Daisee

[21.11.2017] When mornings are sweet as this… (Wops, you can see my pyjama in the last snap 😅)

12.30.17  ♡  51/100 days of productivity

Finally back in Chicago! I missed this city and all my friends and family here. This is gonna be my last post for 2017 and looking back, this year was filled with many great experiences and new friends and learned lessons. I wish everyone an amazing year ahead full of love and happiness (*´꒳`*)

[ December 08 2017 ] I cannot believe how close I am to being done finals. Just one more week 🎄❤️

winter vibes ❄️

Over 250+ spread ideas!🎊

hoping your dreams are fulfilled, your grades are awesome and your skin is glowing in 2018!

my tips for bullet journalling

Year in Review

highlights / reflection

achievements this year

lessons learnt / growth as a person

things you want to improve on

advice you’ve received / given

best music/movies/tv shows/etc of the past year

friends made during this past year

commonplace journal pages

things you’ve discovered during the past year

useful tips during the past year

odd facts and trivia during the past year

topics to explore during the past year

questions to ask during the past year

New Year, New You

calendar / future log / yearly or monthly logs

things to look forward to this year

upcoming books/music/movies/tv shows being released this year

maslow’s hierarchy of needs self-reflection spread

goals / new year’s resolutions + steps to put it into action

skills you want to learn this year e.g. coding

habits you want to break / habits you want to pick up

diary: day-to-day happenings

budgets: monthly/yearly budgets

inspiration spread for new projects

level 10 life: rate areas (academic, personal, mental, physical, spiritual, social, financial) of your life out of 10, and write down goals to improve that rating!

monthly overviews (e.g. progress on goals)

assignment due dates calendar

18 things to do by the end of 2018

Special Pages for Special Friends

business cards from networking events

gift ideas for your friends/family/significant other

birthday / anniversary calendar

emergency contacts / phone numbers of important people

friendship journal:

memories / moments they were there for you

how you met

moments you want to share in the future

their mbti/hogwarts house

their best qualities

Trackers/Logs/______ of the Day

gratitude journal - # things you’re grateful for every day

habit trackers

motivational quotes

news headlines / this day in history

daily affirmations

currently reading / watching / listening to / feeling / eating / wanting etc.

time usage (read: wastage) tracker

k-drama or tv show episode tracker (always forget what ep I’m up to :S)

expenses tracker / tax deductibles

dream diary (tracker, plot(?), lucid or not, dream meanings)

new album or song releases

photo diary / sketch diary

weather

follower milestones

social media post tracker

household duties/chores tracker

grades tracker

year in pixels

TIL (today I learned)

civics

appointments: dentist, optometrist, doctor, therapist, etc.

bills: car / internet / rent etc

tax: income statements and work expenses receipts

membership/licence renewals

health

weight tracker

resting heart rate tracker (gives general idea of cardio fitness)

water intake tracker sleep log / time to bed / time awake / total hours slept

exercise log: number of reps / steps / minutes

mood trackers

period tracker

Various Creative Spread Ideas

day-to-day / life planning spreads

skincare routines

perfect/ideal morning routine 

self-care reminders

exercise routines

wishlist

bucket list

firsts: kiss, date, house, vacation, car, concert, etc.

DIYs to attempt

savings jar (doodle it!)

yearly / monthly recurring tasks

usernames/passwords (hints only for security!) 

5 or 10 year plans

dream job

dream house

planning for moving houses

dream wedding / planning

date ideas

make a worse case scenarios primer

summary tutorials for your reference e.g. step-by-step tax returns

academic

studyblr ideas

topics I need to revise

finals study timetable/plan

aspirations: what you want to be and why / how to get there

class timetable

assignment ideas

project schedules / team meeting dates

professors’ emails/office hours

assessment results

anti-procrastination page

motivations to study

skills you want to learn or are useful e.g. coding

formulas page

courses you want to take and their pre-reqs

college comparisons

back to school shopping list

textbook list with prices

language learning

vocabulary lists

grammar structures

media (books/tv shows/movies) to consume in that language

self-reflection / personality traits

best and worst characteristics

what to be mindful of / what you need to work on

mbti types you’re most compatible with 

fears and how you want to overcome them

letters to your future self (include hopes and dreams)

letters to your past self (include achievements and things to be proud of!)

