Setting Up My First Bullet Journal! I Want To Test It Out As A Planning Method This Summer. Please Let

I really wish my Chem study was as neat as psych was last week.

I find that putting the things I need to learn on my window makes me open my window giving me a more positive study space and by using sticky notes the colours correspond with certain areas (plus they stick better to the window than brick walls).

20 Top Study Tips

Daily Pastel Planner Printables

Comes in the 5 colours pictured above (peach, pink, lilac, blue, mint). There are two versions. One with times put out, perfect for a schedule and to-do combo. The other one is without time and works well for long to-do lists.

All of them comes with dues, goals, to-do, important tasks, notes and a food section!

Download from Google drive for free (PDF files):

Day with times (12h clock)

Day with times (24h clock)

Day without times

I have weekly pastel printables too which you can find here.

If you use them, tag me in the picture so I can see.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee

“Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen

“The Diary of Anne Frank” by Anne Frank

“1984” by George Orwell

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone" by J.K. Rowling

“The Lord of the Rings” (1-3) by J.R.R. Tolkien

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White

“The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien

“Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott

“Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury

“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte

“Animal Farm” by George Orwell

“Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell

“The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger

“The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak

“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain

“The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins

“The Help” by Kathryn Stockett

“The Lion, the Witch, and the Wadrobe” by C.S. Lewis

“The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck

“The Lord of the Flies” by William Golding

“The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini

“Night” by Elie Wiesel

“Hamlet” by William Shakespeare

“A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L'Engle

“Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck

“A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens

“Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare

“The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams

“The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett

“A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens

“The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” by J.K. Rowling

“The Giver” by Lois Lowry

“The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood

“Where the Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein

“Wuthering Heights” Emily Bronte

“The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green

“Anne of Green Gables” by L.M. Montgomery

“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain

“Macbeth” by William Shakespeare

“The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larrson  

“Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley

“The Holy Bible: King James Version”

“The Color Purple” by Alice Walker

“The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas

“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith

“East of Eden” by John Steinbeck

“Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll

“In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote

“Catch-22” by Joseph Heller

“The Stand” by Stephen King

“Outlander” by Diana Gabaldon

“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” by J.K. Rowling

“Enders Game” by Orson Scott Card

“Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy

“Watership Down” by Richard Adams

“Memoirs of a Geisha” by Arthur Golden

“Rebecca” by Daphne du Maurier

“A Game of Thrones” by George R.R. Martin

“Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens

“The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway

“The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” (#3) by Arthur Conan Doyle

“Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” by J.K. Rowling

“Life of Pi” by Yann Martel

“The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge” by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

“The Chronicles of Narnia” by C.S. Lewis

“The Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett

“Catching Fire” by Suzanne Collins

“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” by Roald Dahl

“Dracula” by Bram Stoker

“The Princess Bride” by William Goldman

“Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen

“The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe

“The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd

“The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel” by Barbara Kingsolver

“One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

“The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger

“The Odyssey” by Homer

“The Good Earth (House of Earth #1)” by Pearl S. Buck

“Mockingjay (Hunger Games #3)” by Suzanne Collins

“And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie

“The Thorn Birds” by Colleen McCullough

“A Prayer for Owen Meany” by John Irving

“The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot

“Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy

“The Things They Carried” by Tim O'Brien

“Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse

“Beloved” by Toni Morrison

“Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut

“Cutting For Stone” by Abraham Verghese

“The Phantom Tollbooth” by Norton Juster

“The Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“The Story of My Life” by Helen Keller

So I just finished my CALC 2 class with the highest marks in the class and I wanted to put together a “guide” on how to study for calculus. It doesn’t matter if you are taking AP Calculus or Calculus in college, this guide should be a general overview but I will mention some specifics to AP Calc. 

General Tips

Buy the AP CALC review books. Regardless of whether you are in college calculus or actually in AP Calculus, the review books are great in condensing materials and having good examples. 

Create your own cheat sheet. Every time you learn a new formula or theorem, write it down in a cheat sheet. This forces you to recall the information constantly.

Know your common derivatives and common integrals like the back of your hand.

Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, Part I & II? Yeah, it’s fundamental. Need to know that. 

Common limits? Yep, that too. 

Know your pre-calc and algebra by heart. The hardest thing about calculus is not the formulas and theorems, but recalling past materials to solve a problem. If you could easily recognize trigonometric identities, you would be well set for the class.

Know what trig graphs look like and what they approach, etc. 

Learn how to do the math without a calculator. Some professors don’t let you use calculators on the tests and when you are become too dependent on the calculator, you tend to forget how to do simple addition/subtraction and multiplication/division. Also, there is a non-calculator portion to the AP Calculus Exam, so don’t make your calculator your crutch.

