✨Crystal Cleansing 101✨

Tasseography

•Tea leaf reading•

You might be wondering where this unusual form of divination came from, so here’s a short history on tasseography. Shortly after tea was introduced to Europe, tea leaf reading, as it’s now recognized, was born. Similar divination tools had been used with an assortment of other materials. The art of tea leaf reading spread through Europe, and is now practiced throughout the world.

Doing a tea leaf reading involves you indulging in a delicious cup of tea and putting your sharp intuitive skills to work. After you enjoy your warm cup of loose leaf tea, you’ll leave the loose tea leaves at the bottom, where some of these leaves will form symbols, each having their own meaning. That’s where your keen intuitive abilities come in! Anyone can see a triangle at the bottom of a teacup, but your job is to intuit what it means for you or the person you’re reading for.

WHAT YOU NEED FOR A TEA LEAF READING

Tea cup with a wide brim that’s light enough to easily see your tea leaves.

Saucer

Loose leaf green or black tea, preferably organic.

Napkins

Pen and paper

Water

HOW TO PERFORM A TEA LEAF READING

1. BREW YOUR TEA

Gather all of your materials. Boil your water. Place about a teaspoon of loose tea in your cup. Pour your water in and steep tea to your preference.

For the next 3 steps, if you’re doing a reading for someone else, have them do the following steps.

2. SIP & SWIRL

Before you take your first sip, gently swirl tea counter clockwise three times. Sip and enjoy your tea, but don’t drink it all! When there’s about 1 tablespoon of tea left in your cup, swirl it again 3 times counter clockwise and think about or speak your query aloud.

3. CREATE YOUR TEA READING CANVAS

Turn your cup upside down onto your saucer to remove the remaining water, allow it a minute or so to drain, then turn it back up right.

4. LOOK FOR SYMBOLS

Look over your loose leaf tea pieces and see if any symbols or shapes jump out to you immediately. Don’t fret if you don’t see anything immediately, similar to scrying with a crystal ball, it can take some time for imagery to form for you. Try looking at the inside of the cup from different directions to see shapes. Keep in mind the images formed are formed from tea leaves, so you will really need to use your imagination.

5. RECORD & DECIPHER YOUR FINDINGS

If you do start to see some shapes, begin writing them down on your piece of paper so you can decipher them later, note where in the cup they are too. Now you’re ready to decipher your findings! Here’s a guide for the most common symbols found during tea leaf readings:

6. UNDERSTAND THE TIMELINE

Where your tea leaves are situated in your cup relate to when they will happen. This is why some of the tea leaf reading cups you find have circles inside of them. Timing is broken into thirds as follows:

Bottom third: farthest away from happening, think 3-5 years out.

Top third: will be happening in the near future, think within the next few weeks.

Middle third: will happen in about a year from now.

7. FORM YOUR READING

Like most divination tools, a honed intuition is key for success, so be sure to lean on any gut instincts as you form the story for your reading. Once you understand the meaning behind the symbols it’s time to put all of the information into a story that makes sense for you or the person you’re doing a reading for.

🌙

rb this with ur opinion on this shade of pink:

me: trying to do schoolwork

my brain: oofjan stevens

Corpse Bride (2005)

How to prepare for a new semester/year:

So as you all know I’ve been back to uni for about two weeks now and I was NOT feeling it (to say the very least). So here is what I did to get out of that crappy omg I can’t believe school’s back mood:

Clean your room: Back to school shopping is a huge deal for me but personally I like to start by cleaning my room, that includes closet, desk .. etc. Not only does this give you kind of a fresh start but also you end up figuring out exactly what you have and don’t have so you buy way less stuff (and save more money)

And while you’re at it stop hoarding: I’ve had books just sitting there for nearly four years that I haven’t touched (hello histology), same goes for clothes. Get rid of the things you know you don’t use. If you haven’t used them in a year chances are you won’t magically change your mind and start using them. You can sell them or give them away.

Don’t throw away half used notebooks: This annoys me soooo much. Cut out the pages you’ve written in and RECYCLE them. Less is more people. You don’t have to use them for school, I use those for writing down workouts or tracking what I eat, making shopping lists, goals or whatever I feel like writing (so people won’t see you with the same notebook from last year, they probably won’t notice anyway but if that’s your excuse here you go) ALSO: For clothes that you like but are too long, too big or whatever get them tailored! Don’t throw those away too.

Now that we’ve decluttered, make a list of what you need: Tailor this to your schedule as much as possible. If you have long days at uni with a significant amount of walking maybe invest in comfy shoes, if you feel like a certain notebook would work really well for a certain class get it, if you know you’ll be carrying a lot of stuff around and don’t have a proper backpack get one. Write down everything you need before you go to the store.

Figure out what you’ll do regarding your meals: Do you have enough good quality tupperware? Do you have all the groceries? Watch a few videos on meal prepping and have a set list of quick and healthy meals that suit you and your schedule and your diet.

Optimize your study space: I’m not saying make it all white and aesthetically pleasing (unless that’s your thing), just make sure it’s a good environment for you to be productive. Figure out if you need to make any changes to it before school starts.

If you can rearrange the furniture in your room: You’d be surprised at how much this affects your mood, you don’t have to buy new stuff to feel renovated for back to school.

Take a look at all of your classes and try to work out a daily (& study) routine: SUPER IMPORTANT, before school starts try to plan out what your weeks will look like, what you’ll do for certain gaps (for example do you have enough time to go study off campus or get a workout in), which resources you’ll use for every class, how are you going to commute, what kind of notes you’ll take for every class ..etc. Distribute your workload evenly throughout the week (so days when you go home early, allocate more study time and vice versa)

Lurk at studyblrs and studygrams: or even start one, this community is super motivating (pretty sure you already know that)

One last pampering session: This is very very optional and not for everyone but I personally get a hair treatment done before uni so that I don’t spend as much time doing my hair in the morning. Same goes for body hair removal, face masks …etc. It just makes me feel like a new woman 💁🏼‍♀️

by HCY Bunny

How to study smarter:

So my (very cool) teacher was talking about this in class the other day, made me want to make a post about it.

The image above is adapted from the National Training Lab in Bethel, Maine. It basically shows how much information the average student retains when using certain methods.

Attending a lecture is only 5% and reading the material is only 10%.

Which could be a potential answer imo to why many people spend hours reading stuff and not retain most of it or not do well on tests.

Anything audiovisual increases the percentage of information you’ll likely retain up to 20%, having it demonstrated in front of you gives you 30%. Discussion (which can be done very easily) can make you retain up to 50%, practicing with your own hands means you’ll retain 75% and finally when you teach others you’ll retain a massive 90%.

So how can you implement this into your study routine to retain the most information?

Audiovisual: I think this is very easy, YouTube channels like Khan Academy cover almost everything, so go online, find some videos relevant to whatever you’re studying and watch them.

Demonstration: This is pretty much your teacher’s job, an example here would be anything related to social or hand skills, in my case interviewing and examining patients. At my school before we interview any patient or examine them my teacher does it first and we carefully observe. So whenever someone is demonstrating something pay full attention. And then if possible practice it (possibly with your friends as a role play) because that’ll increase the percentage of information you retained to 75%

Discussion: This is very basic and can be done simply by just reading the material before, preparing questions and engaging in brief discussions with your teacher throughout the lecture. Or if pre reading isn’t your thing just join a study group and discuss everything you’re learning over there.

I’ve already talked about practice briefly with demonstration, it’s pretty self explanatory (especially for OSCEs, for all you medstudents)

Teaching others: You can volunteer to tutor anyone or just take the lead in your study group. All of my teachers swear by this method. Some even suggest explaining to yourself if you can’t find anyone else but I have never tried it. (or force your family/boyfriend or SO to listen, that’s what I do)

Get creative and make the most of your study sessions, if anyone tries any of these please let me know!!

✨🌱 ℝ𝕠𝕤𝕖𝕞𝕒𝕣𝕪 🌱✨

- Salvia Rosmarinus -

✨🌱 Rosemary is a herb widely used in cooking and the craft. Not only does it taste amazing with roasted veg and potatoes it also has a lot of magical uses. 🌱

✨🌱Used mostly in cleansing and purification magic, rosemary is also good for mental clarity. It’s also great for calming headaches. 🌱

✨🌱 Some of it’s other properties include;

Promoting youth

Longevity

Protection

House blessings

Removing negative energy

Promoting health

✨(Always do your research on herbs before using them in any way!)✨

Until2022′s Guide to Catching Up When You’re Drastically Behind in Study:

I. Assess the damage

The first step in the plan is to confront how bad the situation is and then make some calls about what you can realistically achieve in the time you have left. 

List everything you have to do, down to exact detail - don’t write ‘catch up on readings for Virology’, but instead note down every chapter. This will make it a lot easier to gauge how much time and energy you need for each assignment or exam, and will help to motivate you as you work through. 

Use an Eisenhower matrix to sort these tasks:

Important and Urgent: Any and all compulsory assignments, exams, tests, etc. 

Important but Not Urgent: Lectures for upcoming exams, compulsory readings or labs, etc.

Urgent but Not Important: Additional homework or tasks that are due soon but aren’t worth much, like logbooks or small quizzes

Not Important and Not Urgent: Additional readings, nice lecture notes, and other ‘good-to-haves’

Now cross out everything that you can afford not to do. That’s going to be everything in your ‘Not Important and Not Urgent’ zone, and probably all of the things in your ‘Urgent but Not Important’ zone. I know that it’s annoying not to get everything done, or to sacrifice the 5% that you could have gotten, but unless you can do it in 10 minutes and it’s really worth it you simply don’t have the time to spare here. 

Having said that, if a class has lots of small assignments due, don’t overlook them because they’re not worth much on their own - make sure you take a look at the overall percentage left to go in that subject. If you can dedicate a whole day to just that subject and smash through all those assignments in one, you’re crossing a lot of work off your list. For example, I have weekly quizzes and 2% labs in my Pathology course - if I’m behind, I’ll dedicate a whole day and do all of those assessments. That’s 20% out of the way and a big leap towards catching up. 

II. Tackle the low-hanging fruit

Seeing the product of countless days of procrastination is probably pretty daunting right now. I could offer you platitudes here but it’s a lot easier for you to actually take some action and feel better about it yourself, so:

Do everything that will take you less than 10 minutes to complete. Reply to those emails, the messages in the assignment group chat, upload your peer assessment, do all the little things you need to do for someone else. That should cross out a big chunk of things from your list, and you’ll be left with the important stuff like finishing assignments and studying for exams. 

If you’re panicking (seeing the huge list of stuff which you have to finish in an impossibly short time will often do this!) then try an easy square breathing exercise. Breathe in for a count of 4, hold for a count of 4, exhale for a count of 4, hold for a count of 4, repeat. Splashing cold water on your face is helpful too, as is having a glass of water. Do not use this time to procrastinate! It might sound like a good idea to relax by watching Youtube or Netflix, scrolling through Instagram or playing a video game, but you’re going to be sucked back into the procrastination game that got you here in the first place. 

III. Create your plan of attack 

You’ve left it too late to be regularly revising, so our plan of attack is basically going to be: cram every subject consecutively. This is the best way to get everything done when you’re pressed for time like this - don’t switch tasks or subjects. Interleaving subjects is great when you’re on schedule, but right now you don’t want to spend quarter of an hour getting into the groove of a certain subject and then switching before an hour has passed. 

University is just one assignment after another, no breathing space in between, especially towards the end of the semester. All you need to do is work out what’s due first and what’s worth most, order everything according to those criteria and then focus on the first assessment until you’re done. Once the assignment is handed in or you’ve sat the exam, then you can move onto the next task.

If you have two different assignments due for different classes on the same day, plan ahead so you can dedicate a full day to each subject instead of working on both at the same time. 

Plan out every single day - make sure you’re scheduling in time to eat, shower, sleep, and take breaks as well as to study. Be specific when planning your time out each day as to what tasks you’re hoping to achieve - don’t allocate too much time to any single lecture, but at the same time, be realistic about how much you can cover in one hour. 

Choose wisely based on what you do or don’t know. There isn’t much point in spending this precious time revising the things you already know you’re good at, so suck it up and schedule in the hard stuff first up, but be prepared to move on if you can’t get it down. You’re far better off going into the exam knowing 10 things badly, than 1 thing really well, so focus on the basics and if you have time to learn the more complex details then go back and do that later. 

You also need to be flexible and prepared to adjust - sometimes an assignment will take longer than expected or a day just won’t be as productive as you thought it might be. Don’t panic, just re-plan and shift things around so you keep moving in the right direction. 

IV. Grind it out 

Now that you have a clear idea of what you need to achieve and when, it’s time to get it done.  

For once, you shouldn’t need to worry about simple procrastination. You’re  probably already panicking, so turn that anxiety into motivation which will fuel you and let you focus for long time periods. Fear can be a great driver - when the threat of the exam is looming over you, it’s amazing how well you can knuckle down, assuming you don’t want to fail. 

Pack a bag with everything you need - your laptop or tablet, your charger, headphones, a water bottle and a travel mug, snacks and meals for the day, and anything else you like to have with you when you’re studying. Then take yourself to the library, the local coffee shop, the office - wherever you like to study, but don’t sit at home. There’s too many opportunities for distraction and you cannot afford that right now. Being in an environment where other people are working will motivate you to do the same. 

If you’re working on an assignment, the best way to get things done quickly is to let go of any preconceptions of doing a great job, or having a perfect draft, and instead just focusing on having a draft. Bash out the worst draft you’ve ever written, fill it with run-on sentences and spelling mistakes. But make sure you finish a draft. Then all you have to do is edit it, and it’s a lot quicker to do it this way than it is getting bogged down in the details before you’ve even begun. 

When you’re studying for exams, the number one way to learn is through active recall. There is no point in wasting time writing out a full set of notes if you’re two days out from the test. Even if you feel like you don’t know a single thing, start off straight away by testing yourself - do past exams, drill flashcards, try and write outlines or mind maps and then check your notes or textbooks and fill in what you’ve missed. If you don’t know the answer or you get it wrong, look it up and try to understand it, and then test yourself again in twenty minutes. 

It’s important to strike a balance here: don’t overextend yourself, but don’t continually take breaks. If you think you need a break, you probably don’t. Take two minutes to stretch your legs and drink some water, but do not pick up your phone. If you’re starting to feel mentally fatigued, especially after a few hours, it can be helpful to switch locations - go outside and study on a park bench, or shift to the dining hall. Sometimes the change of scenery is all you need to feel refreshed. 

V. Rinse and repeat

This is your life now. Make sure you stick to a regular sleep schedule - aim for at least six hours a night - because otherwise your fatigue levels will seriously impact your memory, retention and critical thinking abilities. It’s not worth the few extra hours you might get in, and you probably won’t be productive anyway. 

Remember that the advice I’ve given you here is based on what I do when I am severely behind, not how I study on a daily basis when I’m on top of everything. These tips aren’t all great for long-term learning, but are the most efficient way to cram when you’re behind and under pressure. 

You’ve got this. 

some outfit designs