Google Calendar

I've been trying out Google Calendar for awhile now, and am really liking some of its features. It's fast, easy, and syncs with my iPhone. It sends me daily emails with my agenda for that day, and automatically sets alarms. It's easy to schedule repeating events or multiple days for work on the same assignment. I'm still working to figure out how to organize it by course, and I wish it had a wake-up alarm!

Sweatpants?

Sweatpants - at least a certain kind - are a great solution to the first decision of the day: what to wear. Nike makes them without elastic at the bottom, which makes them look more like pants and less like you're on the way to workout. And with the deep side pockets, back pocket with velcro, and the heavyweight fabric you just look like you're wearing COMFORTABLE pants. 

They're also a good solution for your mood, because who doesn't feel better wearing sweats?

Pollen, pollen everywhere

Well, not really, but at some times of the year it sure seems like it. Like now. Oak pollen is everywhere, and Mountain Cedar (Juniper) is still going strong. I found out last year that I'm allergic to both, so I'm pretty miserable these days even with medication.

 I haven't decided whether it helps me to know, but if you think it helps you, there are some great pollen forecast websites around, usually more specific if it's an allergist in your city. At least you can make sure you know why you feel so bad. Sometimes that's something.

links you can try are here, here and here.

Announcements and why they matter

At our school, which is very large and crowded (5A now), the announcements every morning can be easily confused with white noise and static on a bad radio. I know they are saying words, in English, but it's just that I can't quite hear them over the sounds of everyone moving around, talking, getting out their books, etc.

I know there are lots and lots of posters taped up on the walls in most of the hallways. The problem is that the halls are so packed with kids trying to get to class in the 5 minutes we've got, pretty much shoulder to shoulder and wall to wall. It's so crowded that last year the principal decided we needed one-way halls for traffic flow - not kidding.

I realize that our advisory teachers are supposed to pass along important information about things like major deadlines.

Except, that's not always how it works, and the reason that matters is that the deadlines are the deadlines. Hard fact, but true.

I just missed something very important:  the deadline to apply for National Honor Society, for which I qualified. The announcement the day before was in a newsletter emailed late on the day before the final deadline, and by the time I read my email it was the morning after the deadline. I explained and asked nicely, but the deadline was the deadline.

The only thing that could make this worse was that I realized I missed it last year too. Same thing:  I qualified.

Too bad that National Junior Honor Society membership back in middle school doesn't count for anything. Neither does membership in the spring of my senior year, well after college applications are done.

A deadline is a deadline. Not my favorite lesson.

It's just a little circle

This is a small, tiny thing. Just a circle that you draw on the top right corner of a piece of paper that your teacher hands out in class. It can be a circle about the size of a dime, or a nickel, that's all.

What the circle means, when it's empty, is that whatever is on that page will be due sometime, one day soon. It also means that you need to fill in that deadline or due date. So the empty circle sits there as a reminder that you need to write in the due date, and then you need to do the assignment, and after that you need to turn it in.

We get a blizzard of paper every day, all day. Pages and pages. My AP Psych teacher says we get so many in that class because our textbook is so out of date that she has to add all the rest of the information we need by passing out all these papers. She also tries to save paper by putting different stuff on the back side of a lot of the papers, so it's easy to miss that an assignment is on the back that has nothing to do with what's on the front.

The problem is that some of all these papers are just for you to read, and some of them are for you to actually do something with. What makes it even worse is that some of the papers LOOK like they are assignments, but the teacher says they aren't, and some other papers look like things to just read but the teacher assigns something you're supposed to do with what you read.

So your best friend is that circle. And it works best if you can try to make a habit of asking right when you get the paper:  is this read only, or  when is it due?

Better to be the one who asks all those questions than get a zero.

Breakfast. Seriously.

