Post by: PhoenixxFire on December 05, 2017, 09:26:04 am
I was going to start this next year, but I started headstart (2018 classes) yesterday, so I figured I may as well start it now.
This (next) year i'm doing Enviro science 3/4, further math 3/4, English 3/4, Outdoor Ed 3/4 and an elective called Freshwater and Marine Ecology (fish).
4/12/17
To start off the first day of 2018 classes I had Private study. Period 1. Monday morning. I can already tell i'm going to be procrastinating a lot this year. From today we have a new structure to the day (class times and length). At the end of P1 we have a 5min break to get to our next class, which for me was English.
Now this English teacher and I have history. Not really but it feels like we do. She was my English teacher in my aborted attempt at 3/4 English last year (that then changed to EngLang, which I then dropped). We didn't do much in class. Only about half of our class actually turned up. We did some getting to know you stuff and she gave us a week by week plan for the year (halfway through the class she got an email from another teacher saying that they need to change the dates for all the SAC's :o ) We did a kahoot on media analysis (I came second), then we had heaps of time left so we played a kahoot on Harry Potter (which I won). She let us go 5min early because snack is a lot later than it used to be and she was hungry.
It was very weird being in an English class again, after not having been in one for a year. It doesn't seem too bad at the moment but I suppose I shall have to wait until we start writing essays. I tend to avoid them, and the more I avoid them, the more I freak out about them and then they end up being terrible. ::)
After second period it was recess, then SSDP. SSDP stands for Student Support and Development Program. It is new for 2018 (we used to have mentor, and programs). The SSDP groups are around 25 kids across all ages. My group had about 15 people in it. There were two groups of those boys. One wasn't so bad the other was constantly talking over our teacher, and there were 6 others. We are getting some new kids joining next year too. Our SSDP teacher is new next year so we had a guy who's leaving this year (I interviewed him for his job and my 2017 mentor used to work with him and likes him). In SSDP we did that bingo-getting-to-know-you thing, and not much else. Our teacher said that we would have to keep journals in SSDP next year :-\ . He said we would have the option to keep them private, but if they're left at school they are definitely not private, and I doubt they trust us to bring them back every day.
Third period I had Further Math. It was with My General math teacher. We will have a new math teacher next year, he is leaving so is just taking it temporarily. Didn't do much. It was very easy, and was content I had previously done in 1/2.
Fourth period I had 3/4 Enviro Science. It was pretty boring, we went over what is covered in the course and not much else, somehow we ended up talking about the genetic variation of cheetas. The first part of Enviro science is focussing more on the biology, which is good for me, then we will move on to more chemistry/physics/legal.
Today (5/12/17)
I have Private Study Period 1 (now). Next I have 3/4 Outdoor Ed. My outdoor Ed class is a combined 1/2, 3/4 outdoor ed and 1/2 enviro science class with 2 teachers. Last year (2017) we were in a combined 1/2 enviro and 1/2 outdoor ed class with the same teachers, one of them was a student teacher.
Third period is fish. I'm looking forward to it. We have lots of pet fish, at the moment i'm hoping to breed beautiful blue cichlids, we have two species called mphanga and maingano's (see images - not ours, just took from google).
Fourth period is Enviro science, it looks like we might be starting textbook work.
Will update at some point, if anything interesting happens (or even if it doesn't)
Post by: K888 on December 05, 2017, 10:50:52 am
All the best for the rest of headstart!!
Post by: AngelWings on December 05, 2017, 04:14:44 pm
This (next) year i'm doing Enviro science 3/4, further math 3/4, English 3/4, Outdoor Ed 3/4 and an elective called Freshwater and Marine Ecology (fish).
...
bingo-getting-to-know-you thing
...
Third period is fish. I'm looking forward to it. We have lots of pet fish, at the moment i'm hoping to breed beautiful blue cichlids, we have two species called mphanga and maingano's (see images - not ours, just took from google).
Ooh, another biology person! Can't wait to hear more!
By "bingo-getting-to-know-you-thing", were you looking for the phrase "icebreaker (activities)"?
Post by: Coffee on December 05, 2017, 04:38:27 pm
Looking forward to hearing more about your Year 12 journey.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on December 07, 2017, 10:32:30 am
I've attempted to keep journals before and stopped very quickly, but maybe i'll actually update it on here.
It was a 5X5 bingo thing and each square had a different thing in it (likes the same sport team, taller than you, lived overseas, etc.) So yes it was an icebreaker activity but that wasn't specific enough for me :P
By "bingo-getting-to-know-you-thing", were you looking for the phrase "icebreaker (activities)"?
5/12/17 (Tuesday)
1st period: Private study
2nd Period: Outdoor Ed
It was a weird class. There were lots of people, the majority of whom were new. We talked for a bit, the teachers introduced themselves and we played some icebreaker games (duck,duck, goose but with two people and skipping, and never have i ever - without the drinking). We're going on a camp early term 1. 1/2 Outdoor Ed (OES) and Enviro are going together and then 3/4 OES (me) are going the week after. We don't know where we are going to go yet - depends on the weather (bushfires).
SSDP
I'm still getting used to our new timetable, so I almost forgot about SSDP and started heading to the wrong side of the school! Eventually I got to the right place, we did nothing, I drew little squares and triangles all over my hand again.
3rd period: Fish
We didn't do much, our teacher has decided that we're going to learn like pirates (it's an acronym, cant remember what it stands for, something about resilience and getting feedback). We have lots of new kids in our class, so they got a tour of all our fish tanks, the rest of us started brainstorming ideas for our camps.
