Guys, I’m Trying Out A New Method Of Studying That Seems To Be Really Effective So Far. Instead Of

and gone is missing you;

pieces of scarred mind (09:23 03/13/2016)

when you chemistry your best but you don’t chemisucceed

reblog if women with swords

the sweet nothings you spit out play a role in my life where they tear my heart from pieces to pieces

I was your midnight escape when I wanted to be your seven AM sunrise, but I guess you’re just not a morning person.

H.L. // excerpt from a book I’ll never write #24 // they were like day and night  (via 451seconds)

there’s a lot of unspoken pressure to keep liking the things you used to like and to keep dressing the way you’ve always dressed and to never question what you believe in and basically “be yourself” has slowly morphed into “be what everyone knows you as” but trust me when i say if you just give it up and simply make decisions and take actions based purely on what would make you happy, you’ll gain a very comforting sense of self peace   

How to do the thing? Big Test Edition

Pretty much everyone has been in the position of realizing exactly how fucked they are for an exam that’s only a few days (or hours (or minutes)) away, so in honor of Finals Week I figured I’d make a post about how I deal with being in said position. DISCLAIMER: This is what works for me. I’m not guaranteeing that it’ll work for everyone. DISCLAIMER NO. 2: This is mostly relevant to concept-based exams, but a lot of it still holds for other types.

Generally we tend to realize this with at least a day or so left before the exam, and while it’s tempting to try to cram as much studying as possible into that time it’s often extremely counterproductive. I personally cannot absorb information when I feel panicked. I think that’s a fairly universal experience. However, “accepting your fate,” so to speak, isn’t a great idea either. You’re probably capable of learning something in the time between this realization and your exam, so in order to strike a balance:

Take a deep breath, get a glass of water, and shake out your hands and feet. Stretch. 

Go to your books (or other relevant materials idk) and calmly skim through, making a mental note of the areas or topics that need more work than others. Calmly.

If your teachers or professors have made practice exams available to you, get one out. Now, your intention shouldn’t be to get as good a “grade” on it as possible; this “exam” is simply a study tool. It may be slightly nerve-wracking to see problems or questions that you know you don’t understand/can’t answer, but remember that this actually works in your favor. You’re trying to figure out what to study, remember?

Once you’ve figured out your biggest weaknesses, rank them in order of importance. For math and sciences, focus on areas that form bases for other concepts before focusing on specifics.

Work through your list from most to least important using whatever materials are available to you, but don’t stress about going into detail. Don’t. Don’t do it.

Take a breather. You’ve done a lot of work and studying right up until the test won’t do you any good. Get a glass of water and a snack. Stretch. Pet a dog.

Go back and review what you learned. Don’t look at the materials; look at the topics and talk to yourself about them, like you’re giving a lecture. Writing this down can also help.

Take another breather. You’ve learned a lot and you’ll be okay.

Go kick butt

“Yeah but what about when I don’t have time to do any of this shit?” you may be saying right now. That happens a lot. Or, like, it happens to me a lot. Maybe not to you. I don’t know. Either way, you’ve got to do shit differently, and a lot of it has to do with recalibrating how you think about the situation.  The cold hard truth is this: if you don’t have time to do all the stuff up there^^^^ you won’t know everything on the exam. That’s okay. Make peace with it. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try, but don’t stress over not being able to learn literally everything in whatever time you have left. Drink enough water, eat something healthy, and remind yourself that you are absolutely not alone. Also see below:

General tips for exam bullshit:

Don’t joke about failing. Don’t joke about how fucked you are. Even if it’s 100% in jest, it’s not difficult for the sentiment to lodge itself in your brain. You know the phrase “fake it til you make it”? Yeah, that’s real. It works both ways. Don’t do this.

Replace “I don’t know anything” with “I don’t know everything (but that’s okay)”

Replace “I should have studied more” with “I’ll study more next time”

If someone’s talking about how fucked they are, call them out in a funny way. Your friend is saying they’re going to get fucked sideways in the butt by this test? Tell them that they’re fucking brilliant and that they should make sure to bring some lube for when they inevitably fuck the test right back (and for the grader who’ll be mindfucked by how AMAZINGLY BRILLIANT they are). People will laugh, but the message will stick, even if only a little.

DO NOT study right up until the test. DON’T DO IT. DON’T. 

Eat well and drink a lot of water WELL BEFORE the test (so that you’re hydrated but you have time to pee before taking it)

If you’re trying to pull an all-nighter to study, don’t do it the day before. Ideally you shouldn’t be doing it at all, but if you’re going to be stubborn about it just make sure not to do it the night before the test. Also there’s this thing called the point of diminishing returns. Observe it. Obey it.

