The Student Kitchen

As a student staying in campus residences, you may not be too concerned with cooking. I mean, hey, just pop by the dining hall to pick up something to eat! Why spend the extra effort in cooking for yourself? Well, for those of us living on our own without a meal plan (and those of us who would like to be able to control how much salt and oil goes into our meals) - we need to learn to cook.

For myself, I love using my slow cooker. Honestly, I prepare something on the weekend, and I've got a meal that lasts me nearly the whole week in leftovers (if I don't share with the boys living with me, of course)! So without further ado, a few simple slow cooker recipes to get you started...

Simple Chicken and Rice
3 cans cream of chicken soup
2 cups instant rice
3 ribs celery, sliced
4-5 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

• Place soup, rice, celery, and 1 cup of water in slow cooker. Place chicken breasts on top, and sprinkle with a little salt & pepper. Cover and cook on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours or on LOW for 6 to 8 hours. If you like, add some crumbled bacon to top.

Taco Chicken

3 cups cooked chopped chicken

1 packet (30g) taco seasoning

1 cup instant rice

3 ribs chopped celery

1 bell pepper, seeded and chopped

2 cans stewed tomatoes

• Combine in slow cooker, mix well. Cover and cook on LOW for 4 to 5 hours.

Quick-Fix Corn Soup

2 cans whole kernel corn

2 cans cream of potato soup

2 cans chicken broth

8 oz whipping cream

• Combine in slow cooker, mix well. Cover and cook on LOW for 3 to 4 hours.

These recipes are from "1001 Slow Cooker Recipes", a book I would DEFINITELY suggest you to look at :)

Washington [Day 2]

We return where we left off at the National Museum of Natural History to see a humongous skeleton of a sea turtle. Note that younger sister is particularly excited to see this, and can't wait to get to Boston to see a real live giant sea turtle at the New England Aquarium.

Slices of space rocks! Which are, for the most part not made out of rock, but metal. It's interesting to see the different patterns on these.

More rocks! But why do these glow in the dark? Certain minerals fluoresce under ultraviolet (UV) light. If the Wikipedia article is all Greek to you, leave me a note in the comments and I'll explain it in English :)

 This is the last rock, I promise. It's bits of mineral... Contained within a different mineral. It takes some very interesting conditions for rocks like these to form, but the end result looks pretty freaking awesome.

SHARK ATTACK!!! You can see here - sharks have several rows of teeth. So if one breaks or falls off for whatever reason, another can easily take its place.

And who can visit Washington, DC without visiting the White House? Not me, that's who!

Washington [Day 1]

Arrival at the lovely Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. And look, they even left us milk and cookies for our arrival!

We used the Metro (subway) to get around Washington. Much easier than trying to drive around downtown in an unfamiliar city! Also, note: the stations smell distinctly of burnt rubber :p

The Washington Monument.Unfortunately, we didn't climb to the top, as we were a little more excited about seeing the museums.

The first airplane (!!!), built by the Wright brothers at the National Air and Space Museum. AWESOME.

My sister, the pilot. Also one of the dorkiest people I know.

The First Ladies Pool at the Botanic Gardens. I also took five billion several pictures of flowers while I was there, but I won't bore you. I'll paste the album link so you can peruse the prettyness if you so wish :)

A quick peek at the U.S. Capitol Building.

One ice cream bar later, at the National Museum of Natural History - look, it's two Doryfish (known as the regal tang or blue surgeonfish)! Also...

A Nemofish! Also known as a clownfish :)

To top off the day, we visited the famous Hope Diamond, in its temporary "Embracing Hope" setting.

Here's the album link, for anyone who wants to see more pictures :)

Lovely Loves

Image from we♥it

Reading in the sun

For the most part, the weather here has been absolutely wonderful. Despite the odd rainstorm, I can usually go and sit out on the patio deck and read while sunning myself. It's lovely.

Image from Swimming Pool Safety News

Giving swimming lessons

I started teaching this girl back in the first or second week of June. She may not yet be Michael Phelps in the water, but hey! At least she's happily motoring around with a pool noodle.

Image from Merlin's Keep

Merlin

Okay, there is much potential for gush here. Also, potential UNSPECIFIC SPOILERS. Because Arthur starts off with being this ginormous bully, but then we see both he and Merlin getting stuck (time and again) between doing the right thing and the right thing. And then, of course, Merlin saves the day without using magic. Because it's banned. So, nope, no magic here! (I'm kidding, really.) Also, it's Arthurian legend. What's there not to like?

