Studying for finals

So I am currently in the library sitting at a little cubical getting ready to study and I thought that it would be a great idea to write this post.  Finals week is the probably the most dreaded week every semester for college students, myself included.  It's nice outside, the school year is almost over, everyone is excited to go home yet they could go without saying goodbye to their friends.  Here are some of my tips that are currently working for me because I am actually go through them as we speak.

1. Know your study habits.

Know what the best way for you to study is whether that be writing everything down again that you did the entire semester, flash cards, creating your own study guides, etc.  If you don't know how you like to study going into college, test different things throughout the semester so you have a clear idea of how you are going to study during finals week.  For me it is a combination of all of these things.  I make flash cards of key words that I need to know the straight definitions for; I rewrite/make my own study guides by going through the notes that I took during class combined with the powerpoint of professor if available.  Know the best way for you to study BEFORE finals week.

2. Explore the library before finals week.

Find a spot/area that you know you can focus in and even if that means being separate from what your friends are doing, it will be worth it in the end when you get a good grade.  If you go to a school with an older library, like mine, it would be best if you found a spot that has an accessible outlet.  It is serious competition for available outlets.  There is another library that was built less than 10 years ago on my campus as well and there are plenty of outlets but again, it isn't always easy to find an open one.  Take the time throughout the semester to find a place to study where is has everything you are looking for.

Here is my little study space in the library.

3. Listen to classical music.

If you like to listen to music all the time, like me, but you find that listening to music while you study is distracting, listen to classical music.  Not having words in the music allows me to listen to music while still being able to focus on the task at hand.  It can be relaxing but it also helps to block out the surrounding noises.  Even in quiet areas of the library there can still be noise.  If you don't want to spend money buying classical music on iTunes you can make a classical music station on Pandora which is easy and free.  I have turned a bunch of my friends onto listening to classical music while they study and they find it really helps.  Listening to classical music is a great way to still listen to music but not be distracted by the music.  

4. Invest in long extension cords.

If you can get an extension that plugs into one outlet and then lets you plug 3 more things into it, it's amazing.  You will never go wrong and it can create convenient study spaces when it doesn't seem like there is one.  

5. There is no reason to take drugs.

A common practice among college students is to take adderall in order to focus and study for tests.  Adderall is not necessary to well on tests.  I have survived on caffeine and will power alone and I did fine.  Adderall suppresses hunger so you basically run on nothing.  You also don't feel tired on adderall so you can stay up for hours and sometimes days at a time.  I have personally never taken it and never intend on taking it.  Red Bull and tea have worked wonders for me and you can always substitute tea for coffee.  

6. Get enough sleep.

Staying up all night is insane.  Sleep is when you form your memories so make sure you factor in a good night's sleep into your study plan in order to do well on tests.

7. You can never set too many alarms.

Set multiple alarms so you make sure you get up for your tests.  My earliest class this semester is 10:15 and I made my schedule that way because I know I can't get myself up that early on a weekly basis.  Unfortunately, both of my finals this semester are at 8am.  I know that I will ABSOLUTELY have to get a good nights sleep in order to be able to wake up for these exams.  I am setting at least 10 alarms to go off every 5 minutes to ensure that I wake up.  Plus, if your roommate is in your room when you are trying to wake up and you don't, your roommate will probably let you know your alarms are going off and you should get up.  

These tips are just somethings that I think will help and you can take them as you will.  To all those taking finals, good luck!!

Ta ta,

Jamie 

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Finals Week (Spring Edition)

So it is that time of year again...finals.  My last class is tomorrow (Thursday) and then Friday is reading day.  For those of you who don't know what reading day is, it's a day where there aren't any classes and students are encouraged to just study for finals.  Most students just hang out all day.  I actually have work that I need to get done so I can focus on studying for finals.  I am going to focus on getting as much work done so that I am confident for my finals and I can do well on them.  

I just feel better this semester overall.  My mindset is so much more positive than it was last semester.  I am excited to go home but at the same time sad to say goodbye to all of the amazing friends I have made this year.  I know that we are going to see each other over the summer but it's still feels like I won't see them in a long time.  

I will camped out in the library basically for the next week but I will try to write another post about finals and maybe post some pictures.  

