#and i cant wait to get like. an ipad someday so i draw them all

[roseroyalty-moving]

I finally started a dnd group with my coworkers and god I was rly missing out!!! I was missing out!

One of our crazy sorcerers (character name: Xora) set someone’s house on fire and then ran into the enemy’s manor and pocket spider’d a guard that was trying to lead them to safety after succeeding a persuasion roll to tell him they were not intruders but new servants! And then they exploded his head! And pretended it just did that by itself and the other guards that ran in were like: .....ok!

Not to mention my character (mileva) is my fiancé’s character’s (Astrophel) bodyguard and she left for 2 minutes and he fucking almost DIED!!! ON OUR FIRST SESSION

But my friend made memes

[madfantasy]

Dear Blogging

Hello my dears, how have you been?

I'm doing alright. The repairs are finished and I got to sleep on my bed again, retuning to the same— ya know; staying up till dawn to draw. All that work maybe worth it someday but for now I'm not having enough food in my system because of it, even tho I'm used to eating as little as possible— the light-headedness dries up my productivity and brain powers..

▪️Maybe it was a cause that I haven't been all hot pursuing my artistic thrive. Usually looking into the undiscovered section of dA for inspiration helps but now idk where they put it now that they update everythin, but I can't handle it. I came across this tag on twitter that was, I suppose the idea was to find the lesser known artists and whatnot. It's a lovely gesture, but we all know how social media tends to work— in highlighting the big boys. I began to see a pattern over and over, what caught the biggest numbers were realistic, cute, themed, anime and cartoony styles. I know I shouldn't do so, but I compared mine to them and it felt my style is non of anything, just so bizarre it can't fit even tho it's still just.. idk.. art? And I considered maybe because it's unusual, while still not bearing any gigantic differentiations, it's not in the comfort zone. So, I assume that's why it's not likely to get rebloged.. as far as the normal chances of rebloging goes on this site. And putting up the banner to encourage it and promote myself seemed— I can't even say if its helping me.

But I've found my muse again, with the help of my precious friends, bless your hearts with all of their desires, you guys are all the goodness causers to me throughout these times, honestly

I got re-energized, began watching 3D pen artists and some of old electronics restorations magic that makes me marvel at the beauty of the sophisticated mind and the delivering hands of creation:

https://youtu.be/6DTqZHvLVxg

(Loved this one specially cuz I always opened up my controllers as a kid— to clean them heh)

https://youtu.be/WEqENsot7Nc

(I adore his sense of humour)

▪️I've also found the most realistic pencil brush ever that made me burst with spastic sketching energy, I love it so much it felt I returned to my pencil loving origins!

Here it is if you like to indulge:

https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1740419

( my mood :https://youtu.be/FEWi3l1ghD4 hold my hand! 🔥cuz i cant dace anyway lo)

I've also watched a forgotten adoration of my siblings and I. Doodled those penguins as if I suddenly knew how to draw bird, hehe. (Thank u for who noted that to me, you gratify me to the moon )

▪️My baby sib even made plushy with the help of my other siblings (she likes Private~):

I remembered how we always said they are cute version of us, joked how their shiny adorable backs are exactly how wearing abayas would look and whatever.

I'm excited to start on doing more art. And regained my desire of having an iPad pro, all of its qualities capture me and I'd love to feel it advancement. My current tablet is getting a bit skin curling-ly uncomfortable— scratchy.

▪️They opened up Amazon here and I thought to check it— as usual in ks a the prices are through the roof, let's say the same device originally cost around 999$ (without the pencil) on usa Amazon which is roughly 3746 R. Here it is locally, idk if the sale applied to it or not but I wish to have it before it ends because if it cost 10k without it, I'd rather buy a junk car. (Well not really, but the thought is appealing, heh)

But seriously, I don't know how it's possible, specially that everything I earn get majorly spent on bills when I choose to withdraw it from PayPal.. (actually just gave my savings for the next month to them today) and no, my plan to get my own bank account failed because even the employer whom suppose to know what's wrong with my registration files couldn't help me, after all these weeks of waiting..

But I'm still hopeful

Oh and the festival coming soon. Is on the 31th, I think.. I wonder if people would be allowed to gift meat. Anyway~

🌟I hope the coming days be kind to you my dears. Wish you all the best, may you be blessed in each step you take, and be kept away from harm.

And good luck in your pursues.. finals.. to be heard.. to be accepted.. to be normalised.. daily chores and struggles.. you are worthy, precious and strong and I hold hope and faith in you all 💛🙏

Stay safe

23.7.2020

[carbonargonlithium]

The short version of this is: recognizing your weaknesses, and tackling them, is arguably more important than recognizing your strengths.

As a side note: before you decide to downsize from two computers to one (from one for work/travel and one for home, down to one for work/travel that you actually mostly leave at work) be REALLY sure that you’re not gonna decide randomly at 9pm to type a blog post and realize you only have your iPad, which does not (currently) have a real keyboard. Guess I know what I want for Christmas (but mom, or grandma, or Joe (lol he never reads my blog posts), if you’re reading this, make sure it’s a nice quality one, and it compatible with the apple iPad pro 2017 model, 10.7in. I’ll try and put a few on my amazon wishlist.)

But, luckily, I don’t live alone! My love, who is currently doing an online class using his desktop, let me use his Surface, which does have a really nice keyboard. So alas, here we are, at 9pm on a Tuesday, writing a blog post.

