Weekly Musings #5: Fresh Fallen Snow & Good Vibes edition

coffee date with J

Hallo meine leiben!
My first week back into the semester is almost at an end and I wanted to touch base since I've been at a pretty good place since I got back in town and back to classes. Just decompressing by writing this up before I hit the books to do some light work. Keeping ahead of my studies has been a resolution of mine but more on resolutions later.

No math classes: Yes, ladies and gents for the first time in my academic career thus far I am doing NO math related courses of any kind. This is a pretty huge deal for me since I've had to haul ass to do okay in math since I can ever remember. Not having to devote so much more time and energy to that subject area gives me so much relief and I'm feeling like I'm going to be focusing on my other courses so much better this term, because well, no anxiety from maths. (?!)

General feel good vibes for life: Not a big specific event or anything but despite a few setbacks mentally and feeling pretty damn homesick for time with my parents and cats I'm feeling pretty darn good overall. I've been prioritizing the things that keep me if not happy (because constant happiness isn't like a thing and it's not achievable or realistic anyways???) but very content. Re: keeping my room clean and lighting rad candles, keeping up with my bullet journal, making baby-steps in establishing healthy habits and prioritizing school work and me-time equally. I'm hoping I'm going to be good about keeping this up because I've been digging this mentality.

honorable mentions: ● walks with J under fluffy-falling snow ● having J back after the holiday spent apart ● white christmas lights to decorate my room with ● again, yes scented candles (so good) ● Mac Demarco; seriously, I'm just really digging his music and I haven't resonated with new music in a long time so this is loverly' feeling ● my Blundstones (doing a seperate review post of these because damn such a good investment ● vanilla bean lattes ● re-watching House M.D. ● feeling enthusiasm towards all my courses this term ● sleepovers and cuddles ● being better at staying hydrated ● bullet journal good-vibes ● getting back at the workout grind ● similarly, that sore muscle feeling ● nifty new practical bags and totes ● my general sense of gratefulness ● plans for drinks with rad people this weekend ● new calendars ● crosswords on the bus home ● my supportive amazing parents ● oversized knit infinity scarves ● feeling inspired writing-wise ● new workout kicks ● blue sharpie pens

link love: 

campus in the snow

● I wasn't kidding about Mac Demarco; this song is currently on repeat as is Blue Boy! 
● New hair goals! 
● This lovely website, run by the darling Kat; such an amazing, motivational and useful resource for all students - hello tried and true study tips!
● Linking you this tag on my tumblr for movie master-posts because what's better than curling up with tea or coffee, snacks and kick-ass movies?

That's all for now folks; what have been the highlights of your week been?                               r.

Bullet Journal: Organization for 2015

my key of shorthand symbols

I want to preface this by saying I hate making titles for posts. I'm not a particularly pithy person, hence why all my posts are very matter of fact and decidedly not catchy. Find me a concise and fetching way to title a post on journaling and, and.. I don't know you can come blog with me I guess?

Anyways, in what is my decided addiction to tumblr I run a side blog which catalogs and archives all matter of material related to studying and being an academic. Study and organization tips, advice on test prep, and generally inspiring and motivational images for kicking your ass into gear for revising.
(Studyblr, is the term for that kind of blog, if you were interested)
And as a lot of people are on break, there's a lot of prep on the go for how to hit the pavement running in the new year, which of course, has incited the purchase of a number of daily planners.
But I was more interested in the methodology of staying organized. I have a filofax, which is now lying unused and though I loved the quality of it the one thing I hated was having to buy refills of particular pages if I wanted to continue with it. Enter bullet journaling. I'm not really sure how to sum up what exactly it is, per say because it's such a flexible system and (as you'll see) you can tweak it to fit your needs. So it's not quite as prescriptive as buying a planner with the pages already designated for you. Essentially, it's meant to be an efficient, short-hand method of staying organized, where you can see large groups of information "at a glance."

Here is the link to the official web page that will be able to describe the original system much more efficiently. However, there were aspects to that I did like, re: the monthly events in a column on oen page. I'm a visual person so what I decided to do was draw out an actual calendar to jot small things in and double as a tracker page. Specific tasks and events are on the other side of the spread with room for notes and additions.
The tracker page idea was something I stumbled upon in a random video but in that version the page was flipped so it ran horizontally, so you would have had to turn the actual journal to view it correctly and I just wasn't feeling that. So instead I designated my tracker symbols to the actual calender I drew out, which you can see below.

monthly two page spread

As you can see, I'm tracking the quality of my sleeping, completing my workouts, water intake, if I'm sticking to eating well and my overall mood for that day. And, yes, you can see I've scheduled in my nuvaring dates in already. Fight me, it's a medical marvel. I don't have any dailies pages yet, since January has't arrived yet but once I do get back into the school year and actually really get into this system I'll do an update post and let you know how I've been finding it and if I've made any changes. The main reason I think I'm going to like this system is it's flexibility and the customization aspect to it.

