#review

I was going to do a review for Kanoko and her uncap but I’ll keep it simple and clean. She is actually very decent with the highest attack stat out of most 2* Dark and/or Attack units. This includes Emiri, Felicia, Shizuku and Ayame. Her Magia/Doppel will give herself Attack and Charged Attack Damage up for 3 turns which will help her performance outside of bind/charm strats. If you need a decent dark attacker or someone with strong disabling ailments Kanoko might be a good pick. If you want to use her Magia consider giving her an MP Gain Memo since she gets no boni from SE.

Sidenote but I just used her for the current 100 evils and you can probably use her to Bind/Cheese them.

Trying to log into my Wix account so I can post part 1 of my The Bare Witch Project review. But it’s taking a long time so it probably won’t be up until tomorrow morning. 

Follow Me Back by A.V. Geiger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m sorry, WHAT?! What the heck am I supposed to do with that?!

This book was a ride I was not expecting to take. I expected some fluff with a good dose of drama, but what I got was an episode of Catfish…if Catfish was in the thriller genre.

Geiger had me second-guessing what I thought I knew throughout the book and I have absolutely no choice but to pick up the sequel, if I can survive the wait.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley.

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My circumnavigation of the USA via motorcycle is over and I’m back in NYC. Time to rest for a couple days before my next adventure as a seminarian. Check back for more reflections.

Now that I have a 100 day streak on Clozemaster I thought I should do a review. 

Clozemaster is a gamified vocabulary building app based off material from Tatoeba (a free database of example sentences). The developer said it aims to answer the question “What should I do after Duolingo?”. It seems best suited for intermediate learners so I have only been using it for Korean and not Japanese. 

Positives

• More enjoyable than flashcard apps.
• The free version doesn’t have ads and you can use it perfectly well. 
• Wide variety of sentences and vocab - even swear words. 
• Decent amount of content for Korean. 
• Korean audio is decent (though a tad emotionless). 
  

Negatives

• Most of the negatives come from the fact that everything is getting pulled from Tatoeba without any human review.
• People’s names like 톰 come up as a key word or occasionally only part of a foreign word is used as a key word.
• Occasionally get these ridiculously long sentences (like the screenshot above). 

Overall I think its worth a go - especially if you want to work on your vocabulary but find flashcard apps boring / dislike learning words without any context. 

How did I get to review the Qbo You-Rista Coffee machine? Well, if you guys follow me on Instagram (@curlsnchard), you might know that I’ve moved in March. It’s the first time that I’m neither living in my parents’ house nor a shared apartment. I guess I’m all grown up now! :D And what comes with moving? Yep, the need for kitchen appliances, like a coffee machine. I’m not much of a coffee…

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inkskinned:

okay friends here’s a quick Guide to Doing the Finals w/Mental Illness (feel free to add)

• first of all, before finals, as much as you can: get cozy with teachers. go to office hours. have 3 questions written down that might actually help you, ask them. if you have anxiety about this stuff, rehearse beforehand, and keep the door open (it will feel less confrontational).
  
• assume you will go into Bad Mode at some point. when you can, beforehand, start early. if it’s 2 sentences, a thought on what your thesis could be, whatever - get it started. it’s much easier from a start than from a blank page.
• in assumption of Bad Mode, have your basic needs taken care of. if you know getting food is going to be difficult, stock up on snacks so that you force yourself to eat during the day. i don’t care if they’re oreos. you need to eat. if you can mix in some healthy stuff - nuts, carrots, apples, etc - go for it. but eat. buy dry shampoo for the days you can’t shower, or use corn starch. set out the clothes you will wear for the week.
• if you can skip caffeine, do so. most of us won’t but… it does help anxiety.
• find out if you study better with friends or alone. most “study groups” are a waste of time if people aren’t focused, and focusing on people and school is almost impossible with The Mental Illness, which wants you to not do work.
• bribe yourself if you have to. “if i pass with [this average] i can buy all the things already in my amazon cart.” don’t go shopping, though. you’ll find yourself looking at strange shit for a dollar and it’s 4 in the morning and the essay isn’t written.
• figure out what learning style you are and study using that. remember that if you doodle, you’re probably a kinesthetic learner - learn by doing. visual learners? flashcards. auditory? tape the lectures. kinesthetic? write it down, buddy.
• make lists. they reduce anxiety and help you see that what feels overwhelming is only like 3 things.
• figure out where you focus best. libraries or your room? 
• protip: use the school’s computer. you know, the big embarrassing ones everyone can see? having your screen visible to others will help you stay on track - particularly because the people waiting to use the computers will be v annoyed with you if you’re not busy.
• fire your inner critic. you’re on full Survive mode, pal. you don’t have to make everything perfect to your standards. i find myself pointlessly obsessing about colorcoding and pretty writing. no time for that anymore. it’s there, it’s legible? it’s good enough.
• five page literary/research essay gotcha down? get your evidence all of it. write it in the document. then put your own words about it. a good method is “i’m gonna give you evidence. [evidence]. this is an analysis of the evidence”. then put a sentence before your first to transition into it. then put one after your last to transition out of it. suddenly you have a lot of words with what feels like very little work. 
• wait to write introductions until the essay is done
• citations made easier
• white noise - good for study, stim, and also sleep
• when you need to, just fess up. admit you have a problem. tell your teachers, talk to them about it, try to set up something to help you make up missing work. I want to say 95% of the time… teachers will do their best to pass you. they just want to see you try.
• if you have trouble focusing on 1 thing at a time - do multiple homeworks at once. if you go on tumblr not even bc you care about this rotten website but because you just need something else, this will probably help you. two sentences on essay 1, three math problems, three words on essay 2? before you know it, it adds up.
• i hear a lot of “quit social media!” but tbh if you reward yourself with like… human interaction… dont quit it. i’m like “okay i want to message him back but i need to finish X amount of work and then i can”. 
• small rewards are the bomb.com
• honestly dress for success. if you’re in full No mode, it can be easy to wear the same thing 8 times in a row. if you pick out an outfit you love, and spend the time getting ready in the morning - it does help. and if you need to be in pj’s to attend the final? at least you’re there tbh.
• grades are not a reflection of how much you learned, how hard you tried, or anything like that. they are frequently subjective. remind yourself that you are not defined by someone’s subjective amount.
• tell a buddy about what you’re dealing with. have someone who knows. who listens to you. 
• sleep helps you learn way better than cramming tbh
• good luck i love you

