To all the systems who are going to school this year, have a good school year. It's hard to deal with school stuff with our disorder. I hope this year goes as smoothly as possible for you, and make sure to watch out for your mental health more than your grades.
This time of year always feels a bit weird. Where I live, school started this week for basically everyone. Mister’s school started Thursday. But it’s going to be super hot the next few days and it still feels very much like summer in lots of ways.
Part of me wishes that August could totally be a vacation month, but it hasn’t been that for most of my life. Even growing up farther East, school usually started the week before Labor Day and when I ran cross country, official practices started at the beginning of the month. The first meet we ran was usually a day or two before school actually started.
Now being married to a teacher in the Midwest it’s really only June and July that are definitely vacation time, at least as a family. This year was screwy as well because we moved so that took a huge chunk of time.
I’m currently on break (the end of my holiday is nearing tho...), and currently things aren’t so intense. (except for chem muggers?! sci ppl what u doin)
During the exam season last year I had classmates coming up to me saying they’d studied for SIX to SEVEN hours a day. Compared to my measly TWO. (bear in mind sch is from 6 to 6, including travelling time + waking up etc.) Ye I know it’s about studying smart not hard blah blah BUT mugging is indeed the way for many when the exams are in two weeks.
get to the point.
yes so that was around the time I first heard of this trendy(?) app everyone was using to mug their way to 4.0. (not me tho, obv)
[yeolpumpta.] takes the top spot for me. It’s available on both ios and android (not sure if available in all regions) and it specialises in pressurising the brains out of its users. scary. basically u clock in hours of study time once u hit the button (u can specify the activity) and it locks the apps u shouldnt be using... and then shows ur friends. (ur studying status + hours clocked in)
amazing! other than seeing the disparity between our mugging duration, i loved knowing the hard work i was putting into dry memory work was being recognised by other humans :)
i know some people also use the app for phone lock purposes, so they know how long they've been using other apps and stuff
but you do you i guess. some of my classmates didn't like the app because #toopressurising hence they dropped it after a few days, but in general those who stuck to it did considerably better
okay, next app! (warning: there are four more)
[forest!] the good ol' study app. this one I use for casual studying (they added a new tree) but it got a little boring, since I'm the kind who painfully thrives on pressure.
when it isn't exam season i use this for individual revision. i paid for premium in the early days of forest, and then forgot about it, and then came back to it. so ye i kinda have a love-hate relationship with this app, planting exotic trees and listening to its in-app white-noises, but it's always going act as a trusty old van in the garage. (what am i saying)
third app!!
[time spirit] basically a time lapse on ur android phone :) a lot of free timelapse apps don't work (because they're free) but this one works, although it can be quite glitchy, and you will have to keep restarting it. but I get my vids out, so all's good.
timelapses are my number 1 way of staying focused during study sessions. (esp the ones which need more thinking and writing)
okay! moving on to honourable mentions!
4) voice recorder
record yourself teaching yourself. lit quotes, hstorical events, kreb cycle wtv idk, just record :) disclaimer: I am not an audio learner but nevertheless this method works for me
5) chess clock
i use this the same way as I use a countdown timer. except there are two sides, so you need to keep lapping. (works for math/subjects that require problem-solving)
6) discord
call ur study group to do work :) although its original purpose is for gamers to chat, I think discord's organisation is wonderful. you can categorise the text channels so that I'm only sending history-related notes in the history channel of the same server. love it
alright that's it.
I have no idea what came over me that made me decide to write? a? post? perhaps I just wanted to write this to myself somewhere, and I happened to be on tumblr :)
Anyway, these are the apps I use to help during study sessions. There are tons more I use to help with the learning/studying process (which is another set of apps and completely different). No one size fits all, and these are merely the apps I personally found useful.
my APUSH teacher is asking us to write him a personal letter about ourselves and obstacles we've faced and stuff and now I suddenly have no passions, have never done anything, and also lack a personality. so that's fun :D
When COVID one’s school year affects
And teacher to student connects
Online from a distance
With mistakes and persistence
On this chaos of opening one reflects.
In-person is all our ideal,
And we shout that from rooftops with zeal,
But with cases so high
In our counties, know I
‘Drather stay at home through the ordeal.
