Sigh

there are so many things that I want to do. I think I will stay on my phone for 2 more hours

I keep getting ser and estar mixed up 😭

hello amigo!

actually this is easy. just like english, you can use the verb “to be” to refer to different meaning to address essential qualities/characteristics or conditions.

The apple is green. (Condition: Meaning the apple is not ripe.)

The apple is green. (Essential: Meaning the color of the apple is green.)

in spanish we have the same but with we differentiate the meaning with two verbs: ser and estar.

SER AND ESTAR

Ser is used to address an essential quality while Estar is used to address a condition.

La banana está verde: The banana is green. (condition). Meaning that the fruit is unripe.

La banana es verde: The banana is green. (essence). Meaning the fruit color is green.

So what you can gather from that example is that Ser is used to talk about what something is and Estar is used to talk about how something is. Something that maybe you’ll see on the internet or in books is that Ser is for permanent things/subjects and Estar is for temporary things/subjects but i want you to forget that or ignore it since there can be a lot of different situations where that doesn’t apply so it doesn’t truly apply to the verbs.

Mi amigo es malo en clases

(My friend is bad in classes). You see i use the verb “ser” but that doesn’t mean that the boy will be permanently bad in class, he can improve in the future so the “rule” doesn’t apply, and there are tons of other examples with that similarity.

what you can do is use these acronyms:

SER = DOCTOR (Description, Occupation, Characteristics, Time, Origin, Relationship)

ESTAR = PLACE (Position, Location, Action, Condition, Emotion)

but before i give you some examples of like you to know that these two verbs are irregular which means that they change depending on the person and time that they are used. So check the Dictionary from the Real Academia Española (RAE), verb “ser”; verb “estar”.

there are some exclusive situations where only applies to each verb separately.

Ser Exclusives:

Name: Mi nombre es Oskar (My name is Oskar) - Description

Origin/Nationality: Soy de El Salvador (I’m from El Salvador) - Origin

Profession/Activity: Yo soy estudiante (I am an student) - Occupation

Religion/Lack of belief: Ella es cristiana (She is christian) - Characteristic

Identity: Ella es la hija de mi hermana (She is my sister’s daughter) - Relationship

Time: Son las tres de la tarde (It is three in the afternoon) - Time

Descriptions: Su cabello es de color naranja (Her hair color is orange) - Description/Characteristic

Price: Son cuatro dolares y tres centavos (It is four dollars and three cents)

You can also know when to use “Ser” when the noun follows the verb; also to tell where something is from; or simply tell where an event is taking place

Estar Exclusives:

Location (not events): El celular está en la mesa (The cellphone is on the table) - Location/Position

“Be present/be ready”: ¿Cuándo estará la comida? (When will the food be [ready]?) - Condition

Estar + progressive tense: Mi hermano está cocinando la cena (My brother is cooking the dinner) - Action

Physical/Emotional state: Estoy triste (I am sad) - Emotion

To express agreement or disagreement: Estoy de acuerdo con el profesor (I agree with the teacher) - Condition

Estar is used to tell where something is located right now.

Also there are times where you can use both verbs but it all depends on the meaning, the mostly applies when the verb is follow by an adjective since the can help change the meaning from an essential quality to a condition.

La maestra está aburrida. (Emotion): The teacher is bored.

La maestra es aburrida. (Description): The teacher is boring.

Everything depends on the meaning behind your intentions. I hope this helps with your question, and see that is actually easy at the end. Have a great day!!

