Twine Demo Ch. 1 Public Release

It's my 5 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

spending the entire day writing one paragraph

something in me jumped a little

finding this in a dying soldiers wallet

h o w t o s u r v i v e c o l l e g e

Sleep

Okay listen - I know what you’re thinking. College students don’t sleep, though! And guess what? That’s absolutely true. I’ve had two cups of coffee today already and it’s only noon, but you need to learn how to sleep enough. Your body has limits and you need to learn what those are. I have had multiple friends who have fainted from not sleeping enough and guess what? They don’t perform better on tests that way. Figure out how many hours of sleep you need to get to function well. For me it’s about 5-7 hours per night during the week and about 7-8 hours per night on weekends (and I don’t have Friday class so Thursday nights count as weekends for me). This is probably the limit for keeping yourself healthy enough to function and I subsist off of coffee. If you don’t sleep you are going to get sick and your papers are going to be incoherent and you are going to gain weight from over eating. So just put down that paper, get your 6 hours and start up again in the morning. For majors that are reading based (i.e. English, History, Philosophy, Classics, etc) it is so important to get enough sleep so that you can actually comprehend your readings!

Plan

Your planner does not have to be beautiful, covered with script handwriting and cute small artist stickers to be worth putting time into (more power to you if yours is though — that’s a whole mood). I used Hobinichi Cousin planner to plan my day—chores, homework, and meals—but I also use iCal and an app called Things. My freshman year I thought that just having a paper planner would be fine but it did NOT work out for me. I was always late/forgetting meetings and running around like a chicken with her head cut off. Once I downloaded Things (for my assignments) and inputted work, social events, and when I’m really busy sleep/meals into iCal, I started getting better grades. Take 2 hours to plan. Seriously even if you have 372 things to get done by tomorrow, if you plan and make a linear list of the things you need to get done they will get done better and faster.

Things is a paid app. $10 for phone, $50 for Mac. It’s a bit of an investment for both but I have used it every single day for the past 2 years.

Socialize

Just me here with your local reminder that socialize does not mean you have to party. Let me tell you something, I haven’t gone to a party this entire year (it’s second semester) and I feel completely content about it. I am not saying that going to parties is bad. A lot of people have a ton of fun doing that, but let me tell you something—your social life cannot subsist off of parties alone. Invite people to brunch, make friends with the people in your classes by literally just talking to them (!!!), go on coffee dates with your friends as much as you can, take midnight ice cream runs, 1 am fried chicken runs, 9 pm boba study breaks, invite people over to make cookies, go to the cinema. Deep conversations and long talks will sometimes distract you from your work and guess what? That’s okay. That’s an important part of college too. Don’t shut yourself up in your room all day studying every day of the week. You are going to burn out. You need your friends and they need you!

Work smarter and harder

I cannot say this enough—utilize your resources! Go to office hours. It will literally save you to have a relationship with your professor. Not only are you going to get letters of recommendation, extensions when you really need them, and helpful tips—you can have amazing conversation and insight about grad school, research, and jobs. Go to the library. Not only are there a million books for your research project all grouped in the same section, but there are librarians who can help you find more resources with less effort. Use your databases, but also your own school’s archives. There is a reason we save so many books and newspapers. Also libraries are the absolute best place to study. This year I have tended to go to the most social floor because it keeps me awake and it reminds me that I have other people around me working late as well. Use apps. I’m saying this right now—DOWNLOAD ZOTERO. It will save you. It is an app and a google chrome extension which saves your sources in a database and then generates perfect citations/footnotes for your papers. It is the best thing of my life. Use google drive and keep your documents in organized folders. Organized virtual work is AS important as physical work. Also put some time into your LinkedIn ASAP—the sooner you do it, the easier it will be to keep it up to date.

Take care of yourself

Just be smart about your time and your mental health. Both of those I struggle with every day, but take solace in the fact that other people are going through it too. College is an amazing opportunity and even when it feels completely overwhelming it is still an extremely privileged position to be in. Do why you can to make yourself better, be there for the people who need you, grind on your papers and projects and research. At the end of the day your projects/papers are only going to be as good as your individual capacity allows them to be. Sometimes sleeping an extra hour is as beneficial as an extra hour of studying. Figure out what you need by making mistakes and forgive yourself! We are all just trying to make our way though.

College Tennis: Origin Story

Will the once-great Cargill Coyotes succeed in reclaiming the NCAA Div I championship title for the first time since the 90s? Will you succeed in making a name for yourself, both on and off the tennis court? And perhaps more importantly…how much are you willing to sacrifice in pursuit of these dreams?

