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We’re back here again. Can you believe it? The response to the last zine was a little crazy. I expected maybe 20 people to read it but looks like it got closer to 100 reads. And so I’ve written another one! This one took me a lot longer to write than the first one which I banged out over Christmas. This one took weeks and was a much slower process. I also learnt from the January one that it is better to keep the content simple, I want these articles to be complete and accurate rather than just rambling. I also realised I don’t really have time to write one of these every month, especially when I am busy with university. This will definitely not be the last one, but I cannot guarantee these will happen every month. Of course I could cram the time in, but it is much more important for me to rest and relax. The one thing I would like to work on is getting you guys more involved with the conversation. Issuu doesn’t have a space for comments but this month I am going to post a photo of the zine to my feed (can you believe I never did that for January!?) and I would love for you to go there and leave your thoughts and feedback after reading the zine. That would mean the world to me. I hope you enjoy the zine, Louise x
Mahat, aka @coeemlk was kind enough to let me interview him so that we could learn some more about him and his life! Surprisingly, I have never followed Mahat for his feed, as beautiful and iconic as it is; I actually follow him because he is one of the kindest and most genuine people I know in the studygram community! Here is what he had to say: What's the first thing you- do when you wake up? I always start o the day by praising God for allowing me to see another day, and then I pray - after that, I usually do some of my University work and respond to some collaboration and business emails - after all that, I then create some bullet journal posts. You can only keep 5 items of stationery. What are they? Bullet journal, brush pens, stickers, washi tapes and Muji pens. What is your biggest fear? Being hit with a massive health scare, or dying. I'm also an agoraphobe and have health anxiety, haha. What are you proudest achievements to date?
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Hitting 100K followers on Instagram in literally less than a year. That was mind blowing. You and @alimastudies have started a sticker shop! How do you divide the work? How do you balance this with studying?
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I usually set a time out in my planner to create stickers - me and Alima (who is amazing to work with always talk via WhatsApp) always have some free time to create things for the shop.
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Are you glad you made the decision to-live at home while attending university? - to make friends? Has it made it harder Yes, even though I haven't got as many friends as I would've liked if I lived at dorms - I can still say I'm glad that I chose to stay at home, because I get to see my family every day and I get to save money! What would you like your life-to look like in 5 years time? Maybe owning a cute aesthetic house, with a cute successful store? (Hopefully) You talk in your stories a bit about how - you often feel anxious? Do you have any tips for dealing with this? Therapy (CBT) has really helped me boost my confidence, and now I don't have those horrible thoughts anymore so hah! Mahat 1 - 0 Anxiety. I love all of these answers and I hope 2019 is a good year for you. You continue to inspire me to be a kinder person, so thank you for imparting some of your wisdom with us :D
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Some first steps to reducing your plastic footprint Reducing my plastic consumption is a big focus for me this year. I have reached the point where going shopping, especially grocery shopping makes me feel guilty because of the amount of single use plastic involved. Cutting out plastic is difficult, and trying to do this while being a full time student and living on instagram is not going to be easy and so I am taking it slowly and not beating myself up when I make mistakes or if my progress is slower than I would like. I only hope that in a couple of years time, I will be able to stand there and say that I use significantly less plastic that the average person does at this present time. (I would like to clarify that I am not against plastic as a whole. As an aspiring engineer, I am aware that plastic is essentially a miracle material, being so low cost and durable and versatile. What I am trying to reduce is how much single-use plastic and plastic packaging I use and subsequently throw away. Most of this plastic ends up in landfill because either it isn’t sorted correctly or it cannot be recycled. It just sits there in a hole in the ground for thousands of years. Every /household/ in the UK fills around a wheelie bin of rubbish in 2 weeks and it just goes straight into a giant pile. It is sad that we reached a place where this is the case but we have the opportunity and responsibility to do something about it. I don’t know why but this is an environmental issue that I just cannot ignore anymore, I think about it daily.) I am aware that this may not be easy, but it is an exciting and rewarding journey, and I’m looking forward to sharing my slow and steady progress with you. I thought for this edition of the zine we would start with the first steps I took and which I finally feel I have mastered. I warn you that these are incredibly simple ones and I think a lot of people would claim that they do these things, but the question to ask yourself is, do I do them all the time? Take a tote bag when you go shopping Like I said, it’s obvious. Everyone is talking about doing this, especially now that plastic bags cost 5p in the UK. But how many times have you gotten to the store and realised that you don’t have a tote bag with you, or how many times have you have been about to take a tote bag with you but it is inconvenient and so you have felt a little guilty but you have snuck out of the house without it. What I did to combat this was to find a really thin tote bag that I could roll up and leave in the bottom of my rucksack. It is more or less always with me and it no longer requires any effort on my part because I don’t even have to think about it or whether I will need it. The only thing I make sure to do, is to put it straight back into my rucksack once I have emptied it so that I do not forget it. And if I am planning on going shopping I will pack another one as well. I am not perfect and have once or twice been using a different bag and not had it with me, but I think I have purchased a grand total of two or three plastic bags over the last six months and if everyone reached that stage, we would be laughing. Bonus tip: If you do end up purchasing a plastic bag, you can reuse this for future shopping trips or you can use it as bin liner. Some people will probably be annoyed that I am suggesting this because it still involves plastic ending up in landfill but we have to accept that none of us are perfect and it is better to do little things like this with the plastic bags that we do end up purchasing rather that just throwing them away.
