dancinggold

[dancinggold]

“penguins will push other penguins into the water to test for predators.”

i don’t usually listen to the radio… but when I do, I hear some interesting info sometimes;;; //they said this in a pirate voice too what is going on

[dancinggold]

literally everyone @ batman: what's up with you and adopting only black haired, blue-eyed kids with good bone structure? it stopped being a coincidence at the 58th adoption

bruce wayne, nodding and poking a straw through an apple juice box: right?

[dancinggold]

people love “thick” bodies as long as they have a flat stomach and im just so tired, dont say you like chubby people when you only mean people who have thicker thighs and a flat stomach

[dancinggold]

Happy Birthday Richard Grayson To the best you.

[dancinggold]

These mean a lot to me.

[dancinggold]

P R O D U C T I V I T Y

30/30*  - personal favorite, I always use this to study and manage time.

Essential productivity apps for any student*

Top 5 productivity apps for iOS (video)*

Top 5 productivity apps for Android (video)*

StayFocusd*- limits the time you can spend on time-wasting websites

Time Warp* - keeps you from procrastinating 

Self Control* - blocks websites

The science of productivity (video)

The science of procrastination and how to manage it (video)

7 brain hacks to improve your productivity (video)

The simple science of getting more done (in less time)

Productivity tips

About power naps

How to pull an all-nighter effectively

O R G A N I Z A T I O N 

My Study Life* - It’s a planner to help you remember when your homework is due and stuff like that

Free printable planner

To do list

How to make a study schedule

Class folder organization 

S C H O O L // S T U D Y I N G

Inkflow Visual Notebook* - I haven’t used this one, but it’s for note taking (if you’re a visual learner it’s probably quite useful

Free Flashcards Study Helper* - Create flashcards and carry them around to study anywhere

Apps for students*

Tips and trick to help you get good grades

Learning how to study

Cornell note taking method

BBC Bitesize

Studyblue - flashcards, quizzes, review sheets, study guides, etc.

Essay writing

Textbook masterpost (and other stuff too)

Wolfram Alpha for research 

Memorizing dates

Making a good study guide

Note taking like a pro

Online calculator

Finals survival guide

How to survive finals

School survival guide

Free online courses

Scholarpedia

Mathway

Khan academy

Quizlet

Homework help

Exam survival tips

Studying for an important exam

Answering multiple choice questions

Guide on punctuation

Science simplified 

How to answer exam questions

How to study

Useful websites

CrashCourse

How to write an essay

Duolingo

P R  O J E C T S

Public speaking

Annoying Power Point presentation mistakes

Power Point presentations

Prezi

Emaze - similar to prezi

Rawshorts - video presentations

If it has * it’s an app

[dancinggold]

i thought i was good at math until i put myself into hl math and it all went to shit down the drain. i have never had to study particularly hard for math as i have for other courses so starting over as a rookie feels strange but liberating. my math mark has improved greatly and so here is my guide on how to study math!

resources:

questionbank (if you have mac download winebottler to open) [will straight up save your life if you’re in ib hl math]

khan academy [bit annoying in that the videos are unnecessarily long because of mistakes, but useful for learning specific concepts]

wolfram alpha [helpful for double-checking annoying calculations]

google calculator [sometimes i forget my graphing calculator at school and i hate this calculator but i like it better than my phone]

your textbook [a bunch of practice questions with answers is a gift from heaven]

your friends [probably nice and want to help out]

your teacher [probably nice and want to help out, but if not, then ask another math teacher at your school]

math masterposts:

abs-studies

organisaticns

moisturbate

enfpfocustudyblr

doitforthea

notebooks-n-naps

general tips:

solve as many practice questions as you can - practice really makes perfect

do your homework. a lot of classes have homework questions on the test, just with different numbers

do your homework right, and by that i mean check your answers. math textbooks usually have answers, but if there aren’t any, compare with a friend. you need to know if you’re doing it right or not

write your notes using graph paper or buy a graph notebook because once you get into functions there’s no going back

math is all about pattern recognition, especially with word problems

word problems have key vocabulary that let you figure out what kind of math you need to use

if you have to draw a diagram, try to draw it somewhat to scale. you can sort of check if your answer makes sense that way

skipping steps is useful because speed is important but if it’s a step you feel uncomfortable skipping, then don’t do it; it will screw you over

a lot of people don’t get math because it’s hard! if you feel you understand what’s happening, try and help someone. it’ll benefit them and you, because that’s how you know if you really understand

learn how to use your graphing calculator. you can really use it to your advantage

memorize the math terminology and symbols. it may not feel necessary, but it’s useful and you could get screwed over on a test because you didn’t know summation notation or the symbol for integers

make sure your handwriting is as legible as possible. sometimes your answer is wrong simply because you couldn’t read your handwriting during the process and calculated the wrong numbers

asking for help is important because you always build your knowledge and even if you memorize and get away with it now, you will get screwed later. if your teacher scares you, ask a friend or get a tutor

specific tips for ib maths:

questionbank is the best resource you have. use it, love it, become best friends with it - especially if you’re in hl. ib hl questions are hard to come up with, so most teachers will take test questions from questionbank. even if they don’t, however, it’s good practice. hl is hard simply because they combine the topics you learn in ways you wouldn’t think of. practice, and you will be fine.

remember how to do basic math calculations. paper 1 of sl and hl don’t allow any calculators, so you really want to remember how to do 2 by 2 digit multiplication and division etc.

having a formula booklet on a test or exam is great only if you know what to do with the formulas you’re given

get to know your formula booklet because it could save you some brain space not memorizing formulas

masterposts:

math!