What have your summer highlights been so far?

A Return to Civilization?

Coming back from university has been... Weird, to say the least. Between my massive flailing failure at finding a summer job and a wardrobe update to clothes that would actually be considered practical during the spring and summer, I realize I haven't actually spent that much time outside of my family.

Which is not to say that I've been a hermit this past month! When I have gone out with my old friends from home, I've felt awkward. Like I was struggling to remember jokes we once shared, or what we used to talk about. So for the most part, I've retreated to my family - Which really hasn't helped at all.

The worst part is that I feel like an intruder in my own family. It's been over a month, and I still feel like a guest in my own house. I'll sit in the living room, reading or playing a video game or listening to music, and my sister will start playing the piano (which is in the same room). When I ask her to stop or postpone her practice for half an hour so that I can get out of her was, she usually ignores me completely and pretends as if I don't exist until I start screaming at her and her parents tell me to stop interfering with her practice.

And the same thing happens when I'm using the computer. I've recently become fascinated by the BBC series "Merlin" - which I've been watching on the desktop simply because it has a bigger screen and everything looks much nicer. The problem is, when my sister comes home from school, she will demand use of the computer right this instant, regardless of if I am mid-way through an episode. And her parents believe that she is entitled to this! I believe that they have forgotten that I paid for half the price of the computer with my own money. In this light, I believe that my sister and I can compromise - I finish my episode, she can have the computer for the rest of the night. But nope, both the parents and my sister believe that my sister gets priority on the computer.

Actually, for the most part, the only time the parents really notice me is when my sister complains about something or when they need someone to drive/pickup/dropoff my sister or her friends. Anyone else notice a pattern here? My parents' focus has been shifted to my sister - which should be expected, as I've been gone for eight months, and for those eight months, my sister has essentially become an only child.

So, yeah. Most of the time, I just don't want to leave my room. Which is bad, because I really don't want to be a hermit. But when I leave my room, it seems as if the parents are on my back about everything from breathing too close to my sister. I just really, really wish I could see the new friends I made at university, but they're out of country right now, so no luck :(

Bah. I'll just end this by saying that I feel like I'm being oversensitive and reacting like a dramatic prima donna. But I don't know - how have you been re-integrating with your friends and family back home?

Happy Birthday To Me!

Just thought I'd share some pictures from my birthday yesterday :)

Delicious chocolate cake with a layer of custard filling. Yummmm :)

My disinterested younger sister and the balloon-themed birthday card of awesomeness :D

My slightly-more-interested younger sister (now that I'm opening her present).

Golden Sun (a game that I had eight years ago, never really finished, and then promptly lost), and a $20 gift card for the bookstore. Yaaaayyyy!!

What is it with my family choosing gift bags a million times bigger than the gift itself??? (This is my younger sister, who is actually taller than me. Just so you're aware of how big this bag really is)

A 1-terabyte external hard drive. So that the hard drive on my computer can actually be used for school. Not, you know, movies and such :D

--- v ---

So, now that I have $20 to spend on books, are there any books that you've read that have been particularly enjoyable?

Birthday Countdown!

So, in case you weren't aware, my birthday is in just over a week (June 3rd) and I'm really really really excited!

Well, not just for the fact that I will be the legal drinking age (I still think alcohol tastes nasty), but because I get to go out a celebrate with my family at any restaurant I choose (we don't eat out that often). We went out to a nice local steak restaurant for my dad's birthday last week, so I'm thinking... maybe Italian? Any suggestions?

The big thing on my wishlist this year is a iPod Touch. For the most part, I've decided that I dislike Apple products, simply because I dislike having to use iTunes to sync my iPod every time I want to add new music/take off songs I don't want to listen to anymore. I like the simplicity of the old drag-n'-drop of the old MP3 players. However, it seems that Apple has taken over most of the music player market, and so if I want to upgrade from my old MP3 player (which I've had since elementary school), I'll have to get an iPod. And if I'm asking for an iPod, I may as well ask for the iPod Touch, right? :D

At any rate, the big thing for me is spending time with my family. I've been helping my parents with their landscaping project this year, and I would love love love to see my cousins again soon and have an all-night PS3 party. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this will be happening any time soon :(

What's on your wishlist?