Carry a reusable water bottle and stop buying plastic bottles of water Again, just do it. You are paying for water and for plastic that is going to end up in the ground. Also being a student makes you appreciate the price of bottled water. Bonus tip: I have found canteen water bottles to be the best because they hardly ever leak and I recently purchased a small one so that it is not so inconvenient to carry around. There are plenty of water fountains around my university where I can refill it and many coffee shops will happily fill up your water bottle for free, especially if you are purchasing a coffee. If not it may be best to use a slightly larger bottle so that it lasts the whole day for you. Take a reusable Coffee cup to the coffee shop The thing that sealed this for me was deciding that I was simply not going to buy plastic coffee cups. If I don’t have my reusable coffee cup with me, I either have to sit and drink my coffee there in a mug or am I not allowed to buy it. Sure, I have made exceptions of the last six months, but only a handful, and I am determined to be even stricter with myself going forward. The ultimate hack would be to keep your cup in your rucksack at all times but I often pack a lot of stuff when I go to the library and so I don’t do this. But I would love to be a bit more streamlined about what I carry in my rucksack so that I could do this. Bonus Tip: Don’t worry if you cup is dirty from a coffee earlier that day, most baristas really don’t care and many places will quickly wash your cup out for you before making your drink.
While we are talking about tackling waste, I also wanted to draw your attention to the new Instagram account, @studentminimalists, that Linsey (@tealovingstudies) and I have started together, where we talk about all things minimalism and reducing waste, if you’re not following it already. :)
Sometimes I do just sit down and open my laptop to study, but I find I am much more productive, especially when I planning on studying for the whole day if I use on of the following focus techniques. I guess I just do really feel the need to quantify everything in my life. :) There are 3 main techniques/apps that I use:
stopwatch This was a technique I used a lot during sixth form and I found it particularly effect when I didn’t always know how long I would have to study in each session. I would literally just use the stopwatch on my phone and while ever I was studying I would set it running. I would often set myself a goal for the day, usually 4 hours and try to complete that between my study sessions and after school. I also found this a very helpful technique to avoid or at least monitor procrastination, as the stopwatch app would be the last thing open before I locked my phone and if I unlocked my phone to check social media, I would pause the timer. This meant I could keep track of how much time I actually spent being productive.
forest Ahh, forest. Everyone’s favourite. Forest is an app that blocks your phone for an amount of time and grows a little pretend tree in order to encourage you to be productive, if you exit the app before the tree has finished growing it dies. There are lots of apps that use this principle, Forest is just the one I use and I continue to use it because I really like it and I like being able to see my history over time. I like to use this when I am studying for a few hours in the library or at my desk in the evening. As painful as it is, I just have to force myself to push grow on a 1 or 2 hour tree and then I have no choice but to focus for that amount of time. I find this to be the most effective technique in terms of getting me to work but I don’t find this sustainable if I need to study for an entire day. I become bored and will just find other ways to procrastinate, including the internet on my tablet or laptop. :/
npomodono And lastly another popular favourite, the pomodoro technique; where you study for 25 minutes, then take a 5 minute break and repeat. It is advised to do this four times before taking a longer break of around 30 minutes. Obviously these times can be customised and there are hundreds of apps out there to do this automatically for you so I dont have one in particular to recommend. My favourite time to use this is on a sunday when I play on studying for the whole day. Although taking this many breaks means you do get fewer hours of work done over a long time, I find this to be much more sustainable when I aim to study for an entire day. Pro-tip: Smartphones and social media apps are designed to be addictive, and it is very easy for these 5 minute breaks to stretch to much larger times. I have found, that for me, the best thing to do in these quick 5 minute breaks is simple chores such as tidying my room, doing the washing up or cleaning my makeup brushes. If one of these tasks takes longer, for example 15 minutes, then do it over multiple 5 minute breaks. This is much less addictive and you will find it much easier to return to your books. P.s. this is also how I track how many hours I do in a day when I am doing #100hoursofstudy
(i.e. reviewing everything I watched, read or listened to in January! There’s a lot :/ which shows you just how long a month is) Books: We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I listened to this on the scribd app. I’m not sure I would have picked it up if I had to pay for it. I didn’t learn much that was new to me from this book but it served as an important reminder for why feminism and the fight for it needs to exist and that it is still on going, especially in third whole countries. The Laws of Thermodynamics: A Very Short Introduction by Peter Atkins I really am not a fan of these books and I would not recommend them to anyone hoping to gain some insight into a subject they do not study as they are written in a very academic way and often progress through a topic very quickly. However, I read this book because I was studying the subject and it did help to reinforce some of the more fundamental ideas. However, I still think there are probably books out that would have done a better job at these. Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for me & you by Lin-Manuel Miranda My friend bought this for me for my birthday and it is the most wonderful wholesome thing! It is a collection of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s goodmorning and goodnight tweets, something he’s been writing for a very long time and it’s just such a lovely book as so many of the messages are really lovely and reaffirming. Great to just pick up and flick through for a bit. I finished it over the holidays but brought it back with me to uni in case I ever need a quick pick me up! No. More. Plastic.: What you can do to make a difference - the #2minutesolution by Martin Dorey This book is 99p on kindle! For that price, everyone should go and download it. It’s also a very quick read, it only took me an hour or so. This book explains why you should reduce your plastic consumption as well as giving you ideas for how. I also loved that this book isn’t patronising or expecting you to be perfect and it feels like the author will be very pleased even if you only make one or two tiny changes. It might not be the best book for people who already live zero waste lifestyles but it is perfect for people who don’t know where to start.
