Book 1:

Week 1: Useful Verbs + Hangul (Bonus: Numbers) Week 2: All in the Family + Subject Particles + & Introductions (Bonus: Creating Simple Sentences) Week 3: It’s a Jungle Out There + This/That + Nationality (Bonus: Descriptive Verbs) Week 4: Today’s Forecast… + Pronouns & Possession Week 5: REVIEW! Week 6: Text Me! + School Daze + Whose Stuff Is It Anyway?: Pronouns & Possession (REDUX!) Week 7: Study Hard! + To Have/Not Have & Location Particle Week 8: What’s for Dinner? + Much Too Much Week 9: REVIEW! Week 10: Let’s Go Out to Eat + Issa Tense Time Week 11: Spring Day + What Time Is It? Week 12: We’re Gonna Fly~ (Pt. 1) + Nothing Compares to… Week 13: We’re Gonna Fly~(Pt. 2) + Give & Take Week 14: REVIEW! Week 15: Around the World (Pt. 1) + Not to Be Negative But… Week 16: Around the World (Pt. 2) + What You Can & Can’t Do Week 17: Useful Verbs #2 (Pt. 1) + Not Being Able to Do Week 18: Useful Verbs #2 (Pt. 2) + What Color Do You Want? Week 19: THE GREAT REVIEW!

Book 2:

Week 20: 20 Useful Phrases + 반말 vs. 존댓말 + Conjugations 101 + Particles 101 Week 21: How Often Do You… Week 22: Cause & Effect Week 23: 럴리 럴리 럴리 Get Your Adverbs Here! Week 24: REVIEW!! Week 25: Time Goes On Week 26: You Can Get w/ This OR You Can Get w/ That Week 27: The Best Laid Plans Week 28: “I’m in a Glass Case of Emotion!”

Week #? – current week

Hi everyone ! :) 

I hope you’re enjoying yourself if you are on holiday just like me. School starts again in September for me, and I have homework… But I’d rather study by myself (nothing serious though, just learning for fun !) ^^ That’s why Mandarin Chinese is back in my life 💘 I will have a sort of “journal” to keep track of my progress, and because I will try and write example sentences. A language is alive ! It is to be spoken/written and shared, right ? 😊

There are many times when the quantity of work can become quite intimidating, so it’s really important to keep organised. Here are a few tips!

Schedule

A schedule is vital, and can be really effective when you find one that suits you. Schedules will help keep you on track and you’ll find that by sticking to a routine, you will actually be more productive when you sit down to study. It can take a while before you make one that works really well, since plans change often, and for the busy individual; an adaptable schedule is quite handy.

However, if you’re more prone to random energy spikes than long methodical routines, then perhaps it can be beneficial to create an adaptable plan for when you are most active. Try and use it to your advantage.

The important thing to remember is to start small, and as you complete your intended agenda, add more to your planner! Having a schedule overloaded with plans and study dates can be quite off putting, so try and make one you know you can honestly stick to, and go from there!

Calendar

Calendars are a great tool, and I use them for almost everything. Write out your plan so it is always visible, keeping it somewhere you will always look at it. You’ll be more inclined to do the things you’ve planned if it’s always staring at you!

Not only is a calendar a great tool for marking down important dates, or study days, but it is a great way to keep track of the information you’ve learnt. For example, I keep a specific calendar with the vocabulary from BitesizeKorean written in each box, just so I can keep track of it and refer to it when needed. I do the same thing on another calendar but for any grammar I learn.

Write down important grammar points you learnt that day, and whatever you feel is important to note. More often than not, it is a great idea to mark the day you learnt something and a date later in the week; using that as your revision day. This will help reiterate the important things you’ve recently learnt, or to touch base with anything you didn’t quite understand.

This is why I make the Weekly Vocab Recap every week. It’s a great way to remind yourself and myself of the vocabulary we’ve learnt during the week.

Notebook

Notes are a great way to record information, review it, and are also an amazing tool to actually learn. So it is very important to keep your notes organised, neat and legible.

I know it’s not a problem for everyone, but sometimes note-taking can seem useless or burdensome, and that’s usually because people tend to focus on the quantity of information they are writing down, rather than the quality. You have to be concise, and straight forward with note-taking; paying particular attention to the words you are writing, since you’ll be more likely to remember it. But for those of you that need a little info of effective note-taking, here are a few links I thought have some really useful advice.

University of Manchester

The Open University

The Conversation

I also know there are the few of you that might not even be a fan of taking notes at all, but it really is a great tool for learning! Which is why you might find it really motivating to buy a notebook you like - whether it’s covered in sparkles, leather-bound or personally doodled - it doesn’t matter. So long as you have a book you like, it will encourage you to actually use it, and look after it!

Something else I recommend is to take note of everything, even the things you think you know. It doesn’t matter if you think “I will remember that without writing it down” because it is always better to take note of it. It doesn’t hurt, and is often just a great way to reaffirm something you already know.

Also, it’s really helpful to try and brighten your notes with highlighters! You can even try to colour coordinate information.

Post-It Notes

They are beyond handy. Try writing small pieces of information you want to learn, whether it’s vocabulary or a grammar point and leave them around places you know you will see them regularly, like your desk, bathroom, kitchen, bedroom etc. The point is, the more you see it, the more likely you are to remember it. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll be so annoyed at seeing colourful pieces of paper everywhere, that you’ll learn them just so you can get rid of them!

Try Making Cheat Sheets

This means making a list of everything you know, as simplistic as possible, for quick reference. It will help your brain into simplifying perhaps the most complicated of grammar points into something you can easily understand. The effort alone will help aid your memory, and it is always a nice backup to jog your memory in the future!

