Habits in review

Habits are an important part of maintaining your mental and physical health. While habits may often make you think of phrases like "stuck in a rut" or "mindless routine," habits can in fact be much more than that. Habits can be simple acts of maintenance or more complex commitments to personal interrogation. Keeping myself accountable with habits has made a big change in my life and I hope that you too can use them both to improve yourself and to catch yourself before you fall.

Here are a mix of my healthy habits, those that maintain and those that help me grow.

Storing food and 3 Ways to Stop Pests

Air tight containers are a must for storing food in college kitchens and dorms. Without airtight containers, your food will let out odors, attracting pests for the whole floor. More than that if you have food in your room, there's no need for rodent room mates.



Air tight containers will also extend the shelf life of your food. Some containers are expensive, but they're worth the investment. More than that, losing all of my food to a moth infestation has given me great faith in air tight containers. Trust me, you know you're in college if tupperware for Christmas is the best gift.

Read more for advice on airtight containers!

Positive Change> Average: TED talk

Shawn Achor: The Happy Secret to Better Work

Please check out this exciting and hilarious talk. Achor has a great sense of humor and that makes his material so exciting to listen to.

"Amy amy wait. Don't cry. No human lands on all fours like that. Amy, I think that means you're a unicorn!"

College Dorm: Dresser Top

Your dresser is something that you look at the start and end of your day. It's the bookend to your routine: Decorate and design it according to how you want to fill your day. In this post, I'll share how I design my dresser top.

Read more to develop your own dresser top

Finding inspiration for creativity: 5 ways

Here are a few ways that I find inspiration, especially for things like drawing and writing.

Internship advice

I'm going to do a few posts to provide advice for interns. I really struggled when I first got my internship with all sorts of questions. This is certainly natural: most minimum wage jobs and academic settings are a completely different work paradigm than an office job or internship.

These posts will provide some basic advice for interns, from starting out to finishing up.

These are a few key approaches to be an amazing intern.

Moving Forward From Failure: Get Started!

I find failure to be the most difficult thing to overcome. Maybe it's the fact that failure had such a high cost in my youth. Maybe it's just that failure represents the effort put into the attempt not being quite enough.

via: Left handed toons People don't actually laugh at our failures

But here's what I do to get over my fear of failure and get started on a project.

How to Be More Awesome

I'm a big fan of MissJessicaHarlow. Seeing the opportunities that she's making for herself and opening for her fans is amazingly inspiring. Not to mention her fabulous sense of style and humour.

Check out her video on how to be more awesome!

Who's who at an internship

It can be really difficult to start a new job, especially an internship where you know that you will be relying on the good opinions of others to get recommendations or job offers.

Of course different organizations will have different people and different organizations of power. But this is a good rundown of who you'll probably meet at a your internship.

Read more to find out Who's Who at an internship and a few hints about who you are!

10 Ways to Measure Personal Calm

Working toward calm and contentment is a lifelong pursuit; it requires that you pay attention to the signs of your body and the actions you take based on your emotional state. Like most long term goals, people need to be able to measure their progress. Even your breath can be a way to check in on your emotions, on how calm you are.

These 10 consistent actions and abilities will allow you to measure your progress as you work towards your own personal calm. 

Read more to discover 10 ways to measure your personal calm!

Rousseau: Perpetual restraint vs. Honest commitment

People seem to become more and more homogeneous as time goes on. Think of the rapid spread of galaxy print. Quickly galaxy went from a few instances of NASA photoshopping, to a DIY trend, and on to widespread commercial products. Maybe it's the success of corporations managing to sell us all the same product in a million different ways. Maybe it's the process of information becoming more quickly and widely available.

via Britannica

Even in the 18th century process of people trying to fall into a mold was happening. Rousseau writes in Discourses on the Arts and Sciences on the prevalence of modern manners.

Read more for a quote of his ideas and my thoughts on individuality despite outside pressure.

How to Deal with "Friendly" Criticism

"I really don't think that suits you. Try this one instead!" she remarks, unsolicited, as you put on your favorite dress.

"Don't you worry about your figure? I just want to see you healthy, but you've put on so much weight recently," she mentions, munching on a handful of almonds.

