Per Aspera Ad Astra

This week’s spread was inspired by the novel I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson. I’m not much for most novels in this genre, but this one totally changed the writing game for me. One of the best YA books I’ve read, and totally spoke to my art side!

Now Playing:

Grudges- Paramore

Hi!! So I’m thinking about doing more English posts? And also making my blog more dedicated to helping people with learning English because i genuinely love teaching it?? Like lately my writing has improved so much just because how much I’ve been studying grammar concepts it’s wild!! and I think i’ll theme every post a little bit w a different english speaking place just for fun(i like seeing posts w pretty pictures)?? 

Prepositions are complicated and messy in any language and English is no exception. However, English idioms usually take the verb+preposition form, so you just have to memorize which preposition follows the verb in most cases! Again, with the help of my ACT course I have a list of idioms and their corresponding prepositions, and I’ve added a few examples at the end! 

common idioms with examples:

abide by

I don’t have to abide by the king’s rules.

blame for

I always take the blame for you, it’s your turn to return the favor!

discriminate against

People who aren’t part of the majority are often discriminated against.

accuse of

I was accused of murder.

What did you accuse him of? 

care about

I care about saving the local animal shelter.

excuse for

Are you able to verify your excuse for missing school?

agree to

I suppose I could agree to signing the bill.

compare to

How does nuclear energy compare to solar energy in terms of reliability? 

hide from

I need to hide from the monster in my closet!

apologize for

I’d like to apologize for the way my grandmother behaved yesterday.

complain about

Can I complain about my life for a minute?

in charge of

The teacher put her in charge of the class while she goes to the bathroom.

apply for

I applied for a new job yesterday!

consist of

The cookie consists of caramel, pretzel crisps, and chocolate chips.

insist (up)on

Why do you always insist on traveling abroad?

They insisted upon being given every detail. (I’ve never actually used this in any important context - when in doubt use on) 

approve of

My parents don’t approve of my new boyfriend.

count on

You can count on me, and that’s a guarantee! 

stare at

Why does he always stare at me like that?

argue with

My mom would not stop arguing with me about the cleanliness of my room.

depend on

I’m not sure, that honestly depends on the context of the situation.

subscribe to

I’m subscribed to him on youtube.

believe in

Do you believe in life after death?

differ from 

My opinions differ from my wife’s. 

succeed in 

Can Facebook continue to succeed in the future?

hi everyone! since the holidays are over for most of us, i thought i’d make an inspirational and motivational masterpost all about notes! upgrading your notes by changing the layout, adding doodles, banners, using sticky notes, changing your handwriting etc. motivates me personally to study! 

out with the sloppy last minute notes and in with the new!

handwriting

how to write in cursive

some fonts to try out

how to improve your handwriting

note taking systems

study methods summed up

stationery to make it all happen

sticker printables to jazz it up

notes

how to take lecture notes

how to annotate books

taking notes from a textbook - studyign

note taking system - theorganisedstudent

note taking system - emmastudies

another note taking system - academicmind

another note taking system - wonderfullifee

the 2 notebook method

note taking with highlighters and post its

pretty timelines

note taking printables

plot summary with sticky notes

20 uses of sticky notes

colour code your notes

method with columns 

the cornell note taking system

the cornell note taking system using onenote

in class notes

another in class note taking format

what are sketchnotes?

online whiteboard

flashcards

how to make flashcards

another how to make flashcards

an example

another example (with sticky notes)

and another example (biology)

8 ways to improve your flashcards

make  and test flashcards online

alternative to flashcards - studyign

print onto flashcards

mindmaps

how to mindmap (1)

how to mindmap (2)

some examples

apps

notability

banners

simple banner

more banners

it’s a banner party over here

banners (shown how to draw in gifs)

illustrate your notes

how to illustrate your notes - reviseordie

sketchnote tips (banners, lettering, doodles)

more sketchnote tips

even more sketchnote tips

how to make your notes pretty - theorganisedstudent

how to make your notes pretty - studyspoinspo

how to make your notes pretty - booksflowersandtea

what is visual note taking?

a visual alphabet

note taking printables

dot grid 

note outline printables

lined cornell method printable

grid cornell method printable

hope you all had a good rest and are ready for a new year of studying!

