Anya Rossi

For budget-friendly and easy handling start with a student-grade soft or medium-body set that has the AP non-toxic seal; a small limited palette (warm and cool red, blue, yellow, plus white) mixes almost anything and wastes less than those big rainbow sets. Add a tiny dab of acrylic retarder or glazing liquid to each color, and tuck your stay-wet palette in a lidded container or the fridge to keep paints fresh between sessions. If you pick up craft acrylics for your granddaughter, they’re fine for practice but a bit chalky; a touch of gloss medium will make them brush smoother.

From experience - Co-sign on placement and I’d look for a non‑Wi‑Fi 2.4 GHz (FHSS) video monitor with a visible antenna - those usually hold a steadier signal through a floor than Wi‑Fi cams in your price range and for battery life, use VOX/voice activation and lower the screen brightness, and choose a unit with a replaceable parent‑unit battery so it doesn’t become useless after a year. To reduce dropouts, keep both units a few feet from the router and microwave, switch other home devices to 5 GHz where possible & and keep the antennas vertical.

Start by confirming three things with advising and your scholarship office this week: whether a W affects your GPA (it usually does not), whether it counts as attempted credits for aid pace of progression, and whether your award requires completing a certain number of credits each term versus just staying full time. Make sure a W will not push you below the minimum completion rate for financial aid, since many programs require roughly 67 percent of attempted credits completed cumulatively to stay eligible. One or two Ws on a transcript are rarely a big deal for grad schools or employers. patterns of Ws, Fs, or repeats raise more questions than a single tough term. Check the course sequence and timing now: if this class is a prerequisite and only offered once a year, a W might delay two courses and create a real extra semester cost. Compare that cost to the risk that staying tanks your GPA enough to threaten the scholarship renewal, which could be far more expensive than one extra term. To decide, do a fast, realistic salvage test before the deadline by calculating the points you need from the syllabus and trying representative problems under timed conditions. Example: if you are at 58 percent after an exam worth 25 percent, there is 75 percent left. to finish with a 70 percent, you need about 82.7 percent on the remaining work, which is tough if your practice scores sit near 60 percent. In the next 5 to 7 days, email the professor for a short appointment outside office hours, hit any TA hours or department help room, get on the tutoring cancellation list, and ask directly if there is a curve, a dropped exam, or extra credit. Build a micro plan with two focused hours daily on the highest weight topics and the weakest skills, use library course reserves or classmates for materials so you are not waiting on shipping, and mine past exams and problem sets for targeted practice. Also verify whether pass or fail is an option that preserves full-time and scholarship rules and whether your school allows grade replacement if you retake. if you cannot hit the needed scores with the hours you truly have during this busy season, withdraw and protect the GPA and aid, otherwise commit to the plan and stay.

If heavy creams bug you try a gel-cream with humectants (glycerin, hyaluronic acid), barrier helpers (ceramides, cholesterol), and lightweight emollients like squalane or dimethicone so it sinks in fast but still protects. Apply it to slightly damp skin right after showering; that alone boosts hydration a lot. For flakes, use a low-strength urea or lactic acid lotion (around 5%) a few nights a week and then layer your moisturizer. Spot-seal the driest patches with a tiny bit of petrolatum at night, and stick to fragrance-free, non-drying formulas.

Hi Mason, Both can help, but they serve different jobs. Solo time is best for building deep understanding because you can do focused retrieval practice and struggle productively without shortcuts. Groups shine for exposing gaps, forcing you to explain ideas out loud, and staying accountable. For most tough classes a 70 to 30 split of solo to group time works well. For example, in differential equations I learned methods alone, then met twice a week in a small group to pressure test my solutions and catch algebra slips. Make the group intentional. Keep it to 3 or 4 people for 60 to 90 minutes with a shared agenda and no phones. With two tough classes, alternate group focus each session or split the hour evenly so you keep momentum without context switching mid problem. Before meeting, everyone attempts the same problem set and marks the exact steps where they got stuck. In the session do 10 minutes of silent recall on a blank page, then take turns giving a 2 minute teach back of one concept, then work three representative problems on a whiteboard with a 12 minute timer per problem and a rule to state assumptions when stuck for 3 minutes. End by writing individual next steps and a date for the next check in, and do the rest of the heavy lifting alone with timed practice blocks.

Honestly, Oh man, I dealt with this exact problem last year with my coffee maker & it was driving me nuts, water pooling everywhere under it after every brew so yeah... i thought it was the reservoir too at first, but nope and turns out there was a tiny crack in the plastic base that I didn't notice until I took it apart and inspected everything under good light. Fixed it by wrapping some plumber's tape around the area and sealing it up tight, no more leaks since then. Give that a try if you haven't already disassembled it yet. Might save you from buying a new one altogether.

Agree with you - A simple way to apply that: turn your notes into bite-size questions and answer from memory then review the same day, 3 days later and and a week later. Mix topics when you quiz yourself so you’re not memorizing the order of your notes. When you’re short on time, do a one-minute brain dump: close the book, list everything you remember, then check and fill the gaps.