it’ll all go downhill again (like right now, I’m in a particularly difficult bit currently). By now, I know what signs to look out for so I know when my mental health will go downhill again, so I can prepare myself. Learn these signs (if you can) and when you notice them, either try to prevent yourself from going bad (which obvs isn’t always possible- I tried real hard this time but here we are again), or plan for when you do!

3. Make lists

For me, I can’t do anything without a list. My brain is already so off the rails that, if I don’t make lists, I will forget to do things, or maybe I just can’t be bothered. If I’m in a really bad time mental health-wise, I’ll put even the small things on there (like showering or cooking), to make sure I do them and to make me feel like I got a lot of stuff done in a day even when I’m not able to be productive uni-wise.

4. Talk to your teachers!

You all probably know this, but your teachers are there to help you, and 99.9% of the time, they will be more than happy to. If you’re going through a bad time, tell them this so they know why you’re not as prepared as usual/ they may be able to give you some extra guidance. For example, I have to write my thesis over the summer, but want to do this at home rather than in my uni town bc it’s better for me to be at home rn. I told my supervisor (insert a bunch of anxious crying from my side here), and he was incredibly nice and understanding. If (like me) you have anxiety, this sort of stuff will be scary, but I promise, it’ll be worth it!

5. Be kind to yourself

This is important in general, but if you have mental health problems, you have to accept that you’re not going to be able to be as productive as you want to be (the perfectionist inside of me died a little as I was writing it). There will be days when it feels like you’ve been hit by a bus and you just can’t do anything, and that’s fine. Just wake up every day, determined to make the best of whatever the universe has decided to throw at you. Good luck!

I hope this helped some of you- if you have any questions/ just need someone to talk to, please feel free to message me!!!

How I Got Straight A’s in My First Year of University

I was so proud of myself when I received firsts (that’s A’s for those not attending uni in the UK) on all of my assessments in my first year at university. Here are some tips for y’all to try at any point in university. They may be specific at times to my experience—my degree is in the social sciences and humanities, and I’m studying in the UK—but I did try to make them more generally applicable, and hopefully they should be helpful to someone out there.

Part One: Everyday Study Routine

Before the start of the academic year, try to get in a little bit of preparation. See if there are any syllabi or reading lists posted online. You don’t have to pour over them, of course, but do attempt to do something, and have a basic grasp on what will be covered in your classes.

Go to all your lectures and seminars. Unless you absolutely have to miss class because you are ill or have an important obligation to take care of, it’s really important to attend your lectures every day. (Note: if you are struggling with mental or chronic illness or a disability, don’t beat yourself up if you keep missing class. Please take care of yourself.) You may be tempted to just look at the PowerPoint presentation online, but it’s much more effective to be there in person. Often the lecturer may include information or extra explanations which are not included in the presentation. It will also allow you to process the information aurally as well as visually, and you will have the added benefit of taking notes too. You may also be able to ask questions.

Do all the pre-reading for lectures. I know it’s tempting to put it off, but try to work it into your daily routine (because you will have reading to do every day). Inevitably, there will be times where you slip up and don’t have time to finish. If this happens, make sure you catch up on it at some point, because it’s very important to solidifying the concepts you are learning about. Also, the more you read in general, the better you will become at reading (and also writing).

Take diligent notes (for both your lectures and pre-reading), and keep them organized. I prefer to handwrite in a notebook, as it helps me synthesize information rather than just typing it out verbatim—but it is totally up to you. If you do use a notebook, make a table of contents on the first page, where you write the date, topic, class, and page numbers of each set of notes you take. I think it’s a great idea to include your own thoughts and opinions in notes, or linking concepts you are learning to concepts you already know about.

If you have the time, make sure to be reading books/essays/articles and engaging with ideas outside of your regular syllabus. This is one of the most important techniques (in my experience, at least) when it comes to writing essays and answering exam questions. Evidence of wider reading around a topic is a great way to boost the credibility of your argument. It also does wonders to solidify and broaden your conceptualization of certain ideas you may have covered in your classes.

Where possible, try to contribute (as much as you feel comfortable) in seminars. If you are very quiet and reserved, that is totally okay too. I’m with you. But it has helped me tremendously in the past year to push myself to speak up more often in seminars. Talking in seminars allows you to clarify concepts and engage more deeply with the material being discussed (and it might impress your seminar tutor too, though this is secondary to the learning in my opinion).

