- To-do list of assignments in Notion. These due dates are also written in my bullet journal’s calendar, dry-erase calendar on my fridge, and my Google Calendar. This sort of repetition is to ensure my neurodivergent ass doesn’t forget an assignment. Once all the due dates are placed in my Google calendar, I only have to write it out once a month for my IRL calendars.
- Each day I write out the tasks I intend to do in my bullet journal. Larger tasks are broken down.
- Organic chemistry: handwrite notes in Notability, then making quick summaries in Word or Notability. Answer lecture problems in Notability. Then do practice assignments.
- Microbiology: notes in OneNote with Cornell Outline method, separate page for answering review questions.
- Evolution: notes in OneNote with Cornell Outline method. Annotate PDF textbook and writing notes in OneNote for chapter readings afterward with simple outline method.
I literally cannot overstate how important creative hobbies are when dealing with mental illness. If you can’t draw, there are coloring books. If you can’t write a novel, you can write in short journaling bursts. If you can’t sing in the shower, you can listen to music. Sometimes with mental illness it feels like we have this dark presence inside of us that is bumping around in our brain and organs, causing problems. It helps immensely to let it out.
I am taking a course related to genomics, which is likely the field I’m going to study for my Masters, and this tool is an amazing advancement in the right direction of wrangling with the tons of whole genome sequencing data we’ve been rapidly collecting and not keeping up with.
I suspect the course in genomics I plan to take in the fall is going to now going to prominently feature this tool, much like how the release of AlphaFold has affected structural bioinformatics.
the best way to support libraries is to use libraries. go get a card, check something out. not a big reader? they got movies. they got games. yes, like botw and fallout and let’s go eevee. they also have cds that yes, we workers know you take home and rip to your computer. we also do it.
if you have a well funded library you might even have access to maker spaces that have 3D printers. or video/audio recording equipment. libraries aren’t these tomb silent homes for books any more. they’re community spaces. they’re full of life and things.
put a middle finger up at jeffrey bezos and support your local library
did i mention we have printing services that are significantly cheaper than anywhere else? printers are evil, let us handle them for you.
Library worker here and can confirm all of these! I’m at a small-to-medium library and we offer ALL of this:
- wifi hotspots that can be checked out for weeks so you can have internet on the go or at home
- CDs, DVDs, blurays including usually multiple copies of new stuff
- A tech lab with a 3d printer, computers for graphic design and game dev focus, VR headsets, and a soundbooth for recording
- Study rooms for solo or groups
- Printers, copiers, faxes, and scanners for just about anything you need taken care of.
- Including a new printer big enough to make giant posters, maps, and business-grade ads.
- A seed library, both floral and food-related.
- A computer lab programed to erase your data and reading history so you’re never at risk while visiting sites like domestic abuse hotlines
- Laptops pre-programmed with Adobe and Office software so you don’t have to buy them
- Monthly author visits
- Ebooks including comics on tons of various platforms
- Classes for those who want to learn how to or better their computer skills
- Art you can check out to hang on your wall for as long as it’s available, including the work of local artists who get paid for their art, especially if it gets popular and we want even more of their stuff.
- Monthly papers ranging from local newspapers to multi-national magazines on just about any topic you can imagine.
- Notaries with extensive legal knowledge including renters rights, getting you in contact with immigration protection, and contacts with pro-bono lawyers.
- A connection with all the libraries in the state, so if we don’t have something, we can have it shipped to you within a matter of days.
- Books translated into multiple languages
- A donation bin for old books/DVDs/VHSes that often turn around and get sold for two or less dollars
- A food donation site for local food banks
- A “suggest a purchase” section on our site where you can support your favorite indie writers/musicians by suggesting their work if we don’t already have it
- We’re growing butterflies this year, and in prior years we hatched chickens! \o/
- An outreach program for the elderly and disabled who hand-deliver almost everything I’ve just mentioned
That’s a huge list and again I have to stress that I work at a library that’s not considered to be very large. And one of the biggest things we get rated by is not how many books we own but by how many people use all of those services I mentioned. They exist for YOU! Use them!