Start at the bottom as a newly-recruited freshman at Cargill university, and claw your way to the championships. Forge lifelong friendships, pursue budding romances, attend classes, and rush term papers -or party- till the sun comes up.

Fifth update (16 Oct) is here!

Demo | Separate Tumblr [New] | Cast of characters (images)

Play as female, male, or non-binary — with options to be straight, gay, or bisexual.

Experience the ups and downs of college life alongside an ensemble of colorful side characters.

Play nail-biting singles and doubles matches (both home and away) throughout the fall and spring seasons - that is, if you make the cut.

Romance the gruff, hot-headed no. 1 seed, an enigmatic, broody international student on your floor, the warm, unflappable team captain, or your nerdy and spirited high-school best friend.

Build (or neglect) your relationships with your teammates, hallmates, coaches, family and friends back home.

Rayyan Afiq | Gender of your team* | 20

No. 1 seed, vice captain of the tennis team

Nationality: Egyptian-American

*Follows your gender/gender of your team

Description: 5′7 (f) or 5′10 (m). Muscular, athletic build. Dark, wavy curls, and thick sweeping eyebrows over piercing dark-olive eyes. Tawny, honey-brown skin.

Surly, intense, proud, and intensely focused. One of the most talented players in the American college system currently, and will stop at nothing to win. Will you ever get past their stony exterior, and get to know more than just the machine that they are on-court? 

Tobin Harris | Gender of your team* | 21

Captain of the tennis team

Nationality: American

*Follows your gender/gender of your team

Description: 5′10 (f) or 6′1 (m). Tall, lean build. Short black hair, warm, brown eyes and a calm, assured demeanour. Dark bronze skin.

Kind, laid-back, selfless, sociable and gentle to a fault. They go out of their way to make everyone feel welcome, and light up every room they’re in. But they also have a bad habit of putting other people’s emotions in front of their own, and stuffing down their own feelings until it’s too late. 

Sam O’Connelly | M or F | 18

Nationality: American

Childhood best friend, plays for the UCLA Bruins

Description: 5′5 (f) or 5′8 (m). Trim build, with a small frame. Slightly curly russet hair. Mischievous light blue eyes.

Adaptable, excitable, scattered, and fun-loving. A competent tennis player, but has too many other interests to concentrate on any one of them. Has a vague fear of commitment, but secretly wants to find something worth holding on to. Will they finally admit their feelings for you, or will they eventually fade with time and distance? 

Guillaume/Geneviève Lavigne | M or F | 20

Nationality: French

Third-year exchange student, hallmate.

Description: 5′6 (f) or 5′10 (m). Toned, supple build. Dark, tousled hair with fair skin. Smoky grey eyes, with a smattering of freckles.

Quiet, with a rich and intensely private inner world. Never lets on what they’re actually thinking or feeling. You know almost nothing about them despite living on the same floor. The sheer number of times you bump into them will start to get ridiculous. Coincidence? Perhaps. Fate? Possibly. On purpose?? Most certainly not?

First Update (15/11/21): 

Prologue - USTA U18 championships match semi-final 

The summer before college 

Move-in day

Second Update (15/12/21): 

Team introductions

First day of training - strength and conditioning test, 5-mile run 

Training snippets, team lunch 

Third update (25/03/22):

Singles challenge match against last season’s No. 5 seed

Hall party before freshman orientation begins

Rooftop scene with G

Fourth update (28/08/22): 

Freshman orientation (icebreakers, amazing race, laser tag) 

Head to the library with Tobin/go on a run with Rayyan/skype with Sam

Sign up for a club at the club and activities fair, pick a major

Fifth update (16/10/22) is here!

Attend your first week of classes, and find out if you’ve done enough preparation not to make a fool of yourself (go through your first surprise test)

More training (get the chance to show off your finesse chops!)

Challenge match with Jacks or Max (This decides if MC will be within the Top 6 in the singles rankings!)

Anyone have the gif’s of the Chilean goalkeeper Christiane Endler lifting two of her teammates with ease.

I need them for um reasons lol

Christmas in Wayhaven.

It’s magical.

…Quite literally.

--

Christmas has come to Wayhaven, and you and Unit Bravo have been thrown into another mystery with a little more sparkle than usual!

Upside-down Christmas trees, toys springing to life, and an army of waddling plastic Santas are just some of the magical festive pranks being cast on townsfolk and places alike.

To find whoever is casting these supernatural antics, you and the team of vampires are sent chasing around town in search of the merry Christmas culprit before magic is revealed to everyone in Wayhaven.