Keep Your Study Area Clutter Free

I often feel as though a cluttered work space is a cluttered mind. So try to keep your desk organised, neat and clean. You’ll notice a giant spike in productivity if you try to keep everything in order!

Make To-Do-Lists

I am personally a huge fan of list making.. And sometimes even lists about lists. But it is by far one of the most motivating systems to make sure you can check off tasks and successfully complete your intended criteria. It will help to keep you on task and help encourage you to keep going.

Create a Reward System!

The human brain is literally wired around the idea of work and reward. Every video game is build with a specific ratio of work and reward to keep the player interested, motivated and intrigued. So try applying that to your studies! Allow yourself a reward for completing study.

For example, if you finish writing up those grammar notes that you wanted to get done, you are allowed to eat that bag of gummy bears, or treat yourself to that new dvd you wanted! It can be the tiniest of things, but it is a reward none-the-less and it can help motivate you.

Balance

Studying is all about balance! If you overwork yourself for long periods of time, your brain will eventually tire, and your concentration will begin to fade. So the best approach is to study in moderation.

Study for an hour, take a break, study for another hour, take another break.. Or even split your study into tiny pieces throughout the day! You will find that it is often more effective than a 10 hour study block.

So try studying in manageable quantities and you hopefully shouldn’t encounter any repercussions such as what I call “study block”, when despite your best efforts, nothing you try to learn will be comprehended or remembered. Study block can be very frustrating and demotivating, so it’s vital to not overwork yourself!

Don’t Rush

Everyone learns at their own pace, and it’s important to learn at a speed you are comfortable with. If you try to learn too much too quickly, it will often be wasted effort. Don’t let the progress of others make you feel inadequate or disheartened, try to remember that everyone started at the same place! Encourage yourself to study as often as you feel you want, and/or need to. Pushing yourself past limits is never wise. The important thing is to remember to have fun with it!

Those are the tips I try to learn by. Although I’ve been super busy recently, so I haven’t managed to squeeze in more than five hours a week.

I hope this helped, and if you have any other questions, feel free to ask. Wishing you luck with your studies!

42 Practical Ways To Improve Yourself

Books are concentrated sources of wisdom. The more books you read, the more wisdom you expose yourself to. What are some books you can start reading to enrich yourself? Some books I’ve read and found useful are Think and Grow Rich, Who Moved My Cheese, 7 Habits, The Science of Getting Rich and Living the 80/20 Way. I’ve heard positive reviews for The Tipping Point, Outliers and The Difference Maker, so I’ll be checking them out soon.

Learn a new language.As a Singaporean Chinese, my main languages are English, Mandarin and Hokkien (a Chinese dialect). Out of interest, I took up language courses in the past few years such as Japanese and Bahasa Indonesian. I realized learning a language is a whole new skill altogether and the process of acquainting with a new language and culture is a totally a mind-opening experience.

Pick up a new hobby. Beyond just your usual favorite hobbies, is there something new you can pick up? Any new sport you can learn? Examples are fencing, golf, rock climbing, football, canoeing, or ice skating. Your new hobby can also be a recreational hobby. For example, pottery, Italian cooking, dancing, wine appreciation, web design, etc.  Learning something new requires you to stretch yourself in different aspects, whether physically, mentally or emotionally.

Take up a new course. Is there any new course you can join? Courses are a great way to gain new knowledge and skills. It doesn’t have to be a long-term course – seminars or workshops serve their purpose too. I’ve been to a few workshops and they have helped me gain new insights which I had not considered before.

Create an inspirational room. Your environment sets the mood and tone for you. If you are living in an inspirational environment, you are going to be inspired every day. In the past, I didn’t like my room at all because I thought it was messy and dull. A few years ago, I decided this was the end of it – I started on a “Mega Room Revamp” project and overhauled my room. The end result? A room I totally relish being in and inspires me to be at my peak every day.

Overcome your fears. All of us have fears. Fear of uncertainty, fear of public speaking, fear of risk… All our fears  keep us in the same position and prevent us from growing. Recognize that your fears reflect areas where you can grow. I always think of fears as the compass for growth. If I have a fear about something, it represents something I’ve yet to address, and addressing it helps me to grow.

Level up your skills. If you have played video games before especially RPGs, you’ll know the concept of leveling up – gaining experience so you can be better and stronger. As a blogger, I’m constantly leveling up my writing skills. As a speaker, I’m constantly leveling up my public engagement abilities. What skills can you level up?

Wake up early. Waking up early (say, 5-6am) has been acknowledged by many (Anthony Robbins, Robin Sharma, among other self-help gurus) to improve your productivity and your quality of life. I feel it’s because when you wake up early, your mindset is already set to continue the momentum and proactively live out the day. Seth recently wrote a waking up early series which you should check out to help cultivate this habit.

Have a weekly exercise routine. A better you starts with being in better physical shape. I personally make it a point to jog at least 3 times a week, at least 30 minutes each time. You may want to mix it up with jogging, gym lessons and swimming for variation.

Start your life handbook. A life handbook is an idea I started 3 years ago. Basically, it’s a book which contains the essentials on how you can live your life to the fullest, such as your purpose, your values and goals. Sort of like your manual for your life. I started my life handbook since 2007 and it’s been a crucial enabler in my progress.

Write a letter to your future self. What do you see yourself as 5 years from now? Will you be the same? Different?  What kind of person will you be? Write a letter to your future self – 1 year from now will be a good start – and seal it. Make a date in your calendar to open it 1 year from now. Then start working to become the person you want to open that letter.

