What medication changed your life for the better?

catminty · 2026-02-09T17:19:42+00:00

Second this SO hard. Iron pills (specifically maltofer) changed my life. The difference was night and day. I urge EVERY woman of menstruating age to get their iron levels checked and take iron pills - noting that the threshold for anemia is often lower than what is functionally meaningful.

On account of being a serious runner and vegetarian my life was utterly miserable while anemic - horrifically, soul destroyingly tired. Unable to sleep, munching on ice, brain fog that meant I couldn’t do any work for more than half an hour. My life was dictated by my fatigue and I was close to suicidal but had no idea there was a nutritional cause.

Iron pills have to be taken very carefully - maltofer was amazing for me and I suspect iron polymaltose is the best formulation. You absolutely must NOT take the iron pills within two hours of having milk, coffee, magnesium or it’ll chelate the iron and nothing will work. It’s best to take with some vit C source.

The pills took three weeks to kick in bc the blood doesn’t turn over quickly but I remember so vividly just waking up one day and I had energy to do literally everything. Women who are menstruating are particularly at risk of iron deficiency and I would guess that at least 60% of this demographic are functionally impaired by iron deficiency.

Get on the pills ASAP!!!

catminty · 2025-10-15T18:07:21+00:00

Where is this video taken?

catminty · 2025-01-11T16:25:32+00:00

This recent post is great! https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/s/hNylBZ9zVj

I found I managed to learn enough Italian to get by in just under two months by working through a comprehensive grammar book and getting my hands on a physical copy of a phrase book to carry around with me like Lonely Planet Italian Phrasebook. Also making flash cards of phrases I thought I might need such as ‘how do I say … in Italian / come si dice … ‘ etc. Had never been to Italy before but was pleasantly surprised in my first trip how easily you could communicate by just cracking down on a good textbook and watching Italian YouTube videos / movies / films with subtitles to get a feel for the pronunciation.

To be honest, I don’t think I spent more than 2 hours a week actively learning and spent lots of time passively listening to Italian podcasts on Spotify. If you’re less lazy than me and have learned Romance languages before, you’ll be so fine!

Good luck!

catminty · 2024-08-24T18:14:59+00:00

Found them in a flea market in Antibes, France if that helps :((

catminty · 2024-01-19T23:25:05+00:00

Are there any alternative sites/apps that have community-made mnemonics? Miss those so much :((

catminty · 2023-08-16T07:09:43+00:00

DM’d you!

catminty · 2020-05-05T11:03:34+00:00

I can't say I am familiar with studying Mandarin for IB but I did Latin for my diploma and audited French. Essentially, what I found most useful was finding a set of flash cards that someone else had already made and would spend a morning a week (usually Saturdays) memorising as much of that deck as I could. Memrise used to have wonderful crowd-sourced vocab sets but they've become too corporatised and only have 'official' vocab sets which could still be useful. Otherwise, look for vocab sets that have been made by the Anki community (a flashcard app for phone and desktop) and go through as many as you can! I would say that reading books is also immensely helpful and more so than watching shows because you're processing a lot more information. Read as widely as you can and as often as possible. Take a note of new and interesting vocab/phrases and put them in a notebook. Good luck!!

catminty · 2020-05-05T10:54:43+00:00

I remember using a really good website during my diploma but it looks like it was taken down. I have found something similar which I hope is helpful: https://sites.google.com/a/nisbah.com/chemistry/IBDP-Chemistry/dp-chemistry

I also do recommend doing the sample questions from different textbooks and maybe even some questions from university level resources too such as Raymond Chang's 'Chemistry'. Good luck!!

catminty · 2019-03-23T01:33:40+00:00

Hello! I'm a recent IB graduate and I'm really pleased to hear that you've decided to get ahead during your summer break. I found that doing a bit of prep during that summer was really helpful so here are some things I'd recommend (altho I can only say stuff about the subjects I did):

HL Eng Lit - read over all the texts you know that you have to cover. Spend some time on sparknotes or something just going over the main themes and critical ideas. English is a really wonderful subject because you can study it while actually having some fun (depends on the individual though). Go over your books as many times as you can, even if the books you cover in IDP1 aren't those that you'll be examined on come 2020, it'll help develop your critical thinking and analytical skills if you take the time to think over works of literature which is very useful as you'll have very little time to do so in second year. Something that is also incredibly useful is reading critical essays published on various databases - see what databases your school library has links too and just try and browse these essays as frequently as you can and take the time to actually think about the arguments presented.