inspirational people

stress management tips

charities to donate to and why you support them

volunteering activities

fun, cute, and aesthetic spread ideas

things worth staying alive for / getting out of bed for

a spread with all the things you were worried about which turned out fine

message page from your friends to you

“i can’t live without ______”

creative crafts spread: tips / equipment / tutorials

aesthetic colour moodboards

happy / comforting / relaxing / funny things spread 

seasons (summer/autumn/winter/spring) spread

rainy day spread

holidays spreads: christmas / easter / halloween / thanksgiving

idioms and proverbs from all different cultures

flowers spread: fav flowers, meanings, bouquet/arrangements, press ‘em!

crystals spread: fav gemstones (doodle ‘em), meanings

succulents spread: fav succulents, terrarium layout ideas

coffee/tea spread: paint with coffee / fav blends / best cafes

what’s in my bag (doodle it!)

outfit ideas / polyvore style collections

magazine clippings

shower thoughts / hypothetical ideas spread

draw my life spread / personal timeline

favourite characters e.g. gudetama, kumamon, etc. (doodle ‘em!)

interesting words list (ephemeral, mellifluous, serendipity, scintillating etc)

ideal date ideas

wedding anniversary ideas (like 1st is paper, 25th silver, 30th pearl, 40th ruby, 50th gold, 60th diamond)

baby animals spread (duckies, puppies, bunnies!!)

#just bullet journal things

bujo spread layouts and devices to try out (e.g. chronodex, parallel time ladder) 

key/legend (keep it simple!)

colour palettes/swatches

washi tape / pens / markers swatches

banners / fonts

doodles

ticket stubs / receipts

stickers / stamps

cutouts of info brochures

pressed flowers

calligraphy / brush lettering / handwriting practice

favourite stationery

activities

_______ that you want to do* / have done* (kind of bucket list) *watch, read, listen to, try, taste, cook, play etc. 

books

movies

tv shows

music

hobbies

arts/crafts e.g. paper quilling

sports e.g. archery

how to play / equipment / etc.

video games

foods

activities

board games

books / movies / tv shows

summary / review

favourite characters

meaningful moments / moments that made you laugh / cry

(for the media critic) artful moments:

best descriptive passages

best cinematography

best action scenes

best use of soundtracks

(basically moments that make it deserving of awards)

music

album reviews

favourite songs

playlists for every mood and all seasons

meaningful lyrics

songs you shazamed

favourite genres and exemplar songs

kpop

reasons why i love my bias / bias wrecker / group

letter to your bias

comeback concepts / favourite outfits

visual/picture tutorials for makeup styles

calendar of your favs’ schedules during comeback season

in-jokes/memes

awards / achievements / records broken / milestones

translated lyrics

kpop songs vocab lists

upcoming releases

on this day

art

pics of your favourite artworks/artists + write about it

art styles you want to emulate

explain techniques for different media e.g. watercolour wet-on-wet

doodle ideas

astrology

natal chart readings/aspects/placements

solar return reading for the incoming year / transits

synastry / compatibility chart readings

constellation/star charts

symbol reference page for planets, zodiac signs, aspects

food

recipes

meal plans

shopping lists

interesting foods: (doodle ‘em!) taste / texture / smell (e.g. truffles, caviar)

cafes/restaurants you want to go to + their specialty dish (photo)

cocktails you want to mix/taste (doodle ‘em!)

media

interesting articles + moral/ethical issues it prompted you to think about

controversial topics on the news and for/against arguments/your thoughts

on this day in history

fav websites / blogs

jokes / puns / pickup lines

favourite poems / quotes / short stories

kinaesthetic

burn book - write things that make you angry/sad and rip the page out

wreck it journal - e.g. colour, scribble, stickers all over this page

travel

places to visit

travel itinerary

cultural parables

useful phrases in the language and their meaning

travel memories spread: things you did / places you went / selfies

postcard collection

packing list

friendly and not-so-friendly people that you met in foreign lands

writing

short story ideas

plot brainstorming spreads

journal prompts

drabbles

character designs

foreign words which can’t be directly translated into english

University classes are a monster you can’t prepare for until you’re in them. I have been through every up and down with schoolwork possible in the past year, so here are some tips that can hopefully help you avoid those downs:

Choosing and Registering for Your Classes

Make sure to thoroughly check both your major requirements and your gen ed requirements. Normally, you’ll have an advisor to help you make sure you’re on track, but Vandy doesn’t assign first-year engineering students one until after registration when school starts, and I didn’t have an advisor for this year’s registration either due to my major change, so I’ve spent hours and hours doing this on my own. There’s often recommended courses and example schedules in the course catalog that tell you what classes you should be taking at this point in time. Pay attention to that and you should be fine. For example, you have to have taken a first-level writing class to qualify for junior standing here. Those are the little things you have to look out for. To keep track of it all, I have a spreadsheet I use for planning my sophomore - senior years that lists all the requirements I need to meet in terms of hours and courses in order to graduate on time. I plug in possible courses and see which requirement they would fulfill and when. You can check it out here to see what I mean, it’s very helpful.

Find at least one fun elective to take if at all possible. It gets very tiring when all you have on your schedule are really difficult classes that you don’t enjoy. Try to find at least one class that you’re genuinely interested in to help get you excited for the day. Each of my last semesters, my schedule consisted of a calculus class, a lab science, a comp sci class, and Italian. Italian was the only fun one that I enjoyed going to. It really helps you out. You’re not just in college to get your degree, you’re there to discover what you really want to do, so feel free to explore your catalog and take something completely out of character just because you want to. Bonus if it fills some kind of requirement (Italian filled my Foreign Language Proficiency and one of my International Cultures reqs.).

Have multiple versions of your schedule based on which classes you may or may not get into. I don’t know about your school, but at Vanderbilt, class registration is literally like the Hunger Games. You’re assigned an enrollment date based on your year (seniors get to go first, then juniors, etc.) and at 8 am on that day, you refresh the website and either enroll in your classes or get placed on the wait list for it. If you’re a freshman, you’re basically screwed because you go last, and so you could have planned out your perfect schedule only to find they’ve all filled up the day before your enrollment period starts. To avoid having to scramble, have multiple versions of your schedule, with back ups and substitutions for every class. This way, you won’t be surprised when you go to enroll and all but one of your classes are filled, then you have to search for other classes, but at that point, all that’s left are scraps that don’t fit your requirements. Plan plan plan and practice clicking the enroll button on all your classes as fast as you can for when the clock strikes 8.

You have freedom over your schedule now; take advantage of that! No more 8-3 Monday through Friday; you can take classes whenever you want. I prefer to have all my classes on MWF in a block of a few hours and only one or no class on TR. Of course, sometimes you’re going to have to take classes at less optimal times, but do try to accommodate yourself and take classes at times you know will be good for you. Lots of people prefer to start early and finish early, while I like to start no earlier than 11, even if I don’t finish until 5. The best part of college is you can do what you want.

Don’t take 8 ams. I’m repeating this cause it’s important. I swear, you’ll regret it. In high school, I woke up every morning early as hell to catch my bus at 6:30, but in college, it was nearly impossible for me to get up for my 11 am only three times a week. Don’t ever take an 8 am by choice. And if you have no choice, good luck lol.

Don’t be afraid to drop a class. If you’re doing terribly in a class or you absolutely can’t stand it, drop the class. There’s a very little chance that if you’re failing during the first half of the semester, you’ll be able to change your grade dramatically in the second half. Maybe you decided to be an overzealous freshman and signed up for the maximum number of hours possible and now you’re drowning. Drop a class! Sometimes, a course is going to do more harm to you than good, so it’s best to get rid of it than have an F or a W on your transcript.

Attending Your Classes

Establish a connection with your professor early. I recommended introducing yourself on the first day of class just so they know your name and face in another post. It’d be even better to attend an office hour or review session or something. Just make sure they know you. It’ll be easier to communicate when you need something later in the semester if it isn’t their first time seeing you.

Actually use this connection with your professors. In my experience, they can be pretty understanding and when you’re in a bad place, they’ll likely help you out. If something is preventing you from doing your best in class, go to them for help (I didn’t go to many office hours but I wish I did! Who better to explain to you something you don’t understand than the person who grades you on it?) or explain to them your situation. I had professors let me take tests late and redo assignments due to my mental health after I explained to them I wasn’t just a terrible student; if it wasn’t for this, I would’ve failed all of their classes. Maybe at the end of the semester they’ll drop one of your wonky grades or bump you up that extra half point you need. Your professors are a resource, and it’s up to you to use it.

