MS. PREZ;

THR: Inside Lucy Liu’s art studio, exploring “what we choose not to see” 

Year One

Shirow Miwa, Japanese digital illustrator

Tori / トリ, Japanese digital illustrator

Silvia Pelissera or agnes-cecile, Italian watercolor artist

Zain / ざいん, Japanese digital illustrator

Yoshinori Shizuma, Japanese digital illustrator

Claude Monet, French Impressionist

Hitomi Maehashi, Japanese photographer

Sayaka Maruyama, Japanese photographer

Summer in between Year One and Two

Vincent van Gogh, Expressionist painter

Georgia O'Keeffe

Philip Guston, American Abstract Expressionist

Jackson Pollocl, American Abstract Expressionist

The Gutai Group or Gutai Art Association, Post-WII Japanese Artists

Jane Radstrom, American contemporary artist

Marco Mazzoni, Italian contemporary artist

Year Two

Still Life Painters (1600-1880): Jacon Vosmaer, Jan Davidsz de Heem, Pieter Claesz, Anne Vallayer-Coster

Egon Schiele, Austrian Expressionist painter

Edgar Degas, French Impressionist

Marry Cassatt, American Impressionist

Euan Uglow, English contemporary painter

Jenny Saville, English contemporary painter

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French Post-Impressionist

Damiàn Ortega, Mexican contemporary sculptor / installation artist

Edward Hopper, American Social Realist painter

Giotto, Pre-Renaissance painter

Caravaggio, Italian Baroque painter

Anthony van Dyck, Flemish Baroque painter

Karl Schmidt-Rottluf, German Expressionist

Auguste Rodin, French modern sculptor

Antonio Canova, Italian Neoclassical sculptor

In two years my appreciation for artists of all different cultures expanded. At the beginning of Year I I was heavily influenced by the anime style, and then moved completely away form it, trying to branch out to broaden my understanding of art. I typed this up for the current Year I and II’s so that if you’re ever looking for “x” kind of artist, this is a pretty credible list of artists that you can choose from. I wouldn’t recommend anyone from Year I other than Monet, but feel free to use this list!

set priorities and reduce your overall activity

Whenever you’re facing more stress than usual, try to reduce your activities, set priorities, and focus on short-term goals. However, try to not avoid activity all together. This is difficult, because the way you think about tasks changes dramatically when you are stressed. Try your best to stop during times of high stress and ask yourself “What really needs to be done now? What can I let go until some other time?” 

Also, try to recognise that you only have a limited amount of energy - you can’t push yourself too hard - and remember to take time to rest and take care. Stress drains your energy more, so try to be mindful of that. 

spend extra time with decisions

Stress interferes with your ability to think. The greater the stress, the more likely it is that you will make poor decisions. Wherever possible, avoid making major decisions during times of stress. But, when a decision does have to be made, try to take more time with it, and talk to people about it who are objective - they may see problems or options you didn’t think off because of your reduced ability to do so while being stressed. 

plan ahead and take actions during times when stress is low

A lot of the time, you know when a period of stress is coming. When that is the case, try to take some time to plan ahead, make decisions, and take action in advance while you’re feeling better - this reduces the amount of thinking you’ll need to worry about during a period of high stress. Having a plan helps you to focus and prioritise tasks. 

For those times when a period of high stress may come suddenly, try to take some time out to relax and collect yourself, so you’re able to plan ahead and prioritise. This can be difficult, so it’s okay if you can’t. Just being mindful of how your body and mind can be affected by stress can help you through. 

some gentle reminders for if you are stressed

take a moment to breathe; close your eyes, put whatever you are doing down, and count slowly to ten

take a break if you’ve been working for a long time on something

write a list of what you need to do, and then slowly put the tasks into order of priority

take some time out of your day to relax and unwind to the best of your ability

try your best to not push yourself past your limits

reach out for help if you need to

you can do this

i believe in you

Also, if it matters to you, it’s OK to ask about the reasons for your grade. It can be useful to know where the problem is and if there are ways you can improve for next time.

okay hi, im typing this on my phone but i felt like making this bc i think it’s important, and i rlly need to take my own advice sometimes so im gonna give u guys some tips on how to SURVIVE such a lonely experience