*starts song over because I wasn’t enjoying it hard enough*

please!! i have three AP exams NEXT WEEK .....

i wrote half an essay in 20mins today when it’s not even due for another 4 weeks, reblog this to have a productivity lightning bolt strike you like it did me today

I wish everyone would wake up and realize that your idealized self is simply your current self but with drive. The person you want to be is you if you put in the work! Like, life is ultimately up to us and we can change ourselves whenever we want! Make plans to do better for yourself, speak it into fruition, and work for it.

what did you write your college essays about?

all sorts of things!

common app: prompt about background/identity/interest/talent - a book my mom bought me in third grade called why do men have nipples? and how that initiated my lifelong curiosity and questioning of the things in this world and how i use poetry to answer those questions

stanford: extracurricular - feminism club (i used this essay for any college asking about an extracurricular)

stanford: intellectual vitality - my obsession with japanese pens and how it reflects my experimental/sciencey mind that i use in research

stanford: roommate -  i basically kindly asked that my roommate make room for my muse, because she takes up a lot of space, and then i just talked about my muse/writing process

stanford: what matters to you and why - memes and how one particular tumblr meme reflects the importance of languages/communication

brown: why the major you chose - languages/growing up learning languages and psychology/research and its implications

brown: why brown - open curriculum, comp lit department not so eurocentric

brown: where have you lived - suburbia is boring but also grateful for good support system

brown: community - school lit mag

columbia: why columbia - columbia shp and psychology, comp lit department

columbia: why the major you chose - creative writing and psychology

cornell: why cornell - passion for languages, comp lit department, psychology, personality attachment and control lab, cornell traditions

dartmouth: When you meet someone for the first time, what do you want them to know about you, but generally don’t tell them? - this one is kinda hard to explain bc of its format but basically i wrote about creative writing, psychology, and social activism

harvard: your choice - being biracial, feeling excluded from both cultural communities, and the process of learning that i am not half of each, i am both

princeton: the prompt about culture - biracial (same as harv essay)

uchicago: how are apples and oranges supposed to be compared? - i basically just bashed wallace stevens for being pretentious, then wrote a parody of his poem “study of two pears” titled “study of not two pears, but of one apple and one orange,” then analyzed the “meaning” behind my parody poem, and continued to bash wallace stevens during the “analysis” lol

uchicago: why uchicago - i wrote about how when i visited uchicago over the summer with a friend, instead of listening to our tour guide, we spent the majority of the time running away from bees. then i wrote about how despite the bees, uchicago’s numerous redeeming qualities far outweigh the prospect of living in a beehive for the next four years. and i like talked about the comp lit department, traditions like scav, kuvia, and the latke/hamantash debate, and concluded that uchicago is hella weird and nothing like what it seems on the surface. i actually had sooo much fun with this essay hahhaha

uchicago: favorite things - i wrote about how my favorite food is ice cream and how everyone i’ve told this to always claims that ice cream is not a food and so this was a defense of “my beloved ice cream”

penn: why penn - comp lit department, kelly writers house, penn traditions

yale: why yale - ok this essay is really really bad and basically i thought i was being ~bold~ and ~gutsy~ but honestly in hindsight it just came off really rude and i don’t blame yale at all for rejecting me LOL (i took up 70 out of the 100 words talking about how the best part about yale was the singing in its music video “that’s why i chose yale,” and then i said i was kidding, and then i wrote one sentence about a literature class and a psych lab specific to yale lol rip)

yale: your choice - biracial (same as prince and harv)

macaulay honors college: of which activity do you derive the most joy - my obsession with writing and the brain and research

macaulay honors college: overcoming an obstacle - biracial essay (same as prince and yale and harv)

mit: cultural background and identity - biracial essay

mit: hobby - tumblr

mit: which program - writing department

mit: betterment of community - feminism club extracurricular essay

mit: world you come from - suburbia and how it’s boring and how at mit i will experience a new, innovative environment that’s entirely different and whatnot

mit: significant challenge - learning to love myself

i think that about covers all of my essays lol lmk if you want me to post any of them :)

Shout out to those who got through the hardest parts of their life without anyone's help. You're all really strong. But also remember that you don't have to keep doing it. It's okay to ask for help.

Taking textbook notes is a chore. It’s tedious and boring and sometimes challenging, but hopefully these tips will help you improve your skill and shorten the time it takes you to do textbook notes!

