Sunday, August 18, 2013

Post-it notes and I

I used a lot of post-it notes in high school.  They were found in every one of my textbooks.  Some textbooks had them on EVERY single page.  At end of school years, when I had to return my textbooks, my classmates had to help me peel all the post-it notes off.  They were amazed at the amount of details that went into them!

My first year in high school was my second year in the States.  I was too shy to speak, but I was able to understand majority of conversations.  My post-it notes went from just translations of words in textbooks to summarizing paragraphs, key events, and significant definitions.  I only used yellow post-in notes because my pen colors showed up better on them.  The 3"x3" ones were great for all purposes, while the larger pads were useful for my history books.  

There was a system to it.   I had a stash of keroppi pens from Sanrio, they wrote in blue, black, green, red, pink, and purple.  For every subject, each color represented one concept.  For example, in my history class, black ink represented name, red ink represented year, blue ink represented the name of an major event, and purple ink was what happened during the event.  In my math class, blue ink represented a formula, purple ink represented a definition, green ink represented an example that was worth re-studying.  In my English class, pink was for new vocabularies, blue was for grammar-related ideas, and black was for names. 

I summarized all the pertinent concepts from textbooks onto my sticky notes.  I got so efficient with my sticky notes that I studied off of them.  I rarely had to peel a sticky note off to read the text behind it.  If I needed to review a concept that was taught a few weeks ago,  I could remember what page the sticky note was on, the color of my information, and the location of my sticky note.  I could flip through pages of a thick textbook to locate what I need on a sticky note very easily. 

I took a lot of notes in class as well.  Unlike some of my classmates who could learn from listening, I had to write the information down, then learn from reading or looking at it.  The writing in my notebooks were color coded as well, I tried to keep the colors/concepts between my notebooks and sticky notes consistent.  So class time took a lot of concentration.  Not only was I busy listening/jotting down notes, I was also busy switching between my keroppi pens to make sure I didn't mess up. I wanted the consistency, it was important to me.  On occasions when my classmates missed class, I was usually the one they borrowed notes from. 

I started pulling all-nighters when I was in high school.  Procrastination was something I could not afford.    Organized information was how I learned.  I spent a lot of time organizing and writing my sticky notes, so much so that I sometimes ended up with only a day or two left to study them.  But my system overall worked very well for me.  Some of my classmates commented on the amount of effort I put into studying.  I just thought I was dumb, and I had to make it up with diligence. 





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