1. u may have noticed that i used the word “lonely” bc it is super lonely. like the first two weeks i was just //: constantly down //: bc i didnt have anyone to talk to so my advice is to make the most of ur alone time. study, go out for a walk, play a videogame (not for too long trust me), learn a new HEALTHY recipe bc food is important, CLEAN YOUR ROOM/APARTMENT/DORM, sign up for some kool clubz, etc . u dont have to socialize right away u can learn how to be happy by urself for a little bit but u will make friends eventually, it gets a lot better

2. on studying, make sure u do it. i dont wanna hear the whining of “but im too tired ));” nuh uh u aint tired bc i know u watch yt vids in ur spare time instead of being productive but as soon as u open a textbook ur suddenly “too tired” NUH UH. NO. FIGHT THAT FEELING, JUST STUDY. stop procrastinating, u guys gotta push urselves sometimes, make me PROUD

3. guys u gotta exercise. it doesnt have to be full on sprinting and lifting a ton of weights, it can be a 30 minute walk like 3-4 times a week or even once a week, just move ur body. dancing in ur room is also a good form of exercise u just put on a Mood song and u go crazy

4. omg plan things. pls. plan things. write down exam dated and essay due dates, break down ur essays into one paragraph a day, or something just plan or else youll get behind and everything goes downhill and u eventually feel like digging ur own grave

have 3 achievable goals a day: having a laundry list of things to do everyday is super unrealistic, and you just end up feeling bad about yourself because you didn’t accomplish your goals for the day.

leave your sundays open: i love sundays because they’re my day to chill out and catch up on school work that i wasn’t able to finish during the week.

recognize when you’re at your emotional limits: forcing yourself to get work done when you are unable to comprehend your study material does not benefit anyone.

learn how to say no: people will ask you for your time and it will stretch you to the limit, whether it be at your job, in your extracurriculars, or in your personal life. know when to step back and say no.

take care of yourself physically: take breaks, go for walks, shower regularly, get enough sleep, eat healthy, see your friends

celebrate your accomplishments: go out to eat with friends after a big exam, indulge in a night off after a busy week with some netflix and wine

make a study plan beforehand: it can be daunting to see how much work you need to put in to a class or task beforehand, but this allows you to spread your work evenly so you don’t become overwhelmed.

learn how to ask for help: it is very rare that people make it through school, whether it be high school or university or any graduate program, without needing the advice of others or just a kind soul to vent to. find that person.

never forget your hobbies: you will need things that keep you sane. if you love to play music, write, play volleyball, or cook, make you sure you don’t lose these things. they will become your escape when times get tough.

BACK TO SCHOOL: HABITS TO DEVELOP

hi guys! i’m back with a masterpost of sorts, and a positive one since my posts haven’t been the most optimistic recently… 

for some of us, back to school is right around the corner. for others (including me), we have a month left, and the realisation that school exists and we should probably start preparing is beginning to settle in. 

start waking up earlier: wow, wow, wow. the most generic ‘tip’ ever to exist. but it’s true - if you keep waking up at 12pm, you’ve already lost most of your day and don’t have all that much time to do stuff. so, wake up earlier. i wake up naturally between 7 and 9am anyway (9am is a lie-in for me, thank you body clock *eyeroll*) so this isn’t a huge thing for me, but goddammit if you want any chance of not being an angry teenage monster when you have to go back to school, start waking up earlier a few weeks before summer ends. 

follow your school routine: i saw this tip recently (i can’t remember who posted it, i’m so sorry! credit to you!) where you follow your school routine every morning, which can not only normalise it so you don’t associate that routine with school (that made no sense, i’m sorry - it just reduces the association with school, and when school comes around, you’ll hopefully associate it with summer break) but it gives you some kind of purpose in the morning so you don’t end up in bed all day with a jar of nutella for company…. i see you. 

journal: this doesn’t have to be a perfect bullet journal like the ones you see all over tumblr, or a planner. i mean a journal, to write in and press flowers in if you wanted to, and just sit and feel like those girls who sit under a big window with books and a handwritten inky journal with no technology in sight that you see on tumblr in the lead-up to autumn. (phew, that was a long sentence). this grounds you, but KEEP IT PERSONAL! not school related! as a person who’s brain works on associations, it’s important to keep potentially stressful environments and aspects of my life completely separate from places of solace (in this case, the journal, where i go to write and say everything i need to). 

