#3. Keeping Momentum

last week this actually worked a little bit, so i'm going to continue doing this. unfortunately, i didn't finish my research paper on immigration by the due date, so i got an extension to this wednesday.

FINISH immigration research paper

submit to photography competition

study for lab quiz :)

gas law and graham's law problem sets

thermodynamics problem set

physics quiz

thermodynamics frq

revise mini-essay

finish enigma machine simulation

probability problem sets

☕ 27.01.2025 // I completed my to do list and had a latte with a friend (Yes, we both took a latte ahah) 🩷

📖 X

🎧 The adults are talking - The Strokes

#2. Red light, Green light

More study tips! Separate your to-do list into three buckets: red light tasks, yellow light, and green light.

Red light tasks are the hardest things you have to do. Typically, there is some planning involved, different components, and it will take you multiple days to work on it. Think essay, presentation, big project.

This might come as a surprise but studying for hard tests I put in the yellow light category. (If you’re cramming put this in the red category, but pls don’t.) You are going to want to split up hefty homework assignments and big tests into smaller actionable pieces. The idea is to study a bit every day. The idea is that there is more flexibility and resources while you study, and each problem generally has a clear solution.

Green light is something like emails, routine Khan Academy practice, reading a chapter of a book, or small homework assignments. The point of my system is to be flexible and put things into categories based on how I’m feeling and how much time there is as well.

What this does is it reduces your to do list into three sections, makes a plan, and helps you quantify how urgent tasks are.

Here is my typical schedule for these tasks:

After school:

Break for 1hr

Green as a warmup

Yellow for one hour for 1-1.5hrs

Red after dinner for 2~hrs

Green until tired .5hrs

Weekends:

Finish ALL Green in the morning Sat

Red for 5~ hrs (or however much you need) Sat

Breaks interwoven between

Dinner and relaxing Sat evening

Yellow for 2-3~ hr Sun

Red for 1-1.5hr Sun evening

Day off where I wasted the entire morning:

Red for 2hrs

Yellow for 2hrs

After dinner do Green until tired

who decided that both electric potential and electric potential energy were going to be a thing 😑 we need a serious discussion!

i’m back in the library and i’m actually getting some work done which is good! i’ve been feeling kind of down lately so focusing on homework has gotten a lot harder.

finals are coming up and all i want to do is watch arcane season 2 and rewatch voltron before it leaves netflix 😭 two more weeks….

45/100 days of productivity!

Morning loves <3 It’s the weekend … I’m taking a slow day…

🎧kai

to-do:

Morning yoga

Morning reading session

Laundry and meds

Run few errands

Class recap 2P

mental health check _journal

Call home

Read before bed

#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.

long study day at the library! there was a lot of snacks since it’s finals week but getting a spot was so impossible 😦 my friend and I saw three people leaving from behind some bookshelves and it was like the hunger games trying to grab our stuff and get seats before anybody else could take them

the library closed kind of early so now I’m back home and I have a long night ahead of me

- analysis study sheets (5/5)

- extra credit poem

- email people back 😭

- comp sci practice tests

- chem study sheets???

regaining momentum ♡

ps: i received roses!

I over-explain, yes.

So,

I was going through the communities option here because somehow too many computer science memes have been coming up on my feeds in Instagram and Pinterest. So, I was like- huh, let's see what Tumblr has!

I typed programming, well nothing came up so I tried coding. Again nothing. I tried programmer, coder, cs, computer science, comp, hack, hacking, hackers, nerd, geek etc etc but nothing came up.

But oh, I did find many people posting stuffs about coding and computer science. So why aren't these people united- Surely, there's Discord (I'm not on it and have no intention of opening an account there any sooner) for that but still what about people like me? (who already have too many apps just lying around unused and sometimes overused)

So,

I am thinking about opening a Tumblr Community for all the people who laugh at computer science memes even after it's the only thing they love to do- (referring to people who have a thing for computer science, yes)

(The options are direct because I've finished my daily quota of humor)

Also, I might end up naming the community Geeks, so yeah- think about a name please. Thank you.

Tagging some awesome people: @deletedg1rl @transiently-translucent @viridiangreennn @bagalois @sariel-studies-stuff @selenophhile @teaisstudying @bartholomewthestudyduck @swars-is-a-curse @shinaaposts @chu-diaries @stressed-burrito @straaaa @studyblr-perhaps @ramblingsfromthytruly @notyourtypicalfool @iwillsurvivecollege @moonlight-n-moondust @dormienscattus @instantsaladbouquet @minmin-vs-physics @jasminejava @lady-knight-inspo @ashs-nerd-den @ashs-reverie @losergfdotcom @sitamahalakshmicore @finisconoratopus @nelyastudies @reallynotmemoi @study-beee @andreainlove @whalelotofstudy @superlocrians @spcwtchstdy @lovesickd0ll @hopelittledreamer @aristudiess @yarensdiary @j-juno @sariel-studies-stuff @sirenkacode @sleep-deprived-music-gremlin @geniejeans @goose-the-corvid @itsliterallyjustme @stemstudyblog @aethereallynephilim @stem-diaries @dadoorman

Tag more people please!

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) taken by Auvo Korpi on January 27 2023.

During the formation of the sun, there was a protoplanetary disk (cloud of debris and gas) that orbited around it. The farthest parts of this disk were far from the heat emitted, and cooled down. The cold material clumped with frozen gasses and water, creating icy rocks.

These rocks orbit far away from the sun in huge elliptical orbits, in the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud. At one point, the icy rocks get closer to the sun. The ice is heated and releases dust, known as the comet’s trail.

Comet ZTF was first discovered in March 2022, but came closest to Earth in a long time in January of 2023. At first, the comet was believed to be an asteroid, but when it got closer to the sun, it was observed to have its signature green glow.

The green comes from the diatomic carbon, which is part of the comet’s atmosphere. As it got closer to the sun, the molecules became excited and radiate green light. This is also why the green color doesn’t extend to the tail, instead it is happening in the comet’s nucleus.

I remember going out with my telescope around this time to view the comet. At that point I think it was just above the Taurus constellation, and I had a lot of trouble angling the lens to point that high up.

I don’t remember being able to see the tail, but just with the naked eye, I could see the comet’s light. I can’t believe it’s already been two years since then. Time really flies.