+ more

math ain’t got nothing on you babes good luck x dev

[dancinggold]

- only grunge posts -

[dancinggold]

hello pals!!! school is tough, life in general is tough + we all need a break sometimes. remember to take a day off at least once a week or take frequent breaks + take time to care for yourself because you deserve it!! this is a masterpost to help you out if you’re stuck + don’t know what to do <3

for your ears

calm songs that make me feel warm inside

for relaxing + taking your mind off things

tranquilising coffee shop sounds

rainy sounds

nature sounds

the infinite jukebox

for your body, hair + face

head-to-toe self care

helpful makeup tips!!!

eye makeup stuff

braid your hair like the ladies in game of thrones

winged eyeliner

makeup/hair/perfume post

for your eyes

marvel movies masterpost!!!

movies for angsty teens

movie night masterpost

classic chick flicks

indie films

childhood movies

spooky movies

a bunch of series!!!

giant panda cam

puppy cam!!!

kitten cam!!!

for your tummy

microwave mug cake

vegan smoothies

vegetable burgers

recipes for students

bake really nice stuff!!!

layered ice cream pops

rainbow cheesecake

food hacks

myfridgefood [make something with stuff you have in your fridge!!]

spice up your hot chocolate

what tea you should take according to how you feel

for your mind

put your thoughts in this box

free online therapy

a website that compliments you

who’s the cutest?

weave silk

do nothing for two minutes

make stuff with sand [this is really calming i love it!!!]

the dawn room

the thoughts room

make everything okay

mental health masterpost

other stuff

a sleep calculator

photoshop downloads

photoshop for beginners

art links!!

what you should do when you’re stressed

my positivity tag

+ my masterposts

notes, studying, and self-study resources

self-study resources

supplies

igcse resources

improving your handwriting

how to studyblr

literature masterpost

organisation

aesthetically pleasing notes

annotating

studying a foreign language

really great apps

math

college + uni

motivation

biology

space!!!!

chemistry

physics

summary writing

the discursive/argumentative essay

the narrative essay + the descriptive essay

the ultimate english masterpost!!

+ more

hope this helps you guys be stress-free for a while!!! take care of yourself, i love you <3

-helena xx

[dancinggold]

I'm at that point in my life now where I have to wear makeup every time I step out of my house. The saddest thing? It was not long ago that I thought I was pretty without makeup.

#sad #depressing #makeup #ugly #self love

[dancinggold]

Funhaus + Sports + Shots.

Yes.

[dancinggold]

It’s a REAL TERM, I swear to God!

[dancinggold]

- only grunge posts -

[dancinggold]

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.

Henry Ford 

#inspiration #student #ib #never give up #keep on swimming #quoteoftheday

[dancinggold]

Terry and Dick sure run into trouble from time to time.

[dancinggold]

"Peace In Our Time"

#artist #art in progress #soon

[dancinggold]

🌠Guide to Study Guides

Hi, so I make study guides when I revise as referenced to in this post/ask here. So in this post I’m gonna try and show you guys how I go about making a study guide like I did for sociology or philosophy, both of which are shown in that link there. This is my method so it probably is really complicated and stuff, I know for sure that my guides are overly “fancy” and whatnot, but it makes me happy and I guess the extra effort does pay off, at least aesthetically. 

Okay, yes, let’s begin…

1. Visit colourlovers.com to choose a colour scheme for your guide!

I’ve provided the link to the most loved palette page which is where I choose my colour scheme. In Word, you change your colour scheme by choosing Page Layout > Colour > Create New Theme Colours and you go from there!! I basically started making my own colour schemes after I went through all the ones already provided by Word, but to be honest you can start with those since they’re really nice too. I recommend: Apex, Composite, Foundry, Metro, Module, Slipstream and Solstice.

If you do want to make your own colour scheme, you should get ready to do some fiddling around because I still don’t get this really. Making a colour scheme on Word requires at least 10 colours, that’s okay because on colourlovers, palettes are usually made up of 5 so just choose 2 that you think suit each other :) After this you need to input the hex codes manually into the popup window of “Create New Theme Colours” starting from Text/Background - Dark 2 to Accent 6. The hex codes are provided by individually clicking on the colours.

So that’s what one of my self-made colour schemes look like, you should be aware that Word usually randomises these? I don’t really know how it works but basically sometimes the colours won’t necessarily be in that order when you go to select it to specifically colour a word, if that’s the case you’ll just have to fiddle and change it around to choose your preferred colour in the scheme. Also not all the colours will go into the textbox options so be aware of that too!