have a ritual: yes, i’m a witch, so this could be a witchy ritual. but no, i’m talking about something you do weekly, whether it’s a friday night, a sunday or a mid-week pickup on a wednesday. this is an evening where you, for example, finish all your work by 8pm and then devote the rest of your evening to chilling. the fuck. out. put your books away and get your bag ready for the next day, and get up from your desk. draw a bath or take a shower. a long one. preferably a bath, so you can sit with bubbles and a book and chill out completely. then, make a cup of tea and sit in bed with a book or your journal, or an episode of your favourite netflix show. then go to sleep feeling really calm and at ease. 

do your work as soon as you get it: every year - every term (okay sorry, semester. jeez, i’m a brit. anyway.) for that matter - we say to ourselves that the second we get homework or a project, we’ll do it immediately. do we end up doing that? no. should we? yes. set that same goal this year, and at least try to do it. okay but seriously, this is important if you want to keep up, all jokes aside. 

check who you’re surrounding yourself with: are these people motivating? positive? do they lift you up, and keep you on the right path? or do they drag you down with their own woes that they drown you in, or do they belittle you, or make you feel like school is dumb and ruin the motivated mindset you had ten minutes ago? if so, leave. find new, better people who tick all the boxes. in school, you need a support base of people who help you academically, and listen to you - but remember, you need to be returning that. you need to listen to them when they need it, and help them in return. 

eating breakfast: i suck at eating when i’m not at school - in the three weeks i’ve been on summer break, i don’t think i’ve eaten lunch once. but school reminds me to eat, and i come v close to dying if i don’t eat breakfast before school, but i know that suddenly eating in the morning after six or seven weeks of… not… can suck and can make you feel pretty shit, so start doing it a week or so before - if you haven’t noticed, these habits are all things to start before school, so they’re already habits by the time summer ends! 

make a study group (chat): i’m kicking my social anxiety in the ass and i posted to my snapchat asking for people to message me if they’d be interested in being in a study groupchat on snapchat, which hopefully could turn into an actual study group when exams get closer. i’ve never done this before, but it seems promising so i highly recommend you try this as well! it doesn’t have to be a post-on-story-and-wait-for-applicants, it can just be your friends, and have that chat be strictly-study related, not just a groupchat. i had one like this last year, and we had strict rules that you weren’t allowed to talk about non-study stuff, since it was a group with my best friends and we had two other groupchats (i take things way too seriously lol)

Here’s a compiled list of apps that is useful for school and everyday life. 

Note-taking

Paid apps:

Notability ($4.98 fav!)  

Goodnotes ($8.98 best for handwritten notes)

Noteshelf ($5.99)

Writepad ($7.99)

Free apps:

Evernote (fav!)

Keynote

Penultimate

Paper by 53

Bamboo Paper

Pages (iOS only)

Papyrus (Android only)

Google Drive

Microsoft Onenote

Simplenote

Somnote (100MB of free cloud storage for every account)

Catch Notes

Calendars

Paid apps:

Fantastical 2 for iPhone ($4.99)

Calendars 5 ($6.99)

Agenda Calendar 4 ($2.58)

Clear ($4.99 only for iOS)

Free apps:

CalenMob (fav!)

Cal 

Google Calendar

Sunrise Calendar

Tempo

Horizon Calendar

SolCalendar (Android only)

WAVE

Clock/ Time Tracker

Forest: Stay Focused, Stop Phubbing (fav fav fav fav fav)

Day Box (countdown app) 

ColorClock

Fiqlo ($1.28)

Rise ($1.99)

Timely Alarm Clock

My Alarm Clock Free

Alarmy

Wake Alarm Clock

To-Do Lists

Paid apps:

Carrot ($1.99)

Todoist ($30/yr)

Free apps:

Any.Do

Google Keep (Android only)

Wunderlist

Flashcards

Paid apps:

Flashcards Deluxe ($3.99)

Free apps:

Evernote Peek

AnkiApp

Flashcardlet

STUDYBLUE

Flashcards +

Flashcards+ by Chegg

Cram

Quizlet

Languages

Free apps:

Memrise (fav!)

Duolingo

AnkiApp

Busuu

Google Translate

Dictionary Online 

SATs

Paid apps:

SAT Vocab Challenge for iPhone ($5)

SAT Connect ($9.99 for Apple, marked down from $24.99 :O )

Adapster (math- $9.99 on Apple)

Kaplan Portable SAT ($5.99)

Free apps:

SAT Up (fav!)

