Ngl I Used To Think 25 Years Old Was Like Ancient When I Was 16. I Think That's Just How Ur Brain Works

diverse and good fantasy books to read + hype up that AREN’T harry potter

since the entire hp stan community is shitting its pants over the fb3 trailer and ignoring jkr’s continued transphobia and homophobia

the shades of magic trilogy by ve schwab

queer author (uses she/they pronouns, is openly gay)

queer characters

characters of color

disabled protagonist

gorgeous prose + worldbuilding

a film adaptation is in the works!

a sequel trilogy of books is currently in the works!! it’s going to be called threads of power and it sounds amazing so far

the grishaverse by leigh bardugo

queer characters (literally so many across so many identities)

characters of color

multiple disabled protagonists (and the author is disabled too!)

IMPECCABLE worldbuilding and writing

it has a netflix series called shadow & bone that’s an absolute banger! season 2 is on the way too :))

an ember in the ashes by sabaa tahir

inspired by ancient rome

strong female protagonists who don’t hate on other women

non-toxic male love interests

absolutely heartbreaking

extremely intense (look up content warnings if you’re worried!)

many characters of color (+author is a poc too)

these violent delights by chloe gong

characters of color (+author is a poc too)

queer characters (including trans rep!)

an absolutely incredible love story (enemies to friends to lovers to enemies to it’s complicated?)

romeo and juliet retelling set in 1920s shanghai and featuring rival gangs—need i say more?

look up content warnings, especially if you’re scared of bugs!!!

John Green & David Levithan, Will Grayson, Will Grayson // @sweatermuppet // Jamaica Kincaid, The Autobiography of My Mother // Entropy, "Luck" // Anne Sexton, A Self-Portrait In Letters // @100493503004422 // I'm Not a Good Person—Pat The Bunny // Veronica Roth, Insurgent

Ten core principles necessary for the remodeling of your brain to take place:

1. Change is mostly limited to those situations in which the brain is in the mood for it.

If you are alert, on the ball, engaged, motivated, ready for action, the brain releases the neurochemicals necessary to enable brain change. When disengaged, inattentive, distracted, or doing something without thinking that requires no real effort, your neuroplastic switches are “off.”

2. The harder you try, the more you’re motivated, the more alert you are, and the better (or worse) the potential outcome, the bigger the brain change.

If you’re intensely focused on the task and really trying to master something for an important reason, the change experienced will be greater.

3. What actually changes in the brain are the strengths of the connections of neurons that are engaged together, moment by moment, in time.

The more something is practiced, the more connections are changed and made to include all elements of the experience (sensory info, movement, cognitive patterns). You can think of it like a “master controller” being formed for that particular behavior which allows it to be performed with remarkable facility and reliability over time.

4. Learning-driven changes in connections increase cell-to-cell cooperation which is crucial for increasing reliability.

Merzenich explains this by asking you to imagine the sound of a football stadium full of fans all clapping at random versus the same people clapping in unison. He explains, “The more powerfully coordinated your [nerve cell] teams are, the more powerful and more reliable their behavioral productions.”

5. The brain also strengthens its connections between teams of neurons representing separate moments of successive things that reliably occur in serial time.

This allows your brain to predict what happens next and have a continuous “associative flow.” Without this ability, your stream of consciousness would be reduced to “a series of separate, stagnating puddles,” explains Merzenich.

6. Initial changes are temporary.

Your brain first records the change, then determines whether it should make the change permanent or not. It only becomes permanent if your brain judges the experience to be fascinating or novel enough or if the behavioral outcome is important, good or bad.

7. The brain is changed by internal mental rehearsal in the same ways and involving precisely the same processes that control changes achieved through interactions with the external world.

According to Merzenich, “You don’t have to move an inch to drive positive plastic change in your brain. Your internal representations of things recalled from memory work just fine for progressive brain plasticity-based learning.”

8. Memory guides and controls most learning.

As you learn a new skill, your brain takes note of and remembers the good attempts, while discarding the not-so-good trys. Then, it recalls the last good pass, makes incremental adjustments, and progressively improves.

9. Every movement of learning provides a moment of opportunity for the brain to stabilize – and reduce the disruptive power of – potentially interfering backgrounds or “noise.”

Each time your brain strengthens a connection to advance your mastery of a skill, it also weakens other connections of neurons that weren’t used at that precise moment. This negative plastic brain change erases some of the irrelevant or interfering activity in the brain.

10. Brain plasticity is a two-way street; it is just as easy to generate negative changes as it is positive ones.

You have a “use it or lose it” brain. It’s almost as easy to drive changes that impair memory and physical and mental abilities as it is to improve these things. Merzenich says that older people are absolute masters at encouraging plastic brain change in the wrong direction.