By Column Five Media

on June 15, 2011

Hey Everyone! When I was younger, I used to read a ton. As a direct result of that, my writing and reading were on point. Recently, however, I haven’t been reading as much, and as a result, my writing isn’t as good as I want it to be (albeit, still pretty good). I’ve decided to read all the books on this list over the next 1 and a half years to get back into reading and to improve my writing. Enjoy! :)

1. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

4. Animal Farm by George Orwell

5. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

6. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

7. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

8. Macbeth by William Shakespeare

9. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

10. Hamlet by William Shakespeare

11. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

12. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

13. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

14. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

15. The Ecological Rift by John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, Richard York

16. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate by Naomi Klein

17. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

18. The Crucible by Arthur Miller

19. The Odyssey by Homer

20. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

21. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

22. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

23. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

24. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer 

25. The Stranger by Albert Camus

26. Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

27. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

28. Beowulf by Unknown

29. The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision by Fritjof Capra, Luigi Luisi

30. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

31. A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

32. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

33. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

34. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams 

35. Faust: First Part by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

36. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

37. The Awakening by Kate Chopin

38. Candide by Voltaire

39. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

40. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

41. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

42. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

43. Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

44. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

45. The Bell Jar by Slyvia Plath

46. The Call of the Wild by Jack London

47. Walden by Henry David Thoreau

48. Antigone by Sophocles

49. Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1) by Chinua Achebe

50. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

51. The Last of the Mohicans (The Leatherstocking Tales #2) by James Fenimore Cooper

52. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

53. Beloved by Toni Morrison

54. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

55. Selected Tales by Edgar Allen Poe

56. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

57. 1984 by George Orwell

58. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes 

59. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

60. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

61. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

62. A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor

63. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

64. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

65. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

66. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

67. A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

68. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

69. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

70. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

71. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

72. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

73. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville

74. The Iliad by Homer

75. Inferno (The Divine Comedy #1) by Dante Alighieri

76. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

77. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser 

78. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

79. Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill

80. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

81. Cyrano de Bergac by Edmond Rostand

82. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo

83. The Mill on the Floss by George Elliot

84. The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov

85. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

86. Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville

87. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

88. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

89. Selected Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

90. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

91. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

92. Call it Sleep by Henry Roth

93. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

94. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

95. The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

96. A Death in the Family by James Agee

97. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

98. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

99. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

100. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Carther

Where are you going to do your residency?

Where do you plan on practicing after residency?

Staying on top of all your to-dos, errands, tasks and due dates can get complicated but luckily there is an app for everything! If you’re looking for app to wake you up in a morning, manage your priorities or soothe your anxiety, you’ve come to the right place. Here is a list of all the top apps that students are using:

Organisation

Wunderlist

Planner Pro

24me

Remember The Milk

Google Calendar

Pocket Schedule - Class Schedule, Homework Planner

AwesomeNote2 - All in One Organiser

AnyList

The Homework App - Your Class Assignment & Timetable Schedule Planner

My Study Life

Calendars by Readdle - Event and Task Manager

Class Timetable

Countdown+

Due - Reminders, Countdown Timers

Do! - The Best of Simple To Do Lists

Workflow: Powerful Automation Made Simple

Glass Planner

Productivity

RescueTime

Streaks

Forest

ToDoIst

Tide - Stay focused, be peaceful

Focus Keeper

Habitica

Productive habits and daily goal tracker

Plant Nanny

HabitBull (recommend by @ravn-studies)

BrainFocus (recommend by @ravn-studies)

Toggle Time Tracker (recommend by @ravn-studies)

Note taking

Microsoft OneNote

Evernote

Quizlet

Notability

Byword

Flashcards+

Goodnotes

Outline

Boximize - Structured notetaking, personal database, form builder, manager and organiser

INKredible (recommend by @lottestudiesphysics)

RefME - Referencing Made Easy

Sleeping

Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock

Sleep Genius

Rain Rain

Pillow: The sleep cycle alarm clock for sleep tracking

Sleepytime Sleep Scheduler

Mental health and self care

Headspace

Stop, Breathe & Think: Meditation and Mindfulness

Pacifica - Anxiety, Stress, & Depression relief

Centered

Buddhify

Calm: Meditation techniques for stress reduction

Moodnotes - Thought Journal/Mood Diary

Colorfy

7 Cups Anxiety, Stress & Depression Chat & Therapy

Companion 

Health and fitness

Sweat with Kayla - Fitness & Bikini Body Workouts

Yoga Work Out

Freeletics

7-minutes workout

Waterlogged - Drink More Water, Daily Water Intake Tracker and Hydration Reminders

Sworkit (recommend by @leviosa-studies)

Finance

UNiDAYS

Pocketbook Personal Finance Expense Tracker

Splitwise - Split bills and expenses the easy way

Pocket Expense - Personal Finance Assistant

Daily Budget Original Pro - Saving Is Fun!

Mvelopes

PocketGuard

Mint

The Coupons App

Groupon