Five for Friday: Misc.

I'm trying to start this thing back up. Please let me be successful this time!
I'm going to keep this brief since I'm home for the weekend to unwind and am ready to get in bed already :)

With finals coming up (if you're not already done the semester...see this rant), maybe I should come up with 5 useful things to do this time of year.

1. Flashcards
I have always had belief in flashcards, but didn't use them personally much until I started taking Spanish again. I was starting out in an intermediate-level class but had forgotten a lot of vocabulary from high school (and don't get me started on grammar!) and now they are my key to studying. What was hard was keeping them organized by unit/topic while still picking out which words I still needed to learn. I bought a binder ring and punched a single hole in the corner of EVERY card so I could loop them through. It was so tedious and annoying! But alas, when I went to buy more index cards at the university bookstore, I found they now sold packs with the hole already punch and in a binder ring! SO happy! I'm also happy about the A that I got on my last Spanish test that I thought I would get a B- or C on. I didn't think I did well because I was so confused with the grammar topics and knew I would get a lot of points off in those sections. So what did I do? I took those flashcards everywhere with me! And they didn't get messy or lost or disorganized. So I was able to study my vocab inside and out and didn't get a single point taken off in the vocab sections of the test! I've found my new secret weapon, try it for yourself!

2. Color-coding

I know that I'm OCD and anal-retentive and a big nerd, but this can actually be useful. Here's some more about my Spanish class (these 2 items make me sound like a much better student than I actually am...). The flashcards for that last test? I wrote them all in blue pen. And the chapter outline I typed up? I made the font as close as I could to the color of the pen's ink, then just bolded it so that it was still easy to read. When I start going back to the material from earlier in the semester, I have 3 more colored pens (for the other three chapters that will be on the final!) When you have notes and books for every single class scattered across a table at the library that you practically live in, this nit-pickiness will come in handy! Plus...your notes and study guides will be cute!

3. Don't cram!

This one I'm good at, but probably only because I have a short attention span. Tons of sources say not to stay on one subject for too long, because you will just get bored with it (because it's not already boring?) But really, there comes a point where it's more productive to let it go. Have you ever had that feeling..."The more I study, the less I seem to know?" Well, now you know why. After a few hours of math, take a break from numbers and work on your English paper. Don't forget to walk around for 15 minutes or so in between so that you don't get too restless! Who knows...you might find a cute stranger or the cutie in the class that always seems to know all the answers. Bonus!

4. Utilize Others

It's only cheating if you get help from other people on the actual exam. Talking things out with a classmate can really help, especially with classes concerning concepts and ideas rather than facts. There are also a lot of sites out there now that can help you study without compromising your morals. Studyblue and GradeGuru are the two that I have accounts with. On both web sites users can upload notes and other study materials and file them away in to the expansive world of cyberspace. When you sign up, you enter your school and can then browse notes by class, professor, or department. Someone at my school also created a Facebook App called "Classes Connection" that can help you find the Facebook pages of your classmates to communicate with each other. Lastly, check out all that the library really has to offer. My school's library has a reserve room where professors can file old exams. The ONLY reason I passed my two semesters of chemistry was because my professor made the answer keys to the previous semester's exams in the library and online when you logged in with your student ID. Most professors probably change the exam more from year to year, but it will still help. But this guy used the same questions just changing numbers and elements etc. But the process to solve the questions (i.e. what formula to use and how to use it) was exactly the same, and that's the hardest part to figure out.

5. Sleep. Nuff said.

Five for Friday: Snow Day Movies

I love lists.I make lists about everything...even when it's completely unneccessary or fruitless.  I love organization, but practice procrastination.  Most of the time, my lists don't get completely finished and end up being a reminder of how lazy I am.  But, as I say in this UDress article, having tangible reminders of your shortcomings that you consistently see can light a fire under your ass.

Every Friday, I will end the week off with a list for you...no, I'm not going to give you a bunch of boring things to do.  These lists will be fun.

Given the weather predictions for the weekend (although both the Newark and Baltimore areas have horrible forecasts...Maryland, Delaware, and parts of Pennsylvania seem to be in this weather bubble where normal rules don't apply :P), my mind has been on my favorite snow day activity: watching movies.

Some movies are perfect for snow days, and some just don't work.  When you're stuck inside, cozy, vegging with your family or friends, longer movies are good.  A lot of great movies don't get watched often because of the time it takes to get through them.  Either you don't have the time or you don't have the patience to sit in front of the same characters for three or four hours.  But it's a whole different story when you have a fire, hot chocolate and other foods that are bad for your figure, and nothing else to do!

Even if you've seen these movies before, and even if you love them already, give them a try the next time you're snowed in...

1. Gone with the Wind--remember the days of VHS?  Ya, I don't really, either.  But I remember one gloomy afternoon finally agreeing to watch it after my mom had been trying to get me to forever.  She rented it from Blockbuster (another blast from the past), and it was one of those 2-tape sets.  Like Titanic.  The whole movie didn't fit on one (one of the glories of DVDs!  Now everything with more than one disc is either a TV show or series, or loaded with special features!).  This movie is really a long one...I think it's around 4 hours long!  So it will take up quite a bit of time; but after all, it is a classic, and tomorrow is another day! :)

2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind--I can't really explain why I put this one on the list.  Maybe because of the photo on the movie's poster...Jim Carrey's character looks freezing, while Kate Winslet's unique character, Clementine, doesn't look like she minds the cold at all.  This sort of describes parts of the relationship of their characters.  I don't want to say much about the plot, because it is so interesting.  I had no clue what it would be about when I watched it for the first time, and that may be one of the reasons I was so fascinated by it.  It would be perfect for a snow day, or any bad-weather, gloomy day for that matter.  It's sort of depressing and weird, coinciding with how gloomy weather tends to put everyone in that type of mood, anyway.

3. Garden State--Zach Braff's directorial debut is perfect on gloomy days.  I don't know why I'm associating sort of depressing movies and independent movies with snow days, but I know that on rainy and snowy days I don't want to get out of bed, and those movies just seem right.  The balance between Braff's detached character, who had been in a medicated trance for most of his life, and the vibrance of Natalie Portman's character bring a lot of interesting situations.  This was one of the movies that got me into independent films, and was definitely a movie that changed my life.

4. Say Anything--What girl doesn't love some John Cusack?  His characters always make me swoon.  But Lloyd Dobbler has my heart more than any of John's other portrayals.  I secretly wish my boyfriend would do one of Lloyd Dobbler's moves. I mean what girl wouldn't want this... To know Lloyd Dobbler is to love him!

Now this last one, I admit, is not a very good movie.  But it's one of my guilty pleasures and what better movie to watch on a snow day than...

5. Snow Day--This movie was HUGELY popular among kids my age when it came out.  It was like watching what we wanted to do every day of winter...stay home from school and play!  It also gave us some fresh ideas on how to spend a snow day.  Plus, at the time I was very into Hoku...who you have probably never heard of.  She was just another teenage girl, candy-pop one-hit wonder.  Her 2 singles are both in the movie and after seeing it I bought her single that included karaoke...  I feel obligated to put this movie in as a guilty pleasure!