food for thought

Consecutive midterms tomorrow and day after, whee.

market

Here's to a great year of tuitions being paid by scholarships and grants.
Cheers.

only plan is to improvise

Midterms are done for this week, but I feel that the bulk of the work still lies ahead...

Daft punk filler while I have nothing interesting to write about:

jotnotes

Today I would like to point out the difference between preparing for tests from highschool to now.

In highschool, the process went something like this:
notification of test -> study for test (do questions or memorize content).

Now, it's more like this:
notification of test with incomplete information -> calculate required mark to obtain x% in course -> location for test announced -> search for past tests, panic when few/none are available -> try to guess the questions on the test -> go through lecture notes again to make study sheet -> study for test.

durrr.
Second year was off to a packed start, was full of report writing just until midterms started. A lot of the first semester courses are reading/writing based, which takes even more time to do than problem sets. For evidence, I present midterm study sheets for two courses.

Exhibit A. a calculations based course:

 Look at all the white space remaining!

Exhibit B. a non-calculation based course (yet, apparently the final is mostly calculations):

2.5 pages of definitions to know, whee.

Also experimenting with mind maps as a study aid for non-calculation courses. Really helped for APS301 (and I totally predicted the quiz question right ha!), hopefully it'll work for this too. Though I must say I'm terrible at spacing the chart out.

carry that weight.

Amidst my solid mechanics problem set, I discovered /r/cowboybepop (man there's a subreddit for everything, like ffxiv and ni no kuni :D). Which led me to this incredible analysis of the final two episodes.

The only appropriate response is to change my wallpaper to this:

too much feelings e_e"

granola

Breakfast is now all set up. Non-busy mornings: smoothie, busy mornings:

Loosely adapted from David Lebovitz.

Recipe is along the lines of

• Dry ingredients: 6 cups of oats, 2 cups dried fruit (currants and crasins), 2.5 cups chopped nuts (almonds and walnut), 1.5 cups shredded unsweetened coconut, 0.5 cup brown sugar (might up it more next time), liberal sprinkle of salt.
• Wet ingredients: 1 cup apple sauce (never thought of adding it before), 0.25 cup honey, 5 tbsp olive oil.

Also simplified the baking process, stirring only once half way through. Saves so much time.

Roommates approve, so this is a success (y).

Winter 13 wardrode planning

What do I do when there's finally free time? Play Ni no Kuni for 5 hours (can't marathon games anymore, I hear the bgm even when the game's turned off...) and commence window shopping online (y)

So continuing my search for a new tote and wallet...maybe I should just stick with what I currently have for a while longer. Though the Teranishi one I wanted is gone, so probably going to get this one (eventually).

Also continuing is the dilemma of what to do with shoes. In need of replacement within hopefully next year are oxford and flat walking boots. So far all I have are rather expensive options @_@

The bottom two are pure splurges, if I ever get a bonus from PEY kind of splurge. Realized that I should just get cheap loafers since I half wear them around as slippers anyways. The Grenson derby boots are just swooooon. The broguing detail *u*
(most of them also require a trip to the US to get "orz)
Might get a pair of desert boots as a tie-in before jumping into $400 shoes territory.

But in terms of actual winter items, I'm pretty much set. All good for boots, scarfs, and most importantly coats. Really want to wear my wool wrap coat to class, but it's inevitably going to get super dirty draped on the back of chairs. Darn dry clean only items @_@

To buy (mostly carried over from Fall):

• Everlane Ryan tee, really hoping for some kind of Christmas promotion.
• Thick cotton striped tee 3/4 sleeve. 
• Black loafers, now a cheap pair.
• Awesome thick wool socks for boots.
• An actual set of suit items. Blazer, skirt, pants, all matching. Thinking of BR or Club Monaco during boxing day sale.