Day 70/100 Days Of Productivity ☕️🌙

To any fellow UK studyblrs,

Let's be real, the years been crap, but to any of you guys in Year 11 or Year 13 or in just in Uni in general (with some if the strikes this year and your loans and housing this isnt the best time for you guys) my heart goes out to you all and I hope you manage to complete any work you need to do to get your qualifications, but you also manage to stay mentally healthy during all of this. The last year may have felt like a waste of time but it wasn't, but as cheesy as it is, you probably made some great memories that can never be taken away and will never be considered a waste.

I hope any end of year celebrations you may have planned can still go through

Top tips to survive studying while quarantined:

Clean up your space: With all that is currently going on, it is very easy to get overwhelmed and anxious. Keeping that in mind, seeing a cluttered workspace (or livingspace) will only add to that overwhelming feeling. When it feels like all things are out of control it is crucial to focus on things that you CAN control. By keeping your workspace clean you are more likely to feel more productive and motivated to get down to business.

Take more breaks: Like we talked about above, with stress and anxiety running at an all time high lately, it is important to remember to be kind to ourselves. No matter the length of our to-do list, if we are unable to bring ourselves to be in a more relaxed and calm state, there is no way that any studying can get done. With that in mind, it’s important to allow yourself to take more breaks than you normally would. This gives your mind a chance to relax and regroup before trying to start absorbing information again. This is also extremely important if you are in the same boat as I am meaning you’re back at home living with four other people and the noise levels make it impossible to remain focused for long periods of time. 

Try to set up a study spot: This DOES NOT mean study in bed. I repeat: do NOT try and study in bed!!! In all seriousness, this pandemic has uprooted all of our lives and routines as we know it. This is why it is crucial to find and designate a specific space in your house or room where you commit to study each and every day. Like I said before, it is important to focus on the small things that we CAN control in our lives in order to feel a sense of normalcy.  

Reward yourself: treat. yo’. self. It’s important! Even if you don’t get through all the things you were hoping you would, reward yourself for reaching those small milestones. Life right now is stressful enough as it is therefore we need to be kinder to ourselves and be more supportive of our small wins!

Set realistic goals and be flexible: Working and studying from home has brought along many many challenges. The biggest challenge for me personally has been all the distractions I face at home. I live with four other people at the moment and therefore there is never a dull (or quiet) moment. While I used to go to Starbucks to sit for a couple hours and study or get work done, that option is no longer available. When I really needed silence (AKA exam weekends) I would go to my university’s library where it would be absolutely silent and I could sit for hours in a calm clean space with little to no distractions. For now, things are much different than we all would hope. That is why it is important to set realistic goals on what you want to achieve for the day. It is okay to feel like you can only cover one lecture today when normally you might be able to go over three (under different circumstances). It also helps to be more flexible with when you study. If you find that it’s more quiet at your home at night or very early in the morning while everyone is asleep then make those adjustments. Think of this flexibility as a huge advantage to being at home!

Know that it is OK not to feel as productive as you usually are and be KIND to yourself 💕

Feel free to reblog and add some tips of your own! Follow my page, PharmaStudyblr for more and check out my Etsy where I list the helpful printables that I’ve made to help me stay organized while in both undergrad and pharmacy school!

My Favourite Youtube Channels for Studying Languages 🌷

 - innerFrench -

innerFrench is a channel ran by Hugo Cotton, a French teacher situated in Poland. Hugo is a native French speaker and speaks only in this language on his channel - you will never hear a word of English! Even when he explains the meanings of more obscure French words, he still uses French to both convey the word’s meaning, and enable his viewers to continue practicing their comprehension skills. The French Hugo uses is slow, clear and easy to understand for intermediate speakers. Begginners will also find this channel useful as a way to immerse themselves in the language. Hugo focuses on explaining different aspects of French culture in his videos, with a foreign target audience in mind. Since he is both a French teacher, and has had to learn Polish, it’s fair to say that Hugo understands the struggles of learning a foreign language and so is able to help his viewers improve their French skills in a suitable way. This is by far my favourite channel for learning French and I truly believe it has helped me a lot over the years!

