#queenof

Small guide to perform well during the studies. Part 2 specifically is about preparing for a great return to school after vacations!

1- What I specifically like to do is to clean and declutter severely my living areas, my desk, my kitchen, my paperwork, and so on. Typically I take the last week of my summer vacations to stay at home to do that. To ease myself into a non-vacation mood. We're returning to normalcy, routine, good habits, and so on. Decluttering helps a lot with making the spaces more easy to use, and if it's decluttered, it's SO easy to do stuff then quickly tidy it up and move one. I also do a data declutter, deleting off pictures off my cellphone I have no need for, uninstalling useless apps, changing the wallpaper and theme, installing my usual productivity apps (timer, Forest app, my college's apps, etc). The goal here is make everything streamlined to make you focused and make your study life easier.

If you want to decorate your space, it is NOW the time to do the major work. I mean new paint, change the floors, the dirty tiring works.

I also often clean up my binders off useless papers (and keep the important ones), and reusing the binders for my new semester. Also customizing your material is so fun and makes one more excited to be productive too!

2- If you wanna try new methods of study, it is RIGHT NOW at the very beginning. The stakes are pretty low, there's no heavy consequences yet if those new methods fail. If it doesn't works, no worries. Step right back to your usual methods that have proved themselves. Never EVER try new study methods before a major exam, or towards the end of the semester. If you do that, you're incorporating new elements of instability at a time your life MUST be the most stable possible.

3- Make yourself some general rules that are EXTREMELY easy to follow along. No loopholes, it is CLEAR and SIMPLE. I personally have two basic rules for my daily study life:

A) The teacher is going to give you a estimate of the study time required at the first class (or in the syllabus). This is NOT for nothing, they know it is necessary and wish you to succeed, and they're giving you all the tools for it. If you have particular difficulty with one class, add half the required study time to your schedule. If you're in deep shit, double that time. I draw boxes for every hour of study required per class in my schedule, and it is extremely motivating to fill them up and finish the week with everything done and finished!

B) If I want a B, I ramp up my study two weeks before my exam. If I want an A, I ramp up my study three weeks before the exam. Clear and simple. That's it. I am not talking about studying for hours and hours and hours for weeks... NO, you have a LIFE! Each day of those 2-3 weeks, I do read my notes, the books, do excercises/practice exams for 30-60 minutes TOPS per class. The key here is to make your brain understand that the information you're absorbing is IMPORTANT and make it retain it, and make it seek new correlations between different informations. It forces your brain to make more connections between the informations. You CAN'T force this process, it takes weeks of repetition to know perfectly the class.

4- DO NOT neglect the other aspects of your life! Say a quick hi & good morning to your dear loved ones if you can't talk to them much, or send them a postcard/meme. Go to your club sometimes if you're really busy (which is better than nothing at all) to say hi and exchange news. Do not neglect your mental health and your self-developement, a little mental health work (journaling by example) is better than nothing at all. What I mean by all that is that the joke "studies, social, sleep, choose only two" shouldn't be taken to heart. You CAN have it all, it's a matter of balance and establishing personal limits. If you lack time to do one of the three, severely reexamine your lifestyle. Are you spending 2 hours on your cellphone? Delete the time sink (I know this app isn't really necessary if it makes you sink so much of your time like that), and reallocate 1h30 of that time into sleep or social stuff. Do NOT give me excuses. If it matters to you, you CAN make time for it. And studies, sleep and social SHOULD matter for you, and that's up to you to make the choice between long lasting impactful habits, and useless habits.

Choosing your own perfume

This is obviously a highly private choice, so I would recommend to try and try and try perfumes at the shop. Try them, go every week at the perfume shop to try two perfumes, one on each wirst. Keep on trying until you find a perfume that makes you never want to find another one. It just clicks, you just KNOW it it's the right one.

Smell the test perfumes 5 min after spray, 15 minutes, 1 hours then 4 hours.

Do NOT wear any other perfume if you test new ones, as it may layer and give you the wrong impression

Some perfumes might smell AMAZING on the paper tester, but smell awful on you. That's very much possible, perfume's aroma is highly dependent on the body chemistry

Some perfumes fit better a season sadly, so be prepared to the possibility your perfume might fit you a few months out the year.

Once you've chosen your perfume, the price might be highly expensive but keep in mind you're creating your signature brand. The brain has a strong association to smells and one will remember you dearly if they smell your perfume again. Again, you use so little at a time.

Do not diss the cheaper perfumes! Again, with body chemistry, it influences how the perfume will smell on you and a okayish perfume on the paper might smell SUBLIME on you. My own perfume cost 40$ but it smells incredible on me and I always get compliments on it.

The trend those times is single smell perfumes, those that only have one aroma in it. Personnally I find those really curious but they're not my favourite but I still encourage you to try them out. Your body might make those perfumes exquisite.

ASK for samplers!! The shop ladies probably have a million of samplers. Went to a shop, they had 3 drawers FULL of samplers. A treasure for experiment!

If a perfume gives you headarche or nausea or plainly you dislike it, it's not a good one. Shalimar smelt AMAZING on the paper sampler but on me it smelt like cigarettes so much I had to wash it off.

To find similar perfumes to one you did like, check out the .. It gives the notes, the perfume family, reviews etc...

Wearing perfume

Go at tiny amounts at a time. Always. You don't want to be THAT person that smells so much perfume it stinks. Add on more if needed. It is hard to remove but easy to add.

Always ALWAYS use soaps, shampoos and creams that are very low smell, have a similar perfume family as your perfume (let's say I wear a summery coconut-ish monoi perfume, I wouldn't be buying stuff that has fresh laundry smell, per example.). Personally I don't want to do any faux pas, and I go for smell-free hygiene stuff so my perfume isn't challenged or wronged.

DO NOT SPRAY ON CLOTHES. Always on skin. Some perfumes stay permanently on fabric so it's important to be careful.

Exfoliate your skin, make sure your basic body hygiene is up to point. Scrub out the armpits then add Deo almost asap after the shower. Scrub your feets, intimates, rinse it thoroughly. Pat dry your skin. You want a nice foundation for a perfume masterpiece.

If you're about to have sex, spray a minuscule amount at the areas he might put his nose on. Lower belly, nape of neck, etc. Do not put ANY where he might lick. Some perfumes taste AWFUL.

Spread some Vaseline on the areas you're about to spray, so it lasts all day.

DO NOT DO THE PERFUME CLOUD N'WALK, it wastes a stupid amount of perfume. Instead just spray on the wirsts then dab on the neck. That way, less waste and the perfume won't dissipate so fast.

Body mists go away SO fast so you have to reapply a few times a day. Perfumes only once a day. Some are so strong it still persists for two or three days on skin.

Do not hesitate to ask feedback from family, friends and partners. They're your best allies for choosing the right perfume.

Men's favourite scents are vanilla, fruity/sugary scents, lily of the valley. But again, if you LOVE one perfume and most ppl say it's amazing and it doesn't contains those scents, don't dismiss just because of that.