WIND Mobile, ridiculous phone companies, etc.

This past November, I was a lucky winner of a new BlackBerry Bold 9700 from WIND Mobile. I loved my BlackBerry, especially the Festive Cheer plan I had with WIND - which gave me unlimited province-wide calling and unlimited texting for only $25 a month. Sweet deal, right? Well it was, until my BlackBerry broke around March this year.

It's not as if I dropped it and it's completely busted and the screen's cracked, etc. The only thing that's wrong with is is that the trackpad seems to be stuck down for some reason. So, essentially, without the trackpad, the entire phone is useless. I can't navigate the menu, it keeps on randomly selecting things, and it's really, really difficult to make a call or even send a text.

At any rate, a few days after I noticed that the trackpad was wonked, I went  up to the WIND store where I won my BlackBerry, and asked if there was anything that could be done. I relayed to the salesperson the entire story: I won this phone from this store, and now the trackpad seems to be malfunctioning. I was told to return on a later date to speak with the manager.

Not to be deterred, I returned to the WIND store approximately a week later and spoke with the manager. Once again, I told her what had happened: I won this phone from this store, and now the trackpad seems to be malfunctioning. I was put on the waiting list for a new phone, and was told that I would be called when they got a BlackBerry in stock.

A month later (or earlier this week), I called the WIND store and asked if they had my phone in stock. And, luckily, they did! So today, I went up to the store with everything packaged up, ready to receive a new, working BlackBerry - which would make me very, very happy. However, when I got there, I was told that since I won the phone, there was no warranty on it. Therefore, I was not eligible for an exchange.

I'm very, exceedingly, disappointed in WIND Mobile right now. I was led to believe - the whole entire time -  that my phone could be exchanged for a new one. However, it took me three trips - the last which included 3+ hours of travel time - for them to tell me I had no warranty. I've told each person I've spoken to that I won this phone in their contest, but not once was I told that my phone had no warranty on it. I was put on the waiting list for exchange for goodness's sake, and it was not until I came in, ready to exchange my phone was I told that actually, I can't exchange my phone for a new one.

I would have been nice if I was told this the first time I went into the store, instead of the third.

Scratch nice - it would have made things so much easier for everyone involved, as well as saved so much of my time from those utterly ridiculous run-arounds.

A Week in Review: Coming home, relaxation, and video games!

Image from The Kingdom Hearts Wiki

Well hello there! It's been a while since I've posted anything, hasn't it? And, really, that's due to a lot of things. Mostly because I've finally come home from school. While my school isn't so far away that's it's impossible for me to get home, it was still quite a hassle to get home just for the weekend. At any rate, I'm finally home, and I'm luxuriating in the the fact that (for once) I have absolutely nothing to do. Which is usually a bad thing for me - if I have nothing to do, I get antsy and start making trouble just for something to do (think "mad scientist in the kitchen with no adult supervision" levels of trouble). But this time, I filled up my time with all those things I wanted to do while I was in school but couldn't: reading (The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin), doodling (badly, on my sister's graphics tablet), baking (brownies and cookies and cakes - yum!), and most of all, hijacking my sister's PSP to play Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.

Birth by Sleep is actually the third (to my count) major game to be released in the Kingdom Hearts series, as well as a sort of prequel to the first two games. You see that pretty picture up at the top of this post? Notice any familiar characters? Like, for example... Cinderella? Snow White? Maleficent? Peter Pan & Tinkerbell? Stitch? Yep, it's Disney. Apparently, this series was though up when an employee from Square Enix met an employee from Disney in an elevator. I have no idea whether or not this is true, but any combination of Square Enix (who makes the best video games) and Disney (who owns my childhood) is bound to be awesome.

Anyways, besides wasting my time all day, I have been out a few times to look for some jobs, but no luck yet. Any tips for finding a summer job?

A Week in Review: Happy Easter!

Image from ~ Maria ~

So most of you college and university students are done school for the year or are almost done. Hooray! I myself fall into the "almost done" category - I have a physics exam this Tuesday. Boo :(

But that's beside the point - I've moved home (I can't believe how much stuff I had packed into my tiny room at residence!), the weather is actually quite nice, and it's Easter! Yay! Which actually doesn't mean all that much in my family. Easter is just a long weekend. We never really celebrated it. So, no Easter chocolates or the like in my family. It's quite upsetting, actually.