But the festive spirit brings with it a dreamy air that makes all too easy to get distracted by just how romantic Christmas can be with a vampire at your side…

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Enjoy this short, novella-style interactive side-story set within the world of Wayhaven, where you are the main character! It’s a Christmas tale filled with cozy festive fun and plenty of fluffy romantic moments.

(This game can be played as a Stand-Alone story away from the main series of The Wayhaven Chronicles. But it should be noted that it does involve characters and relationships that have developed already during the main games, but extra explanation is provided throughout where needed to help you enjoy it to the fullest!)

Stock Media provided by ikoliks / Pond5

24 Invaluable Skills To Learn For Free Online This Year

Here’s an easy resolution: This stuff is all free as long as you have access to a computer, and the skills you learn will be invaluable in your career, and/or life in general. 

1. Become awesome at Excel.

Chandoo is one of many gracious Excel experts who wants to share their knowledge with the world. Excel excellence is one of those skills that will improve your chances of getting a good job instantly, and it will continue to prove invaluable over the course of your career. What are you waiting for?

2. Learn how to code.

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Perhaps no other skill you can learn for free online has as much potential to lead to a lucrative career. Want to build a site for your startup? Want to build the next big app? Want to get hired at a place like BuzzFeed? You should learn to code. There are a lot of places that offer free or cheap online coding tutorials, but I recommend Code Academy for their breadth and innovative program. If you want to try a more traditional route, Harvard offers its excellent Introduction to Computer Science course online for free.

3. Make a dynamic website.

You could use a pre-existing template or blogging service, or you could learn Ruby on Rails and probably change your life forever. Here’s an extremely helpful long list of free Ruby learning tools that includes everything from Rails for Zombies to Learn Ruby The Hard Way. Go! Ruby! Some basic programming experience, like one of the courses above, might be helpful (but not necessarily required if you’re patient with yourself).

4. Learn to make a mobile game.

If you’re not interested in coding anything other than fun game apps, you could trythis course from the University of Reading. It promises to teach you how to build a game in Java, even if you don’t have programming experience! If you want to make a truly great game, you might want to read/listen up on Game Theory first.

5. Start reading faster.

Spreeder is a free online program that will improve your reading skill and comprehension no matter how old you are. With enough practice, you could learn to double, triple, or even quadruple the speed at which you read passages currently, which is basically like adding years to your life.

6. Learn a language!

With Duolingo, you can learn Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, or English (from any of the above or more). There’s a mobile app and a website, and the extensive courses are completely free.

Full disclosure: BuzzFeed and other websites are in a partnership with DuoLingo, but they did not pay or ask for this placement.

7. Pickle your own vegetables.

Tired of your farmer’s market haul going bad before you use it all? Or do you just love tangy pickled veggies? You too can pickle like a pro thanks to SkillShare and Travis Grillo.

8. Improve your public speaking skills.

You can take the University of Washington’s Intro to Public Speaking for free online. Once you learn a few tricks of the trade, you’ll be able to go into situations like being asked to present at a company meeting or giving a presentation in class without nearly as much fear and loathing.

9. Get a basic handle of statistics.

UC Berkeley put a stats intro class on iTunes. Once you know how to understand the numbers yourself, you’ll never read a biased “news” article the same way again — 100% of authors of this post agree!

10. Understand basic psychology.

Knowing the basics of psych will bring context to your understanding of yourself, the dynamics of your family and friendships, what’s really going on with your coworkers, and the woes and wonders of society in general. Yale University has its Intro to Psychology lectures online for free.

11. Make your own music.

Step one: Learn how to play guitar: Justin Guitar is a fine and free place to start learning chords and the basic skills you’ll need to be able to play guitar — from there, it’s up to you, but once you know the basics, just looking up tabs for your favorite songs and learning them on your own is how many young guitar players get their start (plus it’s an excellent party trick).

Step two: A delightful free voice lesson from Berklee College Of Music.

Step three: Have you always thought you had an inner TSwift? Berklee College of Music offers an Introduction to Songwriting course completely for free online. The course is six weeks long, and by the end of the lesson you’ll have at least one completed song.

Step four: Lifehacker’s basics of music production will help you put it all together once you have the skills down! You’ll be recording your own music, ready to share with your valentine or the entire world, in no time!

12. Learn to negotiate.

Let Stanford’s Stan Christensen explain how to negotiate in business and your personal life, managing relationships for your personal gain and not letting yourself be steamrolled. There are a lot of football metaphors and it’s great.

