Latest Posts by chemistry-and-cupcakes - Page 2

It’s a lovely feeling when it all comes together in your favour. There is light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how long or dark that tunnel is 💛

I told myself that I could do it, and I did. When I got my first exam back, I was happy until others put me down. Our class has gotten our results back from exam three, and I did exceptionally well. I was one of the highest grades in the classroom. Some classmates ask to see your score in hopes of making them feel better about themselves, and some genuiley care. I am not sure how to explain it, but when people ask about your mark, you can tell if they are genuine or not. The usual people who like to ask about my grade wanted to know what I got and when I told them they simply said, “oh.” I felt that they were expecting me to fail because I know that feeling too well. Studying in the library, mostly every day until 11:00 pm, really paid off. I just want to remind myself that I can do it, and I am proud of you.

Overcompensating for the snow by making my study setup extra tropical 🌵🌿

Follow my studygram for more tropical study vibes 🍃 

Kinetics took me forever to understand but it is an aesthetic

26/06/2020

My first year of uni has been over for an entire week now - time has flown! I have not been feeling particularly productive all year because of burnout. The other day, I decided out of pure curiosity to improve my maths skills. This is a big milestone in terms of my recovery - I’m starting to look forward to learning again :)

cherin_mayuka

Congrats to OP on finishing finals! Also, I have to share because LOOK AT THAT CAT OMG 😍

23/6/2020

My finals are over!! Yes yes yes! I am so glad I made it through (successfully?) So here is an old photo of my cat interrupting my study session.

Good luck to everyone still studying and trying their best! You can do it and you will!!

Being kinder to myself

Many of you will have noticed this blog has been very dormant for a while. I have really stepped back with the constant studying in order to recover from severe burnout, depression and anxiety. If there’s any good year to do this, it’s my first year of uni: my marks don’t count towards my final degree classification. I have indeed been going to lectures and labs and diligently doing all set work, I’ve just cut back the time I spend studying outside of contact hours a bit. Taking a break has helped me feel better, and I’m ready to jump into second year and read around and really engage with the chemistry I’ll be doing. There is no shame in this, and I’d really like you all to remember that it’s okay to cut yourself some slack when you need to x

Getting to know me

Tag 10 followers you want to get to know better

Thank you for tagging me @teaandanightowl :)

Name: Lauren

Sexuality: Asexual and potentially aromantic, too

Gender: Cis female

Hogwarts House: I’m not really into HP, but probably Slytherin haha

Time: 11pm-ish at time of posting

Cats or Dogs: Both! 

Favourite Animal: Birds, horses, dogs, quokkas (if you’ve not heard of them, give them a Google - you won’t regret it!)

Dream Job: That’s... a good question. Probably teaching!

When I Made This Blog: 4th August 2018 - that long ago, huh?

Reason For My URL: I study chemistry at uni, and I really like baking. I also wanted some alliteration :)

I’m going to tag @crimsonvenus @coffee-and-conjugations @translatorwannabe @rosethaturtl @bestudy @white-carrots @sloth-stubies @russianwave @watchmestudyandstuff @simplyconnectedstudy - you guys are some of my newest followers and I’d love to get to know you (but only if you want to participate - I won’t be offended if not!)

I haven’t been that active on here recently, but I feel it is important to do what I can to support the BLM movement.

Saying this is probably futile, but I don’t want to stay in the shadows. I have a voice of privilege and I need to use it somehow.

I will start by saying this. As a white person, I do not claim as my brethren those who think that discriminating against another person for the colour of their skin is acceptable. I don’t associate myself with hateful people. If those people were family members or friends, they aren’t anymore, as far as I’m concerned. I am ashamed of those who carry out, condone and defend racially-motivated attacks and police brutality.

I am doing all I can, as one single, unimportant individual, to support the cause, including speaking up to racist comments - but I could always be more educated. If anyone could recommend any books, podcasts, documentaries, films etc that explore racism, I’d love to hear about them.

How to be a white or non-black ally at a rally

via  @laurielovelugo 

[SuperheroesInColor faceb / instag / twitter / tumblr / pinterest / support ]

I wrote a letter to my uni friend today. Along with it, I sent her some homemade star confetti, a list of music and films I was enjoying (she shared her playlist with me first and I thought it was a cute idea), and a handwritten copy of my favourite Brecht poem, since we met each other in German class. I hope she likes them as much as I do.