Get out of your comfort zone. Real growth comes with hard work and sweat. Being too comfortable doesn’t help us grow – it makes us stagnate. What is your comfort zone? Do you stay in most of the time? Do you keep to your own space when out with other people? Shake your routine up. Do something different. By exposing yourself to a new context, you’re literally growing as you learn to act in new circumstances.

Put someone up to a challenge. Competition is one of the best ways to grow. Set a challenge (weight loss, exercise, financial challenge, etc) and compete with an interested friend to see who achieves the target first. Through the process, both of you will gain more than if you were to set off on the target alone.

Identify your blind spots. Scientifically, blind spots refer to areas our eyes are not capable of seeing. In personal development terms, blind spots are things about ourselves we are unaware of. Discovering our blind spots help us discover our areas of improvement. One exercise I use to discover my blind spots is to identify all the things/events/people that trigger me in a day – trigger meaning making me feel annoyed/weird/affected. These represent my blind spots. It’s always fun to do the exercise because I discover new things about myself, even if I may already think I know my own blind spots (but then they wouldn’t be blind spots would they?). After that, I work on steps to address them.

Ask for feedback. As much as we try to improve, we will always have blind spots. Asking for feedback gives us an additional perspective. Some people to approach will be friends, family, colleagues, boss, or even acquaintances, since they will have no preset bias and can give their feedback objectively.

Stay focused with to-do lists. I start my day with a list of tasks I want to complete and this helps make me stay focused. In comparison, the days when I don’t do this end up being extremely unproductive. For example, part of my to-do list for today is to write a guest post atLifeHack.Org, and this is why I’m writing this now! Since my work requires me to use my computer all the time, I use Free Sticky Notes to manage my to-do lists. It’s really simple to use and it’s a freeware, so I recommend you check it out.

Set Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs). I’m a big fan of setting BHAGs. BHAGs stretch you beyond your normal capacity since they are big and audacious – you wouldn’t think of attempting them normally. What are BHAGs you can embark on, which you’ll feel absolutely on top of the world once you complete them? Set them and start working on them.

Acknowledge your flaws. Everyone has flaws. What’s most important is to understand them, acknowledge them, and address them. What do you think are your flaws? What are the flaws you can work on now? How do you want to address them?

Get into action. The best way to learn and improve is to take action. What is something you have been meaning to do? How can you take action on it immediately? Waiting doesn’t get anything done. Taking action gives you immediate results to learn from.

Learn from people who inspire you. Think about people you admire. People who inspire you. These people reflect certain qualities you want to have for yourself too. What are the qualities in them you want to have for yourself? How can you acquire these qualities?

Quit a bad habit. Are there any bad habits you can lose? Oversleeping? Not exercising? Being late? Slouching? Nail biting? Smoking? Here’s some help on how you can quit a bad habit.

Cultivate a new habit. Some good new habits to cultivate include reading books (#1), waking up early (#8), exercising (#9), reading a new personal development article a day (#40) and meditating. Is there any other new habit you can cultivate to improve yourself?

Avoid negative people. As Jim Rohn says, “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with”. Wherever we go, there are bound to be negative people. Don’t spend too much of your time around them if you feel they drag you down.

Learn to deal with difficult people. There are times when there are difficult people you can’t avoid, such as at your workplace, or when the person is part of your inner circle of contacts. Learn how to deal with them. These people management skills will go a long way in working with people in the future.

Learn from your friends. Everyone has amazing qualities in them. It’s up to how we want to tap into them. With all the friends who surround you, they are going to have things you can learn from. Try thinking of a good friend right now. Think about just one quality they have which you want to adopt. How can you learn from them and adopt this skill for yourself? Speak to them if you need to – for sure, they will be more than happy to help!

Start a journal. Journaling is a great way to gain better self-awareness. It’s a self-reflection process. As you write, clarify your thought process and read what you wrote from a third person’s perspective, you gain more insights about yourself. Your journal can be private or an online blog. I use my personal development blog as a personal journal too and I’ve learned a lot about myself through the past year of blogging.

Start a blog about personal development. To help others grow, you need to first be walking the talk. There are expectations of you, both from yourself and from others, which you have to uphold. I run The Personal Excellence Blog, where I share my personal journey and insights on how to live a better life. Readers look toward my articles to improve themselves, which enforces to me that I need to keep improving, for myself and for the people I’m reaching out to.

Get a mentor or coach. There’s no faster way to improve than to have someone work with you on your goals. Many of my clients approach me to coach them in their goals and they achieve significantly more results than if they had worked alone.

Reduce the time you spend on chat programs. I realized having chat programs open at default result in a lot of wasted time. This time can be much better spent on other activities. The days when I don’t get on chat, I get a lot more done. I usually disable the auto start-up option in the chat programs and launch them when I do want to chat and really have the time for it.

Learn chess (or any strategy game). I found chess is a terrific game to learn strategy and hone your brainpower. Not only do you have fun, you also get to exercise your analytical skills. You can also learn strategy from other board games or computer games, such as Othello, Chinese Chess, WarCraft, and so on.

Stop watching TV. I’ve not been watching TV for pretty much 4 years and it’s been a very liberating experience. I realized most of the programs and advertisements on mainstream TV are usually of a lower consciousness and not very empowering. In return, the time I’ve freed up from not watching TV is now constructively used for other purposes, such as connecting with close friends, doing work I enjoy, exercising, etc.

Start a 30-day challenge. Set a goal and give yourself 30 days to achieve this. Your goal can be to stick with a new habit or something you’ve always wanted to do but have not. 30 days is just enough time to strategize, plan, get into action, review and nail the goal.

