I May Not Have A “brain” Or An “ability To Write Well” But Sometimes I Type Out A Great Metaphor

some things i’ve learned while studying in quarantine

drink more water instead of more coffee.

weekly goals are bullshit. set yourself 3-day goals. you’ll be less laid-back.

don’t just mindlessly stare at words. before you start studying, know your approach to it. have a plan.

summarizing the concept in your own words is the key part of taking notes. don’t just copy things down, convert them into your own way of talking, your own vocabulary, no matter how dumb and unprofessional it sounds.

don’t let the “studyblr aesthetic” fool you. studying doesn’t have to be pretty. summaries and notes can be messy as long as they’re comprehensible. you can always rewrite and reorganize them later. (honestly, you better do. and you better keep them.)

don’t throw away the papers you’ve solved your problems in. staple them to the fucking textbook. you need to see them constantly. cause you’ll need reminders of how far you’ve came, when you’re feeling discouraged.

don’t be an armchair analyst for your issues. if you have an idea then act on it.

remember: the exact point where it becomes difficult, is where your growth begins. take a deep breath, and try to focus on the paragraph in front of you.

get off your high horse and understand that if you’re a zero, you won’t go to 100 in a couple of days. first, you’ll need to reach 30, then from 30 to 60, and then from 60 to 90. nobody is 100 everyday. that happens very rarely.

you need to have fun everyday. you need to have peaceful time every single day. even on exam night. especially on exam night, actually. so make sure you’ve studied enough so you can have some time to yourself.

once you’re on a roll and in need of some challenge to stay on track, start writing down your studying hours. tell yourself you’re not allowed to do less than 80% of what you did yesterday. whatever the hell it was, even just one hour. so if yesterday you really studied for like, say 8 hours, today your goal is to study for at least 6 and a half hours. if you can’t keep up with that, make it 70%, or 60%. 

be forgiving of yourself. be kind to yourself. even if you bounced back and lost your streak. start again. as slowly as you did before. take your time. it’s okay, you were there once you can get there again.

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Don't ever hesitate. Reblog this. TUMBLR RULE. When you see it, REBLOG IT.

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“Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out” - Richard Siken The Lament for Icarus - Herbert Draper

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know my all-time favorite book is Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. Anyone who truly loves this book (or the equally great—albeit different—film) has, at a minimum, become intrigued with one of the settings: the pre-WW2 Libyan Desert. I’m going to start a series of posts that will provide some background information to The English Patient (TEP). This is the first. Also, I should mention that while TEP is a work of fiction, it borrows (steals?) greatly from events and individuals who really existed. The explorers and cartographers of TEP traveled to the Libyan Desert in the early- and late-1930s in search of the “lost oasis” of Zerzura, a mythical city that curiously is said to have existed in one of the harshest stretches of the Libyan Desert. The discovery of an oasis here, in one of the last unexplored regions on earth, was a call to adventure with the promise of historical immortality for any fraternity of explorers who might find it, as with it they would breathe life and certainty into a people and culture that was rumored to have existed for centuries. More to come.  Pictured: 1861 edition of Herodotus’ Histories; March 1933 and April 1939 editions of The Geographical Journal, published by the Royal Geographical Society, London.

Dark academia things that my classmates accidentally do:

Circling in our class talking about the end of the world, politics, and murders

Accidentally having a competition on knowledge but still helps each other up

Staying up late doing our homework because what the fuck is sleeping anyway?

Wearing jackets or coats or blazer even when the weather is hot

Tried to kill each other on some occasions

And no, it’s not an international or a boarding school, just a local high school.

— Neger Emrani, from Somewhere Between the World and the Mirror in Asymptote Journal (translated by Kaveh Akbar)

achilles and patroclus / andromache and hector / odysseus and penelope

New rule, non muslims can’t say the word jihad. Until you stop conflating a word that means personal struggle with faith and temptation with terrorism youre just not allowed to say it.