You might be the exception to the rule. By now I know I'm not. I feel so much better, and DO so much better, when I eat breakfast. And not just any breakfast - a good one. Coffee has almost replaced hot chocolate, plus some fruit like cantaloupe, and for sure some protein:  an omelet, oatmeal with walnuts and raisins, granola and milk, or the breakfast tacos we like here in Texas. Sometimes it's annoying when your mother's right, but that doesn't mean you should skip it.

Baskets and file folders

Not to get carried away with this stuff, but there IS a place in your life for organization.

It's almost the end of the first semester, and stuff is really piling up in my world. Here's what's saving me from drowning in paper.

First,  a plastic basket about the size of notebook paper or a little bigger, for tossing all the completed work that can stay home - usually because it's been graded and returned, or it was for reference and you're done with that topic, etc.

What's great about this is if you do it right - which means staying on top of it most days - then it's sort of like an archeological dig:  the deeper you go, the older the material. Don't throw stuff away, but don't keep carrying it around with you. Put it in the basket and it will be there if you need it.

You want more organization? File folders. Just make one per course, and then after you close out a chapter (or whenever you feel like you want a little more o-r-d-e-r in your life) just sort whatever's in the basket into the folders. Put the folders in a file drawer of that otherwise empty desk. Then admire your empty basket.

See, doesn't that feel good? You are not drowning in a blizzard of paper afterall.

From Cleared to Cleared

This may be obvious to you already, but apparently I keep forgetting it and when I remember to do it my life is just so much easier.

Before you spread out all the papers and books from your backpack or notebook, make sure the desk is clear.

That way when you're done (or think you are) with everything you need to do, as you gather it all back up and organize it for the next day, it's harder to forget something.

You know, from cleared (surface) to cleared.

First, pile it all up

This is getting harder and harder to do, now that I have a multi-section backpack AND a 3-ring binder AND all these pockets AND a car.

Before I get started on my homework, the first thing I have to do is chase down all the various pieces of paper from that day:  folded, crumpled, misfiled, loose at the bottom of the backpack.

Pile it all up in one place, and sort it all out:  to do tonight, to do another time (tip: put the due date at the upper right corner), stay at home, file with the class section of the notebook for use at school, etc.

If I don't, once or twice a week I miss a deadline, or panic and rush to finish an assignment I forgot because I didn't find the paper until I was doing the laundry, or looking for something else, etc. Not a good feeling.

The alternative, of course, is to carefully organize these papers as I proceed through the day. Not going to happen.

Turn me in!

Ok, that's not actually what the label says, but that's the message my brain gets when I see it.

Ever do the homework and forget to turn it in? Who hasn't? But this is crazy after you've done the work, to get a zero or a late grade just because you couldn't get your act together to hand the thing in when you were supposed to.

But who can blame us, really. Our parents have no clue how rushed and crowded our days are, and how huge and loud the classes are, and how crazy it is to change classes every 45 minutes and race off the the next one across campus before the 5 minute tardy bell. (I read about how in Japan the teachers move, and the students stay in one place as a team. Cool.)

So this works for me:  at the front of my 3-ring binder I use for all my classes. there's a black plastic page with a pocket, and on the pocket is a label that says, "TURN IN TODAY" and I start every day with my assignments in that packet, in the order of my classes. At the end of the day I should see an empty black page if I've turned everything in.

Of course, this means I have to put all the pages in that one place every night.

Which means I have to do all the assignments.

BUT if I do them this way I at least get credit for doing them.

See? Better.

Divide and conquer

Here's where my past posts intersect.

How do you know what needs doing when you discover that by some miracle you have no homework due tomorrow?

That big calendar on the wall where you have been adding all the due dates for assignments, projects and research papers, along with tests and every possible deadline or scheduled anything.

It's how you know that even with two weeks to work on a project, you only have this Sunday afternoon to work on it. You can see how jammed up you are just by looking.

If you're smart, you've been scheduling in the fun stuff too, just to make sure it doesn't get lost in all the work.

