So… Guys, I have some issues. I lost my piano music on Thursday, my book (that I was reading) on Monday, and my quartet pieces on Tuesday… so basically I have some memory issues! Today, I will show you the three new posters that I made on canva! However, this time, I used a computer to make it, so it is of a different layout, which was really confusing.

I suffer from short-term memory loss

I really think there is something wrong, so, like the Rachel I am, I decided to research the web.

• 

• 

• 

Next year, I’m definitely not doing Culture Day. Too much work for too little recognition. Also, I don’t think we’re very organized. I didn’t even know we weren’t supposed to tape it on the wall!

Pot. For my marigold.

I forgot to take pictures of it this morning, so I will for sure be back later to show you the final result.

I decided to paint a pot for my marigold plant because it will be a challenge and it will also let me try out painting on different surfaces. I think this turned out really well, despite it being far off from the original idea.

• 

• 

I used a really cheap paint with it, and I also followed a tip that said that if you added large amounts of cornstarch, that it would make the paint more thick. The cornstarch tip did work, and I found that I definitely used less paint than I would’ve if I didn’t use the cornstarch.

Arting

I hope that I can make more art and speedrun making art because we don’t have much time before our final presentation.

Art expert?

We already found our time management expert, which is Marten, but now we have to find an art expert. I found a young artist, who’s 13, online and I quite enjoy her art style. Her name is iluli (not sure if that’s a pseudonym or not) and here’s her instagram account: https://instagram.com/1iluli1?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

I really, really hope that she will answer, so I will now dm her.

• 

• 

Here’s what I wrote to her! I also had some more thank you sentences after the questions, but they cut off when taking the screenshot.

I really hope that iluli will have the time to answer, I think it’s great that she’s creating such unique and creative art at our age! I will see you all later to post the flower pot pictures, and also to update if iluli responds!

Today, I will be focusing on creating art for the China stall on Culture Day. Culture is on the 19th of May, for anyone who wants to come, and our China stall will be featuring a variety of cold and warm foods, off-brand chinese technology, and little trinkets that you can try out!

Let’s start with some digital Canva use and my troubles…

Yesterday, I spent some time (as in like 2 hours) working on 2 posters for what I’m doing on Culture day. If you’re interested, please come to the China table to see!

Here’s the link to the posters:

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFicn2Kff8/d8gXoH2BN4l2iQkJ-gojpQ/view?utm_content=DAFicn2Kff8&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=homepage_design_menu

This took me so long to figure out how to upload this, which obviously shows that I need some help regarding computer managing.

Now onto art cards!

For art cards, some friends and I are going to make as many as we can! You can win them through draws or you can buy them! To enter into the draw, you must spend at least 2 tickets at our booth. For the price, it is 2 tickets for 1 card, or 3 tickets for 2! You can choose which cards you’d like when you buy it, but if you win a card by draw, it’ll be randomized.

Here’s an example of two cards that I made today:

I have made a total of 12 cards… The cards are 4 by 6 cm and they are on top-quality watercolour paper. I also signed them because it represents that I made them.

I hope you are all interested in the China stand after this post, and have seen all of my artistic creations! I tried some digital art formatting and also creating on smaller canvases with simpler designs. Come visit us on May 19th!

So, this week, we have to show how much we progressed throughout the past 6 weeks. I feel as though I haven’t done as much as I hoped, I cleaned my room and maintained it, and also tried the blurting method. I also tried breathing. It was good.

Although that is pretty good for my current schedule (as to why I am internally crying), I am not used to being this slow in my genius hour. Also because I have the urge to want to change this genius hour into self-portraits.

I hope that I am ok. (I should be) :).

Anyways, I am now partly through the music festival, which is good (although tomorrow I have a science unit test and a fairytale thing). I played the first two movements of the Bruch violin concerto, and I got distinction! Pretty cool. However, today I have Bach and I will be playing gavotte en rondeau from the third partita, but I am not ready because my intonation sucks and I am last in the class of 8 people so I will be sad and my hands will be cold.

Let’s stop procrastinating

Tomorrow, as I have mentioned, I have a test for science. I’ve decided to review my notes (like how Marten said). I also got tired of the blurting method… I think blurting is great for small quizzes and less topics because it uses a lot of brainpower and easily tires you out… I think reviewing for tests is better, especially if you understand the whole of the unit already.

However, I often average a 90%, so I will probably get some stuff wrong because I still haven’t found a good enough study method that works for me.

I am also going to quiz my friends who have not chosen to participate in this, but I will force them anyway.

I recorded a part of the quizzing, it’s 14 mins long so I wouldn’t recommend watching it, I’m just putting it here for evidence. Edit, I was unable to upload due to my lack of knowledge. If you would like to listen to the recording, please talk to me.

I will try to work on this more next week after I finish internally crying.

This week, I decided to try the blurting study method. I first read the section I was going to blurt, closed the book, and then tried it. Overall, it took a lot of brainpower because I was in a room filled with people.

• 

• 

I will definitely incorporate this into my studying in the future. I think it’s a great method especially for social studies and science. This really helped me realize that my studying needs help.

