It’s never easy going back to school after a break, and it’s even harder when you only have a week off between quarters (or semesters if that’s what you’re on). To make that transition easier, I came up with some tips that always seem to help me!
1. Try and get back into your normal school routine ASAP!
I like to jump right back into my daily routine that I have at college. Since things are so much more relaxed at home, this can sometimes be hard, but I’m definitely someone who has to go for it with gusto! As soon as I get back to my dorm, I like to go work out since that’s what I always do after classes, and eat a nice healthy dinner (because I just had a week and a half full of my mom’s cooking, and ate way more of it than I should have).
2. Look at pictures from your break – but not too often.
It’s perfectly fine and normal to look at all of the pretty pictures you took on a trip, or just your break in general, but don’t get lost and dwell on the past! Remember that you have to get on with your new term at school, and completely focus on that. Don’t just sit around and wish you were still on spring break, or wherever you went during your time off. As Dumbledore said, “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” So, if Dumbledore said it, it must be true.
3. Focus on school, and getting your first week back organized.
Focusing on your first week back helps so much to keep your mind off of break. Get excited about your new term and classes! Also, use your planner to plan out your week! I have always been a planner user because they are so great for keeping your life on track, as well as a huge help for staying on top of homework. It’s super important to make sure you have your first week figured out, because you will be stressed enough with trying to find all of your new classes! This also helps to set up your new term on the right foot, and it will definitely have a snowball effect into the next weeks. I don’t know about you, but writing my schedule down in my planner also helps to relax me and de-stress.
4. Spend time with your friends.
Instead of sitting in your room all alone, go out and spend time with friends! If you don’t have time to leisurely hang out (I have already had so much homework, so I completely understand this!), then do homework together! You can actually get a lot more work done this way because you are all encouraging each other to be productive by getting work done. Study breaks can also be thrown in, and you all can just talk for five minutes! I love doing homework with other people because it allows me to get work done, and be social. A lot of my friends are taking similar classes as well, so we can help each other out!
Instead of sitting in your room all alone, go out and spend time with friends! If you don’t have time to leisurely hang out (I have already had so much homework, so I completely understand this!), then do homework together! You can actually get a lot more work done this way because you are all encouraging each other to be productive by getting work done. Study breaks can also be thrown in, and you all can just talk for five minutes! I love doing homework with other people because it allows me to get work done, and be social. A lot of my friends are taking similar classes as well, so we can help each other out!
5. Remember that summer isn’t too far away, and will be filled with even more fun.
If you really can’t get spring break out of your head, then just think of how close summer and warmer weather is! There will be more fun adventures to be had over this long break, so keep that in mind. However, don’t wish your time now away! Each day is so precious, and it’s important to have fun now as well, and not to wish whole weeks away. It is a fine balance!
If you really can’t get spring break out of your head, then just think of how close summer and warmer weather is! There will be more fun adventures to be had over this long break, so keep that in mind. However, don’t wish your time now away! Each day is so precious, and it’s important to have fun now as well, and not to wish whole weeks away. It is a fine balance!
I hope this was helpful to those of you who are missing spring break (let’s be honest, we all are!), and also to those of who are kind of stuck in a rut right now!
Do you have any fun plans for summer yet?
Thank you so much for reading, and have a wonderful weekend! 🙂
Finals week officially kicks off tomorrow for me, and I don’t know about you, but I always struggle to decide what to wear during the whole week! I never know if I should go for a more put together look, or just all out sweats and sweatshirt and not care at all. That usually ends badly, though, because after the test is done I usually feel super self-conscious that I look like I just rolled out of bed (even though I probably did)! To avoid all of those situations, I put together a couple of comfy-chic outfits that are perfect for finals week!
(Notice the “coffee addict” mug…that is what I am, especially during finals week!)
Surprise Back
I’m calling this outfit the “Surprise Back,” because it looks like a normal, comfortable outfit, but the back of the sweater has this really cool rib-cage inspired cut!
I put on a pretty rose patterned crop top underneath the sweater so it would show through and look really gorgeous!
My crop top matches my laptop cover, so that’s always a plus! I also braided my hair around my whole head to keep it out of the way.
Sweater: Nordstrom
Yoga Pants: Lululemon
Shoes: Macy’s
Crop Top: Forever 21
I think this outfit is so cute, and you can definitely get away with wearing yoga pants! They are just as comfortable as sweatpants, and this pair is especially great because they’re high-wasted so it looks better with the crop top!
Graphic Tee
Another way to dress up yoga pants is to wear a super cute graphic tee!
(Looking at that picture of ice cream on my friend’s wall…so much better than studying!)