- The Purple Palace -

The Purple Palace is a channel ran by Shayna Klee, an artist from the US who moved to Paris for art school. She makes videos in both English and French, often combining the two. When she speaks in French, she always includes English subtitles so that beginners don’t feel lost. Most of Shayna’s videos are vlogs in which she talks about art (which is incredible btw), fashion, French lifestyle / culture and her own personal life. She is quite open about her personal life which definitely makes her viewers feel more close to her as a person. What makes Shayna’s channel so unique is her artwork. I have never seen anything like it before! Seeing her creations makes learning French so much more enjoyable. If you love art or French culture you must explore this channel!

- Easy German -

This is my favourite channel to use for learning German. The hosts of Easy German just seem so sweet and every video puts me in such a positive mood. The Easy Languages network make videos on a range of languages (German, Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, Polish, Greek, English, Russian, Turkish and many more) and the main premise of their videos is to “learn from the streets”. Most of their videos consist of street interviews with native speakers on various topics. This, of course, is a great way of learning because you get to hear conversational phrases, different accents and see different parts of the world. What makes Easy German so special is definetely the hosts. The channel has several hosts but the two main ones seem to be Cari and Janusz who just seem so lovely. Idk why but it seems like everyone they interview is always so friendly and sweet. It definetly breaks the stereotype that Germans are cold and distant. Easy German also make videos about grammar, vocab and any other things about German which they feel are important to point out. Another thing about this channel is that they don’t just focus on Germany - they also have videos situated in Austria and videos that talk about Swiss German and Austrian German.

- Spanish After Hours -

This channel reminds me of innerFrench as the host (Laura) speaks only in Spanish. Like Hugo from innerFrench, Laura uses a clear, slow register that makes it very easy for intermediate speakers to comprehend. Laura is a native Spanish speaker from Spain and so, if you are looking to speak Castilian Spanish, her accent is perfect to take inspiration from. Her videos are usually shorter than those at innerFrench which might help viewers who find it hard to concentrate for long periods of time. Laura’s videos are very diverse. In some she reads Spanish children’s stories, in others she does ASMR and sometimes she focuses on vocabulary. Nevertheless, her videos are always enjoyable and have definetly helped me with my Spanish listening skills recently.

- Parpalhon Blau -

This channel focuses on the Occitan language which is definetly a language which has very few learning resources. Occitan is a minority language, referring to several dialects spoken in Southern France, Monaco, Northern Spain and Western Italy. It is a romance language which has very close ties to Catalan. On Parpalhon Blau (which means blue butterfly), Gabrièu teaches his viewers how to pronounce Occitan words and helps them to improve their listening skills, catering for both beginners and intermediate learners. Before finding this channel, I had never even heard of Occitan but after hearing how beautiful it sounds, I just had to subscribe. Often with smaller languages like Occitan, the learning resources are very limited and the ones that do exist aren’t really the best quality. Parpalhon Blau however, is a great channel and the perfect introduction to the language.

- Langfocus -

On Langfocus, Paul makes videos surrounding an incredible range of languages. He has videos on almost every language I can think of! the chances are, if you are studying a language, Paul will have made a video about it. I genuinely cannot understand how one person can know so much about so many languages. Most of his videos focus on individual languages or dialects, however, he also has some very interesting ones in where he compares two languages together, highlighting the differences and similarities between them, whilst also explaining the reasons behind this. In each video, Paul aims to give a good overview of the language, discussing it’s origins, pronounciation, alphabet and grammar. Sometimes these videos can be a bit overwhelming if you don’t know anything at all about the language so I mostly use his videos to learn more about languages I am already studying or as an introduction to a language I want to study in the future. 

- JuLingo -

This channel is quite similar to Langfocus in the way that Julie mostly focuses on a different language per video, offering a general overview of it. Julie tends to focus on smaller languages, like Ainu and Basque that people may not know a lot about rather than more popular languages like Spanish and French. Julie’s channel is a great way of exploring new languages that you may have never thought to learn before. Like Paul from Langfocus, she doesn’t just talk about grammar and sentence structure, she also includes information on the language’s origins, which I personally find fascinating. 