Since I've moved home, we've had dinner with my neighbours, one of which has just returned from the hospital is is well on the way to recovery, and the other is a prospective McMaster University student next year. Which I hope she does - because I'll have a friend to nerd out with again. But, of course, she should pick the university that's right for her. Which may or may not be Mac.

I went job hunting the other day, but then I kind of got depressed. I wanted to work in or near the mall, seeing as how it's close to home, but most of the stores are clothing stores. Which wouldn't good fit for me at all, seeing as how I never really dress nicely, nor do I put on makeup (uh, never really learned how to do the last one. Oops?).

Anyways, I hope you have a lovely Easter, and enjoy the time home with your friends and family :)

Playlist: Favourites & Studying

Most people would prefer to study without music, due to it being distracting or whatnot. I'm one of the strange people who can't study without music. So, without further ado, here's the playlist that I listen to when I study (which also happens to be most of my favourite songs)!

1. Glee Cast - Telephone
2. Daft Punk - One More Time
3. Glee Cast - Dog Days Are Over
4. Mayday Parade - Miserable At Best
5. Lifehouse - First Time
6. Rufus Wainwright - Hallelujah
7. Taylor Swift - Love Story
8. Farewell Fighters - Anthem West
9. Sara Bareilles - King of Anything
10. Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten
11. Sam Tsui (ft. Christina Grimmie) - Just a Dream
12. Darren Criss - Not Alone
13. Shrek 2 - Funkytown
14. Taio Cruz - Break Your Heart
15. Glee Cast - Sing
16. Hikaru Utada - Beautiful World (PLANiTb Acoustica Mix)
17. Glee Cast - Blackbird
18. Glee Cast - Loser Like Me
19. Gyakutan Meets Orchestra 2008 - Ace Attorney 4 Courtroom Suite
20. Farewell Fighters - Have Spacesuit Will Travel
21. Gyakutan Meets Orchestra 2008 - Apollo Justice ~ a New Trial is in Session!
22. Shrek 2 - Accidentally in Love
23. Rob Thomas - Mockingbird
24. Enrique Iglesias (ft. Pitbull) - I Like It
25. Flo Rida (ft. David Guetta) - Club Can't Handle Me
26. Sid - Rain
27. Farewell Fighters - The Winning Team
28. Mercy Mercedes - The Perfect Scene
29. Ryan Star - Breathe
30. Glee Cast - Hey, Soul Sister
31. B.o.B (ft. Hayley Williams) - Airplanes
32. Brandon Flowers - Only the Young
33. DJ Tiesto (ft. Tegan and Sara) - Feel It In My Bones
34. Glee Cast - Teenage Dream
35. Gyakutan Meets Orchestra 2008 - Phoenix Wright ~ Objection!
36. Colbie Caillat - You Got Me
37. Sam Tsui - Explosion Medley
38. Eurythmics - Here Comes The Rain Again
39. Glee Cast - Thriller/Heads Will Roll
40. Enrique Iglesias (ft. Ludacris & DJ Frank E) - Tonight (I'm Lovin' You)
41. A Very Potter Musical - Get Back to Hogwards
42. L'Arc~en~Ciel - Niji
43. Glee Cast - Landslide
44. A-ha - Analogue (All I Want)
45. Katy Perry - Firework
46. Eddie Murphy - I'm a Believer (Reprise)
47. Sara Bareilles - Love Song
48. O.A.R. - Shattered
49. Glee Cast - Raise Your Glass
50. Gyakutan Meets Orchestra 2008 - Ace Attorney 1~3 Courtroom Suite
51. Shrek 2 - Livin' La Vida Loca
52. Fefe Dobson - Stuttering
53. Glee Cast - Misery
54. Shrek 2 - Holding Out For a Hero
55. P!nk - God is a DJ
56. Glee Cast - Candles
57. Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
58. Charice (ft. IYAZ) - Pyramid
59. Eva Avila - I Owe It All To You
60. Hikaru Utada - Sanctuary ~After the Battle~
61. Natasha Bedingfield - Pocketful of Sunshine
62. Hiroshi Watanabe (aka Quadra) - Get It By Your Hands
63. Lifehouse - All In
64. ATC - Around THe World (La La La La La)
65. Fefe Dobson - Ghost
66. Rob Thomas - This Is How a Heart Breaks
67. Boys Like Girls (ft. Taylor Swift) - Two is Better Than One

All things considered, it's not too bad.

