16/09/18 - 5/100 Days Of Productivity

BOOKS! The Cambridge MML library is amazing

13-14/11/18 - 65-66/100 days of productivity

14th - well today has been long. I had an applicant visit day to the uni of Birmingham, which was so much fun - until it came to getting home. I was supposed to be on a quarter past four train to be home for half seven. It is now ten to seven and I am waiting another 30 minutes for the final leg of my journey home to start after standing for 2 hours on a packed and very late train. I should arrive at my finial station at nine.

It’s not the staff’s fault necessarily, but we were turned away by a staff member when our train was actually boarding, so we missed it.

HOWEVER I did get to make good progress with Selam Berlin! And I got to play with sodium alginate and calcium chloride, and experience a lecture on why transition metal compounds are coloured.

I did my German catch-up work on the train to Birmingham, too. Now to make some important emails!

Happy New Year!

Hi guys! I’m so happy I’m bringing you all along into 2019 with me!

This post is mainly to sum up what I feel I have achieved in 2018, because I think it’s so important to take a minute and appreciate how far you’ve come towards meeting your goals. I’m also going to chat about 2019, just because. But before I do, I want to wish you all the best for this year. Work hard but look after yourself - you owe it to yourself to be healthy :)

So this time last year I was officially diagnosed with depression and generalised anxiety disorder. I did not leave the house at weekends or in the holidays. I avoided all contact with people. I was miserable and apathetic 24/7 and I just wanted to sleep or cry. I was too anxious to even go into a shop alone, let alone even think about applying to universities or plan trips abroad without an older member of the family. In fact, had I not been terrified of leaving the house alone, I would not be here to see 2019.

However, a very very good teacher of mine was my shoulder to cry on, and she encouraged me to finally get a GP’s help after years of struggling alone in denial. 2018 was my year of recovery.

I still have depressive episodes. I am still anxious. But on the whole, I am human again and I am okay. Fragile still, but able to see the good in situations and not panic when I can’t. The chains that restrained my ankles are free, so I can put my best foot forward at long last.

As part of my recovery, I put myself out there. I visited universities from Birmingham to London, and I stayed with a host family for a week in Nantes. I was fortunate enough to be given a place on the Sutton Trust Summer School at Cambridge, where I met so many amazing people. I got closer to people I’ve known for years, too, because I know the time I have to see them every day is limited and fast running out. Although difficult at first because I do not respond well to change and time pressure, I know that this is the life I want.

This year is going to be my most tumultuous and scary yet. In 2 weeks, I fly to Berlin with my best friend, just me and her for my birthday. I am responsible for the budget (oh Lord) and looking after us. On said birthday, I will find out whether Cambridge accepted or rejected me. In the summer, I will sit my A Levels and find out if I achieved my goal - and I will leave the school I love so dearly forever. In the autumn, I will be settling into a new city as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed fresher at whichever uni I choose, ready to embark on my chemistry degree. And I will have to leave behind so many people, which kills me inside.

But I know that the people who are supposed to stay in my life absolutely will. And alongside all the nerves and the sadness, I am optimistic that I will meet so many amazing humans at uni and beyond. I have been waiting for the chance to spread my wings and become a strong, independent woman for myself, and this year is when I’ll get to do it.

There is only one thing I do know for certain: my life at the end of this year will look incredibly different to how it is now.

Bring it on!

Rant of the day: science communication within academia is far more pretentious than it is effective. Within the first sentence of a 42 page article, I have counted *14* prepositions. What’s more, not a single comma (or any other punctuation, actually) is present to break up 7 lines of text. That sentence is more like a paragraph in itself.

I don’t care about esoteric buzzwords thrown in to show what big bollocks your brain cells have, I care about the content. But if I have to wade through dense thickets of unpunctuated text, I will stop caring pretty quickly. I don’t have time to decipher the product of your falsely inflated ego!

TL;DR if you want people to read and understand your shit, make it readable and understandable!

~fin~

How to be a white or non-black ally at a rally

via  @laurielovelugo 

[SuperheroesInColor faceb / instag / twitter / tumblr / pinterest / support ]

17/09/18 I have to write a surprise essay on Wednesday so I’m revising quotes for themes in L’étranger

🎵Clair de lune - Debussy🎵

06/09/2018 When you want to be productive but your 5-year-old laptop decides to take half an hour to respond and you’re stuck working on a coffee table.😑

Sorry, I’m moaning. I did get to finish the first chapter of A2 maths so I’m on par with the rest of my year ready for the 10th!

Notes aren’t the prettiest but they’re functional and ok to look at. Also thanks for the love my little account has been getting as of late!

Me voilà hahaha

has this been done yet?

8/2/19 Chemistry :D

I hate surprise tests but I know I need to start revising now so that’s what I’ve been doing all evening. Now I’m done I can finally sit down with the book I’ve been wanting to read all day!

I love that feeling of being so absorbed in a book you don’t want to ever put it down. I’ve finally found pleasure in reading again - something I lost when I found out aphantasia wasn’t something anyone else I knew had. I just read because I love words and can feel their nuances rather than see them in action in my head :)

Have a lovely evening!

It also makes me feel like a badass teacher and I’m ngl that puts a sense of novelty into it

Whiteboards ftw!

Very Fast Study Tip™

If you are a university student, especially a STEM major, ESPECIALLY AN ORGANIC CHEMISTRY STUDENT, you need a whiteboard.

You can revise all the notes in your respective hemisphere but without active repetition it means nothing. Write your mechanism/structure/wedding vows. Erase part of it. Write it again. Erase more of it. Repeat. 

Get a big one so that you can sit on the floor/bed/table without straining your back from looking down. I have no attention span but I can white-board for hours.