"My hair is such a mess. You must understand- your hair is so frizzy!" She corrects her bangs deftly and sweeps her eyes over your hair.

Do you have a friend that's been sharing a few too many "helpful" comments?
Here's a few tips to deal with the criticism that friends may hand out without much thought.

Motivate Yourself: What is Work?

I think we all have days where we just can't do any work.

But that doesn't mean that day is a loss. Sometimes you can trick yourself into getting "work" done. Other times you just need to realize how much work you're already doing.

I'll share a few tricks for getting yourself into getting stuff done when your body just won't cooperate.

Rousseau: Life to the Fullest

Understanding the education is preparation for life, we can now figure out how to embrace that life. Sometimes it can be very difficult to create an approach to life that allows you to embrace the moment. Hearing peers anxiously talk about grad school in their freshman years or professors drone on about the impenetrability of academia can make it seem like life takes place in stretches of decades rather than days. But your life is made of days!

Fortunately, there are great minds who have already written about the focus on the day to day life, and the benefits to embracing daily joy. Let's look at a quote from Rousseau, on of the great thinkers from the 18th century. His writings on education will help us to better understand what an effect positivity can have on us, as we approach our life and our education. 

Read more for wisdom on embracing your day!

How to Politely Skip Class

There are always going to be days where you don't want to go class. Sometimes it's that you're tired; other times the weather is bad. There are ways to keep skipping class from being a major hindrance. The most difficult thing is making sure that the professor doesn't mind. Most classes have clear policy on attendance. Of course in attendance based classes skipping will have an effect on your grade. Even if attendance isn't part of the grade, showing up to class is important. Carefully judge whether skipping class is worth it. To be fair, I skip a class about once a month. Usually, I take the time to catch up on sleep or studying.

In the cases that you decide skipping class is worth it, here's a good guide to politely skipping class.

Positivity: Education to the Fullest from Rousseau

Walking through the Infinite, I'm always amazed by the project posters and the chatter of discovery that surrounds MIT. I love the feeling of excited and frenzied exploration that permeates the people, the very buildings.

But there's something that makes me a little anxious: the concept of a technology education  Some of my peers see their time here as a way to gather up data points to store and recite for accolades. Others see technology as unequivocally good, unquestioning of the pursuit of knowledge and a fancy career. And there's always the disparaging of HASS, class that focus on the humanities. I can't count how many times have I been told that "readings for HASS classes are optional" or that "there's aren't any jobs in that; it's useless."

Something has changed about the way we approach education. We seem to see education as a decoration for our resume rather than a way to see the world.

(image via stephenhicks)

Read more for Rousseaus' vision of education as a way to impact individuals.

Classroom Etiquette

One of the most important things for college is the new code of etiquette for college lectures. It's very different from high school but still important for making sure that your professor has a good opinion of you.

Here's my guide to lectures and college classes, how you should behave in lecture. The advice will go through cellphones, bathroom breaks, sleeping and more.

Fresh Plants and Flowers

I love spring time. I love the way the weather warms up and then takes the time for little spring showers to cool down. We should all take the time to slow down. Going on long walks helps me to breath in that fresh air that gives so much life to everything. Keeping live plants at my desk really warms up my study space, but I sometimes want flowers along with my leafy green. I want to bring into my room more of the spring that is around me.

I've been getting cut flowers to keep in my room. Read more to see the flowers that I've been getting and hear about my experience.

Room Mate Problems: Never-ending Alarm Clock

I think one of my favorite things when having break fast in the kitchen is hearing all the alarm clocks go off. It's almost like a morning bird song.

However, this becomes a lot less enjoyable when it's coming from your roommate's alarm clock when you want to sleep. Some people forget about their alarm clocks, leaving the alarm blaring while they're at class. Others simply struggle to wake up, snoozing for hours without considering the effect of their alarm on others.

Check out my Etsy page!

Whatever the reason, if your roommate's alarms is impacting your morning ZZZs, here are some ways to approach your roommate so both of you can rest and wake up well.

Positivity: Spring Refresh

I want to see how my new year's resolutions have been going, possibly recommitting on the ones that aren't doing as well on.

Read more for the break down on how I've been doing!