I Did Not Know That Either. That Is One HUGE Sea Turtle.

I love your blog and I constantly look to it for advice but I have a bit of an issue Can you give a few tips on forming good study habits? I've never really had to study and I've managed to keep good grades my entire life. I just started uni and I'm starting to struggle with work and keeping up with everything. Struggling academically and studying are both new things to me and I really regret being too arrogant to form good habits earlier

Studying Tips

1. Study schedule. Before you even start studying, sit down and plan out your time. Print out some weekly templates and physically write out your time schedule. Don’t schedule studying time during unproductive hours like early in the morning or late at night. Make sure to spend an equal amount of time on all your subjects (even the ones you “know” already) and to revisit each subject as many times as possible.

2. 90 Minutes. 90 minutes is the absolute maximum that you should study without taking a break. Over 90 minutes, and your ability to retain information is lost. Don’t push yourself! Take a break and come back to it later.

3. Make flashcards. You probably already have some lying around your room, if you don’t they cost like $2 at CVS. These are absolutely necessary for finals with lots of vocabulary (like History or English). See my flashcard procedure below!

4. Neat. You’re going to be starring at this study material for a long time- you might as well make it as clean and easy to read as possible! Rewrite any notes that were scribbled hastily. Make your study notes look like Mona Lisa!

5. Colorful. Highlight only what is absolutely necessary and study that, so that you won’t waste time studying what’s not important. Also, color code everything! Your Calculus notes are blue, so that it doesn’t get mixed up with English 102, which is green.

6. Post-its. Want another way to memorize vocab? Write words and definitions on post-it notes and stick them around your apartment/house/dorm. I like to put them in my bathroom so I have to stare at them while on the toilet, on the fridge at eye level, and by light switches.

7. Separate subjects. Don’t try to cram all of your subjects into one study session, especially unrelated subjects like Art History and Accounting. Take one study session to work through Art and one for Accounting, and so on.

8. Review before going to bed. Studies have shown that studying directly before bedtime does help us memorize things better. While studying before sleeping may not be a completely conducive process for you, try to incorporate some reviewing before you close your eyes. Go over vocabulary in your head, recite formulas, etc.

9. Study over time. Don’t try to study for all of your finals in one shot! Spread your studying over as much time as possible. Go back and review subjects that you already feel confident about.

10. Avoid the anxious atmosphere. I’ve always hated that anxious atmosphere that develops around people who are about take finals. You know- one of your classmates will be crying, another rocking back and forth while listening to music, yet another pacing up and down anxiously trying to memorize last minute equations. You don’t need to be distracted by all this anxiousness- you’ve already prepared as much as you possibly can! Unless you have somebody who is calm and willing to work through flashcards with you, avoid your classmates like the plague!

Flash Cards Procedure

This is my personal favorite way to study with flash cards!

1. Learn the first flashcard, recite the answer out loud and place the flashcard down in a pile.

2. Learn the second flash card, reciting its answer out loud.

3. Before finishing with the second flash card, turn back to the first flash card and recite the first flash card’s answer out loud.

4. Put both cards down in their own pile.Move on to the third flashcard, reciting its answer out loud.

5. Then recite the answers for both the first and second flashcard, before adding the third card to the pile.

6. Continue on this way, reviewing the answers to the previous cards before moving on to the next card.

This may seem super redundant, but it really works and got me through my History of Music 2 final which included 100 short answer vocabulary questions!

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3,200-Year-Old Stone Inscription Tells of Trojan Prince, Sea People

A 3,200-year-old stone slab with an inscription that tells of a Trojan prince and may refer to the mysterious Sea People has been deciphered, archaeologists announced today (Oct. 7).

The stone inscription, which was 95 feet (29 meters) long, describes the rise of a powerful kingdom called Mira, which launched a military campaign led by a prince named Muksus from Troy.

The inscription is written in an ancient language called Luwian that just a few scholars, no more than 20 by some estimates, can read today. Those scholars include Fred Woudhuizen, an independent scholar, who has now deciphered a copy of the inscription.Woudhuizen and Eberhard Zangger, a geoarchaeologist who is president of the Luwian Studies foundation, will publish findings on the inscription in the December issue of the journal Proceedings of the Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society.If the inscription is authentic, it shines light on a period when a confederation of people that modern-day scholars sometimes call the Sea People destroyed cities and civilizations across the Middle East, scholars say. The kingdom of Mira, which engaged in this military campaign, was apparently part of this Sea People confederation given their participation in the attacks.A Trojan war?The inscription tells of how King Kupantakuruntas ruled a kingdom called Mira that was located in what is now western Turkey. Mira controlled Troy (also in Turkey), according to the inscription, which additionally described Trojan prince Muksus leading a naval expedition that succeeded in conquering Ashkelon, located in modern-day Israel, and constructing a fortress there. [Biblical Battles: 12 Ancient Wars Lifted from the Bible]The inscription details King Kupantakuruntas' storied path to the throne of Mira: His father, King Mashuittas, took control of Troy after a Trojan king named Walmus was overthrown. Soon after that, King Mashuittas reinstated Walmus on the Trojan throne in exchange for his loyalty to Mira, the inscription says.Kupantakuruntas became king of Mira after his dad died. He then took control of Troy, although he wasn't the actual king of Troy. In the inscription, Kupantakuruntas describes himself as a guardian of Troy, imploring future rulers of Troy to "guard Wilusa [an ancient name for Troy] (like) the great king (of) Mira (did)." (translation by Woudhuizen)A copy of a copyThe inscription itself no longer exists, having been destroyed in the 19th century, but records of the inscription, including a copy of it, were found in the estate of James Mellaart, a famous archaeologist who died in 2012. Mellaart discovered several ancient sites in his life, the most famous of which is Çatalhöyük, a massive, 9,500-year-old settlement in Turkey that some scholars think is the oldest city in the world. [The 25 Most Mysterious Archaeological Finds on Earth]Mellaart left instructions saying that if the inscription could not be fully deciphered and published before he died, other scholars should do so as soon as possible. Some scholars (not Zangger and Woudhuizen's team) have raised concerns that the inscription could be a modern-day forgery created by Mellaart or someone else.Mellaart briefly mentioned the existence of the inscription in at least one publication, a book review published in 1992 in the Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society journal. But he never fully described the inscription in a scientific publication.According to Mellaart's notes, the inscription was copied in 1878 by an archaeologist named Georges Perrot near a village called Beyköy in in Turkey. Shortly after Perrot recorded the inscription, villagers used the stone as building material for a mosque, according to Mellaart's notes. In the aftermath of the inscription being used as building material for the mosque, Turkish authorities searched the village and found three inscribed bronze tablets that are now missing. The bronze tablets were never published and it is not certain exactly what they say.A scholar named Bahadır Alkım (who died in 1981) rediscovered Perrot's drawing of the inscription and made a copy, which Mellaart, in turn, also copied and which the Swiss-Dutch team has now deciphered.Last member of a teamMellaart was part of a team of scholars who, starting in 1956, worked to decipher and publish Perrot's copy of the inscription, along with the now-missing bronze tablets and several other Luwian inscriptions, his notes say.Mellaart's notes state that the team he was part of was unable to publish its work before most of the team members died. The notes add that the team Mellaart worked on included the scholars Albrecht Goetze (died 1971), Bahadır Alkım (died 1981), Handam Alkım (died 1985), Edmund Irwin Gordon (died 1984), Richard David Barnett (died 1986) and Hamit Zübeyir Koşay (died 1984). Mellaart, who was one of the younger members of the team, died at the age of 86, having outlived the rest of his team.The Swiss-Dutch team found that in his later years, Mellaart spent a considerable amount of time trying to understand the copies of the different Luwian inscriptions in his possession. However, Mellaart couldn't read Luwian; he was brought onto the team for his knowledge of the archaeological landscape of western Turkey, while other members could read the ancient language. [Cracking Codes: 5 Ancient Languages Yet to Be Deciphered]Did the inscription exist?Live Science talked to several scholars not affiliated with the research. Some of them expressed concern that the inscription is a modern-day forgery. They said that until records of the inscription are found that are not left behind by Mellaart, they can't be sure the inscription existed.Zangger and Woudhuizen said that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for Mellaart or someone else to create such a forgery. The inscription is very lengthy, and Mellaart couldn't read, much less write Luwian, they said in their paper. They also noted that nobody had deciphered Luwian until the 1950s, which means that Perrot wouldn't have been able to forge it either. Zangger and Woudhuizen added that few scholars today are able to read Luwian, much less write a lengthy inscription. They said they also don't understand why Mellaart would have wanted to create a lengthy and complex forgery, but leave it largely unpublished. [24 Amazing Archaeological Discoveries]Mellaart was accused in his life of inadvertently aiding smugglers and exaggerating or even "imagining evidence" (as Ian Hodder, the current director of excavations at Çatalhöyük put it) to prove his archaeological ideas; however, he was never found to have created a forgery, Zangger and Woudhuizen noted.Even so, Zangger told Live Science that until records of the inscription are found apart from Mellaart's estate, he can't be totally certain it's authentic and not a forgery.Zangger is also publishing details of the newly deciphered inscription in a German-language book called "Die Luwier und der Trojanische Krieg – Eine Forschungsgeschichte," (Orell Füssli, 2017), which is being released today.

Keep on Fighting: An Interview With Malala Yousafzai

“We have to be brave, we have to be strong, and we have to believe in ourselves.”

By Tavi Gevinson. Collage by Allyssa Yohana.

Ummm, I wanted cherry.

Pelicans, like many sea birds, are aerial divers. They spot their prey from high above, bank, and dive into the water to catch the fish. Although they hit the water at high speeds, pelican diving techniques differ somewhat from plunge divers like gannets or boobies. Pelicans are only aiming for a shallow dive, so they have features – like their expandable neck pouch – that help them decelerate quickly instead of taking a full-body plunge. The goal is to increase drag after the head enters, slowing everything down. That can add more stress to the bird’s neck – the rest of the body is still moving quickly even after the head begins to slow. To counter this compression, the birds must have strong neck muscles to stabilize their spines during the impact process. (Video and image credit: Deep Look)

Update

9/10/2017

Salut! I have officially been in France for almost two and a half months and things are going great!

I have made many friends and am currently lookin forward to les vacances de Toussaint because French university is hard. I have so much homework all the time and hearing non-stop French is exhausting but I’m getting better (I think).

I booked my ticket to go home for Christmas the other day. I wasn’t going to go home but my mom misses me a lot and she paid for it so I thought “why not?” I am actually more excited to go back than I thought I would be but I also see myself living here in the future.

Let’s hope this trip doesn’t drop my gpa hardcore otherwise this boy won’t be getting into grad school for French linguistics or be graduating with Magna Cum Laude.

Anyway, that’s about it so… bonne journée!