Slowly but surely

here’s a quick guide on how i proofread and edit my essays as an humanities undergrad! i tend to spend more time on research and editing and much less time on writing and my first drafts are often horrendous, so editing is really important for me :^)

i’ve also created guides on essay preparation, the 5-paragraph essay, how to research, and how to write essays. you can find all my other masterposts here.

transcript below:

09.07.20 | i really liked these pens my friend had, but neither of us knew what brand they were since the label wasn't in english. as a surprise, last week he gave me one!! it writes like a dream, but i need better paper. (an excuse to buy a new notebook? no, no, i would never!!)

I spent ages trying to place this melody that was stuck in my brain… And it only took some quick crappy notation to get my answer:

Hey all, long-time lurker here, first time poster. I want to share a budget template with the community that I’ve been iterating on for the past two years. Budgeting has completely changed how I perceive my income, expenses, and savings, and I can’t imagine where I’d be today without it. I hope this template can help others out there who are looking to get a better understanding of their finances or don’t know quite where to start.

Background

Before jumping into the template, I just want to give a little background on myself. For years I always thought myself as decent with my money. I never found myself too deep into debt, saved a little here and there, and always managed to get by without too much worrying. Well, that was all fine until I ran into an unexpected financial hardship. Suddenly, budgeting became not just a smart thing to do but imperative.

Looking back, I wish I’d started budgeting sooner. I really didn’t realize how little I knew about where my money was going until I started visualizing it. And that’s exactly how this budget came to be.

Purpose

This template was made with the following goals:

1) Clearly visualize the breakdown of income, expenses, and savings

2) Automatically update when revising expenses, income, or savings amounts

3) Not rely on third-party financial tools which collect sensitive personal data

Who this is for

This template is best used for someone who isn’t actively paying down debt. Of course, if you’re in debt, you want to pay that down ASAP before putting money elsewhere. This template is about finding a balance in your take-home pay, and how to split it between an emergency fund, short-term savings, long-term savings, daily spending, and of course expenses.

Account Definitions

Daily Spending – a checking account for any daily spending. This is what you use to buy a breakfast burrito or grab a drink with a friend.

Expenses – a dedicated checking account for expenses. Phone bill, internet, rent, etc. all automatically deducts from here.

Emergency Fund – a savings account which holds cash for between 3-6 months of expenses, just in case. Once this gets to a level you’re comfortable with, you can stop or reduce the amount you regularly deposit.

Short Term Savings - a savings account for short-term savings. This can be defined however you want, but I think of it as money I’ll spend in less than five years. This could be for a vacation or a big expense like a new computer.

Long-Term Savings - an investment account for money you won’t want to withdraw for probably over 5-10 years. This is for something big, like a down payment on a house or just a place to invest in the long-run. You don’t think about this money, and it’s at the mercy of the market.

The Template

Here’s the template.

It’s pre-filled with what an example budget might look like.

How to use

wrong!

for the longest time i built my identity around being a musician and thus not sporty. some bad experiences from physical education at school obviously had an effect on my attitude as well, and being able to skip sports (and being the last to be picked for a team) to practise for some performance was just the coolest thing.

at least when i was younger, exercising was something no music teacher ever mentioned. i had my first bout of back pain before i was 13 years old, and my teacher didn’t say anything. my mum used to be a fysiotherapist so off to a series of massages i went. luckily it helped!

at the time musicians didn’t really speak of what they were doing to stay fit for playing, and i thought for the longest time that a little bit of pain and a lot of ibuprofen are just inevitable parts of being a musician. in fact i just laughed about the pain i experienced in my back, neck, shoulders, arms and jaw. i even felt that somehow it was cool! i must have practised so much to be so in pain, and it felt amazing.

it was only when i started university that i realised that pain is not something you should be proud of, and definitely not something you should have. we, as musicians, need our bodies to function normally. our bodies are our most important tool, yes, before our crazy expensive instruments, our bodies are the thing we need to pay attention to. musicians need to exercise, in fact every human being needs to, but for us it is ever more important.