- Ecolinguist -

On Ecolinguist, Norbert challenges native speakers of different languages to try and understand a language foreign to them. Through these experiments, he reveals how similar and how different languages are to one another. Usually, he chooses speakers of the same language family as the language which they are listening to and, being a viewer, you are invited to test yourself too. As a native English speaker, I particularly enjoyed discovering how much Old English I could decipher but also since I speak intermediate French and Spanish, I was able to test myself against Latin, Italian, Romanian and Lombard too. Since Norbert is Polish, he also makes videos focused on learning Polish, mostly regarding speaking and listening. Another series Norbet has is his guess the language challenge, in which a guest is presented with audios of language from anywhere in the world and has to guess it. Although I am very bad at these theyre always fun to watch. Its incredible how skilled his guests are!

Aw thank you 😅 that means a lot 💕🥰

9/100 days of productivity ✨

Achievements:

Did some chemistry revision

Tidied my room a little

Ate healthily today

Did some maths past papers

Edited my drama moments for the final time

Read some more of my book Cinder

Not a whole lot done today but not terrible 🥰✨

Cafe studying 💕

🎧 we fell in love in October 🎧

Cultural Dark Academia

After my last post about the lack of representation in academia, I felt it neccessary to provide some examples of what I’m talking about. Obviously there are more countries in the world than I can list and provide books for, so for a quick list this is what I got. !! Keep researching !! If you have any more books by POC please reply them !! If a country isn’t listed, that doesn’t mean it’s not important, this is just what I could get together real quick. If I made any mistakes, please let me know, we’re all learning. We need to help each other end eurocentrism in academia, so value representation and educate yourselves 💓💓💓

Chinese:

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Dream of the Red Chamber

The Water Margin

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

The Journey to the West

The Scholars

The Peony Pavilion

Border Town by Congwen Shen

Half of Man is Woman by Zhang Xianliang

To Live by Yu Hua

Ten Years of Madness by agent Jicai

The Field of Life and Death & Tales of Hulan River by Xiao Hong

Japanese:

A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oë

Pakistani:

Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid

Ghulam Bagh by Mirza Athar Baig

Masterpieces of Urdu Nazm by K. C. Kanda

Irani/Persian:

Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji

Savushun by Simin Daneshvar

Anything by Rumi

The Book of Kings by Ferdowsi

The Rubiyat by Omar Khayyam

Shahnameh (translation by Dick Davis)

Afghan:

Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Indian:

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Aithihyamala, Garland of Legends by Kottarathil Sankunni

The Gameworld Trilogy by Samir Basu

Filipino:

Twice Blessed by Ninotchka Rosca

The Last Time I Saw Mother by Arlene J. Chai

Brazilian:

Night at the Tavern by Álvares de Azevedo

The Seven by André Vianco

Don Casmurro by Machado de Assis

Colombian:

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Delirio by Laura Restrepo

¡Que viva la música! by Andrés Caicedo

The Sound of Things Falling by Jim Gabriel Vásquez

Mexican:

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolf Anaya

Adonis Garcia/El Vampiro de la Colonia Roma by Luis Zapata

El Complot Mongol by Rafael Bernal

Egyptian:

The Cairo Trilogy by Nahuib Mahfouz

The Book of the Dead

Nigerian:

Rosewater by Tade Thompson

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Malian:

The Epic of Sundiata

Senegalese:

Poetry of Senghor

Native American:

The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King

Starlight by Richard Wagamese

Almanac of the Dead by L. Silko

Fools Crow by James Welch

Australian Aborigine:

Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe

First Footprints by Scott Cane

My Place by Sally Morgan

American//Modern:

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

Internment by Samir’s Ahmed

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurtson

Rivers of London Series by Ben Aaronovitch

To do list for this evening, 💕

Ahhh I failed on the 2020 quarantine challenge so here’s to hoping I’ll do better at this!

Hi everyone! I’ve so enjoyed doing my 2020 quarantine challenge and getting to know so many of you (and discovering your amazing blogs) that i’ve decided to create this new SUMMER STUDYING CHALLENGE! i did consider continuing my other challenge but my school year has now ended and the way i study in the summer and my priorities is very different compared to during school time - which i’m sure is the same for may of you! I’ve created this challenge to try and keep myself motivated during the summer (because i am ridiculously busy XD) but i also want to use this time to get to know many more of you and stay motivated together  💕 

(also i know that many people struggle for ideas of what to post during the summer so hopefully these will give you some ideas. 

✨ Info ✨

This challenge will run from Monday 13th July 2020 to Sunday 6th September 2020, which is two months.  However, please feel free to join in and start any time if you come across this challenge after the 13th July because i want this challenge to be accessible for everyone! 