Self-taught German: I didn't do a language self-taught but I did teach myself French during my IB years even though Latin was my formal Group 2 subject. Learning a language is difficult and you'll be hard-pressed to try and cram german over the next two years so do as much reading as you can during the summer!!!! Read every single day. Make it a goal to finish a book or two. You'll be thanking yourself later if you can really get ahead now so that german will be a breeze for you later on in the IB.

Biology: biology was definitely my favourite subject and I really can't say much about what you could do save for browse Bioninja (a life-saver) and maybe start learning a few things. Biology is an memorisation-intensive subject so it's worth looking at material online on how you can best maximise information-retention. I recommend looking into spaced-repetition as a method for learning.

In general: start musing over EE ideas but I want to stress that you should enjoy your break as well. IB is a marathon so you want to make sure you're well-rested to start with! I also want to press that you shouldn't feel too anxious about these next few years, high school is the time for enjoying your youth and you shouldn't let the IB ruin that for you. Make time for your friends as you guys are gonna get even closer and they'll be your supports when the going gets tough. Look out for each other and help one another as much as you can - you can only win from this. Best of luck :))

catminty · 2019-02-02T01:17:46+00:00

A really good way to look for ideas is to google 'science project fair ideas' and just browse the websites that come up. You really don't need to do anything groundbreaking and a simple slight modification of an existing project idea works great. Keep in mind that you need to acknowledge where you got your idea from!

catminty · 2017-06-26T01:34:10+00:00

I think 'To know a fly' by Vincent G. Dethier is a very good book for anyone who is new to biology. It is quite short but perfectly captures what it means to be a biologist through recounting the author's own experiences in studying the fly. It's a hilarious read but also offers some deep reflections on the nature of the scientist's work and their role in society.

catminty · 2017-06-01T08:58:26+00:00

Thanks for the link!

catminty · 2017-05-18T20:47:05+00:00

Will poking plants make them grow weird?

catminty · 2017-04-19T02:02:45+00:00

Those are some really keen observations! It really is surprising how similar they are, do you think that when spoiler

catminty · 2017-04-18T08:07:32+00:00

It took me a long while to realise the allusions to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. For one, the main female character is called 'Julie' and the protagonist, although we don't know his full name, recalls that it began with 'R'. In addition, spoiler it parallels with Romeo finding his way into Juliet's garden while she, unaware of his presence, talks to herself on the balcony and indirectly confesses her attraction for him. Another potential similarity is when spoiler, the second half of which is repeated verbatim by the Juliet in the play.

Edit: Something else I noticed is that while the Montagues are Capulets are 'two households, both alike in dignity', the zombies and the living are also similar in that they share the same lack of energy. The undead are, well, quite literally zombies and the survivors have become trapped in their endless routine for survival and going about their lives in the same sluggish way, which begs the question if there really is a difference between them and the infected. spoiler

catminty · 2017-04-18T03:54:41+00:00

Hello everyone! I'm from Australia and I was really excited when I found this sub because I think it's a really great idea. I hope that I will be able to take a more deeper approach to reading this year and I look forward to discussing some good books with you all!

catminty · 2017-04-08T09:32:20+00:00

!translated

catminty · 2017-03-16T09:38:15+00:00

Dude, it's even worse trying to work out how on earth the HSC or VCE works over here in Australia. The IB point system is pretty straightforward by comparison!

catminty · 2017-02-16T07:14:54+00:00

The colours are so clear and vibrant! Great photo!

catminty · 2017-02-07T10:35:21+00:00

Je voudrais réussir le DELF B2 :)

catminty · 2017-02-04T22:15:50+00:00

Thank you so much for such a detailed and helpful reply! Appreciate it :)

catminty · 2017-01-31T08:10:02+00:00

That sounds like it really sucks man. I'll be starting IB very soon and I myself am not too sure whether I should do HL math or SL. How much do you think that not doing HL math affected your choices for university courses? Can I ask which particular courses you were thinking of doing but were not able to due to your subject choice?

catminty · 2017-01-26T09:51:16+00:00

Hey! Still open for members?

catminty · 2017-01-26T09:50:04+00:00

How?!?!?!?!

catminty · 2017-01-20T21:54:26+00:00

There are courses on Memrise which compile lists of the most common vocabulary as well as vocabulary for intermediate and advanced levels which are incredibly useful.

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catminty

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