#themarchstudies

Thursday, 08/18/2016 • After having a headache yesterday, I felt okay in the morning. I prepared for school like the usual  and I still felt like dizzy that time but I didn’t mind. When I arrived at school, that’s when I felt my lower abdomen is painful. I just let it. But when our second subject professor came and gave us a quiz, that’s when I sensed that I cannot take the pain anymore. After I took the quiz, I immediately went to the clinic and the nurse gave me a hot pack and let me rest for a while.

After an hour or so, I felt good. Even though I felt a little pain after leaving the clinic, I can say that I can bare it. When I already left the clinic, I still have one last subject to attend but I didn’t mind attending that class anymore because I’m afraid that my lower abdomen will be painful again. That’s when I decided to go to the mall near to our university, yeah I cut my class. I went straightaway to National Bookstore (Philippines) to buy what I want and bought two colored markers (Dong-A My Color2 Twin Tip Marker) and a pen (Faber Castell).

hey! Back to school season is upon us, and here are my tips for acing the first few weeks and avoiding it turning into a proper dumpster fire.

Adjust your morning/night routine accordingly within the last 1-2 weeks leading up to your first day. If your school starts early or if you have to drive a long ways to get there, meaning you have to get up early, FIX IT NOW. That means actually start going to bed at a reasonable hour and get up when you plan on getting up during the school year and carrying out your morning as if you were going to school. Each night, I’d recommend getting a breakfast ready(overnight oats are a great choice) so it’s ready first thing in the morning. When you wake up, try to avoid hitting snooze as much as possible- if you can, put your phone/clock on the other side of the room so you have to get up to turn it off. Fixing your sleep schedule now will make the transition from summer to school so much easier.

Figure out a planning system that works for you. Some schools(mostly middle and high schools) might give you a planner when you get there, but if your school doesn’t do that, try bullet journaling or a regular planner for a week or two and see what works best. Keeping your tasks organized is so important, especially during the school year- you won’t forget your assignments if you write it down to do them.

Time management and self discipline are important things. There are plenty of apps out there that can help you plan out your study and free time(I made a master post that has some time management apps on it!). Start balancing your work and free time within the last week leading up to your school start date, so that means get all of your binge watching out of the way before you have actual work to do. Self-discipline is also important when leading up to school- get what you need to get done done and then reward your self for it- don’t skip the task and get the reward. That kinda defeats the whole purpose. 

Anticipate the new workload. No matter what grade you’re going into, there’s going to be more work than last year. That being said, if you have summer homework or assigned reading, do it! Even more importantly, review your notes from last year and/or revise them and learn more about them, whatever works for you. If you have your textbooks for the next year, read through them, even take notes if you can! Being ahead is better than being behind and it’ll allow you to more actively engage in classroom discussions.

Find a dedicated study space. If you don’t have a dedicated study space, find one, and if you do, revamp and reorganize it! Clean it out for the upcoming school year so you can use all the available space for papers, books, storage, whatever(and there’s nothing better than a perfectly clear desk, tbh).

School supplies! What you need for each class will vary for each teacher, but the basic ground rules are a notebook for each class, a couple of binders, a lot of paper(grid and looseleaf), pens, pencils, you get the gist. Oftentimes teachers will attach a materials list with their syllabus or tell you what you need on the first day of class, but it’s good to have a number of generic supplies on the first day just in case. Be sure you have your textbooks in time for the first day, and also be sure you know where your calculator is and how it works, if you know you’re going to need it, which you probably are. Remember to not get carried away in the nuance of having pretty notes and cute supplies- if that’s what works for you, go for it, but if it distracts you from the material, then don’t feel obliged to make your notes look perfect.

Stay active in your school community, even over summer. If you’re starting at a new school, like I am, look and see what events you can partake in over summer at your school. Some examples include sports camps, service hours, or summer classes to get more free periods during the year- you get to meet new people so you know some people going in and you get a head start for the school year.

Stay motivated and remember to take care of yourself. The beginning of the school year can get really exciting, but it’s also really easy to burn yourself out and get overwhelmed. If you’re going to a new school, take care of your self, especially if your anxious or are having a hard time finding your people. Don’t study so much in the first semester that you’re not motivated and burnt out for the second semester- find out ways to take care of your mental health and make that part of your routine, whether that be mental health days or exercise or reading or taking naps.

hi! In this master post (inspired by @denistudies post on science youtube channels), I’m going to list and briefly explain STEM(science, technology, engineering and mathematics) you tubers, podcasts, tumblrs, shows, and sites that can be for school and/or your own curiosity! note: not all of these things directly pertain to stem, so this may not exactly help you with schoolwork, but if you’re interested in stem, check these out and learn a lil’ bit more today!

Youtube:

CrashCourse: This channel, originally created by John and Hank Green, leads you through several realms of study, including AP Physics 1&2, Psychology, Astronomy, Biology, Ecology, Chemistry, and Anatomy & Physiology. 