Graphic Tee’s are such a fun way to make a boring outfit pop, and they are usually oversized and comfy! I love this one so much since Sunday’s are my favorite days, and I love the saying “Sunday Funday!”
It also helps to do a cute hairstyle as well, since it shows you put in a little extra effort! I also like to have my hair out of the way during tests because when I get stressed I tend to mess with it and lose focus! I don’t know if that’s just me, but either way it’s just so much easier to deal with hair when it’s up and out of the way.
Shirt: Nordstrom
Yoga Pants: Lululemons
Low-key Jeans and Flannel
Ok, flannels are the best. They are so comfortable, and look so cute and casual!
This outfit is perfect if you want to look just a little bit more put together, or if you are going to be going anywhere after your final (celebratory frozen yogurt?!)!
Flannel: Garage
Jeans: American Eagle
Shoes: Converse
Comfiest Put-Together Outfit
This outfit may look put-together, but do not be fooled! It is just as comfortable as – if not more than – the first outfit!
This outfit is perfect if you have a last minute study date with that cute boy in your class, or if you absolutely have to look nice for something, like a presentation! It is still super comfortable since it’s a shift dress and oversized sweater, but looks really nice.
Pairing cute jewelry with this look makes it look even more put-together!
Again, I also like having my hair up just to keep it out of the way. This hairstyle is super easy to do, and looks really cute!
Honestly, I would wear this outfit all throughout finals if it was socially acceptable!
Sweater: Nordstrom
Dress: Nordstrom
Necklace: Forever 21
Ring: Tilly’s
Shoes: Macy’s
This is also a really great option for those of you who live in warmer places and yoga pants and sweaters are way too much to wear! You could just wear the dress if the sweater would be too warm, or pair it with a thinner one!
Alright, those are the options I thought of for comfy chic finals outfits! You can mix and match any of these to create your own unique variation, and they would all be so cute! If you guys try out any of these outfits, make sure to show me on Twitter (@stnkrbug) and Instagram (@stnkrbug)! Good luck to those of you who have finals – we can do this!
Thank you so much for reading, and have a wonderful day! 🙂
Have I expressed enough just how much I’ve been loving this sunny weather lately?! It’s making me so happy and excited for summer, and I seriously can’t help wearing all of my spring dresses. Since I’ve been getting a lot of use out of them, I thought I would share another OOTD with you guys from this past weekend!
Jacket: American Eagle
Dress: Forever 21
Shoes: Converse
Necklace: Forever 21
I also wanted to show you guys my hair of the day!
That’s it for this OOTD! Expect more soon because I’ve been wearing my dresses like crazy lately. I just really don’t like wearing pants when it’s all nice and sunny! I am definitely transitioning to my spring and summer self hahaha.
Do you like to wear a ton of skirts and dresses during the spring?
Thank you so much for reading and have a great day! 🙂
I came across a company called WeWork, a coworking company, which basically provides space and a community for creators! They have a really cool concept, so that inspired me to do a post about my own work space! I also recently did a dorm room tour on my YouTube channel, so I’ll link that at the end, too! 🙂
So this is what my desk looks like as a whole! I do my homework here, and a lot of my writing for blog posts here as well!
Here’s a closer view of underneath the shelf.
Here’s my little fox plant holder! Sadly, there is no plant in it anymore because it died…
I absolutely adore my little pencil and pen holder!
Another closer look underneath the shelf!
My little desk shelf is also home to my beta fish, Khaleesi! She is a “dragon scale beta,” so for all of you Game of Throne fans out there, you get the reference!
This calendar is on the wall adjacent to my desk, so I can keep track of important dates!
This is a quote that’s also on the wall next to my desk! I got it as a graduation present from my parents, and I love it so much! It’s a great reminder to keep working hard at the things I love 🙂
This quote is on the wall as well! Haha it was actually a graduation from my gift from my parents as well…
This little cozy corner is my bed! I actually end up doing a lot of my homework on my bed when it’s been a long day, and I just need to curl up with my Pooh Bear pillow pet 🙂 I also edit a lot of my YouTube videos on my bed!
Here’s a closer look at “the wall,” as my friends call it haha.
My little cozy corner 🙂
Alright, there you have it – my work space and dorm room tour! 🙂 I’m really proud of how my dorm room turned out this year, so I hope you guys like it too!
What’s your favorite part of your room?
Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have a great day! 🙂
I just turned a ten page paper in, and I have never felt more free in my life.
For the past couple of weeks, final exams and this impending paper have been hanging over my head, and to finally be done is one of the best feelings! I took a couple of college classes last year (my senior year of high school), so I have had a “finals week,” but they were through my high school, and we were eased into it by having our teacher’s help us through every step.
Basically, this was me this year:
I figured I had already had a couple of college finals, so it really wouldn’t be too bad, but boy was I wrong!