Then, if you're lucky, one day you will look at the calendar and see that you really do have nothing to do today but hang out.

It could happen.

Homework in the absence of homework

One of the hardest things for me is remembering that just because I don't have any homework due tomorrow, that doesn't mean I have no homework.

I know; it depresses me too sometimes. But that's part of growing up, right? I still remember the feeling of freedom when I got home and I had NO HOMEWORK! It was kind of like a snow day, only better in some ways because they happened in all kinds of weather, and we don't get that much snow here in Texas.

But the truth is that I pretty much always have homework these days. Something is due soon, even if it's not tomorrow, and chances are that it's going to require more work or time than just one pass at it. There's always a test lurking out there in the near future somewhere.

Reading textbooks, reviewing notes, outlining chapters.

It never ends. Best to get a jump on it, because it's not going away, and WILL bite you eventually.

Got to go. There must be something I need to be doing.

Assignments 101

If the assignments are posted in your classroom, take a photo.

But don't forget to plug in the due dates etc. to whatever app you're using to stay on top of them. I put mine on a big wall calendar that lets me plan ahead.

When you're in a hurry and/or doing something else in class, why waste your time writing the information?

Makes you wonder why more teachers don't get this. Also makes you appreciate the ones who post the information online.

Because if you've ever had a teacher who passed out a calendar while saying it was already out of date, you know what I'm talking about.

Cars change everything

Clever, right?

But I mean having backup stuff, things that if you need them you REALLY need them. Think about it. Water, snacks, money, phone charger, a jacket. In the trunk, just a trip to the parking lot away.

Pockets for all

Basketball shorts are great for comfort but terrible for phones, wallets and keys. Let's hear it for pockets.

Cargo pockets down low on the side of your legs with Velcro are my favorites, or zippers. Not buttons; who has time to button a pocket? Snaps never work for long.

Back pockets are good, and deep side pockets are the best.

Mostly, the more the better.

Yea for duvets

Looking for a shortcut? Get a duvet. It's like a pillowcase for a fluffy blanket. Make your bed in 10 seconds. Bonus is that it's harder to lose socks and stuff. I can see the need for one in my dorm room.

Here, go crazy at Ikea

Alarm clocks are better than your mom

Don't want your mom to have to keep waking you up every morning?

Then get serious about alarm clocks. Notice the "s" at the end of clocks.

I am still experimenting, but it looks now like I will need to have the one within reach with multiple snoozes, as usual, but also have to add one out of reach, preferably one that is really annoying.

I may have to get one of the models that moves around, but I really hope it doesn't come to that.

TOMS

Do you lose shoes like I do? Under the couch, under the bed, by the front door or the back door or the garage door. Baskets help, but you have to place the shoes in the basket. And yes, every once in a while all the shoes get put back in the closet where they belong. I wasn't raised in the wild.

But I'm talking about just trying to get out the door fast with something on your feet.

Problem solved! Buy several pairs of TOMS and then all you have to do is find one left and one right shoe.

And you look like you did it on purpose. Personal style.

Here you go.

One tray two ways

One thing I'm really liking these days is this handy tray, now a necessity as the things in my pockets keeps multiplying.

I'm trying to leave the backpack behind, and even though I've got one of those awesome zippered binders with lots of pockets, still, lots of stuff makes its way to my pockets as the day goes on.

The tray is a MAJOR timesaver in the mornings when you one stop to load up everything from the day before. Only problem is, I've had to supersize my tray and add a coin jar next to it.

Next up:  by the front door or on my dresser in the bedroom?

BIG calendar

Life is complicated enough, but this semester has turned into project central. And not just extra credit or optional, we're talking major grades x2.

Sooo... what I know is that it's all about the tools, and big problems calls for big solutions.

The answer? A wall-sized calendar, four colors of markers and I am on top of all those posters, brochures, research projects, and book reports.

Just have to try not to be overwhelmed when I look at my weekends and see that they are my only hope of staying on track...