Free 2023 February Day, Week & Month Digital Planner
I wanted to offer a sample of one of my digital planners for the month of February! This sample includes the choice of 2 designs (alternative week and day layouts) in both Monday or Sunday starts.
This design is mainly meant for students, though only the templates lend itself to be particular student specific!
if there was a job where i got paid to do research and only research and crank out papers and not have to deal with anything else academia-related ever i’d take it in a heartbeat ngl
just lock me up in a dusty ass library with my laptop idc
well, and an antihistamine because dustmite allergies, but
on this day i am sobbing tears of “someone would pay me 80k a year to do this if i was a stem/quant scientist but i am a hum”
Um yes hello, I would also like this please?
If we’re ignoring independent researchers who have to fund themselves, then this job is a junior/associate/senior research fellow or research assistant/associate (in the UK at least).
They either are attatched to a particular university and given free reign to do what they want or they are attatched to a particular large research project that has multiple academics (ie non-students) working on it. They are for as long as the fining allows, so a research associate of a large project might only be for 12 months, whereas a post-doc/post-post-doc junior research fellowship will be 3 or 4 years long.
No one is going to get rich in the humanities but they’ll pay something. Eg the Parker Library Stipendiary Early-Career Research Fellowship at the University of Cambrige pays £24,000 plus meals and healthcare for 12 months of any study you want as long as its related to the Parker Library collection of medieval manuscripts. Or you could be paid c. £40,000 to work as a research associate with Professor Samuel Cohn at the University of Glasgow on his “Art and Inequality in the Post-Black Death Century” project. No teaching or leadership board meetings required or fighting for research funding, only pumping out research.
I return to this blog every so often to reblog something useful I found. I still check my blog for resources I’ve reblogged regarding studying with mental health issues/ADHD, self care tips, organization tips, and more. I’ve accumulated a lot of resources over the years and the links that still work are very useful to me today.
Currently I attend another university than the one I graduated from with my undergrad. I’m not pursuing any degree program yet, but I hope to apply for my Masters in biology very soon. I am taking courses at my own pace while working part time and self-studying topics.
My current career goal is to become a bioinformatician. It has been slow-going. Most bioinformatic careers require at least a Master’s degree (I live in Canada, so your mileage may vary) so I hope to gain more research experience before I get a “real job” in “the real world”.
Self-study is hard. Very hard. Between taking courses at my local university and working part-time, with my own hobbies (video games, digital art, piano), along with regular chores that comes with living as an adult, I find little time to self study the topics I want to study. Here is a very loose plan of what I plan to go over in my bullet journal.
It’s rather vague (”biochemistry”, “Python”, “advanced molecular genetics”) but it’s a general overview of topics I want to at least have passing knowledge on.
I still don’t know what exactly I want to research. I find genomics rather interesting and I will take a course on it, but otherwise I feel like I’m directionless. With biology in particular, people often focus on a particular group of animals or even a very specific species, and I don’t know where I want to focus. I don’t know what I want because I want anything. I’m hoping as I learn more I find myself drawn to certain areas.
i know we’re all sick of self-care being a marketing tactic now, but i don’t think a lot of us have any other concept of self-care beyond what companies have tried to sell us, so i thought i’d share my favorite self-care hand out
brought to you by how mad i just got at a Target ad
the lists are downloadable btw - i haven’t gone through and checked every single one but the ones i’ve looked at seem to be at least
MIT’s courseware is available using OpenCourse Ware, completely downloadable without registration and can be remixed under very permissive licenses. some courses have full videos of lectures, notes, slides and problem sets, others may have only have syllabi, reading lists and exams. before edx and coursera were the big names in for profit online education we had khan academy and ocw.
these are unfortunately a little hit and miss when it comes to degree of organization and level of detail, so they all require a little patience and willingness to poke around:
tho tbh it terms of finding pure reading lists i’ve had much better luck just searching “[topic] + phd reading list” have founds lots and lots of juicy juicy reading lists that way. too many to post 😈
You probably hear a lot of “DON’T EDIT AS YOU WRITE” advice, don’t you? 😬
This is a dangerously vague piece of advice and one that’s often taken too literally. Here’s a quick breakdown of edits that are actually GOOD during writing.