The result of approximately four all-nighters this week. My resolution to always have at least 8 hours of sleep each nigh has flown out the window. It was much worse two nights ago when I was studying for my biology final - that mess was just paper everywhere (not that this one isn't). Which I just shoved into a box and washed my hands of because I really don't want to think about it. Right now the mess is mostly just laundry. Which I don't want to spend half an hour folding. It's just... monotonous. I just want finals to be over. I still have three exams to go. I feel like turtle crawling through peanut butter. Or honey. Or molasses.

I have an entire week between my second-last and last exams, so hopefully I can move out of residence on the 20th (which means I have clean this mess up before my dad sees it) and I can stay at home a relax for a bit before my last exam on the 26th.

Probably should have made this a "Week in Review" post, but really, it wouldn't have been too interesting. Study, exam, study, study, exam, study. Bleaaarrrgh.

Tutorial: HTML

I've been doing some tweaking on my tumblr layout, so I thought that this would be something neat to post. Please keep in mind that I don't know everything about HTML, but I have been playing around in the sandbox for a few years.

HTML is a language. In fact, it's a particularly picky language, so double-check all your spelling and 'grammar'. In fact, most of the time (like in the English language), the errors are in the 'grammar' of your HTML. That being said, learning the 'grammar' isn't all that difficult.

To begin with, in HTML, we use these things called 'tags'. Essentially, we have a start tag and a closing tag. Usually, it looks something like this:

<tag></tag>

In this case, <tag> is our start tag, and </tag> is our closing tag. Note that the closing tag is identical to an opening tag, except the closing tag has a forward slash.

Now, there are many, many, many types of tags. What if you wanted to use a bunch of different tags to make, say, a paragraph with some of the text bolded and have an image that links elsewhere? Well, you'd have to use a tag to bake the text bold, and image tag, a link tag, and maybe even a paragraph tag! But in what order would you open and close the tags? The answer - close the tags in the reverse order that they were opened.

What?

To clarify this, I'd like to make an analogy. Opening and closing tags in HTML is like a simple sandwich. Let's think about the sandwich in layers. If you stick a toothpick through your sandwich from top to bottom, the layers the toothpick in order are the top slice of bread, the butter that was spread on the top slice of bread, meat, butter spread on the bottom slice of bread, and the slice of bread on the bottom. Okay, so what does this have to do with anything?

<top bread>     |  <tag1>
<top butter>    |  <tag2>
   meat         |   text
<bottom butter> |  </tag2>
<bottom bread>  |  </tag1>

In this example, we opened tag1, then tag2. We then closed the tags in the order of tag2, tag1. Get it?

Let's look at an example with three tags, say some text that is bolded, italicized, and stricken through (if you're using strikethrough in your blog posts in Blogger, use the <s></s> tag instead of <del></del>).

<b><i><del>Some text</del></i></b>

This would look like...

Some text

So to return to my original example of a paragraph with bolded text, an image, and a link, the code might look something like this...

<p>Some text <b>here</b>. Oh, here's a picture!
<a href="http://www.google.ca><img src="http://something.com/pictureurlhere.jpg"/></a></p>

The result would look like this...

Some text here. Oh, here's a picture!

I know, it's clear as mud, isn't it? First we opened the paragraph tag, which means we have to close it last. Next we opened the bold tag. Now, between where we opened the bold tag and where we want to close the bold tag, we have no other tags which are open. Which means that we can just go ahead and close the bold tag after the word "here". We then opened the link tag, then the image tag (the image tag does not require a closing tag). Currently, the only tags we have open are the paragraph tag and the link tag. So we need to close them in reverse order — the paragraph tag was opened first, so it needs to be closed last, and the link tag was opened last, so it should be closed first.

If you'll notice, the link tag in my last example looks a little different to the other tags I've shown you.

<a href="http://www.google.ca">Link text here</a>

This is an example of a tag with an attribute. The basic tag is <a></a>, that additional bit inside the first tag is called an 'attribute' There are a bunch of attributes you can give to tags, and each attribute has a set of values. The value is always surrounded by double quotation marks. You can only have one value per attribute, and each attribute can only be used once in each tag. My favourite attribute would have to be the style attribute. You can use this attribute to add CSS to a tag to do some neat things, like changing colours and fonts, or even move things around, which I'll talk about in a later post.