Like I mentioned earlier, it's not quite the same as the original system but it's fairly similar. Rather than set pages or whatnot I can put everything in the order that works for me and the shorthand, bullet style of the dailies pages works for me, as I'm that person who has a million sticky notes to remember little things. The kind of artsy, personal feel to it was another thing that drew me in; taking my sharpie and Staedtler pens and taking the time to make it aesthetically pleasing is kind of cathartic for me and feels more "me" than buying inserts or pre-planned journal.
 The pictures are a little out of order but below (starting from the left going clockwise) is my first dailies page I've drawn up, then my index and some collection pages I've started. The index is literally just the table of contents for your journal, which is another aspect I really think is going to come in useful. You just designated particular pages for certain things and than label at the front. My moleskine is blank so I number my pages myself but plenty of journals are pre-numbered. The collection pages in the bottom right corner are (for right now healthy recipes I want to try and a to-do list of things I need to pick up when I go back to uni. If I don't end up filling up that pages, I can half it off, draw up something else to put there and simply add it to the index. Like, do you see how efficient this is?!

dailies sample page // index // collection page spread

I don't plan on tracking my dailies pages in the index, that'd be too much, but collection pages, yes indeed. I think this will include things like self care ideas, lovely advice to myself, workout ideas/tracking and pages for planning papers for school. Hopefully this will keep my ass on track in 2015.

That's it for now on the bullet journal front! You darlings have any particular plan to stay on track in the new year?

r.

september resolutions

Image credit: Tumblr

As the start of classes draw closer (a mere 17 days to go!) I find myself ruminating more and more on what sort of things I would like my second year back to university to be. Of course, there's a lot of long term objectives in that, but in terms of the more attainable sphere of things I've decided to compile a list of resolutions for my first month of "back-to-school". Side note, that feeling never gets old does it?

1. Make time for reading 

I'm that person who'll be on her death bed looking at the stack of books next to her going "I'll get there." I used to be a very voracious book-worm, especially when I was younger. We're talking a book a day here. But my admitted addiction to social media and university workload combined has me halfheartedly attempting to start/finish novels. I find by the time I have any down-time at all, I'm too exhausted to put in the brainpower to read. But for September I would like to allot a half hour before I go to sleep to crack at whatever book is on my plate. I get to unwind from screen-time before sleep and actually finish books.

2. Get to the gym on the regular 

I actually love working out. Getting my sweat on is my favorite way to burn off steam when things get stressful.  However I find that, especially when I'm back at school, I'm a slacker when it comes to actually getting my butt there. My schedule for the fall semester has breaks from 11:00 to 2:00 Monday through Friday so that's a perfect niche to fit in some cardio and weight training at the campus gym. As well as lunch before my last classes of the day. Committing to such a schedule will be good for both my brain and body.

3. Get organized and stay that way

Due to a number of factors ('culture'-shock and slacking being a couple of them) my first year at uni didn't go quite the way I wanted and, as a result, my marks suffered a bit. Part of that being I didn't keep on top of my due dates for exams, papers, etc. and prep accordingly. Armed with my Filofax (scarlet Domino, if you were curious) and it's new inserts, mountain of sticky notes, and assortment of pens, I intend to implement a proper study schedule to keep ahead of my readings and work. Luck does favor the prepared.

4. Be more aware of my spending 

I'm far from broke, but, I'm a student, so I'm not exactly rich either. I also didn't exactly run myself into the ground my first year, but there were a couple tight moments so my second year back I intend to track where my money goes a lot more. Which means (beyond my initial back to school necessities), no buying over-priced campus coffee, or the food there for that matter (which actually tastes like sadness and cardboard), budgeting my weekly grocery allowance a bit more, and no impulse buying. That way I can splurge out on a fancy date with my boyfriend, or a good quality piece that will actually last in my wardrobe.

5. Document more
I actually want to make a point of using my nifty little Canon Elph and catalog more of my day to day life. Not only so I will actually have photographic memories of all I do this year coming, but it'll be a positive force in my life to see what lovely things I can find to take photos of.  I'd also like to get back to keeping a daily journal. I started so with vigor at the beginning of the summer but by mid-July I'd stopped but I find it clears out space in my brain to have a judgement-free space to talk about my life.

So lovelies, that's pretty much it! Do you have any particular goals or resolutions for September? 

r.