Meditate. Meditation helps to calm you and be more conscious. I also realized that during the nights when I meditate (before I sleep), I need lesser sleep. The clutter clearing process is very liberating.

Join Toastmasters (Learn public speaking). Interestingly, public speaking is the #1 fear in the world, with #2 being death. After I started public speaking as a personal development speaker/trainer, I’ve learned a lot about how to communicate better, present myself and engage people. Toastmasters is an international organization that trains people in public speaking. Check out the Toastmaster clubs nearest to you here.

Befriend top people in their fields. These people have achieved their results because they have the right attitudes, skill sets and know-how. How better to learn than from the people who have been there and done that? Gain new insights from them on how you can improve and achieve the same results for yourself.

Let go of the past. Is there any grievance or unhappiness from the past which you have been holding on? If so, it’s time to let it go. Holding on to them prevents you from moving on and becoming a better person. Break away from the past, forgive yourself, and move on. Just recently, I finally moved on from a past heartbreak of 5 years ago. The effect was liberating and very empowering, and I have never been happier.

Start a business venture. Is there anything you have an interest in? Why not turn it into a venture and make money while learning at the same time? Starting a new venture requires you to be learn business management skills, develop business acumen and have a competitive edge. The process of starting and developing my personal development business has equipped me with many skills, such as self-discipline, leadership, organization and management.

Show kindness to people around you. You can never be too kind to someone. In fact, most of us don’t show enough kindness to people around us. Being kind helps us to cultivate other qualities such as compassion, patience, and love. As you get back to your day after reading this article later on, start exuding more kindness to the people around you, and see how they react. Not only that, notice how you feel as you behave kindly to others. Chances are, you will feel even better than yourself.

Reach out to the people who hate you. If you ever stand for something, you are going to get haters. It’s easy to hate the people who hate us. It’s much more challenging to love them back. Being able to forgive, let go and show love to these people requires magnanimity and an open heart. Is there anyone who dislikes or hates you in your life? If so, reach out to them. Show them love. Seek a resolution and get closure on past grievances. Even if they refuses to reciprocate, love them all the same. It’s much more liberating than to hate them back.

Take a break. Have you been working too hard? Self-improvement is also about recognizing our need to take a break to walk the longer mile ahead. You can’t be driving a car if it has no petrol. Take some time off for yourself every week. Relax, rejuvenate and charge yourself up for what’s up ahead.

Read at least 1 personal development article a day. Some of my readers make it a point to read at least one personal development article every day, which I think is a great habit. There are many terrific personal development blogs out there, some of which you can check here.

Commit to your personal growth. I can be writing list articles with 10 ways, 25 ways, 42 ways or even 1,000 ways to improve yourself, but if you’ve no intention to commit to your personal growth, it doesn’t matter what I write. Nothing is going to get through. We are responsible for our personal growth – not anyone else. Not your mom, your dad, your friend, me or LifeHack. Make the decision to commit to your personal growth and embrace yourself to a life-long journey of growth and change. Kick off your growth by picking a few of the steps above and working on them. The results may not be immediate, but I promise you that as long as you keep to it, you’ll start seeing positive changes in yourself and your life.

LOOK !!!!!

AWHHHH 

First off you don’t read them front to back or left to right or anything like that, you read them in paired columns. It’s a little like reading a PDF where you have two pages next to each other- you read the first two left to right, like in English, but then you read down the column, going down left to right.  

Another cute thing is that the reason it took so long to decipher Mayan hieroglyphics (a couple hundred years!) was because the scribes liked to play around with how they wrote. The Mayan system had two different ways to write - they had logograms, which are like Chinese characters; and they had phonetic signs, which stood for a syllable of spoken speech- kind of like hiragana or katakana. 

Sometimes the scribes picked one or the other to make the sentences make sense- when you’re writing with a lot of syllables sometimes you need to specify whether you’re talking about a stone or a turkey, or which word for “jaguar” you’re using. 

But a lot of the time they’d just pick the one they thought looked prettiest. So you had people playing with words all over the place!

Another cute thing about Mayan hieroglyphics: the Mayan gods of scribes were twin brothers called the Monkey-Man scribes!

This is a statue of one of the Monkey-man scribes.  

All those glyphs mean “shield” pronounced pakal in classical mayan, but all of them are writen using different methods :

The first one is just the logogram PAKAL

The second is the phonetic decomposition of the word using syllabic glyphs : pa-ka-la. The last voyel is usually not pronounced in such a position. 

The last one makes use of both the logogram PAKAL and the syllabic glyph la. It is the most common spread orthography, as the mayan liked to make sure that no ambiguity was possible.

The real complexity of the system comes from the fact that one glyph could be written in many different ways, according to its position in the block (on top, on the side..) and the skill of the carver or scribe. Contrary to the chinese characters, a glyph had no fixed form : as long as its main attributes were presents, the scribe could draw or carve the glyph the way he wanted. Add to this the fact that most of the logograms had at least an anthropomorphic form and a more abstract one, and you get a pretty complex system.  As an example, all those glyphs mean “sun” and are pronounced k’in :

Here are a few useful links to learn more :

The FAMSI website, where you can use a dictionnary to find glyphs and also read this great study guide.

The Corpus of Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions, where you can admire the beauty of the script when carved of rock .

Mayavase.com, if you want to take a look at mayan calligraphy on ceramics.

Maya decipherment, the best research blog on the subject.

I mean sure there are some languages I want to reach ‘fluency’ in, and it’s something I’m working toward. But this is a hobby. This is fun. I don’t even take myself seriously in my native language, so why am I so uptight about perfection in my target languages?