Ta ta,

Jamie

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Twitter: @jkeeens

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It's beginning to look a lot like SPRING

It's is finally warming up I can't believe it!  It has been such a long and horrible winter.  Today my friends and I decided to study in front of the academic buildings on campus.  We just set up a blanket and brought out our work and some music.  As the temperature warms up, so do all of the student's spirits.  The warm weather is a great distraction from the fact that finals start in less than six weeks!!! In the winter when finals were taking place, the weather was cold and awful so it wasn't that bad being cooped up inside studying.  The weather is going to be absolutely amazing when we are taking finals which worries me because I know I'm just going to want to be outside enjoying the weather as apposed to studying.  

Here are some photos of me and my friends just enjoying the sun being out!!

This black and cream striped shirt is from Ann Taylor LOFT as well as the cream cardigan.  These two pieces by themselves are probably my two favorite items of clothing I own.  I wear both of them together and separate way too much!!  My yoga pants are from target maybe?? And my shoes are just black converse.  

For my make up I am wearing Urban Decay Naked Skin in the shade .5.  Concealer is Maybaline Age-rewind highlighting concealer in fair.  Face powered is MAC studio fix in NW 20.  Blush is NYX cosmetics power blush in Apricot.  On my eyes I am wearing Rimmel scandaleyes in brown and my mascara is Covergirl clump crusher.  

And now here are some pictures of my friends.

As you can tell we really enjoyed ourselves and the weather.  More nice weather posts/pictures will be coming soon!!

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Herbert the Mouse

So there has been a mouse problem at the university I go to because we have endured an extremely cold and unusually long winter.  From what I have heard from my older friends, this year the university has cancelled more classes due to weather conditions compared to recent years.  Because of this, still ongoing winter, there have been mice in a lot of the dorms on campus.  Specifically my building which has had mice problems that you can count on two hands.  Two rooms on my floor have had mice and I have heard other horror stories of mouse discoveries.  I thought with the weather warming up a bit, the mice issue would melt away like the snow on the ground however, on Thursday night after I made my last post, I watched in terror as a mouse darted into my room and scurried behind mine and my roommates refrigerators.  

After some choice words I ran down to the office to tell them of my problem and then someone came up and set some sticky traps in hopes to catch Herbert, which is what I named him.  I was extremely upset by the whole experience and not upset like crying upset like angry.  I was pissed to say the least.  My suite mates are not clean at all and had not one, not two, but FIVE bags of garbage in the common area which is what attracted the mouse to our room.  My roommate and one of our other suite mates got rid of the garbage that wasn't ours to begin with.  I ended up going home this weekend because I was emotional and the whole scheduling process was getting to me and then the mouse just sent me over the edge.  

Being home was good for me because I was able to step back and calm down a bit.  I was able to examine the stressors in my life and realize that they are only temporary and that I just needed to figure it out in order to move past the small bumps in the road.  Going into this week I have a better frame of mind and I'm ready to hit the ground running because finals are only about four weeks away.  YIKES!!

Ta ta,

Jamie 

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Twitter: @jkeeens

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Pissed at Men Syndrome

The title of this post may be a little misleading but if you have every seen the movie The Last Song with Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth then you know what I'm referring to.  If you don't then let me explain: I will be getting my friend next week and so this week I am an emotional mess.  I just feel like crying for no reason and it is just awful.

I am currently making my schedule for next year and its freaking me out that I don't know I don't know what I want to do with my life still.  I don't know what I want to major in so making my schedule is super stressful and I absolutely hate it to be honest.  I would love to just blog and make a youtube channel and just do that for the rest of my life but I feel like I should get an education just in case I need a back up plan somewhere down the road.  I also love my friends here but is having the most amazing group of friends that completely accept me enough to keep me here.  I also have my parents to consider because they are the ones who are paying for me to go here.  Anyway I just need to seriously consider my options and then go from there.

Ta ta,

Jamie 

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Car on Campus

I have worked almost my entire adolescence.  I have been babysitting/mothers helping since I was around 12.  Which seems really young looking back on it now but I have always been really mature for age.  So a few months after I turned 16 I got a job and started saving up to buy a car.  When it was time for me to get a car I didn't have a lot of money.  I had enough to lease a car but it couldn't be in my name.  So my car is leased under my mom's name and I made the car payments my senior year of high school.  Having a car was crucial in working and gave me independence that I never truly valued until I got to college.