General advice for GCSE and A levels

So I was asked a question by a follower and I thought it might be beneficial to post some general advice for all the future candidates whose GCSEs and A levels aren’t cancelled because of a pandemic. Here’s a short list of what helped me get through these exams.

1) Getting exam technique down is IMPORTANT! Do not underestimate this importance - knowing what the examiners want from you is (sadly) almost more important than knowledge of content (though you do have to know that, too!)

2) Understand the question words. For example, explain means give detail, and list means don’t waste time with such detail.

3) Answer the question as it is written, not what you want the question to be. Some questions are really long winded - they’ll wrap up the question with some background material that you haven’t learnt about per se but is still relevant and applicable to your course. You have to be able to unravel the core of what the examiners are asking. Don’t worry about the wall of information. Do read it as be ready to glean clues from it, but find the question first.

4) Read the mark schemes AND THE EXAMINERS’ REPORTS! Last year’s documents are locked because teachers like to use them for mocks, but if you’ve already done those papers, ask your teachers to send you them. These are gold! Use the mark schemes to know which buzzwords and details the examiners will reward and use the examiners reports to see which questions candidates struggled to answer. There is almost always detailed analysis of common mistakes and advice to future candidates there!

5) Look through the teacher-oriented documents. I know for OCR A Biology A level, there were sample documents that gave examples of full marks, mid marks and low marks for long response questions. They literally hand you “what a good one looks like” (and it was easy to find because of how new the specification is). I was never given these documents in class! Nobody you have contact with knows the course better than a teacher who is meant to teach it. For A level languages, I read every single document, no matter how boring it seemed, which perhaps was a bit overkill, but it helped me know what exactly was expected of me. I’m talking everything from the specification to exemplar work and speaking exam conduct (which actually was useful because I then knew what would happen if I got too distressed to continue for example, as I knew what the teacher/examiner would be required to do in that case). It sounds nuts, but seeing it from a teacher’s perspective helped me. I knew the structure of my course by heart; I knew weightings of different aspects of exams and the learning objectives by which I was assessed. A lot of it is irrelevant admin, but there are actually some useful documents so do have a root through!

6) Don’t be afraid of old spec questions if the subject matter is relevant.

7) Revising using past papers is always the best way, ultimately. If you run out of past papers, make your own questions and file them away and come back to them! I buddied up with a friend and we tested each other, swapping our own exam-style questions at periodic intervals and marking our partner’s answers. You get to be the examiner, the marker and the candidate in one simple activity!

8) Learn from your mistakes. Don’t look at a lower mark and think you’re doomed; rather, think about where you went wrong. You’d be surprised at how many marks are lost to silly mistakes for which you’ll absolutely kick yourself in hindsight! Little mistakes might be avoided by doing something as little as slowing down, taking a toilet break to clear your head and generally being aware of them.

9) If there’s a certain type of question you struggle to answer, it may help to make a checklist of what to include. For example, whenever I’m asked to draw a graph, I write down things like “suitable axes using more than half the available space, x is independent variable, labels, title, units, correctly plotted points, line of best fit” in a corner somewhere out the way - and I’m at university rn! I do this before I start fumbling about with the question; it takes less than 30s to jot it down in a shorthand I understand.

10) Teach someone else, or pretend to! Even now, I remember stuff and understand it better if I’m “explaining” my thought process out loud as if I were teaching it. Understanding things will make subjects like chemistry a lot easier, because then you can apply what you know rather than blindly rote learn a bunch of examples. Mechanism you’re not quite sure of? Draw it out and talk it through! You’ll quickly pinpoint exactly what you’re struggling with.

11) Breathe and look after yourself. It’s not impossible; so much of success is about confidence. If you convince yourself you can’t do something, you absolutely won’t - attitude is everything and so is your health.

To any GCSE/A level students who have to teach themselves because of the coronavirus outbreak

Everyone is very much focused right now on Years 11 and 13, whose exams have been cancelled, but Years 10 and 12 will more than likely have exams next year that aren’t - and this time off means you’re losing a lot of teaching time. Whatever measures end up being taken for you next year, it’s important that you are still preparing yourselves for the eventuality that every exam goes ahead as normal. Even if it doesn’t, it’s better to be over prepared than underprepared. I imagine you’ll have been given resources to help you with this, but it’s not the same as being at school/college/sixth form.

