Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Tips for Success #3

It's been only two study tips I have posted so far but I'm already feeling tapped out of ideas. As long you make solutions to issues you encounter in your everyday study, I'm pretty sure ideas will flow easier; I just put that into practice and now I can offer some advice. Yay!

Almost every student studies the material taught to them in class to prepare for quizzes, tests, midterms, and such. However, trying to study isn't very effective when all your notes are jumbled and "unmarked" (In this post it means that your notes don't have a title or some heading so, you don't know to what lecture or chapter it pertains). Geez, What do you do?

Something I learned in my senior year of high school that truly alleviates this problem (I use this in my Humanities class) is to organize your class notes by units. By doing that , you look back at the material thematically rather by looking at your notes section then your handouts and then your past quizzes. Honestly, I never thought about organizing my work like this until in my AP Environmental Science class everyone had to walk around and look at other students binders and see who had the most effective and best organization. This girl had her organized by units and my teacher even said that that was how she organized her work in college. So, I hope this is as helpful to anyone as it is to me and that this becomes a practice that anyone can use to succeed in any school level.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Music List #3

Ooh, songs I hate. this would be easier if I actually listened to songs I don't like. Luckily, I only have to list five. The threshold of hate emerges after number three and I must thank my little sister for helping me compile this list.

5. Mrs. Officer Lil' Wayne - Right now I can only vaguely remember this song but the "weeoo-weeoo-weeoo" thing gets annoying after a while.

4. Halo Beyonce - I've never really liked Beyonce Knowles and when she was in Destiny's Child I only liked two or three of their songs. Only recently my discontent towards Beyonce started to grow with this song and "All the Single Ladies". The "Halo, Halo, Halo. Halooow"sounds more like "Hey yo, Hey yo". Irritating.

3.
Hot and Cold Katy Perry - Man, this song is annoying. It sort of makes me want to shout out "Who the fuck cares? I don't care. Shut up!" What's really sad is that I know most of the chorus.

2. Tattoo Jordin Sparks -
These next two songs require a bit of context: my high school's day started at 7:20 in the morning. Even though for three and a half years I lived virtually across the street from school I still had to wake up at 5:40 in the morning to take a shower. So my radio alarm was set to the only station it could get. Up until my senior year it was okay. Sure there was some resentment because it woke you up every morning but that's bearable. Then they started playing some shitty-ass music ON HEAVY ROTATION!!!!
This song has no poetry! "You're on my heart just like a tattoo" is so ridiculously terrible. I can't say much else.

1. Pocketful of Sunshine Natasha Bedingfield - This song along with Tattoo were played like two to three times on a five day week! This song tries so hard to be optimistic or hopefeul or some shit like that but it completely sucks! I get so much bad memories of being woken up so early in the morning and listening to that crap. I hate it.

Just thinking about these songs fills me with anger but, luckily instead of shooting myself, I know I can pop in some Queen, Interpol, Janis, Scissor Sisters and thank God I hate these songs.

Tips for Success #2

With the workload that studying gives you, it's important to prioritize and organize your tasks for the day.
That's why, you can make an Action Plan for the Day. In it, you chunk your homework activities with the time you want to start them. Allow for some flexibility in your schedule in case something comes like lunch or a shower.

Here's a sample of my Action Plan:
11:20 - Make list of visuals for journal
Catch up on responses
1:00 - Computer Time read pdf from email
5:00 - Read ch. 12 Read Norton book

This kind of organization turned out to be more effective than I thought and I actually followed my Plan better than my previous attempts at organizing my day. Before I forget, the big key to this is to write it down refer to it many times during the day.

Talking about Sex

The average human goes through many stages, rites of passage, and milestones in their lives. Many of these stages are unique to each culture and society but perhaps the most universally challenging is the transitioning from adolescence into adulthood. In our society, the milestone associated with this transition is college and like all new ventures college can be difficult to navigate.

I honestly do not think I'm in any position to give advice on this subject because I myself do not have any experience in this area. I have never been on any kind of date before so, I don't know of any kind of code of conduct any kind of sexual pressure is completely beyond me. However, I wouldn't search any one on the Internet before I went out on date with them.

The only advice I have is what I have come up with on my own: thoroughly think about the kind of decisions you make. It is important to know that you know if you are completely comfortable with whatever you plan to do and that there can not be a shadow of a doubt. Also, make sure your partner is ready to make the commitments you plan to take. If not, be understanding and find other things you can do to connect as people and partners.

In conclusion, even though I have absolutely no kind of romantic experience, think about your limits, wants, needs, and communicate it effectively to your partner. The most successful romance is a partnership where both parties understand each other and are on the same page about the important things.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Music List #2

When I saw this assignment, I was extremely excited. I felt that I would have the most awesome field day with this. Anyway, I tried to have a pretty equal distribution of sex and drug songs but I realized that I don't have as much drug songs as I thought. This is still a great opportunity to show case some great music. And, again there are other great songs about this subject matter.

5. Gold Dust Woman Fleetwood Mac - On the Classic Albums Series, Stevie Nicks mentioned that this song is about cocaine and how someone else would be dealing with the issues she was going through during the making of the Rumours album. This is a great example of an abstract, sort of weird song that taps into your subconscious very successfully.

4. White Rabbit Jefferson Airplane - Some of my friends really enjoy this song and honestly, I find this song to be meditative and a way to channel some of those inner feelings. It's a brilliantly well-written allegory of LSD as Alice in Wonderland.

3. Shimmy Shimmy Ya Ol' Dirty Bastard - Like I mentioned before, I'm a sucker for great piano. Also, it has one of the best lines sung in the most unique way: "Oh baby I like raw/ Yeah baby I like it raw/ Ooh baby I like raw/ Yeah baby I like it raw"

2. Narc Interpol - My little brother described this as the perfect song. I have to agree that it is part of that upper echelon but whether he knows this or not, Narc is pure sex. I didn't realize this until maybe a year ago (It definitely mentions sex but I never had the impression of complete sexuality/sensuality before). From the opening guitar riff to the first line and right until the end, this song is just heartbreakingly perfect.

1. Sex and Candy Marcy Playground - This song is also perfection in its seductive music. I heard this song in store, I think, and it was so distantly familiar, like a memory from my childhood many years ago. I found out what this song was from VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the Nineties, so the correlation makes sense even though I don't concretely remember seeing the music video when I was six or seven. Anyway, it is, like, the best sex song ever!