Saving Up My Last Few Expensive Strathmore Papers And Going Digital, As I Can Commit Mistakes As Much

✨ how to deal with failure: a brief guide for the completely done and utterly fed up student ✨

first of all, recognise - and i don’t mean just read, internalise it - that failing is okay. you’re not dumb, you’re not unworthy of taking the class, you might’ve not even necessarily had the wrong approach; you did, however, in any case, have bad luck. and that can be changed. it absolutely can be changed and you do have the time to adjust your studying so you can make up for the misstep. it’s gon be okay buttercup <3

1. vent to a friend/sb you’re close with

i personally attacked my bestie, talked to a few other ppl, and it helped get some of the frustration out. it’s also important you learn to speak to yourself how you would to a friend - you certainly wouldn’t tell them they’re a failure and won’t come back from this, would you? what you actively tell yourself shapes your subconscious thoughts.

2. catch up on the self care you’ve neglected when studying

get a long shower to wash the exam off, eat your meals slowly, get enough sleep (!), clean your room (unburden The Chair™ - srsly, do your laundry - and vacuum, change your bedsheets perhaps?)

3. make a study plan for the retake

be sure to make it realistic and flexible so you don’t end up inducing more stress (helpful posts: 1 2 3 4 (not mine)), try to finish all the topics at least 3 days before the exam so you can spend the last days refreshing your knowledge and preparing mentally instead of cramming.

4. reflect (critically) on your studying so far

is there anything you can do to get more out of your time? quality over quantity is super important when it comes to revision; try implementing more active recall into your study sessions (some posts you can consult on this topic: 1 2 3 (not mine), what is active recall?) and spacing them out more; try to avoid cramming as it increases your stress levels and isn’t as affective with committing information to memory. also, if you asses you could use some help, reach out! ask a friend, get in touch with your professor, seek advice online… getting help = showing readiness for improvement = mature and very welcome!

5. schedule self-care time

when you’re making your study plan, remember to also think of your mental and physical health ● you can space out little acts of self care throughout the week (i.e. take a bubble bath every sunday, schedule a weekly video call with your best friend, allot time to spend with your s/o, do a quick workout every day,…) ● or have a ‘mental health day’ for a whole day each week (i.e. on saturdays, only do things you enjoy - spend the day reading/drawing/binging netflix/baking/…); i personally like to space my self care throughout the week and go for a walk with my best friend every two weeks or so. i’m not kidding, schedule your ‘me’ time into your planner. write. it. down.

6. sleep

i’ve mentioned it already but it’s so important it deserves it’s own bullet point - remember to also take good care of your brain. it is, after all, the organ working the hardest here. a whole day of studying, doing chores, talking to people, etc. has your synapses firing away like crazy, so sleeping is vital for them to recover and come back stronger the next day. give them time to cool down, process the information you’ve gathered throughout the day and store it somewhere you can access it later. seriously. an important note here: there isn’t a single amount of sleep that is optimal for everyone - some people work best on 6 hours of sleep, some can’t go on less than 9. dedicate yourself to figuring out what works best for you and learn to plan your wake up time. ● option no. 1: get into the habit of going to sleep and waking up every. day. at. the. same. time. - a good routine is even more vital in these times when time doesn’t even matter bc we literally don’t go anywhere ever. ● option no. 2: if your uni/work schedule doesn’t allow you to establish a daily routine, try using sleepyti.me to calculate when you should wake up to feel most refreshed :)

hopefully these points can serve as a base/reference for your academic rebound <3 i wrote them up after straight up skipping the grieving-this-is-unfair phase of failure and just being left with a slightly-pissed-but-definitely-fed-up-with-this-class feeling. it dawned on me that i surely can’t be the only one facing this, so i decided to share this and hopefully help you guys out as well:) keep in mind: your worth has zero correlation with your grades, you’re a bad bitch and will not stop bc life tried to knock u down - here’s a quote i like: when life knocks you down, calmly get back up and very politely say, “you hit like a bitch”. after that, u can follow these steps and flourish x

so true besties

“What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”

Neil Gaiman

College Street, Kolkata

Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.

baroque in the 21st century

   Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, 21 July 1882

[text ID: Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me.]

“This is mankind’s common failure, never to anticipate storms when the sea is calm.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

I have no idea where I’m going with this post but I want to say that Sourav Dutta deserves more credit for his research on some of the less researched Bengali books and authors. He had multiple blogs which are all absolute GEMS and if you are into Bengali literature you should totally check them out.

He restored and compiled many illustrations that are unavailable now, which is like really cool. Like original illustrations and headpieces from the magazines where those stories and novels were first published, or illustrations from those tiny hardcover anthologies that were popular before samagras were a thing, all that.

There’s also a lot of information on those books in his blogs, on both canon info and publication history and it’s like. Really interesting. I recently found out he died and I just wish I could have talked to him. I did talk to him in the comments of one of his blogs when I first discovered them a couple of years back, but still. I think he would have been great to cultivate, tbh.

I’ll link the blogs that I know of so everyone can pay a visit.

Blogus is a miscellaneous blog with pages on many books and series, including Ghanada, Tenida, Harshabardhan-Gobardhan, Kumar-Bimal, Mejokarta, several Bengali translations of Hound of the Baskervilles and many others, pages on authors, illustrations of books, comic adaptations including a comic of Charmurti that came out in Jugantor in the 1970s etc. There’s even a page on the song Bhajahari Manna. It’s super interesting.

Ghanada Gallery has illustrations and covers of the Ghanada stories, publication dates and information on the illustrators.

Tenida Treasury is the one I’ve frequented the most for obvious reasons, and it has a lot of good shit, but especially a chronological list of all the Tenida stories which I don’t think exists anywhere else. And all the illustrations and trivia are very cool too.

Manoranjan Museuem is about Manoranjan Bhattacharya, the author of Hukakashi. There’s not only illustrations but also ads and reviews of his books and a lot of general trivia.

Tagging some Bengali mutuals @travalerray @a-dragon-under-the-stars @your-favourite-skittles @slytherclaw-lair @half-assing-things101 @infp-denofdreams @grace-k-sterling @arachneofthoughts @goblinisjustahumanoidgremlin @carpeposterum @bongboyblog I’m really sorry to bother you and I’m not even sure if all of you are into this incredibly niche stuff, I just want people to see this. Feel free to ignore.