I’ve resolved that every Wednesday, I will write a masterpost about self care and living clean and happy lifestyles. Mainly because my blog is devoted to that too, besides being a studyblr, but I hardly ever post original content about it, so hereeee we go. :)

Plan first

Make a list of areas you want to tackle

Or items you want to go through

Set how long you’ll clean

And a little reward for yourself when you’ve reached that goal

Envision what you want your space to look like at the end

Set aside three baskets or areas: one for things to keep, one for things to trash, and one for things to donate/sell

House

There are just some ideas of things to get rid of or pare down. Feel free to add your own. :)

Bedroom

unnecessary pillows on your bed or extra blankets

monsters under your bed

chargers, wires, etc. that go to devices you don’t have anymore or that are broken

old devices, phones, ipods

books you felt kinda eh about while reading them

copies of books or CDs

old notebooks

sticky notes that have lost their stickiness

broken pencils

markers that have dried up

any art supply you don’t use

scrap paper that’s gotten too small

scrap yarn that’s gotten too small

old art projects

unfinished art projects

papers

candles w/o any smell

Scentsy-type stuff w/o any smell

Closet

clothes that don’t fit

all of those clothes you save for your “ugly days”

shoes that hurt that you don’t even like the looks of

underwear with holes (or blood stains - ya feel me, girls?)

socks without a matching pair

socks with holes

bras that are even looking tired

copies of clothes, like multiple white t-shirts

jewelry you don’t wear

childish jewelry

broken jewelry

Bathroom

hygiene products past their expiration date

faded towels

bottles with only a few drops of product left

worn out toothbrushes

hairbands that have lost their elasticity

congealed nail polish

makeup you regret buying

Digital Life

Social Media

Unfollow people, be merciless, make your social media a place of positivity

unfriend toxic people (see the next section)

go through your own posts and delete anything you regret posting

take social media breaks

Computer

upload all of your photos to Google photos or flickr or photobucket or onedrive or whatever, or even a CD, then delete them from your memory

also back up important documents or just things you want to keep to something else and delete them on your computer

go through and sort everything into files

delete any programs you don’t use

Phone

clean out your pictures, upload them to cloud or whatever

delete all of the apps you don’t use or need

go through your contacts and delete the people you don’t want to contact anymore

delete old text message conversations

give yourself a new background too, something clean and simple

Relationships

Get rid of those people who are toxic in your life, mute notifications from them, unfollow them on social media (you can unfollow someone one facebook without unfriending them), don’t answer them often

make an effort to interact with people face-to-face rather than through text or the internet

decide who you want to actively invest your energy in

School

make a study schedule

prioritize your schedule – study the hardest subjects the most

remember that grades are important

also remember that grades aren’t everything 

(pls don’t fire me from being a studyblr)

if you can’t get everything you need to do done in 24 hours without sacrificing 8 hours of sleep and a bit of time for yourself, then you’re doing too much

So, it’s that time of the year again, back to school. And right now, some of you are probably panicking a little because, let’s face it, school starts soon and you have not glanced at your to-do list since June. But don’t be afraid, lots of us are in the same boat. I myself ambitiously drafted out a long list of things to do this summer, including studying C++, studying Chinese, preparing for new course work, studying quiz bowl, and exercising. However, I was abroad for five weeks, spent lots of weekends at the beach, slept in, and generally slacked off. Now, it’s not too late to pick up the pace and get into the study grind to get a good start this school year. Below are some useful tips!

Academic Tips:

Print off your new school schedule immediately and build your personal schedule around that. (Figure out which time blocks are for studying, exercise, sleep, mealtime, extracurriculars, and chill time.)

Buy a planner and start using it. It doesn’t have to be personalized or fancy, just make sure it suits your taste and is usable. Even though you may not have classwork right now, start using it to complete tasks and get in the habit of writing in it.

Search up your teachers/professors on RateMyProfessor to (kinda) know what you’re in for. Obviously, those reviews are a little skewed so read them with a grain of salt, but know which professors are lecture heavy and which classes rely on the textbook. This really helped me last year.

Get in the habit of reading and writing a bit everyday. That way, your first assignment won’t be nearly as painful. Just write a little in a journal or read some NYT articles to critically engage your brain. 

Look over the first chapter of your textbooks. The first chapter and introduction in books really explain what the course is about, so if you’re afraid of feeling stranded in class, read them.

If you have questions or concerns about your courses, email your professors or teachers. They want to help their students.

Map out where you have to go for each class. Whether it’s changing floor in the same building or booking it across campus, make sure you know where you’re going the first week of class. Highlight your routes on a map of the school if you need.

Lifestyle Tips:

It’s nice to sleep in over summer break, but start waking yourself up earlier. Figure out what time you need to wake up, factor in the 7-8 hours of sleep you need, and determine the ideal bedtime. Set an alarm and start slowly winding back your wake up time. For example, if I need to get up at 7:00 AM for school, I’ll sleep until 8:30 for one week. Then I’ll wake up at 8:00 the next week, and 7:30 the week after that so my body can slowly adjust to the earlier mornings.

On a similar note, start going to bed at the appropriate time. It may be frustrating to do so when it’s still bright out at night, but this really helps your body adjust. The lights from devices keep you up, so get accustomed to ditching the electronics before you get in bed.

Make sure your outfits are school ready. I know my math lecture is in a really chilly old building, so I’m pulling out a few sweaters to bring with me to class. If your school has a dress code (which can be annoying) or uniform, make sure your outfits comply.

Get your bag and supplies ready. This is fun for me, because I usually end up shopping and getting some new cute accessories and stationery.

