You Don't Want To Look Back And Wish You Had Worked A Little Harder.

hand practice

Hey, I'm back! Taking practice tests for the B2 exam <3

don't give up on studying; you're capable of achieving your goals with persistence and effort. remember, challenges are a part of the learning process, and every step you take brings you closer to success. keep going.

When you're a kid/teenager everyone expects you to base your career around your passions and interests and that works for a lot of people but it's not the full story. I wish they would also teach students to consider the lifestyle that career would require.

Like... if I had to choose a passion and work a career around it, I would probably work at a zoo or aquarium. But those jobs require a lot of schooling with STEM classes (which I hate) and a lot of early mornings (which make me feel ill) and an obligation to work in person with no flexibility to move (which makes me depressed). So even if I'd enjoy caring for animals all day, it's not a good career path for me.

My current job is travel writing, which is not my passion. I like it, but it's not my passion. But I work a flexible schedule, I can live anywhere, I get a travel stipend, and my team is really chill. So it works for me.

Rather than solely focusing on "What topics do you like?" I think we should ask students "Of the careers that suit your preferred lifestyle, which are the most interesting?"

push yourself because no one else is going to do it for you.

I brought the spinning chair in the living room and stayed there for half an hour or so, now Dragonite is helping me with chemistry.

Studying is so much fun

my opinion on generative ai writing continues to be incredibly simple: if you don't want to put in the effort to write it, I don't want to put in the effort to read it. you the author have decided it is not worth your own time so it is absolutely not worth mine. yippee !

my #1 tip for school is to keep it simple and sustainable

don't get crazy with your bullet journal with the expectation you'll have that energy every week/month. sometimes its just gonna be a barebones checklist and that's okay! it is first and foremost to keep you organized, dont stress over consistency or aesthetic cohesion. same with your class notes; if you focus too much on the quality of your handwriting you'll forget what you were writing in the first place (ask me how i know)

dont go nuts color coding stuff bc eventually, inevitably, one of your highlighters will die, they wont carry folders in your Designated Color, etc. dont let that collapse your system

dont chunk up your time doing 15 minutes kf math 15 minutes of english 15 minutes of chemistry. you'll go crazy trying to be more efficient (ask me how i know!!! 😭) and retain less

basically dont spend so much time thinking about how you're gonna study that you don't focus on what you're studying. thats what made me have to drop out of my latin class in college; i was so sure that if i could just devise the perfect system the classwork would just flow and i'd be golden. well i never found the perfect system (bc it doesnt exist) and i went weeks without doing any work bc i was so petrified to start in suboptimal conditions. you know "do it scared"? do it sloppily. do it messily. do it on the back of a napkin. do it with so little fanfare that the anxiety doesn't have time to take hold before you're done.

reminder that donating just a few $ to gofundme campaigns actually helps, you don't have to donate huge amounts if you don't have the funds, every little bit is useful. give $10, $5, even $1. it all adds up. don't scroll past because you think you can't help. help in your own capacity. donate a dollar. share and speak up.

If only I had the ability to write down everything. What an interesting journal that would be.