stripedturtlenecksweater:

Specifically, those who have used Wacom’s Cintiq 13hd. I wanted to know if you think it’s worth getting it now that the Cintiq pro is out. Becuase the pro is so goddamn expensive I was looking at 13HD since it’s gotten a lot cheaper now. I was wondering if the changes between each product are worth enough to buy the pro or to just go with the 13HD. It’s a big purchase for me and I want to know if I’m getting my money’s worth. Any little bit of information would help!

Maybe my answer helps others in a similar situation too, so I’ll just put this here!
(also the comment’s character limit cannot handle me, turned out I had more to say than I originally planned)

Anyway, my low-quality diet-review starts under the cut!

I bought Wacom’s Cintiq 13HD to accompany my cintiq 22HD few months ago, mainly to help with my anxiety (so I don’t need to be tied to my working area and can work with a comfortable, smaller space), and I absolutely LOVE it. After calibrating the pen for your viewing angle there’s pretty much no noticeable parallax (with 22HD you could clearly see it, so it might be just me comparing it to that) and though its 2048 pressure sensitivity is not pro’s 8192, it’s still more than enough and won’t affect the quality of your work in any way. There’s only so much pressure a human eye can see.

The pro pen in 13HD has very natural tilt and it needs no batteries or recharging, just like the pro pen 2, and as so, it’s pretty light. I didn’t find any noticeable differences between the two pens, but then again, I haven’t actually tested the pro pen 2. Either way, 13HD’s pen feels great.

Also, like with all wacoms, 13HD’s surface has some paper-like resistance, which as a drawing tablet is extremely great. Though I’m pretty sure that 13 pro (as a Wacom) has that too, I think it’s necessary to mention how good and comfortable it feels to draw on a surface like that.

I’m gonna also mention that there’s no lag, and if there is, it’s because I’m running 30 other programs with a laptop that can handle only so much. Something that I bet is the same with 13 pro too, but you know, I think it’s still worth to mention as these are usually very important things when it comes to digital drawing.

You still have to plug 13HD into HDMI and USB ports and into a power socket (it is called power socket right), but you will get a nice all-in-one cable that is very easy to use. Completely opposite to the cable storm of the cintiq 22HD, so that’s nice. Not sure how handy it is to drag 13HD into a coffee shop or some another similar public place every day though, as you still have to find a wall to plug it in and open your computer and all that jazz, but it’s perfect enough if you like to move around in your house (or even your friend’s or relative’s house) and probably even in school, where no one is gonna mind you and your personal art studio somewhere in the corner.

Cintiq 13HD has 16.7 million colors, which I think is not quite as much as with the pro versions (couldn’t find any direct color comparison, but the pro has 87% of adobe RGB) but once again, there’s only so much a human eye can see and it’s just perfect enough for my color-loving use. There doesn’t seem to be any noticeable difference between colors in pro13 and 13HD either way.

One of the only complaints I have is that light skin colors seem slightly more reddish on my 13HD than on my computer screen, but since my 22HD has the same problem and no one on the internet seems to complain about it I’m assuming that it’s just my pc and not Wacom’s fault. If it happens to you too though, there is some color calibrating programs that can fix it and you can always check the result on your computer screen.

I really love the keys at the side of 13HD as using them makes the work a bit faster, and if you happen to be leftie, you can always flip the thing around so the keys appear at your right side and then just set that exact screen to appear upside down from your computer’s settings. You can also customize the keys.

Either way, since it’s Wacom we are talking about, I think you are gonna love your new device no matter which one it ends up to be. Cintiq 13HD is perfect for my use (and for my wallet), and there’s not really anything I would complain about it.

This is just my own personal experience of course, but either way, I hope my rambling was somewhat helpful to you or anyone else!