Start a new healthy habit with the school year. This is a good time to try to stick in something new. Get a reusable water bottle and try to drink 8 cups a day, or add meditation to your night routine. You won’t regret it!

Now, most of these tips are applicable to both high school and college, but if you want high school or college specific tips, let me know in my messages or ask box and I’ll make another post. Have an amazing school year!

it’s almost time to go back to school, and the transition is never easy, but you can help ease yourself back into the swing of things this next week!

day one:

get your schedule back on track

after three months of no school, I’d guess that you haven’t exactly been waking up early very often. start getting back into the swing of things by slowly adjusting your bed time starting tonight.

day two:

tidy up

clean your room up so that you don’t have to worry about it later! bonus points for cleaning out your closet and donating anything you don’t want to charity, so you have more room and someone else has a new outfit to wear on their first day. 

day three:

go shopping!

but only some of them. hold off on the things you’re not sure you’ll need, but pick up the essentials today (pens, pencils, those super cheap comp notebooks).

day four:

get organized

now’s the time to get things in order before your schedule is filled back up again. whatever you need to do to come home stress free after your first day of school, do it now!

day five:

set some goals

write down some things that you want to accomplish in the next year and put them up in your study space. be specific so you’re more likely to follow through! check out this article on smart goals if you haven’t already.

day six:

relax!

don’t waste this last little bit of summer! go spend time with your friends, check off the last things from your bucket list, or take this last opportunity to spend a whole day doing nothing.

day seven:

get all the last minute things together

pack your backpack, double check your schedule, lay out your clothes, pack a lunch and make something to eat before you run out the door have everything ready so you can have a relaxed morning and a great first day of school!

This is my Back to School series’ schedule for the rest of this month and August. This isn’t a set schedule because I may add or take away certain masterposts. If you have any suggestions or requests, feel free to send them in! This is mostly for me to stay on track and make sure I upload them. You can use this as well for reference to see what I’ll be writing in the future.

* Asterisks are ones that people have requested so they will have links to their accounts

07.22 | School Essentials

07.24 | Preparing for School

07.25 | Basics of Note-taking

07.26 | Revising Notes

07.28 | Preparing Mentally *

07.29 | Get Ahead on Schoolwork *

07.31 | Morning Routine *

08.03 | Taking Notes for Math

08.05 | Bullet Journal vs. Planner

08.10 | Dealing with Procrastination

08.11 | Laptop vs. Handwritten Notes

08.12 | Supply Haul

08.13 | Dealing with Stress

08.15 | Taking Notes for Science

08.17 | After School / Night Routine *

08.19 | Writing Essays

08.20 | Taking Cute/Pretty Notes

hey folks! as september rolls around and everyone gets back to school, the studyblr community is getting a bit more crowded! I thought to help everyone (myself included) get back into the swing of school (and therefore having things to post!) I’d create a little challenge. Each day, post a picture (or text post) following that day’s prompt, and be sure to tag them #universi-tea challenge so I can see!

Goals for the semester

What are you excited about?

What’s in your bag?

Study essentials

Favorite study snack

Your handwriting

Daily routine

Before/after

Good morning!

Good night!

Favorite subject

Least favorite subject

Something you’re proud of

How you study best

Supplies + reviews

Shelfie/pic of your books

Your favorite part of your school

What’s in your pencil case?

Show off your favorite back to school outfit!

Doodles

Coffee or tea?

Your study style

Favorite way to take a study break

Study playlist

What motivates you?

Favorite quote?

Favorite study spot

Your to do list

The best thing about school

Your top 3 tips for school

Here are all of the Routledge Grammar PDFs that I currently have. I’ll be updating whenever I find more. Let me know if there’s one in particular you want me to look for^^

Last Update: 2017/04/24

Fixed Intermediate Japanese: A Grammar and Workbook link 

Added books for Czech, English, French, French Creoles, Persian, Ukranian

Added more books in Cantonese, Danish, Greek, Polish, Spanish, Swedish

Arabic

Arabic: An Essential Grammar Basic Arabic: A Grammar and Workbook Modern Written Arabic: A Comprehensive Grammar

Cantonese

Basic Cantonese: A Grammar and Workbook Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar Intermediate Cantonese: A Grammar and Workbook

Czech

Czech: An Essential Grammar

Danish

Danish: A Comprehensive Grammar Danish: An Essential Grammar

Dutch

Basic Dutch: A Grammar and Workbook Dutch: A Comprehensive Grammar Dutch: An Essential Grammar Intermediate Dutch: A Grammar and Workbook

English

English: An Essential Grammar

Finnish

Finnish: An Essential Grammar

French

Modern French Grammar Workbook

French Creoles

French Creoles: A Comprehensive and Comparative Grammar

German

Basic German: A Grammar and Workbook German: An Essential Grammar Intermediate German: A Grammar and Workbook

Greek

Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar Greek: An Essential Grammar of the Modern Language

Hindi

Hindi: An Essential Grammar

Hebrew

Modern Hebrew: An Essential Grammar

Hungarian

Hungarian: An Essential Grammar

Indonesian

Indonesian: A Comprehensive Grammar

Irish

Basic Irish: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Irish: A Grammar and Workbook

Italian

Basic Italian: A Grammar and Workbook

Japanese

Basic Japanese: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Japanese: A Grammar and Workbook Japanese: A Comprehensive Grammar

Korean

Basic Korean: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Korean: A Grammar and Workbook Korean: A Comprehensive Grammar

Latin

Intensive Basic Latin: A Grammar and Workbook Intensive Intermediate Latin: A Grammar and Workbook

