Some Phone Backgrounds ! Nice

guys bad grades are not a sign of weakness and should never make you feel bad enough to slide into depression. 

bad grades are just reminders for us to learn that content to the point of easily retrieving that information. it is a sign of us not knowing that information well enough to spit it up from our memory.

bad grades should serve as a reminder that there is this bottom that i’ve hit and should use that as the bottom of the pool to push off of and reach the top. break the surface and breathe. don’t let the bad grades drown you.

when we fall to the bottom and succumb, we are not letting ourselves live. we are letting ourselves fall.

that being said, you define a bad grade. a 70 could be bad for person a but be spectacular for person b. so don’t base your definition of a bad grade on other peoples’ expectations/standards/goals . you make your own goal and live for it.

Art prints by KOMBOH. Collect them all!

how I keep myself sane during summer break.

I think we can all agree that the mere idea of having holiday breaks from boring lectures and all-nighter study sessions sounds like heaven; although this romanticized idea of having so much free time often turns into wasted summer days, oversleeping, and basically an anti-social teenage version of house arrest. so, to help you out (or, more to help Myself) here are some things I do to keep myself busy, on a budget (kind of), and mentally healthy during long breaks from school.

continue your morning routine. this is important; by this I mean to basically treat your summer mornings as you would your school mornings, without the rush and alarm. brush your teeth, brush your hair, start/continue a skincare routine, get out of your pajamas and into real clothes, make your bed, make some coffee, eat some breakfast, do it with some music on, whatever you want. this keeps your mind and body into a daily routine. don’t let all your precious no-class mornings of summer go to waste!

savor sleeping in, but not too much. I know its super tempting to go to bed at like 2 AM and wake up the next “morning” at 12PM, but trust me, you’ll regret fucking up your sleep schedule once you actually have to set an alarm and get your ass to class next fall. I’m not saying you should force yourself to set a summer alarm (although, if you really want to train yourself this isn’t a bad idea tbh) but for the love of god, at least go to sleep and wake up at reasonable times. don’t waste your entire day!!

force yourself to see your friends a couple times a week, even if you really don’t want to. obviously this excludes mental health days, but I’ve found that spending time with my friends actually distracts me from any anxiety I’ve felt during the past week. I love my alone time, but human interaction is super important both mentally and physically. as college students we’re all pretty much broke, so don’t underestimate the power of free things- watching netflix at someone’s house, having a boardgame night, going to parks, you name it. as long as you’re with your friends, you’ll have a great time!

clean out your music library + make a playlist or two. y’all know I love a good playlist. this is something totally 100% FREE, and a perfect way to make use of your free time. delete all the stuff you don’t listen to anymore and make a few playlists of your favorite songs, or even go with playlist themes to organize your songs. it’s fun and your future self will probably thank you later for getting rid of so much audible junk.

get back into reading. this is something that was on my personal summer to-do list. I haven’t read a book for myself (aka not for a class) in sooo long, and let me tell you- I don’t know why I ever stopped reading. I know for a fact that once the semester starts I’ll have zero free time to read for myself, so summer is the perfect time to get into a new book or two!

eat your three meals a day +hydrate. I mean this. its very easy to skip/forget meals when you really don’t have any set schedule whatsoever, so plan your meals into your day. even make an alarm if its necessary. also: if you don’t know if you’re drinking enough water, you probably aren’t.

deep clean your room/workspace/closet. I’m super guilty for putting this off but, long breaks like summer are the perfect times to deep clean! what makes it easier for me to clean my room is to go section by section, which means not doing it all in a day (because that gets hella overwhelming and stressful, let me tell you). grab a garbage bag, put on some tunes, and pick a section to clean that day; you’ll be done with the entire space in no time!

outfit plan. for someone like me who has way too much in my closet and somehow still “never has anything to wear”, this is essential! set some outfits out on the floor/bed and take pics of them on your phone so that you can look back on them for some style inspo the next time you have “absolutely NOTHING to wear”.

find a new hobby, even if you’re bad at it. make some collages of your friends, make a scrapbook, learn photoshop, paint a little, learn how to sew, garden, cook, practice your phone photography skills… if there was a time for you to try out new things, it’s NOW.

make a post about all the shit you should do. I’m doing it right now. literally. you’re reading it right now. its not a bad idea.

if you know you have shit to do, plan it into your day! this is where the planner/agenda/bullet journal aspect comes in. having no class and no homework is not an excuse to stop planning out your day, your week, or your month. make some task lists and pencil in your dentist appointments and dates with people and whatnot; and even journal your days while you’re at it! if you’re a planner, never stop. Future You will thank you for it, I promise.

If you look at the world and say “Yes, there are enough homes for people, yes, there is enough food for people, but if we give it away for free they won’t have earned it and the economy will collapse.” Then you have chosen money (a constructed medium of exchange) over living beings who only want to continue living in peace and safety.