--- v ---


Well, there you have it. Hopefully it wasn't too confusing. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to leave me a question in the comments, or go check out W3Schools' HTML Tutorial for a little more clarification :)

My Favourite Things

Oh, man. Sorry about the lack of posting - my tablet driver/graphics software don't seem to be getting along, which has put a huge damper on my plans for this month's posts. Unfortunately, those posts will have to wait until I'm done exams and I have a chance to go home and sort my computer out. But to tide you over, Katy has tagged me to fill out this quick meme-thingy :)

~1~ FOOD: Shepard's Pie. Mashed potatoes over gravy-soaked ground meat with peas and carrots and corn. Yum :)

~2~ COLOUR: Forget-Me-Not Blue. When I have my own place, I'm definitely growing a patch of forget-me-nots. They're sooooo pretty!

~3~ ANIMAL: Do unicorns count? ;) My family's never had any pets, but I enjoy playing with my neighbour's dog and my friend's dog and my other friend's dogs :)

~4~ SPORTS TEAM: I must admit, I've never had a huge interest for team sports - or any sport at all, really. I enjoy swimming (I did a bit of competitive swimming in high school), but I prefer being the one in the pool as opposed to simply watching the sport. So I really have no idea about any sports teams :(

~5~ DESSERT: Goodness, I could go on and on and on about this one :) I love tiramisu, but I also love my mom's homemade lemon meringue pie. And hot caramel apple pie with vanilla ice cream is just lovely.

~6~ ARTIST/BAND: Sam Tsui. I've linked to his Facebook page, but go look him up on YouTube! I love love boys who can actually sing - not just wail/growl/whatever to hard rock or metal.

~7~ PAIR OF SHOES: Haha. Um. I have this pair of shoes that I got from the Payless Shoe Store ages ago - and when I say ages, I mean years. But my sister got me a new pair of Vans for Christmas, which are a close, close second.

~8~ OUTFIT: Easy - shirt, sweater & jeans :) During the summer, I like to wear flower-printed skirts. When I'm just lazing around, sweats and my MedRadSci hoodie if I'm willing to get dressed at all ;)

~9~ STORE: I'm going to have to take a page from Katy on this one - for clothing, I go to American Eagle, but in general Chapter/Indigo/Coles ♥

~10~ BRAND: Depends on the product, I suppose. For clothing, I looooove looking at the stuff from TNA, even though I will never be able to afford any of it. For beauty products, I usually go to Fruits & Passion. They have the best smelling hand lotions/butters, and my hands dry out like crazy.

~11~ PERFUME: Don't wear any perfume. Unless you count the body spray I use when I forget my deodorant at res and don't bring it home with me. In that case, it's from Dove.

~12~ ACCESSORY: A sailor's bracelet I got from Boston last year. I dunked it in the Charles River so that I could put it on for the first time.

~13~ CITY: Hm. Probably either Toronto or Ottawa :)

~14~ HOBBY: Reading or baking - take your pick :)

~15~ BEAUTY PRODUCT: I don't use beauty products all that often, seeing as how the only time I really break out is when I get stressed. If I had to choose, it'd be my Dove Deep Moisture night cream.

~16~ SNACK: Either chips, Oreos, or Goldfish crackers in cheddar.

~17~ HOLIDAY: Christmas. Or Chinese New Year. Both are about the only time I actually get to see both sides of my family.

~18~ MOVIE: It's a tie between Spirited Away and Tangled. I just can't decide!

~19~ SONG: Right now? "Hit That Jive Jack" from Cadence. It'll probably change within the hour, though.

~20~ GUILTY PLEASURE: Massive amounts of hot chocolate or tea with extra sugar. Massive. With extra sugar. I'm surprised I'm not diabetic yet. (Also, chocolates of any kind. Truffles are the best.)



--- v ---

Well, there you have it. A little bit about me :) Hopefully, I can whip something up to replace the posts I was going to do (until I had technology issues), so stay tuned!

A Week in Review

Image from weheartit

Most people would have a "depression week" around midterms. But for me, I think that this is the worst week I've had yet this year - which doesn't make sense, seeing as how I've finished my midterms two weeks ago, and I've just come back from a refreshing week-long holiday from school!