Give yourself time: Realistically, you can’t knock out 30 pages of notes in 20 minutes. Take your time with textbook notes so they’re a good studying tool in the future. The general rule is to take how many pages you have to do and multiply it by 5: that’s how many minutes it’ll take you to do the notes.

Also, divide you notes up into manageable chunks to increase your productivity. I am personally a huge fan of using pomodoro timers, and I adjust the intervals for however long I need to.

Skim before you start taking notes: If time is an issue, don’t read your 40 page in depth before even picking up a pen, but make sure you know what you’re reading about by skimming a bit ahead of your notes. Read over section titles, and look at charts, maps, or graphs. Writing and highlighting as you read the chapter for the first time isn’t effective because you don’t know if a sentence will be important or not, so make sure you’re reading a paragraph or section in advance before writing.

Use the format they give you in the book to help take your notes: In a lot of textbooks, there will be a mini outline before the chapter itself that shows all the headings and subheadings. Those will be your guidelines! I find this super helpful because long chapters can be daunting to go into without any structure. If you don’t have one of those, use the headings and subheadings provided for you. If you haven’t already been doing this, it will help you so much.

Read actively: It’s so easy to “read” a textbook without digesting any information, but that is the last thing you want to do. Not only does it make taking notes a million times harder, but you’ll be lost in class discussions because you didn’t understand the reading. To keep from passively reading, highlight, underline, star any important information in the book itself.

Have a color coding system for highlighting or underlining and write down a key somewhere (here’s a few that you can adjust for your needs: x,x)

Use sticky notes or tabs to mark any questions or important points to come back to

Summarize important information and paraphrase: When taking the actual notes, don’t copy down full sentences word for word. Not only does writing full sentences waste a lot of time, it’s not an effective way to learn. If you can paraphrase the information, then you understand it. It’s also easier to study notes which are in your own words instead of textbook academia writing.

Be selective: You shouldn’t be writing down every fact that comes up in your textbook. If a fact ties into the bigger topic and provides evidence, then it’s probably something to keep, but you don’t need every piece of supplemental information (but do make sure you always write down the vocab). Learn your teacher’s testing style to help you decide what to write down. Could this be on the quiz/test? If the answer is yes, make sure you write it down.

Learn to abbreviate: Just like writing full sentences, writing out full words will waste time. Implement some shortenings (make sure to use ones that you’ll understand later!) into your notes. Some common ones are: b/c=because, gov=government, w/o=without, and here’s a great list of a ton of examples of abbreviations and shortenings.

Answer margin and review questions: A lot of textbooks have margin questions on every page or so that sum up what’s really important about that information. Make sure not to skip them because they’re really helpful for understanding. Write them down and answer them clearly in your notes. Most textbooks also have review questions after the chapter that check for reading comprehension, so make sure to answer those because they’ll show you if you really understood the chapter.

Don’t skip over visual sources: Maps, diagrams, illustrations, charts, and any other visuals in textbooks are so helpful. If you’re a visual learner, these things will be so essential to you and how you understand what you’re reading. Charts, tables, and diagrams sometimes also summarize information, so if you’re a visual learner it might benefit you to copy those down instead of writing it out.

Add visuals if it’ll help you: As said above, copying down charts, tables, illustrations, or diagrams can be super helpful for visual learners. They’re clear and concise, so pay attention to them.

Write your notes in a way that’s effective and makes sense to you: Mindmaps, Cornell notes, or plain outline notes are all really good forms of notetaking. Find which one works best for you to understand them and which one is most effective for your class, and use it (stuff on mindmaps and cornell notes).

Combine your class and textbook notes: If you rewrite your class notes, add in information you think is relevant from your textbook notes. Mark anything both your book and teacher said were important–you don’t want to forget any of that. If you don’t rewrite class notes, then put stars next to anything repeated.

there is a difference between people who are smart and people who get good grades

today my anthro professor said something kindof really beautiful:

“you all have a little bit of ‘I want to save the world’ in you, that’s why you’re here, in college. I want you to know that it’s okay if you only save one person, and it’s okay if that person is you”