yhbgk-blog:

Taken from Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, daughter of the Tiger Mother

Preliminary Steps

1. Choose classes that interest you. That way studying doesn’t feel like slave labor. If you don’t want to learn, then I can’t help you.
2. Make some friends. See steps 12, 13, 23, 24.

General Principles

3. Study less, but study better.
4. Avoid Autopilot Brain at all costs.
5. Vague is bad. Vague is a waste of your time.
6. Write it down.
7. Suck it up, buckle down, get it done.

Plan of Attack Phase I: Class

8. Show up. Everything will make a lot more sense that way, and you will save yourself a lot of time in the long run.
9. Take notes by hand. I don’t know the science behind it, but doing anything by hand is a way of carving it into your memory. Also, if you get bored you will doodle, which is still a thousand times better than ending up on stumbleupon or something.

Phase II: Study Time

10. Get out of the library. The sheer fact of being in a library doesn’t fill you with knowledge. Eight hours of Facebooking in the library is still eight hours of Facebooking. Also, people who bring food and blankets to the library and just stay there during finals week start to smell weird. Go home and bathe. You can quiz yourself while you wash your hair.
11. Do a little every day, but don’t let it be your whole day. “This afternoon, I will read a chapter of something and do half a problem set. Then, I will watch an episode of South Park and go to the gym” ALWAYS BEATS “Starting right now, I am going to read as much as I possibly can…oh wow, now it’s midnight, I’m on page five, and my room reeks of ramen and dysfunction.”
12. Give yourself incentive. There’s nothing worse than a gaping abyss of study time. If you know you’re going out in six hours, you’re more likely to get something done.
13. Allow friends to confiscate your phone when they catch you playing Angry Birds. Oh and if you think you need a break, you probably don’t.

Phase III: Assignments

14. Stop highlighting. Underlining is supposed to keep you focused, but it’s actually a one-way ticket to Autopilot Brain. You zone out, look down, and suddenly you have five pages of neon green that you don’t remember reading. Write notes in the margins instead.
15. Do all your own work. You get nothing out of copying a problem set. It’s also shady.
16. Read as much as you can. No way around it. Stop trying to cheat with Sparknotes.
17. Be a smart reader, not a robot (lol). Ask yourself: What is the author trying to prove? What is the logical progression of the argument? You can usually answer these questions by reading the introduction and conclusion of every chapter. Then, pick any two examples/anecdotes and commit them to memory (write them down). They will help you reconstruct the author’s argument later on.
18. Don’t read everything, but understand everything that you read. Better to have a deep understanding of a limited amount of material, than to have a vague understanding of an entire course. Once again: Vague is bad. Vague is a waste of your time.
19. Bullet points. For essays, summarizing, everything.

Phase IV: Reading Period (Review Week)

20. Once again: do not move into the library. Eat, sleep, and bathe.
21. If you don’t understand it, it will definitely be on the exam. Solution: textbooks; the internet.
22. Do all the practice problems. This one is totally tiger mom.
23. People are often contemptuous of rote learning. Newsflash: even at great intellectual bastions like Harvard, you will be required to memorize formulas, names and dates. To memorize effectively: stop reading your list over and over again. It doesn’t work. Say it out loud, write it down. Remember how you made friends? Have them quiz you, then return the favor.
24. Again with the friends: ask them to listen while you explain a difficult concept to them. This forces you to articulate your understanding. Remember, vague is bad.
25. Go for the big picture. Try to figure out where a specific concept fits into the course as a whole. This will help you tap into Big Themes – every class has Big Themes – which will streamline what you need to know. You can learn a million facts, but until you understand how they fit together, you’re missing the point.

Phase V: Exam Day
26. Crush exam. Get A.

teded:

In Islamic culture, geometry is everywhere. You can find it in mosques, madrasas, palaces and private homes. This tradition began in the 8th century CE during the early history of Islam, when craftsman took preexisting motifs from Roman and Persian cultures and developed them into new forms of visual expression. 

This period of history was a golden age of Islamic culture, during which many achievements of previous civilizations were preserved and further developed, resulting in fundamental advancements in scientific study and mathematics. Accompanying this was an increasingly sophisticated use of abstraction and complex geometry in Islamic art, from intricate floral motifs adorning carpets and textiles, to patterns of tile work that seemed to repeat infinitely, inspiring wonder and contemplation of eternal order.

 Despite the remarkable complexity of these designs, they can be created with just a compass to draw circles and a ruler to make lines within them, and from these simple tools emerges a kaleidoscope multiplicity of patterns. So how does that work? Well, everything starts with a circle. The first major decision is how will you divide it up? Most patterns split the circle into four, five or six equal sections. And each division gives rise to distinctive patterns. 

There’s an easy way to determine whether any pattern is based on fourfold, fivefold, or sixfold symmetry. Most contain stars surrounded by petal shapes. Counting the number of rays on a starburst, or the number of petals around it, tells us what category the pattern falls into. A star with six rays, or surrounded by six petals, belongs in the sixfold category. One with eight petals is part of the fourfold category, and so on. 

There’s another secret ingredient in these designs: an underlying grid. Invisible, but essential to every pattern, the grid helps determine the scale of the composition before work begins, keeps the pattern accurate, and facilitates the invention of incredible new patterns. Let’s look at an example of how these elements come together. 

We’ll start with a circle within a square, and divide it into eight equal parts. We can then draw a pair of criss-crossing lines and overlay them with another two. These lines are called construction lines, and by choosing a set of their segments, we’ll form the basis of our repeating pattern. 

Many different designs are possible from the same construction lines just by picking different segments. And the full pattern finally emerges when we create a grid with many repetitions of this one tile in a process called tessellation.