Part of the problem is that fact that I did absolutely nothing over Reading Week. Well, I did read a bunch of books on my lovely new Kobo eReader (and I also make a cute little case for it!), but it's definitely not the material I'm supposed to be reading for school.Which meant that I pretty much stuffed what was supposed to be a week's worth of work into two days. I guess I pretty much just brought that on myself -whoops!

I think I'm stuck in my highschool concert band mentality - we had rehearsals every week, but we never really got a huge amount done. But on performance day, things just magically came together. I know that this kind of thing doesn't work in terms of university assignments, but I still have trouble mustering up the motivation to start projects early instead of waiting till the very last moment.

At any rate, because I'm spending all my time trying to catch up the work I should have done over Reading week, I have had no time to go to the gym. Or, rather, whenever I  have a free hour or two to go to the gym, I'm either too tired or I have absolutely zero motivation to go there. I think Reading Week took away any motivation I may have had to make a regular running schedule.

I don't know if it's from my lack of physical exercise or what, but I've also been feeling pretty down this week. Not just down as in 'depressed', but I've also been feeling kind of lethargic and just low-energy in general. Not helped at all by the yucky weather system that ran through yesterday. I tend to get the worst headaches when rainstorms run through the area. As such, my day started out with a bowl of cereal and two extra-strength Tylenol. Yuck.

And then we get to today - phew! A big big upside for me this week was the release of the new Pokemon games. Yes, I am a bit of a nerd when it comes to Pokemon games. I have no idea why, but I derive great pleasure from collecting the little pixel-y guys. However, a big big downside is that I'm still not feeling much better. The headache from yesterday is gone, but I've been feeling light-headed and woozy all morning. I may have even passed out in the shower. I remember sitting down in the tub so I could wait for the light-headedness to pass, but I don't remember lying down on my side, which is the position I found myself in when I woke up. Gah. I really really hate feeling like this.

--- v ---

I've had a miserable week, and I just needed to get this off my chest. So I'd love it if you could leave me a comment - how do you get back into the swing of things after a holiday? Would you like me to continue these "A Week in Review" posts? I promise that my life generally isn't as depressing as this week was! ♥

Study Tips 101: Science

As mentioned in my last post, I promised to write a little bit on study tips to help review for tests and exams. Now, it's been said that studying can't be taught, as each person studies differently. However, in my case I also study differently for each class. Today, I'm going to look at study tips for science-based courses. I think I know a little but about this, since my own program is under the Faculty of Science :)

One thing that I've noticed is that a big hurdle in science-based courses is the terminology. From cyclohexa-1,3,5-triene to sternocleidomastoid to plasmolysis - we all have trouble with trying to keep up with what the professors say, and trying to actually understand it at the same time. One solution I've come up with for this is the obvious – flashcards! I love making these little guys – as I’m making my deck, I’m learning the words, so it’s almost like a two-for-one deal! I myself you the flashcard maker from StudyBlue.

Another resource that I’ve used (maybe a little too much…) are online videos. Nowadays, many textbooks come with an online key that let you access a bunch of great online content – such as my much abused videos! If not, a quick YouTube or Google search will likely turn up some results. I consider myself to be a visual learner, so seeing how things work in action with each other has helped me much more than I care to admit.

This is probably going to sound strange… Sometimes I like making mock Wikipedia articles on the subject I’m studying. I find that this technique helps me so much in my kinesiology class, because the notes I study from are just PowerPoint slides with a bunch of scribbles I made on it during lecture. I find that making mock Wikipedia articles really helps me with a few things – firstly, it helps me organize my thoughts. I’ll make a “Table of Contents” in the corner with headings and subheadings and subsubheadings, etc. This really helps me to figure out what is classified where. Secondly, making my own mock Wikipedia article helps me to condense and analyze the information. I don’t allow myself to put pictures in my mock Wikipedia articles, so I force myself to explain the concepts demonstrated easily by a picture in words – this helps to really understand what the picture is trying to convey. Of course, I really don’t want to sit there and copy  out all the notes, so I have to condense all of the information so that I get the juicy bits and leave the extraneous stuff behind.