And I have no qualms telling you, that is the wrong choice, and you have been brainwashed by this destructive, exploitative system.

you know, life doesn’t have to be competitive. you don’t have to get in the very best university; you don’t have to get the highest paying career there is. you don’t need to compare and compete with everyone else in the world. you need to do what’s right for you. you need to relax, take a breath, and say ‘what do i want, for myself, to live as i want to’. and, if that involves high ambitions, then that’s fine. because you chose those ambitions on what you desire as an individual, and not on what is expected in order to succeed. let’s be ourselves this year.

🥀 Self-discipline 🥀

We all have that time in the year where we have more assignments and deadlines than usual and it can often be overwhelming (certainly this year it has been for me). But instilling a strong self-discipline with solid goals can make this period so much easier. This is something I definitely needed to do this year and from the other side of this stressful time these are the tips I would say help the most:

PRIORITISE: Seriously, if you have a 3000-word essay that goes towards your final grade due in two weeks but you also have to read Great Expectations for that same week save the reading until after you’ve finished. If you don’t get the reading done you can always find synopsis, reviews and essays around the text that you can look at in the meantime. It doesn’t mean the reading won’t get done but the assignment is more important for sure.

Just do the work: If you’ve been waiting for a spark of motivation for days and deadlines are moving ever closer sometimes you just need to sit down and get on with it. Do what takes up the most time first and then the actual doing of the work becomes easier as you go along.

To-do lists: Depending on the way you work you may need to make a to-do list for everyday or for the week it’s up to you but at the very least making a list of what you need to do will help. This way you then you have everything written down that you need to get done and there’s no better feeling than crossing each job off once it’s done!

Take yourself away from distractions: Even though that last episode of the series of your favourite show may be tempting instead of seeing it as something you’re being dragged away from, see it as a reward for when you’ve done the work you need to finish. Leave your phone in another room or if that’s too much (which it sometimes is for me) create a study playlist to run for a set amount of time and work until the playlist ends… then you can get back to that TV show.

I hope these help some of you guys!

at some point you have to realize that you actually have to read to understand the nuance of anything. we as a society are obsessed with summarization, likely as a result of the speed demanded by capital. from headlines to social media (twitter being especially egregious with the character limit), people take in fragments of knowledge and run with them, twisting their meaning into a kaleidoscope that dilutes the message into nothing. yes, brevity is good, but sometimes the message, even when communicated with utmost brevity, requires a 300 page book. sorry.

This is the rare money moomin . Reblog and money will come your way !

students as months of the year

january: fresh journals, black and white notes, bullet journals filled with motivational quotes, cold brew coffee, loves writing letters, finishes everything on time, a daydreamer, seems laid back but really they’re stressed about everything

february: doodles in the margins of notes, the person who lends you their pens, sloppy handwriting, loves motivational speeches and classical music, finishes easy assignments early but writes their essay the night before its due,

march: straight A’s, study playlists, the teachers favorite, color coded notes, everyone thinks they’re naturally smart (but really they’re spending every night studying), forgets to eat sometimes, hasn’t slept for what feels like years

april: open windows, listening to the rain and thunder, tea pots full of earl grey, a functionally messy desk, fairy lights, always losing their pens, a huge nerd, afraid to raise their hand in class in case their answer is wrong

may: cramming for tests, lives in the library, highlighters and sticky notes everywhere, drinks espresso, would definitely consider bringing their coffee pot to school, messy desk, if an assignment is due at 9:00 they’ll submit it at 8:59

june: late nights, smoothies for breakfast, hanging out with friends, takes notes on their laptop, minimalist, organized, says they’re studying but they’re actually on studyblr, tries to study everything at once and gets distracted

july: staying up late to read, learning new languages, focuses on the learning and not the grade, watches documentaries for fun, loves the classics, owns a thousand pens, takes studyspo pictures, hundreds of unread emails,

august: stationery shopping, getting ahead in class, iced drinks, spending weekends with friends, takes very little notes but does well in class anyways, a relaxed personality, healthy snacks, the master of self care

september: a morning person, new pens and folders, a perfectionist, audio records classes and re-writes notes, over works themselves, loves the smell of new books, competitive, “i’m gonna fail!” but ends up getting A’s and B’s

october: chai lattes in travel mugs, will study for three days straight and then not study for a week, snacking in class, uses washi tape and stickers, sleeps for eight hours but is tired anyways, terrible at accepting compliments

november: gratitude journals, mental health days, the baristas at their local cafe know their name because they’re always studying there, study groups, loves to travel but never travels, cinnamon in their drinks, trouble sleeping, sweet smiles

december: hot chocolate, wrapped in a fluffy blanket, says they don’t care about grades but panics when they get less than a B, to-do lists, tutors their friends, watches movies in their free time, vanilla candles