The Official SAT Question of the Day (Collegeboard!)

SAT Prep & College Search

SAT Vocab by Mindsnacks

IntelliVocab lite

Princeton Review’s SAT Score Quest for iPad

Kaplan SAT Flashcubes (free)

Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab ($1 Android, free on Apple)

ACT/SAT Math Booster (Free, Android)

SAT Challenge By The Princeton Review

English Vocabulary Flashcards Exambusters

Study Guides

iTunesU 

CliffsNotes Study Guides

Khan Academy

Music

Spotify (fav!)

8tracks

Soundcloud

Pandora

Google Play Music

Vevo

iHeartRadio

Tidal

Shazam

Garageband

Sound Trap

Songza

Rdio

Youtube

Videos

BrainPOP Featured Movie

VideoScience

Khan Academy

TED Talks

Youtube

News

Yahoo News Digest (fav!)

The New York Times

NYT Now

BBC

CNN

Al Jazeera English

Circa News

AP Mobile

Flipboard

Google Currents

Buzzfeed

Pocket: Save Articles and Videos to View Later

reddit AMA - Ask Me Anything

Digg

Books

iBooks

Scribd ($8.99/mo)

Kindle

Kobo

Google Play Books

Nook

Ebook Reader

Wattpad (contrary to popular opinions, there are many great books)

Relaxation/ Stress Relief

Workout:

Nike + Running (fav!)

Workout Trainer

Runtastic Six Pack Abs

FitStar

Runtastic Six Pack Abs

Johnson & Johnson Official 7 Minute Workout App

Random:

Earthlapse ($0.99)

Sing! Karaoke by Smule

Yoga Relax

iBonsai

Zen Bound

Sheep Counter

White Noise

Just Rain

Games to stimulate your mind:

1010!

2048

Tsum Tsum

Blek

THIS is a Google Drive folder of prep pdfs.tosinisupgrading and another tumblr user put together most of it, and I just added a few things. I hope it helps!

A comma splice is a grammar error that is created by joining two independent clauses (complete sentences) with a comma. It is one of the most common grammar mistakes; if you pay attention, you’ll encounter dozens of them each day.

Since we have two complete sentences, we would form a comma splice if we combined them by using just a comma:

We see comma splices everywhere, and it’s unfortunate that people don’t know how to correct them.

💁🏻 Here is an easy way to correct a comma splice:

❗️ There is another way to fix comma splices: use the “FANBOYS”:

⚠️ IMPORTANT NOTE: If the sentences are short, the comma before each FANBOYS is optional. However, on the SAT and ACT exams, they ALWAYS require a comma.

The technical name for the FANBOYS is coordinating conjunction. The term itself isn’t important; what actually matters is the role that coordinating conjunctions play. So let’s take a random comma splice and fix it by using one of the FANBOYS:

The sentence is now correct. On standardized tests, comma splices are quite common. Placing one of the FANBOYS between the two independent clauses (i.e., complete sentences) solves this problem. 

I’ve seen punctuation misused so many times it hurts. Now, rules are made to be broken in the literary world, I understand, but the wanton use of these precious little things is a travesty.

First, to clarify, there is a difference between an em dash—our primary subject for today—and a hyphen. A hyphen is that short little line that adjoins words, like in “the nine-year-old” or “stand-point.” An em dash is what is used to separate clauses and phrases in sentences.

What I’m going to cover is mainly a tone thing. In many cases, commas and dashes are interchangeable—mainly due to the versatile nature of the dash. This is also according to SAT and ACT logic, so listen up kids.

A comma denotes a short pause. It’s all part of the same idea and the same breath, just a little spaced out. EX: The horse, which grazed in the field, looked at me. The phrase “which grazed in the field” described the horse, but also flowed with the objective tone of the sentence. And, of course, commas can be used to separate compound sentences, but I’m hoping most of you jokers know that. And since that is not a function of a dash, we’re not going to go into detail about that one.

A dash, however, is a break in tone. It’s an aside, for all you theater blokes out there, for all intents and purposes. Almost like a parentheses, if you will. A phrase in between a dash is additional information—something that isn’t necessarily needed, but interesting anyways. It’s also, from a literary stand-point, a sure-fire sign of a break in tone. (Remember this on your AP Lit exam, kids; it’ll save your butt.) EX: The horse—a beautiful creature, if I ever saw one—looked at me.