Latvian

Latvian: An Essential Grammar

Mandarin Chinese

Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar Chinese: An Essential Grammar

Norwegian

Norwegian: An Essential Grammar

Persian

Basic Persian: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Persian: A Grammar and Workbook

Polish

Basic Polish: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Polish: A Grammar and Workbook Polish: A Comprehensive Grammar Polish: An Essential Grammar

Portuguese

Portuguese: An Essential Grammar

Romanian

Romanian: An Essential Grammar

Russian

Basic Russian: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Russian: A Grammar and Workbook

Serbian

Serbian: An Essential Grammar

Spanish

Basic Spanish: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Spanish: A Grammar and Workbook Spanish: An Essential Grammar

Swahili

Swahili Grammar and Workbook

Swedish

Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Swedish: An Essential Grammar

Thai

Thai: An Essential Grammar

Turkish

Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

Ukrainian

Ukrainian: A Comprehensive Grammar

Urdu

Urdu: An Essential Grammar

Welsh

Modern Welsh: A Comprehensive Grammar

Yiddish

Basic Yiddish: A Grammar and Textbook

Hope this helps everyone out a bit! Happy studying^^

What to buy/find:

- Genki I

- Genki II

- Genki Workbooks 1 & 2

- Get the audio for Genki books.

- Yotsubato! Vol 1.

- A decent Kanji book.

- Graph paper or Japanese Notebook.

What to study:

- Tofugu’s Ultimate Guide to Katakana

- Tofugu’s Ultimate Guide to Hiragana

- Tofugu’s “30 Days of Becoming A Better Japanese Learner”.

- MIT OpenCourseWare Japanese I & II

- Print out Tofugu’s kana charts for reference!

What to Download:

- Anki

- Yotsubato! Flashcards

- Genki Annihilation deck

- Kanji Damage deck

What to do:

Follow the MIT course schedule and study guide. Make sure to memorize all of your Furigana!

Start doing Kanji as soon as possible.

Run through the Duolingo Course and see how you do. It’s pretty easy and will help with reading practice.

Start watching Anime on Netflix. Do not take notes! Just listen. Try to pick out any vocabulary you may already know.

Keep a separate notebook for writing in Japanese, one for vocabulary, and one for grammar. 

Print out the exercises from MIT and do them in addition to the Genki workbook.

Start blogging your progress! Follow other #langblr blogs etc. Make studying fun! :)

I’ve said this to my non-techie friends countless times. It’s no secret that being able to code makes you a better job applicant, and a better entrepreneur. Hell, one techie taught a homeless man to code and now that man is making his first mobile application.

Learning to code elevates your professional life, and makes you more knowledgeable about the massive changes taking place in the technology sector that are poised to have an immense influence on human life.

(note: yes I realize that 3/5 of those links were Google projects)

But most folks are intimidated by coding. And it does seem intimidating at first. But peel away the obscurity and the difficulty, and you start to learn that coding, at least at its basic level, is a very manageable, learnable skill.

There are a lot of resources out there to teach you. I’ve found a couple to be particularly successful. Here’s my list of resources for learning to code, sorted by difficulty:

Novice

Never written a line of code before? No worries. Just visit one of these fine resources and follow their high-level tutorials. You won’t get into the nitty-gritty, but don’t worry about it for now:

Dash - by General Assembly

CodeAcademy

w3 Tutorials (start at HTML on the left sidebar and work your way down)

Intermediate

Now that you’ve gone through a handful of basic tutorials, it’s time to learn the fundamentals of actual, real-life coding problems. I’ve found these resources to be solid:

Khan Academy

CodeAcademy - Ruby, Python, PHP

Difficult

If you’re here, you’re capable of building things. You know the primitives. You know the logic control statements. You’re ready to start making real stuff take shape. Here are some different types of resources to turn you from someone who knows how to code, into a full-fledged programmer.

Programming problems

Sometimes, the challenges in programming aren’t how to make a language do a task, but just how to do the task in general. Like how to find an item in a very large, sorted list, without checking each element. Here are some resources for those types of problems

Talentbuddy

TopCoder

Web Applications

If you learned Python, Django is an amazing platform for creating quick-and-easy web applications. I’d highly suggest the tutorial - it’s one of the best I’ve ever used, and you have a web app up and running in less than an hour.

Django Tutorial

I’ve never used Rails, but it’s a very popular and powerful framework for creating web applications using Ruby. I’d suggest going through their guide to start getting down-and-dirty with Rails development.

Rails Guide

If you know PHP, there’s an ocean of good stuff out there for you to learn how to make a full-fledged web application. Frameworks do a lot of work for you, and provide quick and easy guides to get up and running. I’d suggest the following:

Cake PHP Book

Symfony 2 - Get Started

Yii PHP - The Comprehensive Guide

Conclusion

If there’s one point I wanted to get across, it’s that it is easier than ever to learn to code. There are resources on every corner of the internet for potential programmers, and the benefits of learning even just the basics are monumental.

If you know of any additional, great resources that aren’t listed here, please feel free to tweet them to me @boomeyer.

