hic manebimus optime.

another masterpost!! i hope this gives everyone some tips. pleeeeease message me if you wanna ask for specific recipes or for more detail as i’m more than happy to talk about it more! had to be brief so this post wouldn’t chunk up everybody’s feed

Extensive Packing List

Warning: This will seem like a lot, but it doesn’t once you get there, and you can use your own judgment as to whether or not you will need something. Also, this particular list is geared towards my specific univeristy

Bedroom

Bedding

Duvet cover and insert or comforter

Matching sham

Sheets and pillow cases (I recommend two sets of cotton minimum, one set of flannel in addition is optional)

Egg crate topper (super cheap but super comfy after the first few nights—you may want to get a second one towards the end of the school year)

Mattress pad—holds the topper in place

Mattress protector (as recommended by an Anon). Some universities have bed bug problems, and you never really know what happened on your bed before it was yours, and this will help ensure a little more help on the cleanliness front.

Pillows

Stuffed animals

Desk Area

Stapler

printer, ink, and paper

Three hole punch

Binders and notebooks

For some classes you’ll want to keep every piece of paper ever (things related to your major and math classes), so these will need to be in binders.

Math and science classes lend themselves to hand-written notes, so you’ll want to use a binder with loose leaf paper or the notebook of your choosing for those. *note* My personal favorites are Mead Five Start Flex Hybrid Notebinders

Pens, pencils, Sharpies (you will use black and silver frequently for labeling random things)

Tape dispenser (can be a cheap $2 plastic one, or a heavy duty, belongs in the office of a CEO one)

glue sticks (yes, you will use them)

Headphones

Phone and laptop

Phone and laptop chargers

HDMI cord (literally the most used item in my dorm room)

Power strip

Desk lamp

Post Its, paperclips, extra staples, push pines

Closet and Laundry

Leave your high school shirts at home unless you want to use them as sleep shirts. You’ll get plenty of shirts from your college or university.

Hangers. Mine are mismatched and plastic and came straight from my closet at my mother’s.

Hamper. You can choose your preference here. I prefer sturdy plastic with handles, but my roommate loved her fabirc one. Walmart has one that rolls, which is cool. Maybe you just want a laundry bag.

Detergent.

Fabric softener and Downy balls

Dryer sheets

Other

Fridge

coffee mugs (can use for tea, coffee, soup, ice water, milk for cookies, Spaghetti-Os, literally anything you can think of)

microwave if you don’t have one in the common area/common area is far away

Small table lamp or floor lamp (put this somewhere across the room from the desk lamp because overhead lighting is the worst)

Books and movies

TV (optional, I use mine as a second monitor pretty frequently)

Video game console, accessories, and games (if desired)

Purse/wallet

Trash bags

ALL THE CLEANING SUPPLIES

Canvases, posters, pictures, corkboards, etc

Command strips (the Velcro kind of the absolute best) and sticky tack (Loc-Tite brand, it’s blue)

Keurig or coffee pot (if you’re into that) and all the fixin’s

Bathroom – some of these are included because I have a bathroom within my dorm room

Trash can

Shower curtain, liner, and rings

Bathmat

Toilet brush and cleaner

Plunger. Plumbing on campuses can be iffy

Lady supplies (if you need those sort of things)

Toiletries and makeup

Some sort of caddy if you’re living in traditional or you’re sharing your bathroom with multiple people and don’t want to clutter the counter

Toothbrush holder

Soap dispenser

The Prospect

1. The Immigrant Essay

Going back over the essays I received during the college essay extravaganza, 50% of the Common App essays I read were about students and their families moving to the US and learning to adjust. Now, I’m not saying that your familial struggles aren’t intense and worthy of talking about; after all, many students wrote about the loneliness they felt being the only new kid in school or having to adjust to American customs, and those are all absolutely valid conversations.

However, if you put all of these “moving to America” stories in a pile and read them one after another, they start to bleed together. The story lines and characters all sound the same. And for you, that means less of a chance to stand out and more of a chance of being labeled “one of those immigrant kids”. Is it fair? Absolutely not. Is that the way it is? Unfortunately, yes.

2. The “They Taught Me More Than I Taught Them” Essay

Please for the love of all that is admissions don’t write about the time you went on a service trip to a third-world country and learned from the locals. Not only does it typically come across as condescending and privileged (since most high school students are not aware of how to talk about cultures in politically correct terms), but it’s also so overdone and bland.

3. The “Ski Slope” Essay

When many students answer the quintessential “talk about a time you overcame an obstacle” prompt, they tend to write something that I call the “ski slope” essay. In this scenario, the author was given a physical challenge (like a ski slope, mountain, scary water slide ride, etc.) and was eventually convinced overcome it. Again, it’s an essay that I’ve seen over and over (and over) again, and there’s no real way to write these essays well. They usually involve a lot of cliche adjectives and some other person convincing the writer to go down the slope. Inspiring? Not at all.

Look at it this way: Thousands of people learn how to ski every year; it’s boring and totally not unique. If you’re going to write about an obstacle, it needs to be an obstacle that only 0.00005% of the world has overcome. Otherwise, you’re just like everybody else.