Group studying is cool, but always do at least some practice problems alone if this test is in a STEM subject. You won’t have your friends’ input on exam day.

Poop beforehand. Seriously, just do it.

Adopt a power pose in the testing room. It has to be subtle, obviously, but it’ll help a lot.

If you find yourself staring at the words on the page and not comprehending anything, make a small mark on the page and turn to a different question. For some reason this helps people get over the initial mental block.

Remember that this test is not everything. Sure, it’s important, but it doesn’t say anything about your worth as a person. It may not even say anything about your academic abilities. Doing poorly on a test doesn’t mean you’re stupid. It means you did poorly on a test. That’s. All.

Alright I’m going to go teach myself the material from the entire second half of the quarter now so I’ll end this here, but feel free to send me any questions or comments you have and I’ll do my best to get back to them asap. Y’all rock. You’ve got this.

i used to be a really smart kid who was “going places” but now i just cry a lot and eat all the food in the fridge

Toad Words

            Frogs fall out of my mouth when I talk. Toads, too.

            It used to be a problem.

            There was an incident when I was young and cross and fed up parental expectations. My sister, who is the Good One, has gold fall from her lips, and since I could not be her, I had to go a different way.

            So I got frogs. It happens.

            “You’ll grow into it,” the fairy godmother said. “Some curses have cloth-of-gold linings.” She considered this, and her finger drifted to her lower lip, the way it did when she was forgetting things. “Mind you, some curses just grind you down and leave you broken. Some blessings do that too, though. Hmm. What was I saying?”

            I spent a lot of time not talking. I got a slate and wrote things down. It was hard at first, but I hated to drop the frogs in the middle of the road. They got hit by cars, or dried out, miles away from their damp little homes.

            Toads were easier. Toads are tough. After awhile, I learned to feel when a word was a toad and not a frog. I could roll the word around on my tongue and get the flavor before I spoke it. Toad words were drier. Desiccated is a toad word. So is crisp and crisis and obligation. So are elegant and matchstick.

            Frog words were a bit more varied. Murky. Purple. Swinging. Jazz.

I practiced in the field behind the house, speaking words over and over, sending small creatures hopping into the evening.  I learned to speak some words as either toads or frogs. It’s all in the delivery.

            Love is a frog word, if spoken earnestly, and a toad word if spoken sarcastically. Frogs are not good at sarcasm.

            Toads are masters of it.

            I learned one day that the amphibians are going extinct all over the world, that some of them are vanishing. You go to ponds that should be full of frogs and find them silent. There are a hundred things responsible—fungus and pesticides and acid rain.

            When I heard this, I cried “What!?” so loudly that an adult African bullfrog fell from my lips and I had to catch it. It weighed as much as a small cat. I took it to the pet store and spun them a lie in writing about my cousin going off to college and leaving the frog behind.

            I brooded about frogs for weeks after that, and then eventually, I decided to do something about it.

            I cannot fix the things that kill them. It would take an army of fairy godmothers, and mine retired long ago. Now she goes on long cruises and spreads her wings out across the deck chairs.

            But I can make more.

            I had to get a field guide at first. It was a long process. Say a word and catch it, check the field marks. Most words turn to bronze frogs if I am not paying attention.

            Poison arrow frogs make my lips go numb. I can only do a few of those a day. I go through a lot of chapstick.  

            It is a holding action I am fighting, nothing more. I go to vernal pools and whisper sonnets that turn into wood frogs. I say the words squeak and squill and spring peepers skitter away into the trees. They begin singing almost the moment they emerge.

            I read long legal documents to a growing audience of Fowler’s toads, who blink their goggling eyes up at me. (I wish I could do salamanders. I would read Clive Barker novels aloud and seed the streams with efts and hellbenders. I would fly to Mexico and read love poems in another language to restore the axolotl. Alas, it’s frogs and toads and nothing more. We make do.)

            The woods behind my house are full of singing. The neighbors either learn to love it or move away.

            My sister—the one who speaks gold and diamonds—funds my travels. She speaks less than I do, but for me and my amphibian friends, she will vomit rubies and sapphires. I am grateful.

            I am practicing reading modernist revolutionary poetry aloud. My accent is atrocious. Still, a day will come when the Panamanian golden frog will tumble from my lips, and I will catch it and hold it, and whatever word I spoke, I’ll say again and again, until I stand at the center of a sea of yellow skins, and make from my curse at last a cloth of gold.

Terri Windling posted recently about the old fairy tale of frogs falling from a girl’s lips, and I started thinking about what I’d do if that happened to me, and…well…