I have daily prompts for each of this entire time. You don’t have to post every day (you could, for example, cover all the prompts in one post at the end of the week) and you also don’t have to post for the entirety of the challenge (for example if your summer break ends before the 6th September). But i will be posting every day for the whole time and want to interact with as many of you as possible!!!

I want to see what you are posting so please use the tag #summer studying challenge and I’ll track this tag and reblog as much as possible!

On this note, I will reblog basically everything even if you don’t think it is ‘aesthetic’ cause I love seeing how everyone does their notes and stuff so please get involved 💕

✨ Prompts ✨

13th July -  What are your plans for this summer?

14th July - Have your plans changed at all because of the pandemic?

15th July - Do you have a specific goal for this summer?

16th July - Do you have a lot of work to do for school or university or your job this summer?

17th July - What is the most important task that you need to complete this summer?

18th July - What do you usually do during the summer?

19th July - What did you do during the summer when you were a young child?

20th July - Do you usually go on vacation during the summer?

21st July - What is the best vacation you have ever been on? (note: does not have to have been during summer)

22nd July -  What is your dream vacation?

23rd July - What is the worst vacation you have ever been on?

24th July - What is your favourite vacation memory?

25th July - What was is your favourite event or day in the summer?   Are you a ‘summer person’ or do you prefer it when it is colder?

26th July - What is your typical daily routine in the summer?

27th July -  Do you stay indoors or outdoors more in the summer?

28th July - How do you stay motivated to study during the summer? 

29th July - Have you done or are you planning to do any activities (such as work experience, summer schools or watching lectures) other than normal work during the summer? 

30th July - Beach or Swimming pool?

31st July - What do you like most about the beach?

1st August - What is your least favourite thing about the beach?

2nd August - What is your song of the summer this year?

3rd August - What is your ultimate summertime song?

4th August - What is your favourite summertime movie?

5th August - Do you read a lot in the summer?

6th August - What book are you currently reading?

7th August - What is your favourite summer ‘beach read’ book? 

8th August - What TV show are you currently watching?

9th August - What was the last movie you watched?

10th August - What is your favourite summertime snack?

11th August - What is your favourite meal to have on the beach?

12th August - What is an unpopular opinion that you have about summer?

13th August - What is your favourite ice cream flavour?

14th August - What is your favourite summer clothing?

15th August - What’s your favourite summer drink?

16th August - Daytime or night time – what’s your favourite time during summer?

17th August - What is your favourite seasonal fruit to eat during the summer?

18th August - Would you prefer your summer to be shorter or longer?

19th August - How does summer feel in your region?

20th August -  If you could make up a new ice cream flavour, what ingredients would you use? What would you call it?

21st August - If there was a tropical island made just for you, what would you find on it?

22nd August -  Imagine that you could fill a swimming pool with anything except water and swim in it. What would your pool be filled with?

23rd August - Do you miss school/university/work during the summer?

24th August - Do you like wearing sunglasses?

25th August - Do you wear sunscreen?

26th August - Have you ever been really badly sunburnt? 

27th August - Do your sleeping habits change during summer?

28th August - Do your eating habits change during summer?

29th August - What is the thing that annoys you the most during summer?

30th August - What colour do you associate with summer?

31st August - When you hear the word ‘summer’, what is the first thing that you think of?

1st September  - Have you managed to complete you main task and goal for the summer?

2nd September - Are you looking forward to returning to school/university?

3rd September - How have you prepared to return to school/university?

4th September - When you remember this summer, what three adjectives will you think of that define your summer?

5th September - What did you learn over the summer? (note: this doesn’t have to be academic-related)

6th September - What was your favourite memory from this summer?

✨ So this is the challenge! I hope that you will join it and enjoy doing it during the summer! please message me or send me asks if you have any questions about it or just want to have a chat <3 ✨

[i am tagging mutuals and others who took part in the 2020 quarantine challenge beneath the cut]

Keep reading

Day 56/100 days of productivity ✨🌿

Today was pretty good, I’m still super tired which sucks but I managed to re do my answers to the EPQ questions so they were more in depth and attended and took notes on the EPQ lecture which was super useful ✨🌿☺️

It's a change your whole desk kinda day