13. Stop hating math.

If you struggled with math throughout school and now have trouble applying it in real-world situations when it crops up, try Saylor.org’s Real World Math course. It will reteach you basic math skills as they apply IRL. Very helpful!

14. Start drawing!

All kids draw — so why do we become so afraid of it as adults? Everyone should feel comfortable with a sketchbook and pencil, and sketching is a wonderful way to express your creativity. DrawSpace is a great place to start. (I also highly recommend the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain if you can drop a few dollars for a used copy.)

15. Make your own animated GIF.

BuzzFeed’s own Katie Notopoulos has a great, simple guide to making an animated GIF without Photoshop. This is all you need to be the king or queen of Tumblr or your favorite email chains.

16. Appreciate jazz.

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Have you never really “gotten” jazz? If you want to be able to participate in conversations at fancy parties and/or just add some context to your appreciation of all music, try this free online course from UT Austin.

17. Write well.

Macalester College’s lecture series is excellent. If you’re more interested in journalism, try Wikiversity’s course selection.

18. Get better at using Photoshop.

Another invaluable skill that will get you places in your career, learning Photoshop can be as fun as watching the hilarious videos on You Suck At Photoshop or as serious as this extensive Udemy training course (focused on photo retouching).

19. Take decent pictures.

Lifehacker’s basics of photography might be a good place to start. Learn how your camera works, the basic of composition, and editing images in post-production. If you finish that and you’re not sure what to do next, here’s a short course on displaying and sharing your digital photographs.

20. Learn to knit.

Instructables has a great course by a woman who is herself an online-taught knitter. You’ll be making baby hats and cute scarves before this winter’s over!

21. Get started with investing in stocks.

If you are lucky enough to have a regular income, you should start learning about savings and investment now. Investopedia has a ton of online resources, including this free stocks basics course. Invest away!

22. Clean your house in a short amount of time.

Unf$#k Your Habitat has a great emergency cleaning guide for when your mother-in-law springs a surprise visit on you. While you’re over there, the entire blog is good for getting organized and clean in the long term, not just in “emergencies.” You’ll be happier for it.

23. Start practicing yoga.

Most cities have free community classes (try just searching Google or inquiring at your local yoga studio), or if you’re more comfortable trying yoga at home, YogaGlohas a great 15-day trial and Yome is a compendium of 100% free yoga videos. If you’re already familiar with basic yoga positions but you need an easy way to practice at home, I recommend YogaTailor’s free trial as well.

24. Tie your shoelaces more efficiently.

It’s simple and just imagine the minutes of your life you’ll save!

8 Different Types of Love

Eros- sexual passion and desire, generally considered as a loss of control, i.e., Cupid’s arrow with Troy and Helen causing the Trojan war. It’s an intense kind of love that is romantic and passionate, but not necessarily stable. In mature individuals as describe by Socrates it recalls youth, but when misguided it can be abused and indulged in. This love is centered around the body and our more selfish desires, and needs one of the other types of love to survive.

Philia- affectionate love, friendship, Plato felt love didn’t always need physical affection to be felt, hence the word platonic. Philia is what you feel between that friend you’ve had through hardships. It’s about the mind and loyalty rather than physical pleasure like eros.

Storge- familiar love, generally used to describe kinship, a love you feel for family, or those you view as family. It’s bound in our memories, and though storge is generally considering good, it can hold you back if members of you family have views that differ from yours in harmful ways.

Ludus- playful love. It’s what you feel in the honeymoon stage, or when you first start dating someone. The flirting, teasing, fun banter, and giddiness of love. It’s the emotional side of love that is unfortunately often neglected later in life.

Mania- this is when one lover becomes obsessive with the other, either due to insecurity or possessiveness. People who go through mania need love and are desperate to keep it and become jealous and controlling. This leads to unhealthy relationship with codependency issues.

Pragma-this love is enduring. It’s in couples who have been together for decades or friendships that have lasted just as long. Pragma is not the result of a search for love, but rather the effort of maintaining it. Pragma is for partners who have put in effort for each other, found resolutions that are best for each other, have invested in one another.

Philautia - loving yourself, the greeks defined this one under two categories a positive and a negative. It’s fantastic to love yourself to be confident in who you are, to have compassion for your being. This is not the self love described by narcissus which is vanity obsessed and greedy. This is a love for the person you are and who you will become.

Agape- this is love in its purest form, a kind of love that accepts and forgives and hopes for our success. It’s the kind of person you meet who has a never ending supply of empathy and compassion, and your always comfortable around. They are  agape with love.

Nobody:

Particle Physics: “hey what if we made up words that made it read like you were having a stroke at first glance”