--- v ---

This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the ways one can study for a science-based course. Rather, these are methods that I myself find helpful. Hopefully some of these tips will come in handy when crunch time comes along, and let me know how these tips worked out for you!
P.S. If anyone would like to see any examples of the study tools I've mentioned here, just let me know in the comments :)

Just A Little Change

So I've just added this neat little commenting widget from Disqus to replace the basic commenting system from Blogger. I'm pretty excited about it - there a bunch of neat features, like mobile comments and inline media embedding and threaded comments. So now you can actually see who's replied to what!

Anyways, give it a whirl and tell me what you think - especially if there's any bugs; I'll try and deal with those ASAP! (meaning, I hope I didn't mess up the installation :p )

Midterm Madness!

Workload through the roof? Check. Food and sleep becoming optional? Check. Sanity floating out somewhere near Neptune? Check. Let's face it: midterms (and, well, exams in general) are stressful. So today, I thought I'd share a few tips on how I keep my head screwed on right while I slug my way through a veritable mountain of assignments and tests.


Make sure you get enough sleep.
If you sleep more, you'll be smarter. Really! Check out this lovely post on why you should be getting eight or more hours of sleep each day. I do admit, though, that unless you're really super-efficient at studying and getting assignments done during exam time, 8+ hours of sleep every night is kind of difficult. So I'd say it's okay to let your sleep schedule slide a little for the duration of your "Hell week", but don't make it a habit. And if you're falling asleep in front of your computer screen, it's time to throw in the towel and cut your losses. You won't learn anything through osmosis - trust me, I've tried :)

Study right.
Okay, this is a big topic. Honestly, I don't think that there's only one way of studying. Everyone has their own style. For me, I have lost of styles - depending on the class, I'll study for it differently than I would for another class. So all I can say is, find what works for you. Also, one major thing that changes from highschool is that you need to start studying  earlier. In highschool, I would study for my exams the night before, and that's it. In university, that's really no longer an option. For myself, I need to start studying at least two to three days before my exam. There is absolutely no way I will have time to review everything if I start studying the night before - it's just not possible for night-before cramming to work anymore! I'll cover some study tips and techniques in another post, but suffice to say, even the best study methods won't help you if you don't have enough time to cover the material.

Watch your eating.
This is another big thing that tends to slide during midterms and exams. Most people tend to forget to eat and just snack on junk food all day - which is exactly what I did during first term. I don't think I really need to talk about the results. And if you're telling yourself "Oh, that won't happen to me. I'll get so stressed I'll LOSE ten pounds!", have you actually tried it? I can count on one hand the number of people I've met that have had weight loss result from stress eating. Which is not to say that it's not possible, but either way, stress can turn healthy and balanced eating habits into dangerous and exceedingly unhealthy ones, whether you're eating too much or too little. So make sure you're eating at least two to three meals a day. If you eat dinner a little later, make sure you stop by the dining hall to pick up dinner in a take-away box before the dining hall closes. Nothing is worse than realizing at 1am that you haven't eaten dinner yet - and all the dining halls are closed for the night.

Work in groups.
I know that a lot of people are going to scoff at me for this, because it's what every professor and their TA says. But if everyone says it, they might actually have a point. Even if you're just catching up of readings or another "solo" study activity, working with other is a tremendous help. For one thing, I find that studying with others can keep me going for much longer than if I study alone - if I work by myself, I might be able to get through half of the material before I give up. However, when I study with others (even if it's just a small group of three), we'll get through all the material and then some in one night. It also helps me to "de-stress" a little, because our discussions tend to veer off-topic every twenty minutes or so - which is good, because discussing biological molecular structures at 3am had me quite close to tearing my hair out.


--- v ---

Midterms and exam time are hugely stressful. Just keep ahold of the things I mentioned here, and hopefully you'll get though without being too much worse for wear :)

Welcoming to The Blogosphere...!

Hi, I'm Karleen :)

After much encouragement from and discussion with Katy, I've finally decided to hop on the bandwagon and try out blogging for myself.

I don't think that I'm going to have a central topic here - my mind tends to jump around like a chipmunk with candy more often than not, so my posts will probably be more like whatever I feel like talking about at the time. However, after throwing around some ideas, Katy has suggested that I do some posts on creative writing, graphic design, music, university life, etc. So I'll probably end up rotating through those topics in some order or another. If I post once a week, I should be able to cover each of these topics at least once every month. I hope.

So, what do you think? What would you like to see me post about?

P.S. I have just noticed that I have a tiny bruise on the back of my hand. I wonder how that got there?