I knew I wasn't allowed to have my car on campus because the university wants us freshies to become involved in clubs on campus and be a part of the campus community.  It was fine for maybe the first few days but honestly I felt completely stuck I hated not having a car and when I went home I drove as much as I could because I didn't have that luxury at school.  Not having my car was a pain because doing large shopping at the food store and schlepping all of my packages onto the bus and then carrying them back to my dorm.  Taking public transportation is free with my student ID card but the buses restricted where I shopped due to where the bus stops are in relation to the location of certain stores, mainly Target.  (Side note: I am obsessed with Target and at home I go there at least once a week).

Not going to places in the city where I go to was annoying but going home by bus annoyed the crap out of me.  It takes so much longer to get home by bus than by car.  I also have to plan trips at certain times related to when the buses leave throughout the day.  I knew I wanted to bring my car up at the end of the year because I was sick and tired of buses.  There are several hotels directly across the street from my school and so I thought I would just park my cars in there and hopefully they wouldn't notice.  My mom, being a mom, wasn't too thrilled with this idea.  As it turned out, luck was on my side.

I had an abnormal mole on my stomach that I got biopsied back in January and it came back not precancerous but still concerning.  My mom did some research and the type of abnormal cells could turn precancerous so she made an appointment with a cancer doctor who specializes in dermatology.  He wanted to remove the area around the mole and so he cut out a pretty decent chunk from my stomach and now I have six stitches.  I was given strict instructions to not take part in any strenuous activity for two weeks so I took advantage of this opportunity to get my car on campus with a medical excuse.  My mom, being awesome, spoke to the medical director of my school and I now have a pass to have my car on campus for the rest of year.  This will make my many trips to Target easier and also traveling home because it 100% more time conducive.  I really am so happy to have my car on campus.

Ta ta,

Jamie

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Keeping in touch

I just wanted to make a quick post about keeping touch with people when you are in college.  When you first go to college, it's all very exciting and new.  You are finally independent and you are out experiencing everything you possibly can.  In the beginning of the first semester, even after my uncle's accident, I wouldn't talk to my family for days at a time.  Now that it's the second semester I talk to her almost every day.  Even when I was homesick last semester I would just look at pictures on Facebook, on my phone and on my computer and I would just cry.  It was very weird being at school for the first couple of weeks because I felt like my family was just continuing their lives and I just wasn't a part of it.  I was talking to my friend about this feeling the other day because her family was celebrating her dad and sister's birthdays and she was sad she couldn't be there.

This being said I absolutely love college.  The workload is a lot but I have a great group of friends.  I hang out with them everyday.  We get dinner together every day and we are kind of our own little family unit.  We talk about our days and things that are going on in our lives and just share a lot of laughs.  It's very exiting because we just picked where we are going to live next year.  We picked to live on the quad with the best dining hall food which is very exciting.  I'm happy we will be living together because right now its a complete pain to go all over the building to each other's rooms.  I love my group of friends and we get to see each other everyday but us being together all the time sometimes I forget to keep in touch with my family and friends from home.

I have no one that I really text all the time every single day.  I have weird relationships like that.  Me and my best friend from home didn't go to the same high school but we lived in the same town.  We wouldn't text everyday but when we saw each other we would stay up all night talking about everything.  That's just the relationship we have.  Now that we are in college it's a little bit different.  She goes to school in Canada so none of our breaks so far have matched up.  We make up for this by talking on the phone.  We will randomly call each other out of the blue and just talk for a long time about everything and we do text from time to time in-between these long phone calls.  We will have the summer off at the same time though and that will give us an opportunity to hang out a lot.

My sister, my cousin and I are really close and when I'm home we hang out all the time.  We are all literally attached at the hip.  Me and my sister are really close but we don't talk all the time.  We text each other intermittently.  I love her to death and I would love to text her all the time but she doesn't seem to want to which is fine I give her space because I know thats just the way our relationship is.  My cousin and I text from time to time as well but we always spend a ton of time together when I'm home.  

Wow that has been a super long post and if you have made it this far good for you!!  Thanks so much for reading!!

Ta ta,

Jamie

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