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Films etc.: (all of these are available on UK Netflix) Taylor Swift Reputation Stadium Tour Omg. This blew me away. Taylor’s voice is stunning and her performance is so powerful. The show and the efforts and magical and this is one hell of a performance. It makes me very jealous that I didn’t go but it was one of those albums that took a little bit of time to grow on me before I loved it.
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Trevor Noah: Son Of Patricia Sometimes, at the end of a long day, stand up comedy is exactly what you need and this one I randomly picked from Netflix but I loved it! The perfect mix of uplifting comedy and politics and I will definitely be watching more more Trevor.
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch I have to admit that I didn’t enjoy this, but I’ve never really liked Black Mirror so I don’t know why I expected this to be different. I watched this with friends which was quite fun but the main thing that annoyed me about this film was that the path choosing feature took us in circles and this was frustrating rather than amusing, I think it would have been more enjoyable if it was a simple split path story. Bird Box I was really expecting to like this as I wasn’t a huge fan of ‘A Quiet Place’ but this was so much fun to watch! I spent the whole time very tense and on the edge of my seat, again I watched this with a friend and I definitely think that is the way forward with films like this. I didn’t gain any life wisdom from this film and I didn’t find it profoundly moving but it was a fun experience to watch and I would highly recommend it just for that. TV Shows: (all of these are available on UK Netflix)
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Tidying Up with Marie Kondo Oh this was beautiful. I wrote a long review of this response to a question that ‘The Minimalists’ posted on their patreon, and maybe if you are interested I could include that in the next zine, but I love decluttering and getting to do it vicariously through other people was great. I have already adopted lot of minimalist and organisation habits but one thing I take home from watching this was to store items vertically in drawers so that you can see them all. This show ignored a lot of the reasons behind why it is important to declutter and focused on the how, but I am planning to read the book and I wonder if that will be different. A Series Of Unfortunate Events (Season 3) A classmate asked if they should watch this and I said, honestly, no. I enjoyed this but it’s definitely not for everyone. The style of the show is very weird, as are the original books, but I read the books as a child and wanted to revisit the story. It’s one of those shows you just have to embrace and throw yourself into. I binged watched this final season the day after my last exam and I rather enjoyed it. I will saying that the acting is very good and I also think it tries to address some very important questions, however it does this in a very roundabout way.
Podcasts:
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Mile Higher Podcast Omg. If you watch my Instagram stories you will know how obsessed I was with this podcast this month. It’s a young couple discussing conspiracy theories and it’s just SO INTERESTING! What I love about this podcast is that they are not forcing their beliefs down your throats and it really is just an open minded conversation where they talk about an event and discuss all of the different popular theories surrounding it. They also just seem like lovely people and are so easy to listen to which obviously helps! I would highly highly recommend this podcast if you just want something thought provoking to listen to! I particularly enjoy the slightly out there ones about aliens and ancient history as opposed to the true crime mysteries.
Music: we - gnash (album) I have to admit this album was a little disappointing but that’s just because it was anticipating it and so I overhyped it in my head. I still love and many of the songs survived my January playlist and are now in my February playlist Human - dodie (album) I have to admit I was a little bit disappointed by this EP. I’ve not been as big a fan of dodie’s recent music as I was of her old; however, I do still love her and her voice. Also, the /song/ human is incredible, I just haven’t listened to it that much this month as I listened to it a lot when it was released as a single a few months ago. I’m hoping this EP will grow on me and I have been using it as study music as it is so calm and not too distracting.
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A Real Good Kid - Mike Posner (album) I wanted to like this album because I really love some of Mike Posner’s recent poetry and spoken word, but I have to admit that I didn’t. I think it is something that I will continue to listen to and try to like but it just isn’t quite perfect. I would rate a lot of the songs with a 6 or a 7 and I’m trying to waste less time listen to music I don’t love! 7 rings - Ariana Grande (single) I didn’t like this when I first heard it and I still don’t like that the song is essentially Ariana Grande showing off but I guess you do have to be honest about what you are going through in your music... also it’s just a bop! I love singing along to this! Close To Me - Ellie Goulding, Diplo, Swae Lee (single) Another brilliant pop bop. What more can I say?
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BOOM - X Ambassadors (single) The coolest song! So original and I love it! The lyrics are very simple but it’s such a fun sound. Especially to walk to!