4. The “Look at How Super Deep I Am” Essay

Kids, don’t try to go on a philosophical rant in your college essays. Not only do you typically sound like a pretentious, self-important twerp pulling stuff out of your butt (and admissions officers know it), but these tirades also tell the reader absolutely nothing about you as as potential member of a college. Don’t get meta. If you want to talk about all the great deep thoughts inside your head, start a blog.

5. The All-Dialogue Essay

Note: Spending half of your 650 words going through a conversation you had with your sister is a complete snore and a total waste of time and space. Cut our dialogue unless it’s funny or actually moves the story along. Something like this is just really dull fluff:

“Sister,”I said to her.

“Yes?” she said back.

She looked at me with angst. “What?” she asked again.

Three lines in and you’re bored already, right?

6. The Way-Too-Extended Metaphor Essay

What do dumplings, crayons, and hoop earrings have in common? They’re all inanimate objects that have been used as extended metaphors in college essays, and all of those essays were not good.

Pulling off the extended metaphor essay is hard, and as you’ve learned by now, it’s best to go into essay writing with the mentality that you are the rule, not the exception. So stop trying to compare your life to a squashed kumquat you saw on the side of the road and find a different topic.

7. The “Lesson about Failure Where You Didn’t Really Fail” Essay

Remember that an admissions essay is still a story, and the best heroes and heroines have legitimate pitfalls. If your biggest failure is that you had a hangnail but you eventually took care of it, not only do you look shallow, but you also look dull. Failures need to be actual heart-stopping, “OMG, NOOO!” failures. Either commit to going all the way or avoid writing this type of essay altogether.

8. The Bat Mitzvah Essay

When the Common App prompt asks for something that marked your transition into adulthood, stay away from cultural or religious events that actually mark adulthood, like a bar/bat mitzvah or a confirmation ceremony or something. The best essays about transitions into adulthood deal with unforeseen shifts, not obvious ones (for example, my friend wrote about the different types of boxers he bought throughout high school. Shift to adulthood? Yes. Totally freaking clever? Heck yeah).

9. The Straight Up Cliche Essay

There are many topics that are way overdone besides the ones listed above. Some examples of what I mean:

The “What I learned at this academic conference/camp/event” essay

The “What my mom/dad/family taught me” essay

The “How I felt about moving to a whole new place or being in a new environment” essay

The “How I learned to fit in” essay

The “Death of person x” essay

The “How my parents’ divorce changed me” essay

The “Here’s a very vague essay about my family’s culture” essay

12.48 am // more anatomy notes (๑>ᴗ<๑) i’m actually really nervous for the finals in may as i just looked at some past papers and the questions are so hard??? but that’s motivated me to keep on working hard and i’m determined to give it my all!! 

021016 | 11/100 days of productivity

Hello! This is my studyblr introduction, and here are a few things about me:

how i make vector graphics / [click for high res!] → by popular demand, this is how i make vector graphics! i hope this is helpful and feel free to ask if you have anymore questions. —tia ♪  

open for better quality!!! i thought i should make a masterpost (@ part 1) of all of my favorite apps on my phone while combining how to improve on my designing skils:)) hope this is helpful<3

16 APR 2017 | 4月16日 | SUNDAY | 일요일

When you’ve dedicated your life to words, it’s important to go out eloquently.

Ernest Hemingway: “Goodnight my kitten.” Spoken to his wife before he killed himself.

Jane Austen: “I want nothing but death.” In response to her sister, Cassandra, who was asking her if she wanted anything.

J.M Barrie: “I can’t sleep.”

L. Frank Baum: “Now I can cross the shifting sands.”

Edgar Allan Poe: “Lord help my poor soul.”

Thomas Hobbes: “I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap into the dark,”

Alfred Jarry: “I am dying…please, bring me a toothpick.”

Hunter S. Thompson: “Relax — this won’t hurt.”

Henrik Ibsen: “On the contrary!”

Anton Chekhov: “I haven’t had champagne for a long time.”

Mark Twain: “Good bye. If we meet—” Spoken to his daughter Clara.

Louisa May Alcott: “Is it not meningitis?” Alcott did not have meningitis, though she believed it to be so. She died from mercury poison.

Jean Cocteau: “Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking towards me, without hurrying.”

Washington Irving: “I have to set my pillows one more night, when will this end already?”

Leo Tolstoy: “But the peasants…how do the peasants die?”

Hans Christian Andersen: “Don’t ask me how I am! I understand nothing more.”

Charles Dickens: “On the ground!” He suffered a stroke outside his home and was asking to be laid on the ground.

H.G. Wells: “Go away! I’m all right.” He didn’t know he was dying.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “More light.”

W.C. Fields: “Goddamn the whole fucking world and everyone in it except you, Carlotta!” “Carlotta” was Carlotta Monti, actress and his mistress.

Voltaire: “Now, now, my good man, this is no time for making enemies.” When asked by a priest to renounce Satan.

Dylan Thomas: “I’ve had 18 straight whiskies…I think that’s the record.”

George Bernard Shaw: “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”

Henry David Thoreau: “Moose…Indian.”