Welcome to this week’s blog post, in which I will be rambling, yet again, about particular things I’ve learned within a span of about 30 days or so. I guess this is aimed at high school students and if anyone else has come to similar realizations, don’t hesitate to enlighten me:

• If you like a shy guy and you are introverted yourself, he is most likely not going to be very bold with you or ask you out, so you must do so yourself or nothing will ever work out between you (still working on this one). I’m currently stuck between, “should I ask him to hang out sometime?” and “do I wait for him to ask me out?” and “why do I need a boyfriend? My cat is enough, okay?”. I’ll let you know how this progresses. Or if it does.
• Do not under any circumstances start writing your thesis/research paper three days before the deadline. It’s awful. You will pull out your hair. You will cry. You will turn into a zombie and pull all-nighters. Do not do it (hitting myself on the head for this one; good job, Anna).
• If you are struggling in math specifically, even if you understand the homework but do horribly on tests, do not assume you will figure it out by yourself and ace your next test because this has rarely, if ever, happened to me. Ask your teacher for help, do more of the same problems, figure it out no matter how long it takes. You will feel so much better about yourself, I guarantee it.
• Get a tutor if you’re really struggling in a class. Bring it up to your parents (unless they have already offered, like mine, in which case do it) and see what they say. Do not be proud and try to do everything by yourself. Sometimes you just can’t do it and that is completely okay, I promise.
• Book your permit test well in advance. Not sure if this is the same in other states, but here there is no way around this. Book it months before the date you actually want to take it. I’m not even kidding. Otherwise the earliest date available will be something stupid like four months after you turn 16. Don’t be like me. Book it now.
• Eat breakfast. Eat something, anything, a granola bar, yogurt, an apple. I have made the mistake of heading into school not having anything in my stomach and by 5th period in anatomy wanting to sprint to the cafeteria and stuff my face. See if any teacher you have lessons with before lunch lets you eat in class, that way you can bring in something small to hold you through to lunch.
• Making eye contact with someone you don’t know very well more than, like, twice in one period makes things really awkward and weird. It will literally feel like there is this awkward tension in the room and there is no way out. If you have never experienced this before, I envy you greatly.
• You never really know when the teacher will collect your homework unless they tell you so just do everything you were supposed to, even if you’re dying of exhaustion the night before. Do it, it will raise your grade at least a little.
• Bath bombs from LUSH are absolutely incredible and I don’t know how anyone can survive without having a bath with one. This has saved my life so many times.
• Drink tea. I cannot stress this enough. Maybe I’m biased because coming from Kazakhstan, tea is a part of every meal, but I find everything about tea and the process of making it super therapeutic. It’s very helpful during long study sessions or if you just want to chill, too.

…And that is everything. This was supposed to be a short post just for fun; I hope someone liked it! Hopefully I will grow even wiser throughout the year and learn not to put off research papers until the latest possible time. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Anyway, thank you for reading, I will be back next Thursday (and sorry for posting so late; I got caught up with homework)

Anna xx