Practice every day + do your homework. A little practice everyday goes a long way and doing your homework (even if it doesn’t count as a grade) can be a drastic way of improving your grades because chances are, your teacher knows you probably aren’t going to do the homework and will have test questions very similar to the homework questions. 

Show all your work. Write all the steps out. If you make a mistake mentally, your whole answer will be wrong. To decrease the chances of loosing points for careless errors, label everything, even if it tedious.Also, work shown can count towards partial credit on tests. 

Practice the problems from your textbook + problems outside your textbook.

Understand and review old tests. When you get your tests back, redo the whole test on another sheet of paper. Try to understand where you went wrong. Was it a simple math calculation error? Did you do the derivative wrong? Was the theorem wrong? Did you forget a step like checking for conditions to apply L’hopitals Rule or Alternating Series Test for Convergence? Whatever it is, go through the entire test (yes, even the ones you got right) and re-do it. 

Ask for help when you don’t understand something. Solving touch calculus problems are easier when working with a group on a white board because you get a fresh set of eyes and a new mindset/approach to a problem. If you cannot tackle a problem, regardless of how many ways you have tried, it’s best to ask someone who already knows how to do it. 

Resources for AP CALC

Buy review books. Honestly, this is self-explanatory. I usually would go with a Barron review book, but hey, what ever works with you. 

Do the previously released AP Calc exams. If you are a BC student, do the release exams for both AB and BC for more practice. 

Previously released AB Exams

Previously released BC Exams

Step-by-step explanations for free response questions release

AB Study Guide

Cheat Sheets + Other Resources

I advise you to print out the cheat sheets and place it in the front of your calculus binder/notebook or where it can be easily accessed. 

Cheat Sheets

AP Calculus Stuff You Must Know Cold 

This 2-page cheat sheet is honestly god gifted and I advise you to print it out and laminate or something and put it in the front of your calc binder/notes. Will definitely save your life. 

Algebra Cheat Sheet 

Trigonometric Cheat Sheet

Calculus Cheat Sheet

Derivatives and Limits

Integrals

Online Tutorials + Videos

Khan Academy

Differential Calculus

Integral Calculus

Paul’s Online Math Notes

HippoCampus

Online Calculators

Symbolab’s Calculus Calculator

The most beautiful thing to ever exist when you are checking your answers or looking for the steps on how to do a problem.

Don’t rely on it too much. Actually learn how to do it. 

Wolfram Alpha

Implicit Differentiation Calculator

Desmos Online Graphing Calculator

Bet you don’t know how to graph an x-function on that TI-84 without solving it out for y. But it’s cool, neither do I. That’s why I rely on Desmos’ Online Graphing Calculator.

tips for treating yoself

body:

Exfoliate once or twice a week.

Let your vagina breathe - don’t wear underwear to bed unless you’re on your period.

Change your pad/tampon/etc at least twice a day.

Don’t wash up inside your vagina (aka douching) it will tip the pH balance in your vagina and you will end up with an infection, you can wash around your thighs/pubic area but that’s it, same applies with perfumes and other body cosmetics.

Use coconut oil its good for so many things!!

Use body butters after getting out of the shower.

Use tea-tree oil for pimples.

Use sunscreen!!!

For people with oily skin - use blotting paper around your eyes and in your T - zone.

Don’t squeeze/pick at pimples - the bacteria on your hands will only make them worse and will create more redness.

Always use moisturiser before applying makeup

When washing your vagina, lift up the clitoral hood and softly rub your finger along the hood to wipe away dead skin cells. If you end up masturbating, fuck it.

Hair:

Wash your hair every 2-3 days. Don’t wash every day because it will make your head dry, try dry shampoos instead.

Use conditioning treatments weekly in the summer to prevent your hair from losing it’s colour.

Brush your curls with your fingers to create a more tousled look.

Before blow drying your hair use volumizing spray or gel on your roots for more definition in your hair.

Use shampoos that are sulfate free as sulfates dry and damage your hair quicker.

If your hair is greasy avoid conditioning the roots, just the ends.

Trim your hair every 6-8 weeks so you have healthy hair and no damaged ends.

Use avacado oil on your hair in the winter to stop your hair from drying out.

Dry shampoo is also very good for volumizing your hair.

The best way to get rid of ingrown hair is to exfoliate.

Avoid dry shaving your pubes, this will cause redness and spots which are easily treated with hydrocortisone cream or aloe vera.

If you are to shave, use conditioner instead of shaving cream - you will get a smoother result - that goes for anywhere you shave.

If you have a big ole mess in your pants try trimming your bush before you shave/wax it.

Waxing HURTS so if you’re dealing with the burns then place a cold towel in the sore area and leave it for about 15 minutes and then apply aloe.