So, really, the words I wrote (in my “journal” aka my notability document for this week) that really inspired me to write this hopefully eventually motivational post were; “You’re not actually stupid.” And just to summarize where that came from real quick: I’m a scientist, a physical chemist, who has to deal with LOTS of quantum chemistry and quantum mechanics, and I’m not…..a math person. I’m CAPABLE of it, don’t get me wrong, but it takes me a long time, and a lot of effort and working through it six ways before I understand it. English (if you believe it) and history? Had those in the bag. Chemistry? Literal blow off class in high school, loved it in college. Biology? Ehh okay that one was just….not my friend. Math? Well, lets just say that what Florida State passes off as a math minor does NOT cut it for my line of work. And that’s okay. I gotta learn it, but I also gotta go through some self doubt to get there. And that’s okay.

[if you’re like...real real sensitive to death, this paragraph may feel realllllllllly harsh and cold, but it’s just how i’ve been coping and also, how I feel like my grandpa would want me to be coping tbh, carry on] Okay now, I’m gonna blame my Grandpa Thane for like a solid half of why Quantum is probably so hard for me. And that’s okay, I can do that, he won’t mind. He’d laugh and tell me “okay yeah sure Carli”. God I miss that laugh. Anyway. He went ahead and died right in the middle of my last semester of undergrad, which also happened to be the semester I was traveling a ton and taking Quantum. So on top of being busy af, I had to deal with a very strong emotion I’d never dealt on this scale before: grief. So it’s probably safe to say that my memories of undergraduate quantum could definitely be better.

But I passed the class, okay? I got through it, and I got through Statistical Mechanics last semester which was also a very heavy maths-based physical chemistry class, and I’m going to get through this Quantum chemistry class because I know that it’s going to be hard. I know how to ask for help, how to identify what people are going to be the most helpful for me, and I know how to study my ass off. And I’ve learned all these skills through a laborious process of becoming a professional scientist despite being mentally ill, and also, because I knew I had weaknesses, acknowledged them, and got help.

I tutored first generation students while I was at FSU (I was one too, consequently) and I can say that hands down, the reason that students ended up struggling as much as they did is that they waited too long to ask for help. Now, whether that was lack of knowledge, or shame, or fear, I can’t be sure. But I can promise you, students who asked for help as soon as they realized they were struggling were the ones who were ultimately successful. Additionally, students who were even more successful were those who knew what kind of help they needed. If they knew it was math or algebra they were struggling with, they told me. If they knew it was question comprehension, we worked on looking for keywords and finding example problems they’d already done. The most effective learners are not people who just seem to magically know everything, they’re people who understand what it is going to take for the information to get effectively encoded, and go through whatever process that may take.

Now, maybe someday I’ll actually have time to read psychology literature again, and I’ll be able to give sources and all kinds of goodies to my information, but for now, take it as firsthand knowledge; asking for help is 99% proven to help you understand something better. I’m going to reserve the 1% for really awful instructors and tutors who just...cant communicate their knowledge effectively, but that’s on them, not you.

So here’s CJ’s sleepy guide to how to be a better student

TAKE NOTES. Even if you think it’s not necessary, take notes. Pay attention, write things down, because sometimes you hear things and it makes sense, and when you try to write it on paper or rephrase it you’re like….wait hold on.

BE KIND TO YOURSELF. Not everyone understands everything immediately. And that’s okay. Brains are incredibly complex and literally no two human brains are identical. Epigentetics, nature vs nurture, it all makes sure that your brain is unique, and will have its own unique strengths and weaknesses.

IDENTIFY WHAT KIND OF LEARNER YOU ARE. I’m an auditory learner. If someone walks me through something, step by step, talking out loud while I write, I learn it immediately. I’m not visual at all. I only got through biochem because some friends helped me make a (0,1) binary-esque verbal code for how sugars were oriented. But if you learn by working through something, or drawing a picture, great! Know that about yourself and take that with you when you ask for help.

TIME MANAGE. Keep a planner, or a journal, or a calendar, or even just use your phone calendar. Plan your time effectively, but not strictly. Use pomodoro timers if you want (25 minutes work, 5 minutes break). I also sometimes play “0’s and 5’s” with myself, wherein, if I get distracted, I can stay distracted until the clock hits a 0 or a 5, and then I have to get back to work. If you’re someone who has to cut yourself off from everything, that’s okay. Learn what is going to help you be the most effective, and don’t EVER wait til the last minute to do something unless you absolutely have to. My goal is to always be a minimum 2-days ahead on school work, but I feel much more comfortable if it’s a week.

ASK FOR HELP. Find your weaknesses. Learn the stuff you can on your own, and then figure out what has you confused. Go to a tutor, or your professor, or a TA. And if the first one you ask doesn’t seem to be able to help you, ask another one. Ask friends who understand what you don’t. Don’t be afraid. You aren’t stupid. There are things you can do that no one else can do as easily, and someone will probably need your help there at some point in time too. Just….it’s okay to feel down about having a hard time, but remember rule #2 and remind yourself you aren’t actually stupid, you just haven’t asked the right question of the right person yet.

That’s all I have for now. I have so much in my head that might eventually be useful to someone, and that’s part of why I write this. Whether it’s useful because it helps people understand themselves, or if it’s because it helps them pass a test, I don’t care. I just needed a place to put these sorts of things, so alas, here we are. Blog post 3. Maybe eventually this class will end and I can go to bed, because boy has this been a long week already. And it’s only Tuesday.