i’m lucky to study at a school that offers pilates, yoga and reduced rates at a good gym. i do all of those, mostly gym, because i quite enjoy it. find a sport you like and just do it. make it regular. no matter how busy you are practising, you can definitely find 3–5 hours a week for exercising. take the stairs, eat and sleep well, and work on your posture.

pain and playing do not go together. sure, sometimes some positions feel awkward and a little uncomfortable, but there should never ever be pain. if it hurts, change something. maybe you’re doing everything perfectly by the book and exactly the way your teacher told you to, but if it hurts, it’s not the right way for your body.

if you get any pain while playing, just stop. take a break, and if it doesn’t go away, don’t practise that day. if the same pain persists, see a fysiotherapist, see a doctor, see whoever you need to see (and tell your teacher about it!). it’s so, so important to do something about the pain you’re experiencing, ideally as soon as you start having it.

if you don’t treat your body, you will not be able to play in the future. say you have pain in your left arm when you practise. maybe you’ll be able to keep going for another month, another year or another decade, but eventually it will get to you and it could ruin your physique in such a way that you cannot ever play again.

20/7/2020

A: The Awakening, Kate Chopin B: The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath C: Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky D: Don Juan, Lord Byron E: The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje F: Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury G: The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy H: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers I: Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison J: The Joy of Reading, Charles Van Doren K: King Lear, William Shakespeare L: Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Eugene O’Neill M: The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov N: Native Son, Richard Wright O: Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham P: The Persian Wars, Herodotus Q: The Quiet American, Graham Greene R: The Razor’s Edge, W. Somerset Maugham S: The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes T: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith U: The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera V: The Vegetable, F. Scott Fitzgerald W: Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte X: Autobiography of Malcolm X Y: The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman Z: Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Wartime Sarajevo, Zlata Filipovic

but i think thats not bad. my dad has wanted to be a musician forever, and hes rly pretty good. but then he joined the military to get away from an abusive family, and then he got married, and then he got divorced, and a lot of horrible shit HAPPENED. he has ptsd and severe anxiety and he could never really get back on the horse. and he never made it as a musician, and now hes 53

but i grew up in a house full of instruments, and he can play all of them, and some of my earliest memories are of him playing guitar on the front porch and me thinking there wasnt a better musician in the world. so. even if you dont get to the stars, exactly, what you do isnt worthless. its not a waste of time if life is difficult and you cant make it, or if you arent famous, or if your work doesn’t influence thousands of people. it will influence someone

make a couple responsibility lists, one for school, one for work, one for day to day and any other such commitments you might have

Then mark each responsibility on a scale from one to three on importance/priority

So the next time you feel you have so much to do, you’re getting overwhelmed, look back at this list and start working on the number 3s in priority then complete the number 2s and then number 1s

although these posts are abundant, i like to have my own collection of study tips/uni thoughts

- i’ve been viewing my studies as an office job, mostly because of the 9 to 5 mentality. i am not one for night studying, i have tried and tried and felt guilty when i heard others talk about their late night study sessions, but it is just not for me. which is fine, because with this 9 to 5 idea i have created working days for myself and i can use my evenings for extracurriculars, books, friends, netflix 

- the train has (weirdly) become one of my favourite study spots. of course this really depends on the public transport you use. i am on a train for two hours a day, no transfer, and i either go to a silent area (have not yet seen this elsewhere, but dutch trains have carriages in which there is complete silence) or i put in my earpods. i love this because when i come home, i have already done so much work, e.g. organized my lecture notes of that day, inserted my professor’s comments into my paper etcetera

- although i’ve also learned to recognize when i am just done. sometimes i have had enough and it is way better to accept that and then i either listen to some music and stare at the passing landscape, or i watch an episode of the crown. when feeling exhausted, there’s no point in pushing and forcing yourself