By choosing a different set of construction lines, we might have created this any of the above patterns. The possibilities are virtually endless.  

We can follow the same steps to create sixfold patterns by drawing construction lines over a circle divided into six parts, and then tessellating it, we can make something like the above.

Here’s another sixfold pattern that has appeared across the centuries and all over the Islamic world, including Marrakesh, Agra, Konya and the Alhambra. 

Fourfold patterns fit in a square grid, and sixfold patterns in a hexagonal grid. 

Fivefold patterns, however, are more challenging to tessellate because pentagons don’t neatly fill a surface, so instead of just creating a pattern in a pentagon, other shapes have to be added to make something that is repeatable, resulting in patterns that may seem confoundingly complex, but are still relatively simple to create. 

This more than 1,000-year-old tradition has wielded basic geometry to produce works that are intricate, decorative and pleasing to the eye. And these craftsman prove just how much is possible with some artistic intuition, creativity, dedication along with a great compass and ruler.

dreamingsnowflake2013:

After receiving many messages asking me whether I have an account on Dramalist, I’ve decided to open one. Personally, I have a very low opinion about the credibility of the rating system there and the people who write the articles - you just have to look at the rating of Secret Love Affair (7.6) one of the most critically acclaimed and successful kdramas of the last decades or at the article about “objectively bad kdramas” that the author still loves where half of the kdramas there are not bad at all (I mean HEALER is featured there?!!). When I look at how high are the ratings of some extremely mediocre dramas and that the more recent dramas have much higher ratings that the older ones, it’s clear to me that the website mostly serves as a place where crazy fangirls go to give their favourite shows that 10-rating.

I’ve been watching Asian dramas and movies since 2006 so I gradually rate them; if you are interested about my opinion about Asian films and shows even though I haven’t written about them on my blog you can go there.

8-10 rating: the show has the highest quality and entertainment value

7 and 7.5 rating: Even though the drama/movie is great there are some major flaws

5.5-6.5 rating: Mediocre, occasionally there might be an amazing performance by one of the actors/actresses

5 and below: Bad/trash (even though there still might a good performance by some of the actors, but the show is overall of extremely low quality)

http://mydramalist.com/dramalist/dreamingsnowflake

dramalaland:

It’s with a full and satisfied heart that I say goodbye to Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo. There are very few shows that have managed to make me feel this way, particularly because Dramaland is plagued by stretching unnecessary misunderstandings and angst, but Fairy never failed to deliver.

The characters were always quick to talk to each other in a honest way, and I’m not only referring about the main couple, but also about how all the characters -family and friends- had their moment in the spotlight were they were able to grow and mature. From fights with friends to family problems, lovers quarrels and growing pains, the PD, cast and crew hit the spot every time.

I have been watching out for Lee Sung Kyung and Nam Joo-hyuk for a while now, thinking about their potential as actors and after Fairy, I think we can all agree there’s a before and after in their careers for them. They have proven to be a force to be reckoned and I’m looking forward to their future projects. But this wouldn’t had been possible if not for the amazing work the rest of the cast put in into the show.

I felt it was appropriate for Shi-ho to find her way in coaching since she has the experience of what terrible guidance can do to talented athletes.

Jea-yi figured out the proper way to show his feelings for Dr. Go, who finally found happiness with the man she has always loved.

I was always looking forward for the moments between Nan-hee, Bok-joo and Seon-ok, because theirs is a real sisterhood and very few shows portray friendship between women this way.

My heart broke for uncle Dae-ho’s unrequited crush on Coach Choi and celebrated when they both found happiness with others. And I sobbed feeling the parents unconditional love and support for their children. By the way, wasn’t that the cutest and best formal introduction of families ever. Yes, Jae-yi, Joon-hyun and Bok-joo were getting engaged right there.

Originally posted by the-golden-cookie

I’m impressed with the screenwriter of this show and how she told the story of these characters, breaking Dramaland stereotypes, troupes and talking openly about things that even nowadays are taboo in society like mental health. But also because she managed to grasp the bittersweet feeling of what it means growing up for a young woman, falling in love for the first time and how relationships, in all it’s forms, not only needs love but also hard work, honesty and to be cherished. That’s how you keep them going for a long time.

I love how the PD made the most simple and yet beautiful scenes by playing with lights and music. Aesthetically, Fairy was perfection from begging to end, but the editing and takes helped to relate to what the character were going through. These kind of feelings, I believe are the hardest to reproduce/represent when telling a story, because they are fleeting, subjective and at the same time universal to the human experience. They are what makes you. I will keep an eye on his future projects too.

And thank you, show, for portraying in Bok-joo a happy, well adjusted and successful woman whose boyfriend is proud of all her achievements. I also appreciate that Joon-hyun’s success didn’t magically happened at the same time. He had a rough year and failed most of his competitions, for him making it immediately into the national swimming team, it would have been unrealistic.

It was incredibly satisfying to see the characters all grown up and ready to take on the world. Together, always together, because they know how important their relationship is to each other. But at the same time I love how Bok-joo and Joon-hyun always knew how to prioritize and be honest when it mattered. Neither of them ever blew off a family member or friend because they were in a relationship, and the other didn’t reproach it either. Theirs was a mature, real love and friendship where they supported and protected each other’s independent life, professional ambitions, and the future they were building together. They are their own biggest fans, supporters and shippers.

Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo is definitely going to my TOP 10 list of best kdramas of all time, Hall of Fame status, for all the reasons mentioned before and more. I could gush about it all day and at the same time I don’t know what else to say. This is one of those gems you need to watch and appreciate, one that I will keep coming back again and again, and again.

Originally posted by sassy-smolder