Take notes however you want. I used my laptop in some, paper in others, and even my iPad and a stylus for calculus. In all of your classes will be a mixture of different techniques and no one cares what you do. Whatever works best for you and helps you get down the most information is what you should do. Also, you don’t have to write down everything. If your professor uses slides and posts them for you to download, you don’t really have to write down anything at all unless they add extra points, so that’s really convenient. 

You don’t have to sit in the front. As long as you can see and hear, which you’ll likely be able to due to large projection screens and microphones, it literally doesn’t matter where you sit. In my experience, the professors call on people from every part of the lecture hall, so everyone gets an equal chance at participation. It’s up to yourself to make sure you can pay attention, not your seat.

Do your best to attend every single class meeting. It’s inevitable that you’re going to miss class at some point; you will get sick, you won’t have finished an assignment, you’ll need a mental health day, something will happen. Missing class can too easily become a habit if you do it often, so try to never do it. Don’t force yourself to go if you can’t handle it, obviously your health always comes first, but I mean don’t skip cause you want to sleep in or cause you just don’t feel like going. If you do have to miss class and 1) you have a good reason for it (i.e. sickness) and 2) it’s a class small enough that your professor will notice you’re not there, email them and let them know why, just so they’re aware you’re not just skipping to skip.  

Try to make friends in your classes. A little study group would be even better. It’ll be really useful to have someone who can help you with a homework question you don’t understand or send you their notes when you miss a class. It can also be great to study with other people, depending on how you study best. I’ve had friends in all my classes so far and it’s been a great help, even if we just complained about the test we just failed then went to get pizza.

Tackling the Coursework

Make a REALISTIC study schedule. The key word here is realistic. During winter break I made a study schedule that started with me waking up at 8 am every morning to go work out and ended with me going to sleep promptly at 11 or midnight after spending literally the entire day studying with breaks only for meals. No breaks on weekends, no room to socialize, and I thought this would be perfectly fine for me to follow. Of course, I didn’t last a week because that was fucking ridiculous. You don’t need to schedule every hour of your day; college doesn’t work like that. Just do something simple, an hour for a class or maybe less depending on how hard it is and if you have a test coming up. Trust your instincts. There’s no need to go overboard, and you don’t need to spend six hours a day working, just dedicate a time to studying and stick with that.

Explore study techniques until you find one that works for you. Everyone doesn’t study the same, so if you do what everyone else is doing you might not get the results you want. Even if you had a great system in high school, it might not be fitting for college, so check out a bunch of different methods and see how you do with them. Once you find the best way you study, you’ll be unstoppable when exam time comes.

Start your assignments early, as soon as you can after they’re assigned. There’s nothing worse than having a bunch of assignments/tests/papers due on the same day and you haven’t finished any of them. Trust me, it is so much less stressful to complete an assignment as soon as you can after it’s been assigned so you don’t have to worry about it anymore. Putting things off has much more severe consequences than it did in high school and you will regret procrastinating. If you have a weekly assignment due every Friday, try to complete them by Wednesday every week. At the very least, start an assignment the day you get it even if you can’t finish it that day. It’s a lot easier to do something after you’ve already begun working on it, and that one thing you do is progress.

The name of the college game is prioritization. If college teaches you anything, it’s how to prioritize your duties. You need to create a hierarchy of importance for your classes and types of assignments. For me, calculus assignments were always done first because that was the most difficult class and the one I absolutely needed to pass, and Italian was always done last cause it was my easiest class and I could complete even our biggest assignments in one day. You’re going to have a very large amount of work and sometimes you have to sacrifice finishing a small homework assignment to finish a huge paper or study for an exam. I liked to complete my hardest/longest assignments right when I got back from class to get them over with and leave my easier ones for later. Prioritizing is essential if you want to succeed in university, so learn how to do it immediately! 