If you experience chest/breast hair the best thing to do is pluck the hairs, it’s painful but rewarding.

Makeup:

Clean your makeup brushes, regularly along with any other makeup appliances (beauty blenders, makeup pads) in a mix of warm water and a little bit of soap.

Use a blotting tissue and then add a small amout of cream concealer onto your eye makeup to prevent smudging.

Matte lipstick goes best with a shimmer eye makeup.

Wearing white eyeliner counteracts the redness in your eyes.

To make your cheekbones appear higher, use bronzer under the cheekbone and highlighter on the actual cheekbone.

In summer if you want to avoid caking yourself with foundation - use tinted moisturiser or BB cream instead.

Always wash your makeup off before going to bed, don’t leave it on.

Always make sure you blend your foundation so your neck isn’t a different colour to your face.

Clean your makeup bag out every once in a while and get rid of any products you don’t use - its cleaner, tidier and more hygienic. 

Always make sure you have tape and q-tips handy. Tape is great for a perfect winged eyeliner and q-tips are great for cleaning and tidying up those hard to reach areas.

Concealer works great for a base for your eye makeup as the makeup will stick to it. 

Using highlighter and illuminators on your cheekbones, browbone and cupid’s bow for a “dewy look”.

When using cream products like eyeshadow or blush - use translucent powder to set it in place.

Kat Von-D lipstick is blow job proof :)

Replace mascara and eyeliners every 3 months or so.

Don’t share makeup/appliances for your eyes, it may cause infections like conjunctivitis and maybe a sty.

Blot your lips after applying lipstick to avoid getting lipstick teeth. 

General:

Change your bra every 5-11 days.

Always make sure your feet are dry before putting on socks and shoes to prevent fungal infections.

Wash blood stained clothes in cold water with 2 tablespoons of salt.

Try your own homemade beauty recipes.

If you peel/lick your lips it will damage them, don’t do that.

Applying eye cream on the cuticles of your nails will make them stronger and healthier.

Always carry tampons/pads even when you’re not on your period, someone else might need them.

Clean out your purse!! Get rid of all that junk and you will thank yourself next time you’re looking for something.

Masturbate. Whenever you can, it’s rewarding and good for you. (yes girls masturbate too).

Always pee after sex/masturbation to help avoid getting a UTI.

Bio-oil is good for stretch marks (as well as loving them).

Save some nice underwear for yourself and just wear your dead old pants when you’re on your period.

Buy yourself some nice underwear/lingerie whenever you can. Make sure it’s 100% cotton though otherwise you can get a yeast infection.

Test yourself every once in a while for STDs. It’s necessary.

Carry a condom on you, it’s not just the guy’s responsibility.

Apply a damp tissue to blotchy, red skin after crying, it will make you look as if you haven’t been crying at all.

Don’t let boys ruin your day.

Use a paperclip to clip the back of your bra straps together to create a racerback bra.

Wrap a maxi pad or pantyliner around any poking underwires in your bra.

Wash your pillow case every 1-2 weeks to help prevent acne. 

Cucumbers are good for dark circles and puffy eyes just place a slice over your eyes and leave for about 15 minutes.

treat and love yourself and your body will reward you!!! 

New post on the blog! I haven’t posted this kind in a while, but they seem to be so popular I think I’ll start doing it again :)

5 Habits of Organized Students | Study-Hack

Read the post for more details and helpful links!

4.4.16+3:50pm // 28/100 days of productivity // made a title + subheaders reference page since i needed some inspiration for my notes. hope you find it useful, too!

not up to buying stabilo or staedtler? restricted access to resources? this post might help!

credit to studyception​ and ray over at fistudy for helping out with this post, because figuring out brands, stores, and prices in america is easier when you have a friend in america to talk to.

** note: i’m an upper class teenager, and i’m not an authority on what is/isn’t cheap. i also haven’t tried all of the things on here.

supplies

walmart has cheap five-star notebooks that are $1-2

at target 1-subject 5-star notebooks are $1.97, 3-subject is $3.87, 5-subject $5/6

also, five-star folders there are ~$2

do not use moleskines, especially if you can’t find them cheap, and i can’t say moleskines are often cheap. they are not worth their price.

a spiral or composition notebook works fine – compositions have sturdier spines, but spirals’ pages are easier to turn or tear out if they’re not perforated, so keep that in mind.

mead composition notebooks at target are $0.50

papermate flair pens can be found at costco, among other places. they’re $12 for a pack of 14 and are quite pretty. also, they’re better quality than stabilo — more ink, bleeds less.

dollar tree. you won’t find anything fancy there, but you don’t need fancy. use dollar tree.

don’t worry about brand names as long as it’s quality. yes, muji is expensive.

don’t buy those sets of 20 colored pens. if you’re into color coding, you need, what, 4-7 colors? three different shades of red isn’t necessary.

