"How are you still awake without coffee?!"

I'm relatively sure that this GIF is us every morning.

We may look to others who go...

as if they are delusional (and well dang irritants for being more put together to face life than you LOL)

I totally feel you on this. I mean... for me...

Why would you wish to walk through the shit storm with a smile?!

While many people turn to coffee as their elixir of sustenance...

I'm here without any caffeine and people wonder why I'm still talking to them with my eyes open.

Currently, I'm majoring in Communications in University (Y1S2), balancing 4 modules (gosh last sem was 5), working as a part-time service crew at Grain Traders (and soon adding on another supplementary job as a sales associate & bi-monthly volunteering to facilitate financial literacy classes for Foreign Domestic Workers. Last sem, in addition to working at Milk & Honey, I had Cat Welfare Society events to fundraise/emcee, poverty simulation YEP meetings and regular SGH checkups and idk what else man

So many of my friends told me that I was insane for over-committing then and up to now, a few are still puzzled as to how I still get the work done - preaching to people like "oh Candice damn on/mugger sia."

My colleagues ask me the same question, frequently asking in disbelief and colloquial Singlish - "you like this not tired meh?" Some proceed to nag at me to remember that studies should be my priority. Even my parents frown upon the commitments I keep making (sigh i suppose too ambitiously) - to the point when I'm afraid to reveal my schedule for the week. They plant so much self-doubt in my mind when I'm trying to recapture all the life I had forgone in the days of suffering/deep in ED. Sometimes, I'm like...

Anyways, though i understand their good intentions of concern...do you not realise that all I'm doing is in fact enhancing my performance in school (and life in general)?? A month after working at Milk & Honey, my exam scores went up by a whole letter grade for most of my modules. Here I am, working like hell to abandon my fixations of numbers and alphabet grades to stop defining my worth and abilities and you're killing my vibe here.

Now, apart from my rant above, the main focus of this post is to share how

I am still awake and functioning better than ever before

How?

Nourishing my body with enough energy

Goodbye to preoccupation with restricting and purging - because i finally learnt to nourish and NOT punish.

Reading Ahead - Planning

1. Print out the Course Outline and plan my advanced readings according to my schedule

For me, I ensure that I do all my readings for the next week latest by Wednesday of the previous week. (i.e. I will finish each module's readings for Week 7 by the Wednesday of Week 6)

2. Speed read all the text with highlights and raising questions '(?)' and paying attention in class when the lecturer addresses that/clarify with others thereafter

See below:

I'm far from perfect

and as much as I set a goal to annotate my readings, I get lazy sometimes and only do brief stuff like labeling the # of points (see below). Sometimes, it's just plain highlights coz I have tons of readings to do/I'm just lazy lol.

Forgive yourself and move on to try again. Don't spiral back down to complete procrastination because any attempt to do readings in advance is better than nothing - trust me gurllll. I know that "I'm gonna start at 9pm! *9.01pm* sigh, I already messed up and it's a bad start, so let me start at 10pm"

Try - half the battle will be already won

Staying Focused

I put my phone away whenever I do my readings/notes. I make it a challenge/game to see how long i can last without touching my phone. Trust me when you make it through, you'll feel such immense joy and pride.

Consistent Color-coding & Organization

Make notes that inspire you to study

I experimented with various formats and it's key to keep adapting the style of your notes to they way you can best learn & retain the info

Visuals:

Charts

Tables

Mind-maps

Icons

Thermometers/Bridges etc everyday metaphors to make sense of the points

Dividers

Designs/Doodles

These didn't really work and it consumed too much time to think of the placement of info: