How To Read A Scientific Article

f=ma exam…. either i cooked or completely flunked lol

#1. NO MORE GUILT

Ever find yourself crashing out after a long day at school, sitting on your bed watching Netflix, and getting nothing done? It sounds horrible when I put it that way. Bed rotting, doom scrolling, whatever it is, it’s never a fun thing.

Here’s the thing though— it doesn’t have to feel that way.

There are two states that we can consider you to be in. Focus and Relaxation. The situation I described above is caught in between these two states. You want to be in a focus state, but you’re overwhelmed and stuck in your relaxation state. The opposite is also true. You try to get work done but catch yourself distracted, on your phone, instead. You are in a focus state, but you want to be in a relaxation state.

The number one change you can do to help your mental health is to choose a side.

When you are in your focus state, commit. You put your best effort in and keep your mind engaged in what you are working on. No distractions. This is going to help you get so much more work done in a shorter period of time. As you practice this, you are going to realize that when you are in your focus state, distractions are less enticing and you will be able to maintain it for longer.

Disclaimer: if you have to tell yourself to “lock in” you aren’t doing it right. Forcing yourself into a focus state is never going to work, it's just going to lead to that same, tiring, useless feeling.

To actually decompress and feel happier, you can’t have second thoughts in your relaxation. Set a timer if you have to, but you need to let yourself enjoy whatever you are doing. Imagine this: after a long hard day, you treat yourself by getting some popcorn, bundle yourself up in blankets, dim the lights, and get to watch the movie that’s been on your bucket list for the past week. So much better than what we started with, right? The cycle of guilt relaxation starts with wanting to decompress but feeling guilty the whole time. You don’t rest and aren’t happy because all you’ve been thinking about is “I have to get work done.” Instead, you get more tired, and you need to continue laying around or scrolling on your phone.

You don’t have to change your entire routine— just be more mindful about which state you are in and how you can take advantage of that.

The Soul Nebula taken by Kurt Wallberg on Februrary 1 2024

This image depicts The Soul Nebula (IC 1848) on the left and Westhout 5 (IC 1848) on the right. Westhout 5 is part of the bigger Soul Nebula. It’s an emission nebula— consisting of the star forming regions with ionized hydrogen gas and dark nebula. Dark nebulas are when the stellar medium is so dense that the light from objects behind it cannot pass through.

As you can see in the image, there are cavities in the gas. These were carved out by stars due to radiation and stellar winds. There is a theory of triggered star formation, which describes that these cavities compress the gas around it to trigger star formation. Images such as these have been used to help prove this theory, showing that the closer the star is to the cavity, the younger it is.

chemistry has been kicking my butt lately. so i’m staying after school to study. yay 😀

on the bright side, i somehow managed to secure more than 100% in my comp sci class with a huge fail rate… not really going to question it in case it was a mistake tho. take the wins when they arise

I know this is a long read but I believe this might help if you’re going through a burnout.

Last week I was so drained I couldn’t do anything. Let alone studying 11 hours a day as I planned, some days I couldn’t even pick up my pen and solve just one question.

Each day I said to myself “It will be better tomorrow. I will wake up and finish the things I need to do.” but every day proved to be worse than the other. My tutor was out of the city for a conference so I was on my own and needed to finish everything before he arrived. (I am a person who scolds herself if I don’t finish my tasks on time, even if sometimes my teachers don’t care, I do.) But I couldn’t finish most of them. Today is literally my last chance. I had to wake up at 5am and rarely take any breaks if I wanted to complete everything.

But I couldn’t. I woke up at 9, and just getting out of bed took all my energy. I went into the living room and fell asleep on the couch. For three hours, no matter how many times my mum tried to annoy me into waking up, I laid there without even once uttering a word.

And by my 1682597th dream, I had an epiphany.

This is my journey. This is me, working towards my own dream. People around me obviously care and feel for me, that’s why they worry when I fall behind. But if they had to give in the energy I give in each day, they couldn’t do it.

Because I wake up every day to my goals. Every morning I choose to keep going. Every second I am choosing to not give up on my dreams of becoming a successful person. I could easily change my mind any minute, choose another major, and I wouldn’t have to study as hard.

But I am not.

For 454 straight days, I woke up with this dream and there wasn’t a single day I didn’t want it. Not a single day where I said “Oh you know what, fuck it. I don’t want this.”

I had my days where I cried, screamed, even hit myself. I had my days where I was so exhausted that I kept looking at other majors I could get into but I never felt the same connection so I just stood up and kept working.

I am the one who might lose what I want, not others. I am the only one who is putting in the effort to make it happen because nobody else’s effort could make it possible for me.

So if I say “I did not have the energy for this.” they have to believe me.

If I am honestly EXHAUSTED, to a point where I don’t want to see my favorite pencil, it’s okay for me to fall behind a few weeks.

Now I will just get up. Once again. And do what I can. No rush, I have 145 days to go, and it’s better to actually learn the material than to have to come back to it later.

Keep trying. Even if it’s reading one sentence a day. Your dreams are yours for a reason.

i went to the local library to pick up some books today :) i'm literally so dumb because i was in the wrong row for the nonfiction section (looking for spacefarers) and i did not even stop to question why all the books around me were on the culinary arts.

i heard the master of djinn is a really good book and would be good for people that liked arcane. IF I MAKE IT THROUGH THE BOOK, maybe i'll write a review. hopefully i can because it looks really interesting...

i have a lot of random stuff to do these next two days since i wasn't productive for the first three days of break :(

study for computer science midterm

calculus unit 4 problem sets

magnetostatics FRQ

read literature for research project

update astrophysics notes

work on cosmology simulation

sometimes i feel like school sucks everything out of me. i have all this motivation and excitement at the beginning of the week, but then school happens and i have all this useless homework. meanwhile there is stuff i actually want to do and am interested in... but i never have the chance to do them because i'm so tired and i still have homework to do. i feel like i'm sacrificing a bit too much of my self just to please my school and my teachers

on a brighter note, i think i discovered the identity of the unknown acid! i'm super nervous to go back to the lab now though and collaborate with my team. hopefully i'm right :)

07/02/25 day 32/100

Goals —

Physics (Anything).

Yeah, only physics. 🐧

“it'll all be worth it in the end,"

GUESS WHO'S BACK!!

Not me.

I've finished writing my dissertation (no beta we die. we just die) but I still have my whole ass presentation to prepare.

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I'll defend this shit in two days.