Now, being in college, my professors gave me a study guide, and essentially just wished us good luck. Dead week was something that I was definitely not prepared for, but at least I had my friends who had never gone through it either. In order to make it out of dead week – and finals – with my mind intact, I did a couple of things that really helped!
Get Sleep Whenever You Can
Sleep can be hard to come by during dead week and finals week – so get it whenever you can! I took a couple of study-break-naps so my mind could be fresh for another couple of hours of studying. When your grades are on the line, it’s a lot easier to stay awake and study, even when it means you’ll get a lot less sleep. This is the case especially when you have multiple finals!
Study With Friends – Even When You Aren’t Studying the Same Subject
Even if you and your friends aren’t studying for the same class, it can be beneficial to study together, because you force each other to stay on track. This is also very helpful because you don’t feel so bored and trapped in one place, and when you all want to take a short study break, you can just talk and hang out for a couple of minutes!
Eat Small (Healthy) Snacks Frequently
They say an empty stomach means an empty brain, and it’s very true! When you’re hungry, all you can focus on is how much you want to eat, and it’s harder to retain information. Make sure the snacks are healthy, though, in order to give your body the most nutrients possible – nuts, fruits, or vegetables are good options (edamame, carrots, and apples are my personal favorite!).
Take a Couple of Study Breaks Per Hour of Studying
It’s a good idea to take short study breaks throughout multiple hours of studying. In order to keep your mind from getting absolutely fried, allow yourself a couple of minutes to focus on something other than what you are studying. I find that this helps me come back and focus on the material I’m studying, so I don’t get bored with it and I can refocus after each break with a fresh mind.
Coffee is Your New Best Friend
I drank a lot of coffee throughout both dead week and finals week in order to wake me up after a particularly long night. I love drinking coffee in general, though, so it was a nice excuse to have even more during these weeks!
Celebrate When You’re Done!
It will be one of the biggest reliefs of your term once you are done with finals – so go celebrate! Get some frozen yogurt with some friends, or simply have some well-earned down time and watch a movie or read a book. Usually after finals, you get some sort of break (yay, Christmas break right now!) so enjoy the time off, because you deserve it for studying so hard!
This will be me tonight since I’m officially done with finals and turning in papers!
How do you study for big tests?
Also, just a side note: I think now that I am on Christmas break, and have a lot of free time for a month, I will be starting Blogmas! I know I’m about a week late, but better late than never, right? I’m super excited to be able to devote all of my time to my blog this month, and hopefully you guys enjoy my December posts! 🙂 So, technically, this is Blogmas Day 1!
Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have a great day! 🙂
Ahhhh book reviews, how I have missed you. It has been so difficult in college to find reading time, let alone time to write a review on one. However, I have slowly been reading City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare, and I finally finished it the other day!
Just a quick side not, this is the last book in the Mortal Instruments series, so I will try to not spoil anything! If you haven’t read this series, I highly recommend that you do! It has been a really great series, and I’m really glad I decided to steal borrow the first book from my brother.
The whole premise of this book is good versus evil, as with the whole series, and it again follows the lives of Clary Fray and her friends. As this is the last book in the series, it ties up all of the loose ends from the whole series, and also has an epilogue which allows readers to see how the characters are doing a couple of months after all of the falling action.
Overall, I was really pleased with this book. I loved the ending, and also how all of the villains ended up. I felt like Clare did a great job at connecting all of the story lines in this book, and it was also so great to see that she incorporated some events and people from the “prologue” series she did to this one. Honestly, that was probably my favorite series from her, so it was so nice being able to meet those characters again in some way.
Cassandra Clare is a great writer, and this book was written in a way that I never got bored. It was hard to put down when it was time to go to class (I like to get some reading in while I eat breakfast and drink my coffee in the morning), and it was so easy to pick back up when it had been a couple of days in between reading it. She flawlessly introduced new characters into this series, and it actually turns out that she will be doing a new series with these characters. While I think that’s pushing it a little with this world and set of series, I of course will be reading the new series. I know that as soon as I get my hands on it, I will be really glad Clare is continuing on with a different series based off of the new characters in this book. She introduced the issues that the characters will face in the new series very well, and I already have predictions of what will happen in it.
I’m so sad to see this series end, but I’m also very pleased with how it ended up. I am very satisfied with the ending, which is always a great feeling after you have loved a set of characters so much. I’m really looking forward to reading more of Cassandra Clare’s work, and I’m very excited for her new series! I believe it will be coming out early next year, so I definitely recommend reading her previous series – the Infernal Devices, and this one, the Mortal Instruments – before her new one comes out.
What books have you been loving lately?
Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have a great day! 🙂
This month is National Novel Writing Month, which is where you have a goal to write 50,000 words in the month of November, and I’m trying it this year! I heard about it over the summer so I definitely wanted to try it this year. I don’t really know what exactly I’m going to write about so I need to decide soon!
I’m not sure if I’ll actually make this goal, as it’s my first year attempting this, but I feel like it’ll be a great thing to inspire me to start writing for fun again! It’s been hard in college to write for enjoyment outside of my blog since I’m so busy with homework, and writing actual essays that I’m assigned in classes.
If you enjoy writing at all, I highly encourage you to do NaNoWriMo as well!
Thanks so much for reading and have a great week! 🙂
This month is National Novel Writing Month, which is where you have a goal to write 50,000 words in the month of November, and I’m trying it this year! I heard about it over the summer so I definitely wanted to try it this year. I don’t really know what exactly I’m going to write about so I need to decide soon!
I’m not sure if I’ll actually make this goal, as it’s my first year attempting this, but I feel like it’ll be a great thing to inspire me to start writing for fun again! It’s been hard in college to write for enjoyment outside of my blog since I’m so busy with homework, and writing actual essays that I’m assigned in classes.
If you enjoy writing at all, I highly encourage you to do NaNoWriMo as well!
Thanks so much for reading and have a great week! 🙂
Now that I’m in college, Halloween has again become a big affair. I haven’t dressed up for Halloween in about six years, so now I am scrambling to figure out what to dress up as! I think it’s funny how we dress up as kids, stop when we’re teenagers (at least where I live) and then begin dressing up again once we’re young adults! I am definitely looking forward to it this year, because I love this time of year.
Anyway, I have been thinking of what to dress up as for a little while now, so I thought I would give you guys some ideas that I’ve gotten from the internet! (And I absolutely refuse to dress up as any character from Frozen)
Comic Book Character
How cool are these?! I can only imagine the time this actually takes, but the end result is definitely worth it!!
Greek Goddess
This is such a classic and timeless costume – although, I’m sure there will be a lot of Greek Goddesses at parties!
Group Costume: The Seven Dwarves
I think this is such a cute group costume! My group of friends and I are thinking of having a group themed costume, and this would be so perfect!
Any Character From Game of Thrones
Okay, I just had to include this because I’m a huge Game of Thrones fan! The dresses that the actresses get to wear are so pretty – it would be so much fun to dress up as them!
Fifty Shades of Grey Spoof
This is funny on so many different levels (ha ha) and would actually be a really cheap and easy costume to make!
Dobby From Harry Potter
This is also a really cute costume idea, and another one that would be easy and cheap!
Well, these are my ideas for now, but I’m sure I’ll have more soon! I’ll share with you guys what I finally decide on – I’m so excited for Halloween! I’m going home this weekend to go to the pumpkin patch with my family, so I soon get my roasted pumpkin seeds. I’m telling you guys, you need to try them!
What do you want to be for Halloween?
Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day! 🙂
Disclaimer: none of these photos are mine!
Now that I’m in college, Halloween has again become a big affair. I haven’t dressed up for Halloween in about six years, so now I am scrambling to figure out what to dress up as! I think it’s funny how we dress up as kids, stop when we’re teenagers (at least where I live) and then begin dressing up again once we’re young adults! I am definitely looking forward to it this year, because I love this time of year.
Anyway, I have been thinking of what to dress up as for a little while now, so I thought I would give you guys some ideas that I’ve gotten from the internet! (And I absolutely refuse to dress up as any character from Frozen)
Comic Book Character
How cool are these?! I can only imagine the time this actually takes, but the end result is definitely worth it!!
Greek Goddess
This is such a classic and timeless costume – although, I’m sure there will be a lot of Greek Goddesses at parties!
Group Costume: The Seven Dwarves
I think this is such a cute group costume! My group of friends and I are thinking of having a group themed costume, and this would be so perfect!
Any Character From Game of Thrones
Okay, I just had to include this because I’m a huge Game of Thrones fan! The dresses that the actresses get to wear are so pretty – it would be so much fun to dress up as them!
Fifty Shades of Grey Spoof
This is funny on so many different levels (ha ha) and would actually be a really cheap and easy costume to make!
Dobby From Harry Potter
This is also a really cute costume idea, and another one that would be easy and cheap!
Well, these are my ideas for now, but I’m sure I’ll have more soon! I’ll share with you guys what I finally decide on – I’m so excited for Halloween! I’m going home this weekend to go to the pumpkin patch with my family, so I soon get my roasted pumpkin seeds. I’m telling you guys, you need to try them!
What do you want to be for Halloween?
Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day! 🙂
Disclaimer: none of these photos are mine!