Gate… close.

Wendell Berry / Tim Seibles / James Baldwin / Mahmoud Darwish / Mary Oliver / Mahmoud Darwish / Octavio Paz / Madeline Miller / Florence + the Machine / Trista Mateer / Ocean Vuong / Akutami Gege, Jujutsu Kaisen

!SPOILERS!

ANOTHER BIG THING INTERNATIONAL VIEWERS MAY NOT PICK UP FOR SQUID GAME:

any viewer for squid game will understand that each game/round in the show are all childhood games from korea. this is well known.

but a smaller, unsubtle nod to another korean classic is actually the very last episode. it's titled 'A Lucky Day' or in korean '운수 좋은 날'. a modern classical literature text written by a korean author in 1924 about a rickshaw driver who went out to work despite his sick wife's protests, had a unusually lucky day and earned enough money, but upon returning home found his wife dead.

a big symbolism noted in the book itself is its showcase of rain and the wife's yearning (for warm broth). the very last game/battle between gihun and sangwoo ends in rain. when gihun returns home its raining heavily. gihun gets fish (well albeit rather reluctantly takes it from sangwoo's mom) for his own mother only to find her dead. despite how the games initially seems favourable in gihun's part, his world ends up rotten to the core when he returns back home. everyone he cared for now died.

i just feel like the director-writer made it such that the whole plot is a big nod to old korean classics (be it games or literature) and i just didnt see this noticed in social media so just wanted to share this! very happy to see such symbolism of korean literature in squid game.

p.s. anyone notice that both junho and inho, the two brothers, are actually playing hide-and-seek throughout the show— 👁👁

 So I recently uploaded a post giving tips on how to study history and I was requested by @cherrylips-cherrysoul to make a biology version so… Here it is!

In Class

- Taking Notes. I recommend taking notes in whatever format suites you, some like the Cornell method, i personally just jot down things on the page and later copy the notes out onto Onenote (meaning i can access my notes on my computer or the Onenote app on my phone)

- Asking Questions. Ask your teacher questions, that’s what they’re there for. If you don’t understand the lesson make sure that you understand it before you leave, do this by asking your teacher. 

Revising / Studying

I think the most important thing about studying biology is UNDERSTANDING the topics, not just memorising the information. If you don’t understand it you can’t apply it.

Read. Read your revision guides, articles and books it makes so much of a difference, and helps you understand what is going on in your lessons.

Watch Videos. There are so many great youtube channels that can teach you so much about biology and they may phrase things in a way differently to your teacher allowing you to look at the topic from a different perspective.

Make Flashcards (Again I like to use Quizlet as I can access my flashcards whenever I need them). You could use them for information about formulas, key ideas and facts.

Mindmaps, Link your ideas!! I think it’s so important to do this as, again, it makes you link your ideas and actually understand the topic.

Teach Someone! (or just pretend to), once again I think that this works for any subject and this is my favourite technique for memorising information, it means that you know that you understand topics and don’t just memorise them.

Experiment Write-Ups 

Do it ASAP. If you have to write about an experiment you did do it as soon as possible, this way the experiment is fresh in your mind.

Research. Research similar experiments or the topic your experiment is about in order to gain more understanding.

Exams

Smile!, I remember reading a study that found that students that sat an exam while smiling did significantly better than those who didn’t smile. I don’t know if I believe this and I’m usually against ‘exam hacks’ but I honestly believe smiling can make you do better, it makes you feel more confident and you spend less time stressing.

Know the exam format. When you enter an exam you should know - the style of questions you will be asked (multiple choice, essay-based i.e.), the length of the exam and the percentage of your grade it counts towards… this can easily be. found on your exam board’s website.

Practice makes perfect. I recommend taking and marking as many practice tests as you can, it makes you familiar with the process (and so less nervous in the actual exam), it also highlights your weakest areas and gives you ideas of what the. examiners are looking for.

Once again feel free to share your own tips and let’s ace this together.

Please request what topic you would like me to do next because I’m thinking of making this a series.

Heres my history post if you missed it and be sure to subscribe to my youtube channel and Instagram.

xoxo

“When people walk away from you, let them go. Your destiny is never tied to someone who leaves you. And it doesn’t mean they are bad people, it just means that their part in your story is over.”

— Tony McCollum

This really does sum up every damn thing that my family members have done and continue to do so and claim they are absolutely right and need to be respected cause they are older. It's amazing (being sarcastic) how they completely depend on me physically and financially but have the nerve to spew all sorts of nasty nonsense, and yet I sit here and take it. What in the world is wrong with me! 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️