I’ve decided…

I’ve decided that since I’m very busy next week, that I will use less time to work on genius hour. However, I expect to be back next Sunday (after all pain). I think I’ll also contact my dad as an expert because he’s cool.

Let’s first talk about the slight change of plans of my genius hour… I find myself procrastinating too much (and there seems to be no effective way to show that) so I think it would be best if I redirect my genius hour to only working on study methods. That way, I can accurately gather information (which would be displayed on my test grades, etc.) and I think this will motivate me to actually do something during genius hour every week.

Now, onto the fun stuff. One of the people I contacted, my friend, Marten, replied with some ideas that may be useful to me! Here’s what he said:

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

So now, I shall try some study methods that he mentioned such as:

• Reviewing
• Blurting
• Flashcards
• Quizlet
• Reviewing harder material

It just so happens that we have a science test in a week, and since I’m very busy the test week, I will be trying out of study methods this week to see how it ends up. I’m also going to start a google sheets to start recording my test scores (so I can see where I started and where I ended up). I’m not sure if I want to post it publicly, so if you’d like to see it, just comment or contact me.

Now, since it’s way too early to study, I’m going to try to find more experts to contact and also start the google sheets with my most recent grade. (I’m doing this because recently, my grades have dropped quite a bit so I will have something to compare my progress with).

Candles 🙂

I LOVE candles, and I’ve seen this thing where people study until the candle runs out. I’m definitely gonna try that sometime next month.

Expert

It has been brought to my attention that I should contact an expert around now. This matches my timeline because there are some tests coming up (and I feel like I’m procrastinating) so if I could get some expert advice, that would be great. Starting off, I’m going to type up my introduction on a google doc. This is because I plan to send it to many people.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a72zrvsZt_Iuh1oIRXOo3pChkSqTFQyCZCeIrO8NuYk/edit?usp=sharing

Now for the people I’m going to send it to… As of now, I plan to send it to a pre-crastinating friend and to this MIT graduate called Gohar Khan. He has a lot of helpful study videos so it’s worth a try.

I’ve sent out the posts! Now, I just have to wait until they answer. IF they answer.

• 

• 

Yes.. You’re probably wondering why I changed my plan for the week. (Originally it was to time manage my Saturday.) This is because I forgot all about it until the day was almost over. Also because we ended up changing the schedule a bit and so it didn’t really work.

Another reason why I wanted to clean my room is because it’s so messy right now! I actually can’t take this anymore. It was mainly affected by the last week of school before spring break (aka. last week) because I was really messy with everything.

Before we begin, let’s recap…

Again, bold phrases are the things I am going to do this blog. Italic phrases are other things I hope to do sometime this week or next week.

• regulating screen time/efficient use of technology
  • regulating social media/time wasting apps
  • exploring apps that will help me benefit from
• daily schedule breakdown (how it is to be Rachel)
  • what I am doing on a daily basis
    • what I should be doing on a daily basis
  • include all the days (Sunday-Saturday)
• hobbies (because we all need some happiness)
  • journaling
  • spending time outdoors
• timing my life around my extracurriculars
  • being ready to change my schedule to be more fitting to the situation
• changing my lifestyle as extracurriculars stop for the summer
• efficient note-taking (aesthetic notes)
  • understanding what is more important
  • studying
    • schoolwork
    • extracurriculars
    • others (homework from home)
• clean workspace
• regular intake of downtime
• how to decrease stress levels and stay calm
  • different breathing methods

It seems that I am very ambitious this week (because I have a lot of things planned), so don’t expect me to get done with everything.

Now let’s get started with… What my room looks like right now…

Please don’t judge.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I mainly need to clean the floor, bookshelf, and desk. I usually clean the desk every few weeks, but it’s in worse condition because I organized a lot of school stuff and now it’s cluttered. On the floor, you can see that there’s a lot of unused stuff, and also you may see the purple and dark blue backpack. The dark blue backpack is for school and the purple one is for outside of school stuff. If I have time, I can show you guys what I put in each of them. I need to organize the bookshelf because I never organize it.

Floor

Starting off, I’m going to put everything that has a place in my room where it belongs..

Much better… except for the two circled (in red) items, but I’ll get rid of that later.

Next up, I’ll unbox a vacuum I got at this Christmas thingy! It’s pink and it looks really cute!

• 

• 

• 

Now, the floor has been dealt with! I would rate this experience a 9/10 because I unboxed a cool vacuum.

Bookshelf

I don’t like cleaning my bookshelf mainly because it’s hard to access through the bunk bed I have. On the top shelf, there’s still some of my brother’s stuff from three years ago… so the first thing to do is to make him take his garbage out. Next up, I think I need to rearrange a lot of stuff and package things that I don’t need. While I’m doing that, I’ll also sanitize the shelves with some wipes.

Alright…

That’s all for this blog post, I procrastinated cleaning for the rest of the week, so yeah. But, to sneakily get out of the “I procrastinated” zone, I’d like for everyone to note that I was busy practicing for a recital on Sunday, so my time was not fully spent on nothing. See you next blog post!