- this goes for many many aspects: comparison will kill you. it is often still my tendency to compare myself to others on all levels - grades, kindness, clothing, weight, work ethic - but i make the effort to not ‘indulge’ in it. what my therapist told me has really helped: just notice that the urge to compare is there but then leave it be. like it’s a tiny spider crawling on your leg; you don’t have to do something with it

- on the topic of work ethic: don’t listen to your fellow students. don’t listen to what some wonderful academic says (online). don’t even listen to what your professors say regarding study hours. it has often made me feel very uncertain, but i think it is way better to figure it out yourself. to build up a feeling of trust towards yourself, so you can really start to notice, to feel, when you have done enough. that is something only you should be able to judge and not some external source

- sometimes i get overwhelmed with this sensation that i have not done enough, that i am lazy and have accomplished nothing. however, every (every!) time i have noticed this to be untrue. so perhaps i have not studied every chapter, but i have studied other chapters. i found the cliché of looking at what you have done to really be true. it helps me put things into perspective, i think we can really underestimate ourselves in how much work we have done. what you consider to be 20% may actually be 60%

- motivating internal monologues are completely normal and actually very good! give yourself that motivating speech, it’s like a snow track that becomes deeper and clearer everytime you repeat it 

So I get a TON of requests for stuff like ear training apps and sheet music sites and music history help. So here is a GREAT BIG LIST of resources for the average music major to use as they need! I tried to find free stuff when I could - some of the apps might cost a couple dollars, but that’s all. Everything has been recommended by one of you, or vetted by me! This is cross-posted to my Resources page, too!

First seen on HowToMusicMajor.com

Composition

MUSESCORE

Noteflight

Finale free trial

Recording

Reaper DAW free download

Audacity free download

Sheet music

IMSLP - general music archive

CPDL - vocal/choral music archive

Academic help

Oxford Music Online/Grove Music encyclopedia - your university might give you access to this

Musictheory.net

Teoria.com

Hooktheory.com

Music Theory Made Stupidly Easy

Earmaster.com

Music History overview

Another Overview

Apps

Tuners

PanoTuner (Android version)

Tonal Energy Tuner

Clear Tune (Android version)

Ear Training/Theory

Clapping Music for iOS

Perfect Ear 2 for Android

Tenuto for iOS

iReal Pro

Music Theory Helper for Android

SoundPrism for iOS

Score Master (Lite) for Android

Sheet Music Master for iOS

Metronomes

ProMetronome (Android version)

Etc.

Ultimate Guitar

Voice Recorder for Android (iOS comes with one)

Blogs

Tumblr

Dailypracticetips

Musictheorydiscussions

Sonateharder

Wecappiam

Soyouwanttobeamusicmajor

Other

Majoringinmusic.com

Learn an instrument

Piano

Practisingthepiano.com

Josh Wright Piano TV (on YouTube)

InstantPianoGenuis

Saxophone

CdotSik

Johnny Fiera

Flute

Mr. Selfridge

LearnFluteOnline.com

Flutetunes.com

Piccolo

Nancy Elizabeth

Oboe

Michele Fiala E-Oboe Lessons

InstrumentManiac

Clarinet

Mr. Selfridge

How to clean it!

Bassoon

Gustavo Núñez

Terry Ewell

Horn

Barry Tuckwell

ExpertVillage

Trumpet

eTrumpet Lessons

How To Play Trumpet

Trombone

Mr. Glynn

Chris Bill

Violin

MakeLoveWithMusic

Online Piano and Violin Tutor

Viola

The String Club

Cindy Orcutt

Cello

Queixoso

Sarah Joy

Bass

Discover Double Bass

Andrew Anderson

Drum kit

Drumeo

Vic Firth

Timpani

Vic Firth

Snare

Huestis Music

Guitar

YGS Guitar Lessons

Guitarlessons.com

Guitar.about.com

Bass guitar

TalkingBass

MusicCollegeTV

I hope some of these can come in handy for you!

Thanks to the following for submitting something for this list!

tuesday, april 7 2020;

if you could go anywhere in the world for a week, where would you go?