So, if you need help with chemistry, French, German, biology or maths, I am happy to answer your questions. I took these subjects at A level and achieved A*AAAA, and I achieved 11 A* grades at GCSE. I am now doing a chemistry degree at a Russell Group university. I taught myself the A level maths course in a year, on my own - I know how difficult self-teaching is and I know that there will be people who will struggle more than others with this. I’m not saying this to brag at all; I’m saying that I am more than qualified to give you some tips if you would like them!

I have no doubt that your teachers will be doing their best to help you as well; I am just offering to do what I can because these are unprecedented circumstances. Nobody knows what next year will look like, or even if we’ll be able to return to our respective institutions in time for the new academic year. The best thing you can do for yourselves is to keep your heads down and do the best you can to keep learning, ready for your eventual return.

I know you probably feel a bit lost (or maybe you don’t - lucky you!) without a teacher in front of you to guide you, but if I were in your boat - and to some extent I am, because I still have to think about standing myself in good stead for next year - I’d be looking to do all I could to minimise my disadvantage.

(Obviously I am busy with my own work as well so I won’t be able to respond immediately, but wherever I am available I will try my best to give you a different perspective on a topic, or perhaps point you towards some new resources if I know of any!)

Good luck guys.

22/2/2020

We love tutorials! Photo is a bit bad but it’s late and I feel bad for neglecting this account haha

07/02/2020

Organic chemistry is addictive torture

01/02/2020 - 1/100 days of productivity

Happy February! New month, new me? I’m going to do the productivity challenge again.

My mum visited me at uni today so I spent the afternoon with her in Birmingham. I decided to condense 3 handouts from my lecture course on carbonyl chemistry onto one summary page this morning before I met her, and I finished it off after she left to get the train home.

I decided to write up the mechanism for Swern oxidation even though it’s beyond the scope of the first year course; it helps me remember the conditions if I actually know what each reagent does!

28/01/2020

Yikes 😬

I wish I’d learned to struggle properly earlier in my education. I’d always understood everything first time round, but now I can’t say that and I don’t know how to fix it

Happy 2020 :)

My resolution: to get this account more active next year! In all seriousness, 2019 was a complete upheaval of everything I knew and wanted, full of salutations and goodbyes in equal measure. It brought me new friends and experiences but also new anxieties. I’m still working on feeling comfortable in this world and I have a long way to go but I’ve come so far. I am proud of myself - and I wish it didn’t sound so arrogant to be able to say so. So what if my A levels weren’t quite what I was gunning for? So what if the university I am attending isn’t the one that filled my childhood dreams? So what if the course I am pursuing isn’t the one I maybe should have chosen based on my personal talents? I’m happy and learning so much every day. I can’t wait for 2020 and I hope it brings you all good things as my super supportive followers.

Me: The main problem isn’t necessarily the volume, it’s the dissonance

a neurotypical: if you have noise sensitivity why do you listen to loud music?

me: one loud noise is easier than 20 loud noises all at once.

Ok but do you ever get that one moment where you’re totally at peace and having the best time with no worries in the world, but all of a sudden you become aware of the imminent end of this perfect moment and you start thinking about it as a fond memory that you’ll recall on your death bed in (what’s hopefully) a very long time and get all melancholic and nostalgic for the present?

It’s a low-key kind of day

Happy Saturday:)

Making summaries on a really rainy day

Happy November!

It’s a beautiful time of year to recognise that you are a BOSS who is worthy of success x

I keep procrastinating so hard and I should probably do something about that but I swear I’ll start taking action tomorrow or something

25/10/19 Der geteilte Himmel

So after 5 weeks, I’ve succumbed to freshers flu. Which is torture because I’ve had three back to back lectures in the same room from 10am this morning and I have another lecture at 3pm and my throat feels so scratchy!

I’m going to take it easy this weekend and eat the many tins of soup I have stockpiled in anticipation of this situation. And I’ll read my German :)

6/10/19 Sundays are fun!

So I got a big tesco delivery and I made my first ever mug cake, which was HEAVEN! I also did a couple of small assignments and carried on with my summaries.

4/10/19 Waiting for lectures

Today has been a fairly lecture heavy day but this is my last one! I’ve had this lecturer once already today and I’m loving this part of the course.

Tonight, I’ll do some reading on MO theory. I really want to understand the maths more deeply... it’s so interesting and probably not as scary as it looks!

03/10/19 I’m doing the uni thing!

Long time no see, guys! Now the academic year has properly started for me, I’m getting into the swing of making summaries comprising lecture notes and information from textbooks and further reading. It’s my day off from any lectures, workshops, tutorials or labs so I’m just reading and keeping it low key