If you have some nerdy-ass friends, talk with them about your ideas and what you’re both learning in your courses. I can’t tell you the number of essays I’ve written which actually have blossomed out of conversations I’ve had with friends, where they’ve exposed me to topics I’d never heard of before or broadened my view of a concept. Learning from each other in a casual and fun setting is amazing!

Part Two: Assessment Time

When you are given notice about big assignments coming up, such as essays or group projects, try to start working on them ASAP. Trust me, I know how hard it is. This is coming from someone who has dealt for years with chronic procrastination issues and nearly didn’t graduate from high school because of it. But you must start planning as soon as you possibly can, because the due date will come screaming up and before you know it, it’ll be the night before the deadline and you won’t have a clue what you’re writing about. Work it into your daily schedule if you have to. One great tip is to write down the deadline as being earlier (say, a week earlier) than what it actually is. This will prompt you to start earlier than you normally would have.

Do a shitload of reading, widely, from multiple sources. Read everything you can on the topic you are doing your assignment on. For a basic literature review, this means looking through at least 20+ sources. That doesn’t mean carefully perusing each one front to back; it means looking through all the relevant literature to find a few great sources which will really give you a coherent argument and a big picture of the topic at hand.

Keep your sources organized. I use Paperpile, which is a Chrome extension that allows you to save and organize academic sources. I make a folder for each assessment I am working on, and anything I find relevant to my topic, I save it to the folder. This will be a life saver for you when you actually go to plan your paper and also do the referencing.

Content is important, but perhaps even more important is your argument and structure. This mostly applies to essays, but you can apply it to other types of assessments too. Try not to structure your argument in terms of blocks of content—e.g. Paragraph 1 is about Topic A, Paragraph 2 is about Topic B—but rather in terms of how you are laying out your argument. Make sure each part of your essay flows into the next, so that you are, for example, setting up a kind of dialogue or narrative between the different sources you’re using. Also ensure that any point you are making clearly relates back to your main thesis.

If you’re a perfectionist like me: train yourself to remember that there is no such thing as perfect. Try to imagine what the perfect essay would be like. Can you imagine it? It’s probably pretty difficult, right? That’s because there is no such thing as a perfect assignment. Remind yourself of this, constantly. Tell yourself that you will be okay with just doing your very best. If you think about it logically: handing in something that is perhaps not your best ever, but handing it in on time and doing pretty well, is infinitely better than attempting to have a “perfect” essay but handing it in late and failing the assignment.

I hope this helped some of you! Best of luck and happy studying this year—go knock ‘em out! xo

Urgh. Enjoy??? (I started making this six months ago so I’m obviously v productive) ✩✫✬✭✯✮✶✷

Backstage at Ralph & Russo Spring 2017 Couture

Myths, Creatures, and Folklore

Want to create a religion for your fictional world? Here are some references and resources!

General:

General Folklore

Various Folktales

Heroes

Weather Folklore

Trees in Mythology

Animals in Mythology

Birds in Mythology

Flowers in Mythology

Fruit in Mythology

Plants in Mythology

Folktales from Around the World

Africa:

Egyptian Mythology

African Mythology

More African Mythology

Egyptian Gods and Goddesses

The Gods of Africa

Even More African Mythology

West African Mythology

All About African Mythology

African Mythical Creatures

Gods and Goddesses

The Americas:

Aztec Mythology

Haitian Mythology

Inca Mythology

Maya Mythology

Native American Mythology

More Inca Mythology

More Native American Mythology

South American Mythical Creatures

North American Mythical Creatures

Aztec Gods and Goddesses

Asia:

Chinese Mythology

Hindu Mythology

Japanese Mythology

Korean Mythology

More Japanese Mythology

Chinese and Japanese Mythical Creatures

Indian Mythical Creatures

Chinese Gods and Goddesses

Hindu Gods and Goddesses

Korean Gods and Goddesses

Europe:

Basque Mythology

Celtic Mythology

Etruscan Mythology

Greek Mythology

Latvian Mythology

Norse Mythology

Roman Mythology

Arthurian Legends

Bestiary

Celtic Gods and Goddesses

Gods and Goddesses of the Celtic Lands

Finnish Mythology

Celtic Mythical Creatures

Gods and Goddesses

Middle East:

Islamic Mythology

Judaic Mythology

Mesopotamian Mythology

Persian Mythology

Middle Eastern Mythical Creatures

Oceania:

Aboriginal Mythology

Polynesian Mythology

More Polynesian Mythology

Mythology of the Polynesian Islands

Melanesian Mythology

Massive Polynesian Mythology Post

Maori Mythical Creatures

Hawaiian Gods and Goddesses

Hawaiian Goddesses

Gods and Goddesses

Creating a Fantasy Religion:

Creating Part 1

Creating Part 2

Creating Part 3

Creating Part 4

Fantasy Religion Design Guide

Using Religion in Fantasy

Religion in Fantasy

Creating Fantasy Worlds

Beliefs in Fantasy

Some superstitions:

Read More

hello pals!! this is a masterpost of half (or so) of the reference posts i reblogged/made. i tried uploading this masterpost as just one big masterpost but i had over 250 links so that failed and here i am again. here is part one, encapsulating studying + certain subjects which will be followed by part two (slightly more general) here! enjoy ✨

studying, school, + learning

what i’ve learnt throughout my years of being a student

notes, studying, and self-study resources

self-study resources

starting a studyblr

college + uni

how to get studying

online study guides

good habits

exams!

study management

school is starting soon

back to school (1)

back to school (2)

back to school (3)

back to school reminders

50 things to know for back to school

get prepared for a new school year

school resources

final grade calculator

writing emails to professors

cheap textbooks etc!!

save money on textbooks

school

first week of school stuff

testing effect

make studying fun

high school tips

101 study tips

types of learners

lazy kid’s guide to good grades

catching up on missed work

university tag

igcse resources

sat tag

act tag

ap tag

ib tag

a-level revision tips

diy school supplies

test taking tips

a complete guide to studying (well)

time to study!

groupwork (1)

groupwork (2)

tips tag

study effectively from textbooks

studying better

surviving your least favourite class

studying a subject you hate

success

doing research

understanding the question

pomodoro

study tips

tactile learning

how to concentrate

concentration

exam day

ultimate study masterpost

study tips for exams

school survival

studying on the go

how to read academic journal articles

how to study smart

how to remember anything in 3 steps

distraction-free studying

motivation

my study instagram + study blog

+ motivation links

motivation masterpost

stay motivated

get that homework done!

reaching goals

getting motivated

motivation through anime

writing

writing tag

recover an unsaved draft

uni writing resources

add citations!

annotating (1)

annotating (2)

advice for writing papers

writing helps

essay writing tips

how to write an essay

writing term research papers

active vs passive voice

writing masterpost

academic writing resources

essay checklist

reduce your word count

essay writing links

how to write and execute a huge piece of work

summary writing

the discursive/argumentative essay

the narrative essay + the descriptive essay

note-taking

note-taking in class

cornell note-taking

cornell (2)

lecture notes

illustrating notes

banners

maintaining good notes

note-taking

sticky notes

flashcards

colour-code + highlight effectively

colour-coding

studying from textbooks

study guides

upgrade your notes

illustrate your notes

mind maps

note-taking for different lecture types

ribbon drawing

smart highlighting

lettering ideas

how i take notes

note-taking tips

aesthetically pleasing notes

fake cursive notes

languages + literature

the ultimate english masterpost

shakespeare

literature masterpost

annotating

studying a foreign language

100+ legal sites to download literature

approaching poetry analysis

write a killer unprepared text essay

literary analysis research papers

classics

how to ace lit

reading lit

write a rhetorical analysis essay

practice oral comprehension!!

how i study for english lit

poetry analysis (1)

poetry analysis (2)

how i learn languages

self-studying languages

languages tag

how to open a new book

literary devices

literaty devices w/ printables

literature masterpost

grow your vocab

a guide to vocab

language learning tips + resources

SUPER IMPORTANT FOR POLYGLOTS

tips + tricks for learning a language

chinese

english

french

german

greek

italian

japanese

korean

latin

maltese

polish

russian

spanish

swedish

humanities + other subjects

studying humanities subjects

gathering materials for a humanities research paper

philosophy

philosophy tag

psychology tag

politics + government

women of wwi

ap world history

coding

design resources

sciences + math

how to memorise diagrams

biology (1)

biology (2)

studying biology

biology help

biology note-taking

anatomy + physiology

physiology

physics

ap physics

chemistry (1)

chemistry (2)

chemistry note-taking

studying chemistry

maths tag

how to study for math

how to study math (1)

how to study math (2)

math (1)

math (2)

math (3)

10 tips to excel in maths

avoid carelessness in calculations

succeed in math without really trying

math resources and links

algebra (1)

algebra (2)

precalculus

geometry

space + astronomy (1)

space + astronomy (2)

hope this helps + please check out part 2 as well!! ilysm 💗 

ps here is a list of all my masterposts just in case 🐝

- helena xx