Vsauce: One of the three Vsauce channels, this one hosted by Michael Stevens, tackles curious topics, such as the zipf mystery, and also more practical ones, like how the earth moves.

SciShow: Hosted by a slew of youtubers, this short show gives very cool answers to very cool science questions that you’d never think to ask.

MinutePhysics: If you’re a visual learner, I’d definitely check this one out. This channel answers sometimes complicated physics questions simply with the addition of drawings.

AsapSCIENCE: I don’t even know how to describe this one, guys. It’s somewhatley in a similar style to MinutePhysics, but with a different approach. Definitely very neat!

thebrainscoop: This is a youtube channel lead by Emily Graslie at the Field Museum and is very cool and a very nice resource for natural sciences and biology! She’s also one of the few female youtubers I see in STEM, and she made a bomb video addressing that(find it here).

TED-Ed: This is such a fave. On this channel, TED partners educators and animators to make a video and a lesson on a particular topic, ranging from riddles to physics to language.

Khan Academy: Wonderful for help with math, physics, and even history(they also have a website, which I’ll talk about later)!

Physics Girl: Another woman in STEM! This channel is a personal favorite, she does a really good job with explaining physics.

Podcasts(I’m a nerd but bear with me):

Invisibilia: A podcast about psychology. They’re currently in the middle of their second season, so there are plenty of new episodes!

Radiolab: This podcast covers everything from supreme court cases and social shifts to the physics behind shrimp snapping, which might sound ridiculous, but I promise you it’s wonderful. There are tons of episodes- I highly recommend the older episodes, and they’re longer and stay more on the science track.

StarTalk Radio: Hosted by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, this podcast goes into different branches of physics in immense detail, but I promise it’s not boring cuz it’s PHYSICS.

Science Friday: Essentially covers everything within STEM and is also my favorite part of NPR each week, because how could it not?

NASACast: For my fellow space people, this is a summary of what’s the haps at NASA! I had no idea that this was a thing and it’s great!

Tumblrs:

@prxstem - everything you could ever wish for in a stem tumblr in one place. 

@nasa - Your daily dose of space and other cool science things.

@skunkbear - NPR’s science tumblr. It does not disappoint. 

@scientific-women - More women in STEM!

@sciencefriday (in case you haven’t noticed I basically live to the tune of all things npr)

@sweetteascience - killin’ science game

Most studyblrs also have STEM resources and there are so many other science-dedicated tumblrs, these are just a few of my favorites!

Websites:

Khan Academy: This website entails math, science, and history help for grades 2-12(I believe the math program goes up through calculus). It offers videos you can learn from and then practice problems for you to do- sort of like a textbook, except you skip the reading part. 

The Physics Classroom: Lessons and interactive on all things physics!

Codeacademy: Teaches you how to code! They offer six different programming languages.

Physics for the 21st Century: A unit-by-unit guide to physics accompanied by videos. 

The Biology Corner: Everything that even remotely entails biology, from evolution to anatomy. 

Gizmo: Most schools only use this with a membership and it’s most commonly used in Jr. High, but it has super useful online lab simulations that help you learn by doing!

Exploratorium: THIS IS SO COOL. I highly encourage also following them on instagram for even more cool things, but the exploratorium is an interactive museum in San Fransisco and their website has plenty of guides on STEM experiments that you can do at home!

Books:

Ask A Science Teacher by Larry Scheckel- This book answers almost every question you could thing of that even remotely pertains to any area of science. Very cool and a good book to just keep around! Buy it here.

What if? by Randall Monroe- This book, which is also lovely-ly illustrated, gives serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical situations and is a great and hilarious read that will actually teach you some stuff along the way. Buy it here.

Thing Explainer, also by Randall Monroe- Someone wise once said that you must know a topic well enough to explain it simply and I can’t remember that wise person’s name, but y'all get the point. Thing Explainer only uses the 1,000 most commonly used words in the English language to explain complicated things, like space! Buy it here. 

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking- This book made me ponder and question my existence for hours on end- that being said, if you want to go into a scientific field, READ THIS BOOK. Buy it here. 

That’s that! If there’s a resource that’s not on here but would be helpful to you, shoot me an ask on the topic and I’ll find something and add it!

summer study challenge- day nine

ix: clean your study space

I skipped a couple of days with this challenge because I do that stuff routinely, but cleaning my study space took a lot of effort, and here it is! Okay, my main desk stuff has two main organizers(both from ikea because why not), the one on the left holding current papers and projects(ft. my old chromebook stacked on top of it) and the one to the right holds my favorite pens and my bujo(will post the spread later its so pretty). In case you couldn’t tell, there’s kind of a mess of papers on the far left kinda just hanging there. I have no intention of dealing with them, just a lil’ psa- most of them are playbills or awards and certificates I don’t have anyplace else to put. My books take up most of the space in my study space, though, and I organized them by color(it just looks so niceeeeeee). So, that’s that- onto day ten!