2. Font shopping

Next if I haven’t updated the font collection for a while I’ll go to dafont.com because I just…really like jazzy fonts. From here I’ll either check out “All The New Fonts” (option is at the bottom of the front page) or go to the menu titled Script, and check out Handwritten, Fancy or Various. Here are some links to asks about fonts that I’ve used in my shown study guides or just fonts I like in general!! 1 and 2.

Okay so as you can see in the Disney Princess Document/Sociology Study Guide I used at least five fonts, I usually average around 4? Once downloaded choosing fonts that you like for your guide is basically a trial and error process, I choose any fonts that I like or haven’t recently used or just recently downloaded that I want to try out and I match them with what I think would look nice! Here I’ll show you why I use around four or more fonts:

In order to make the process of typing up your guide with these fonts easier, highlight one, so for example the Big Title, right click > Styles > Save Selection as New Quick Style…and it’ll be available to you in the Quick Styles menu underneath a heading like Style1. After this to easily change a font to that particular font, just highlight, go to Quick Styles, choose that particular font and bam! I try to make my fonts match, so if one is bold, I aim for at least a thick-ish font in the rest of my choices. Now to go through what they’re for. 

So obviously the Big Title is for your BIG TITLE that could be your subject or your main topic, so if it was sociology (like in the first pic) I would use it for Key Concepts and Methods, I might later reuse the font for another BIG TOPIC, but really…it’s your choice.

The Subtitle is what I would use for well…your subtitle, so following my first pic it would be the subtitle of Positivism versus Interpretivism…Three Key Concepts, etc. The heading is therefore for the headings under the subtitle (this is only if you’re making a guide for something that is like intensely sectioned, like sociology), so I’d use that font for where it says Reliability etc.

It just brings something extra on top of all the later colour you’ll probably use, although I only use it for like a set theme, so dates, names etc. and only either a word or a phrase, if it gets too long it’ll just mess up the format of your sentence. 

3. Okay, so you’re happily typing away but now you wanna add the speech bubbles, you wanna add the textboxes and the Disney princesses! Don’t worry my  friend, I got you.

Basically I add textboxes or speech bubbles for 2 reasons, either to highlight a particular point or differentiate a piece of information from the rest OR to fill up space because of some particular study guide pet peeves. 

Pet peeve, when a particular sentence ends like this:

I know it might seem like a bit much, but to be honest, it throws the whole format of a block of text if a bit of it ends with like this huge expanse of space. So in this instance I either will insert a photo or I’ll try and delete a word or add a word until I’m satisfied. THIS IS JUST ME, IF YOU DON’T CARE OBVIOUSLY IT DOESN’T MATTER 👌

You can insert speech bubbles by going to Insert > Shapes > Callouts (you’ll find it there) and textboxes by going to Insert > Textbox > Draw Textbox (I draw mine since I don’t tend to use the ones provided by Word. With the speech bubbles they actually act as textboxes, but I’ve found that using it in that way takes up a lot of space as in your words won’t necessarily take up the whole of the speech bubble so it simply expands and it’s all messy. Therefore, I put a textbox on the top of it, make the background and outline transparent and type there to save space. 

Here are some examples of when I’ve used photos or speech bubbles to fill up space or solve the annoying sentence problem.

I generally tend to have themes around what photos I use, so for example my sociology guide was largely based on Disney/Cartoon Network depending on how I felt and I’d use particular photos to emphasise a point and make it more entertaining I guess… As you can see the speech bubbles with LSP are for filler purposes but also to differentiate information, it just adds something extra really. Also because I continuously indent my guides (since I type with bullet points) as they get further and further in they’ll leave gaps that can be filled with photos, seen here with what I’ve done with LSP. Also with the photos that I choose, I search for the ones with a grey, checkered background which means that they’ll be transparent, allowing me to put them in front of a textbox or just makes overall design easier, it means that I can have the Gangreen Gang in front of that textbox like that :)

4. Final step, going over your guide when it’s done.

I then go through the guide again and highlight, underline, italicise, bold, colour etc. particular points of a sentence/paragraph that I want to remember! I do this in order of the colour scheme that appears in the menu when you click to change the colour of a font, so I’ll highlight particular words for a portion of a paragraph before changing, achieving a sort of a rainbow effect, like so:

These are from my history study guide, where I made front covers (which I don’t usually do…I feel like all my guides really depend on how I feel and my subject). This is what they looked like if you wanted an idea for something you could do too!!

Um..so that’s pretty much it! I’ve tried to make this as extensive and as in-depth as I can, I’m sorry it ended up SO LONG, I’ve never made a post this long before so I’m really sorry. I would put it under a read more but I feel like the font on my blog is too tiny for when it’s redirected and I’d much rather not have everyone straining their eyes. If you guys have any more questions, please feel free to ask. If you want any more examples or screen shots of my guides, just hit up my ask box!! Sorry for this taking so long and being so long once again and I really hope it helps you all in at least some way! 

***As an addition, those washi tapes you see are digital washi tapes which you can get just by googling! I use the free ones which only require a lil’ searching for. Also please tag me in whatever study guides you make and upload, I’d love to see them!!