Remember that uni is really difficult and your grades don’t define you. Something I learned the hard way is that sometimes you can try really really hard, do the best you can, and still fail. That’s just life. Sometimes you have to do something a million times before you get it right, or before you discover that it just isn’t right for you at all. I worked harder than I ever had this past year, and what I got in return was two failed classes, two D’s, academic probation, and a 2.3 GPA. Actually, my current GPA isn’t even a 2.3, it’s a 2.295, which is probably blasphemy to the studyblr community, but this shit happens. It happens to all of us and it sucks. It can be really shitty to feel like your effort wasn’t reflected in your result. What you need to do is adjust your expectations and keep working hard. After you hit your stride, your grades could be great in no time. Or you could discover that math or science or english just isn’t for you. Maybe you’ll discover university as a whole isn’t right for you, and that’s okay! Bad grades, whether you define that as a B or an F, don’t mean you’re a bad student or a bad person. You do what you can, and then let go of what you can’t control. The sooner you grasp this idea, and the sooner you learn to be gentle with yourself, the easier a time you’ll have.

I believe in free education, one that’s available to everyone; no matter their race, gender, age, wealth, etc… This masterpost was created for every knowledge hungry individual out there. I hope it will serve you well. Enjoy!

FREE ONLINE COURSES (here are listed websites that provide huge variety of courses)

Alison 

Coursera

FutureLearn

open2study

Khan Academy

edX

P2P U

Academic Earth

iversity

Stanford Online

MIT Open Courseware

Open Yale Courses

BBC Learning

OpenLearn

Carnegie Mellon University OLI

University of Reddit

Saylor

IDEAS, INSPIRATION & NEWS (websites which deliver educational content meant to entertain you and stimulate your brain)

TED

FORA

Big Think 

99u

BBC Future

Seriously Amazing

How Stuff Works

Discovery News

National Geographic

Science News

Popular Science

IFLScience

YouTube Edu

NewScientist

DIY & HOW-TO’S (Don’t know how to do that? Want to learn how to do it yourself? Here are some great websites.)

wikiHow

Wonder How To

instructables

eHow

Howcast

MAKE

Do it yourself

FREE TEXTBOOKS & E-BOOKS

OpenStax CNX

Open Textbooks

Bookboon

Textbook Revolution

E-books Directory

FullBooks

Books Should Be Free

Classic Reader

Read Print

Project Gutenberg

AudioBooks For Free

LibriVox

Poem Hunter

Bartleby

MIT Classics

Many Books

Open Textbooks BCcampus

Open Textbook Library

WikiBooks

SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES & JOURNALS

Directory of Open Access Journals

Scitable

PLOS

Wiley Open Access

Springer Open

Oxford Open

Elsevier Open Access

ArXiv

Open Access Library

LEARN:

1. LANGUAGES

Duolingo

BBC Languages

Learn A Language

101languages

Memrise

Livemocha

Foreign Services Institute

My Languages

Surface Languages

Lingualia

OmniGlot

OpenCulture’s Language links

2. COMPUTER SCIENCE & PROGRAMMING

Codecademy

Programmr

GA Dash

CodeHS

w3schools

Code Avengers

Codelearn

The Code Player

Code School

Code.org

Programming Motherf*?$%#

Bento

Bucky’s room

WiBit

Learn Code the Hard Way

Mozilla Developer Network

Microsoft Virtual Academy

3. YOGA & MEDITATION

Learning Yoga

Learn Meditation

Yome

Free Meditation

Online Meditation

Do Yoga With Me

Yoga Learning Center

4. PHOTOGRAPHY & FILMMAKING

Exposure Guide

The Bastards Book of Photography

Cambridge in Color

Best Photo Lessons

Photography Course

Production Now

nyvs

Learn About Film

Film School Online

5. DRAWING & PAINTING

Enliighten

Ctrl+Paint

ArtGraphica

Google Cultural Institute

Drawspace

DragoArt

WetCanvas

6. INSTRUMENTS & MUSIC THEORY

Music Theory

Teoria

Music Theory Videos

Furmanczyk Academy of Music

Dave Conservatoire

Petrucci Music Library

Justin Guitar

Guitar Lessons

Piano Lessons

Zebra Keys

Play Bass Now

7. OTHER UNCATEGORIZED SKILLS

Investopedia

The Chess Website

Chesscademy

Chess.com

Spreeder

ReadSpeeder

First Aid for Free

First Aid Web

NHS Choices

Wolfram Demonstrations Project

Please feel free to add more learning focused websites. 

12.9.17