or if you don’t want a bunch of colors at all, go with blue and black and maybe a highlighter.

if looking for basic pens with black ink, do not bother with anything fancy just get one of those packs of 10 gel pens that are for like $2 or something (they better have these in the usa)

paperback books are cheaper. just make sure to treat them well.

free sat/ap prep materials here

english class: for finding novels (need that book for english?), tuebl has free epubs, you just need to know how to search it (there’s no viruses, though!). if you can’t read epubs because of the format, then download the epub and convert it to pdf (or another format). if you need a hard copy, book depository can be cheap but isn’t free.

if you need a laptop or tablet cheap, like <$100 cheap, pls try reading this post!!

for color coding, walmart and staples sell sets of four colored pens for $2-3 each

like the kipling 100 case? this is similar and $9 to kipling’s $40

advice

if you have a job or too many activities and get home late, squeeze in studying when you can – breaks between classes, at lunch, whatever you’ve got. if you’ve got a free period, use it. a’s before baes.

also, sometimes overworking yourself is your only option, especially if you’re short on time. do your best to prevent it — remember to eat something, don’t procrastinate, don’t get distracted.

want to use the pomodoro technique for studying, but you don’t have a computer or phone? use any clock you have and mark down the times on a piece of paper

if you want to minimize the amount of supplies: pens. highlighters. paper + cheap notebooks. i don’t recommend much else

workspaces

to be a studyblr, you do not need a pretty workspace (or even have one, use the floor, dinner table, couch, whatever), but if you want one, here’s some cheaper ways of keeping your workspace looking nice!

don’t clutter — put your paper in stacks, and if you have drawers/cabinets, use them

but if you don’t have too many papers put them in folders or binders

if you have boxes small enough to do so but large enough to hold your clutter, put the extra papers + stuff you don’t need often but may need later in the boxes and shove them under the desk.

containers help, esp. for pens, but they cost money. try using cups — the tiny, flimsy disposable ones will tip over for sure, but you can put smaller things like tape or erasers in there. bigger, more stable ones for pens.

want decorations? try making paper flowers [x x x x x] or glitter jars [x x x x x]. put up drawings if you’ve got the space.

buy washi tape if you can use up money on something pointlessly pretty, michael’s has so many varieties, and they’re $1-2 each. target also has some with thicker rolls, but it’s more expensive + less variety. costco has some as well! i’m recommending it for decorating. as far as its function as tape, you can use it as a label, but don’t try to actually hold anything together with it.

don’t like the look of those pen containers? add a strip of washi tape around the brim. put it on boring notebook covers. loop it through some paper clips and use that as bookmarks. you can try this [x] for inspiration, but it’s buzzfeed and i don’t recommend you try to washi tape your car or use it as wallpaper. some other suggestions: [x x x x x x]

(hint: yes, we use filters. photo editing is a thing.)

highlight your notes omg if you want to spend hours rewriting them to look pretty, that’s awesome, but highlighters will work

software

sometimes it’s easier to do things online than wasting paper or notebooks on it! means less stuff to carry around with you, too.

however, not everyone owns a macbook (or even has their own computer), so i tried to post sites that can be accessed across all computers and aren’t mac-only.

here, some websites — wolframalpha and mathway, and you can google some math things!

sparknotes will probably save you at some point

check your writing for things like cliches, passive voice, adverbs, etc, or just for grammar with:

prowritingaid editminion hemingwayapp autocrit spellcheckplus

search engines: ipl, orion’s arm (for science), ecoasia (save trees!), library of congress (about the usa), sweet search

also, if you don’t want to buy a planner/sticky notes/whatever that involves to-do lists, try todoist - available on the web, ios, android, chrome, firefox, windows, and os x / or wunderlist - available on windows, mac, android, iphone, ipad, windows phone, chromebook. i’m fond of both!

create citations with bibme or easybib

need somewhere quiet to study and don’t have much of a workspace? find uncrowded places in your area with avoidhumans

microsoft word costs so much money. use libre office. it’s free and basically the same thing. or try openoffice.

if you need to use public computers (there are probably some at your library or something): get a gmail account and use google chrome. when you’re using it, log into the account. bookmark all the things you need. as long as you log into that account when you get on a computer, those bookmarks will be with you, as well as your browser data/settings.

speaking of syncing across computers, evernote is cool for notetaking & google drive is your friend

other posts

internet resources

if you don’t have much money and you’re getting your first apartment

free online courses

sat help [because expensive prep books/classes, ew]

find cheaper or free textbooks/classics online [2] / but maybe read this post first [warning, all bold]

“i’m so poor because i buy too many books”

cheap online colleges

100 recipes for the starving student / similar: [x x x]

feel free to add onto this post x