Video games:

Easy game engines (virtually no coding): 

Game Maker Studio (2D; free and paid versions)

GameSalad (2D)

RPG Maker (2D; numerous versions ranging from free to $69.99)

Stencyl (2D; free and paid subscription versions)

Scratch (good for kids and is more general; 2D; free)

More difficult game engines: 

Unity (lots and lots of platforms; C# and JavaScript script; 2D, 3D, VR; free and paid versions)

Unreal (specializes in graphics; C++ and visual script; 2D, 3D, VR; free with a royalty on successful products)

CryEngine (Lua script; 3D; paid subscription and full license versions)

Mobile game development: 

Corona (free and paid subscription versions)

SpriteKit (2D) and SceneKit (3D) which are built into the official compiler to create iOS apps (see iOS apps for more resources)

also all of the above game engines (cross-platform)

Game console development: 

Game Maker Studio (with a paid subscription)

Unity

Unreal

CryEngine

Note that games can also be created on more general platforms like iOS and Android apps, but the resources listed above are specialized for game development.

iOS apps:

In order to develop iOS apps, you’ll need to purchase an iOS developer program membership for $99 a year, which requires an Apple account. Here are some general resources:

Xcode (the official IDE for iOS apps; can be installed on OS X)

Start Developing iOS Apps Today (Objective-C)

Ray Wenderlich iOS tutorials (Objective-C and Swift)

Code School: Try iOS (Objective-C)

Developing iOS 8 Apps (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7; Swift)

TutorialsPoint: iOS Tutorial (Objective-C)

How to Make iPhone Apps With No Programming Experience (Swift)

Swift Tutorial: Building an iOS Application (2, 3)

iOS apps are developed in the 2 official languages of Apple: Objective-C and Swift, the latter of which is newer and generally much easier to learn.

Objective-C resources:

the official documentation

TutorialsPoint: Objective-C Tutorial

Ry’s Objective-C Tutorial

Swift resources:

the official documentation

The Swift Programming Language (free official e-book)

Swift: A Quick Reference Guide

Xcode also has SpriteKit, SceneKit, and Metal built in, all of which are incredibly useful for creating apps that require elaborate graphics, particularly games.

SpriteKit resources:

How to Make a Game Like Candy Crush With Swift (2)

Sprite Kit Swift Tutorial

Create Space Invaders with Swift and Sprite Kit

iOS SpriteKit Physics Tutorial in Swift

Build the Game of Life (Swift)

SceneKit resources:

Scene Kit Tutorial: Getting Started (Swift)

An Introduction to SceneKit (2; Swift)

Metal resources:

the official documentation + other resources (Obj-C)

iOS 8 Metal Tutorial with Swift (2, 3)

Getting Started With Metal (Obj-C)

An introduction to 3D graphics with Metal in Swift

Also, in order to publish iOS apps, you’ll have to juggle certificates, app ids, and provisioning profiles. This process can be convoluted at times so here are some resources:

How to Submit Your App to Apple: From No Account to App Store (2)

Beginner Tutorial: iOS Certificates & Provisioning Profiles

Android apps:

In order to develop Android apps, you’ll need to register as a developer for a one-time fee of $25. Here are some general resources:

Android Studio (the official IDE for Android app development; free; can be installed on Windows, OS X, and Linux)

the official documentation

Getting Started

Android Tutorial For Beginners (2, 3)

Learn Android SDK From Scratch

Introduction to Android Development With Android Studio

Android apps are developed in Java and the layout is coded with XML.

Java resources:

W3schools: Java Tutorial series

TutorialsPoint: Java Tutorial

Core Java Tutorial

XML resources:

W3schools: XML Tutorial series

TutorialsPoint: XML Tutorial

For publishing (which is somewhat easier than publishing iOS apps):

How to Publish to the Android Market

3D modeling/animation:

Blender (can also be used to create games; Python script; free and open-source; can be installed on Windows, OS X, and Linux)

Maya (specialized script; free trial, free 3-year student subscription, and paid subscription versions; can be installed on Windows, OS X, and Linux to an extent)

3ds Max (Python script; free trial, free 3-year student subscription, and paid subscription versions; can be installed on Windows and OS X)

RenderMan (specialized script; free for non-commercial/educational use and pay-per-license for commercial use; can be installed on Windows, OS X, and Linux)

Misc. resources:

Stack Overflow is an ask-and-answer community for programmers. It’s amazing and will save your life. Sign up and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Github offers a student pack (here) if you create an account and prove you’re a student. This gives you free access to a bunch of great programming resources for free for a certain period of time, such as Unreal Engine. Also, Github in general is a site that you can host your code on. Other users can see it, and “fork” it to make a copy of your code and modify it.

Parse is a backend service that allows you to store data in databases it hosts on its own servers. It lets you use push notifications, create users, store and retrieve data, etc. It’s compatible with iOS apps, Android apps, Windows apps, Xamarin, React, Unity, OS X, Windows, JavaScript, PHP, .net, Arduino, and Embedded C. It’s free up to a certain limit that depends on the services you use.

Cloud9, Codebox, and Squad are online IDEs that allow for real-time collaboration and support a variety of languages, so they’re useful for team projects.

And some general advice:

Your program will not work right away, 99% of the time. That’s okay. Do your best to figure out where the error is. Here is some advice on debugging (written for PHP but the methods can be generalized).

If you’re stuck, Google. Google like there’s no tomorrow.

Ask questions on a community like Stack Overflow.

For that matter, browse relevant Stack Overflow questions. You can probably find some solutions there.

Don’t be afraid to copy and paste.

Take breaks sometimes if you’re getting burned out. But don’t stay away from your projects for too long or you’ll lose track of its status.

Backup your code. On the cloud, on a USB drive, wherever. If your IDE has a backing up feature like snapshots, use it whenever you hit a milestone.

If your project is big, split it up into milestones and set goals. Don’t tackle everything at once.

Like the OP said, coding isn’t just for professionals and “geeks” anymore. Anyone can learn it if you really try, and with the rapidly expanding tech industry, learning coding can really broaden your opportunities.

If any of the links are broken, or you have a question or some information/resources to add, you can contact me through the askbox or the OP through his Twitter (as mentioned in his post).