Muslim Academia

some things i’ve learned while studying in quarantine

drink more water instead of more coffee.

weekly goals are bullshit. set yourself 3-day goals. you’ll be less laid-back.

don’t just mindlessly stare at words. before you start studying, know your approach to it. have a plan.

summarizing the concept in your own words is the key part of taking notes. don’t just copy things down, convert them into your own way of talking, your own vocabulary, no matter how dumb and unprofessional it sounds.

don’t let the “studyblr aesthetic” fool you. studying doesn’t have to be pretty. summaries and notes can be messy as long as they’re comprehensible. you can always rewrite and reorganize them later. (honestly, you better do. and you better keep them.)

don’t throw away the papers you’ve solved your problems in. staple them to the fucking textbook. you need to see them constantly. cause you’ll need reminders of how far you’ve came, when you’re feeling discouraged.

don’t be an armchair analyst for your issues. if you have an idea then act on it.

remember: the exact point where it becomes difficult, is where your growth begins. take a deep breath, and try to focus on the paragraph in front of you.

get off your high horse and understand that if you’re a zero, you won’t go to 100 in a couple of days. first, you’ll need to reach 30, then from 30 to 60, and then from 60 to 90. nobody is 100 everyday. that happens very rarely.

you need to have fun everyday. you need to have peaceful time every single day. even on exam night. especially on exam night, actually. so make sure you’ve studied enough so you can have some time to yourself.

once you’re on a roll and in need of some challenge to stay on track, start writing down your studying hours. tell yourself you’re not allowed to do less than 80% of what you did yesterday. whatever the hell it was, even just one hour. so if yesterday you really studied for like, say 8 hours, today your goal is to study for at least 6 and a half hours. if you can’t keep up with that, make it 70%, or 60%. 

be forgiving of yourself. be kind to yourself. even if you bounced back and lost your streak. start again. as slowly as you did before. take your time. it’s okay, you were there once you can get there again.

Reading The Kite Runner, and came across this:

“I remember something Baba said about Pashtuns once. We may be hardheaded, and i know we’re far too proud, but, in the hour of need, believe me there’s no one you’d rather have at your side than a Pushtun” 

So accurate it hurts

Books are the foundations of the soul. The building blocks of our very own character.

Dark Academia: STEM Edition

(because everyone talks about the literature lovers but not the science lovers)

Staring through a microscope far longer than you should just because you love being able to see what few others have seen

The idea of pushing the boundaries of human knowledge, of making an impact

Studying ocean currents and still feeling amazed when you see them churning the sea’s surface

Messy writing

Going through online libraries and only reading the abstracts of research papers

Thousand page anatomy textbooks

Latin words you don’t quite know the meaning of

That feeling when memorizating facts finally turns into understanding concepts

Knowledge of biological functions even though you’re not quite sure when you learned it

i can’t believe there are people who live in such historically rich places like italy or scotland or greece or paris with old architecture and ruins and museums… the audacity. 

The Prophet ﷺ is reported to have said, ‘Verily you shall conquer Constantinople. What a wonderful leader will her leader be, and what a wonderful army will that army be!’ [Musnad Ahmad, Al Hakim, al Jami’ al Saghir] https://www.instagram.com/p/CCi6_fjlq6i/?igshid=1j6ub958hpgzg

Perhaps you'll appreciate the gift better when you've had to ride the stormy waves to recieve it. So be patient and carry on.

south asian dark academia

Sabrina (1954) dir. Billy Wilder

There was such noise around you, what I wanted to say got lost somewhere in the middle

-Amjad Islam