4th period: Enviro science
It looks like this could be a very boring class :-\ I like Enviro science but the whole lesson our teacher basically just talked through the first chapter and it was boring (to be fair i had a headache which did not help). It's also kind of annoying that I have already learnt most of this in bio.
6/12/17 (Wednesday)
We finish early on Wednesdays and Fridays this (next) year, so we only have 3 periods.
1st period: English
We went through a summary/background info for The Golden Age which I already new due to my previous aborted English attempt, I have also already read the book which is what we are supposed to be doing today. We then had a theme and had to make a poster on it in groups, my group was me and one other guy, we had Australia in the 1950's. It seems he is as antisocial as me, we did our own research and didn't talk the whole lesson. No poster was created (oops).
2nd period: Further
We continued with chapter work. I had to google becuase i couldn't remember how to make a percentage from a fraction #failingmath.
3rd period: Outdoor Ed
We split up so all the 1/2 kids were in one room and we were in another. Lets call the teacher S and B to make life easier. S has been teaching OES at my school for 4(?) years now I thing, B was the student teacher last year. At the start we were all in together, and they wanted our camp forms back (which we got on Tuesday), I had mostly filled it out and had gotten it signed, but had forgotten to fill out the medicare number and phone numbers for emergency contacts (I haven't memorised them) quite a few people forgot, mostly 1/2 people who hadn't had such a fast turnaround before, I hurriedly filled it in.
I got home at 2:30 which was nice for a change. I got bored and was playing with my dogs, noticed their feet slipping so i cut thier claws and patches of fur that were covering their feet, somehow I ended up giving one of them a trim with the electronic hair cutter and both of them a bath. Of course I ended up covered in dog hair, and then soaked.
7/12/17 (Thursday)
I'm home sick today, not sure if its actually a cold or because i'm still covered in dog fur. I pity my partner in English, we were supposed to finish our poster in English today. In math we would just do work from the textbook and in Enviro he will either talk or we will do chapter questions. I'm annoyed about missing fish though. To the point where I might have forced myself to go, except I have it tomorrow as well anyway. I really like fish lol. (It's actually mostly because I like the teacher - he taught me biology and was my mentor for 2 years, and I have friends in the class, whereas most of my classes are full of strangers (except OES).
Tomorrow we finish early again. It shouldn't be to bad a day, although it would be less bad if SSDP wasn't a thing. I'm interviewing candidates for a graduate maths teacher position during P1 and P2, then I have recess, SSDP, then fish. I'm missing private study and outdoor ed :'(
EDIT: I forgot, we have two principals at the moment, one is leaving at the end of the year. They have been interviewing for a new principal, I assumed this meant we were going to have another co principal, but our new principal is ........ the co-principal who's not leaving. I feel sorry for my fish teacher, who was the school representative on the interview panel, he spent ages reading resumes and then missed a couple of days to interview candidates, but oh well it had to be done officially.
Post by: rainbowsparkles15 on December 09, 2017, 03:24:31 pm
Third period is fish. I'm looking forward to it. We have lots of pet fish, at the moment i'm hoping to breed beautiful blue cichlids, we have two species called mphanga and maingano's (see images - not ours, just took from google).
I'm so curious to hear about this fish elective, I've never heard of anything like it! Is it a part of your timetable for the whole year and what does it involve?
Post by: PhoenixxFire on December 14, 2017, 08:38:04 pm
Figured I should update this given results are tomorrow. :-X
On Friday I had interviews for the new math teacher. Can't really talk about it much but we were told we had 3 candidates, turned out we had 4. We had a half hour break between the 3rd and 4th because they were interviewing someone for a different position who could only come in then. I'm hesitant to talk about how it went because I don't know how far along hiring decisions are, and I don't know who's reading this. I just wanted to say that the interviews for this particular position really showed how much value the student panel has. The students had unanimously agreed on a favourite, we all loved this person. The staff seemed a bit hesitant, but they took our feedback on board, and agreed to do the referee checks on the person. This was the first panel I've been on where the students and staff had different views (although 1 staff member agreed with us), one other i did we had a slight favourite and a different person got the job, but we like both of them.
After Interviews I had SSDP, during which time i coughed most of my lungs out, almost suffocated a few times, then realised that it had been long enough that I could have more medicine.
3rd period I had fish. My teacher took one look at me and pulled out a carpet (I don't know where from...) and the big roll of filter wool (its about 2m long and 40cm high when rolled up. It's like soft toy stuffing but in a sheet). He told me to sleep and I would have but the carpet was full of so much dust I probably would have died. After mucking around and not doing much for a bit i wandered over to check on my fish. One of the adult Maingano's had died :'( After we pulled him out we checked the water quality and everything seemed ok so we think he died from bullying, which happens when fish move tanks (they claim territory). Maingano's are a type of cichlid and cichlids are known for being aggressive. The Mphanga who already had marks and scales missing from when they were in the tank with their babies also died, which was expected.
Monday I didn't go into school again due to still being ill. Some of my attendance was at 50% after this (to get an 's' we need 90%...not a good start).
Tuesday was orientation day for next years entry (year 7) students.
Wednesday I had English and Math, both of which were boring. In maths we're doing things we already did in General.... 3rd period I had Outdoor Ed. The first half of the class we helped remove tables from the resource centre for one of our principals farewell which is tonight (Thursday). The second half of the class we presented on a topic but I didn't have to because I wasn't there on Friday.
Today I again had English and Math, again boring (I don't remember how to write a media analysis...If I ever knew) I had fish 3rd period which was great fun, as always. We did prac, I had a few people with me and we rinsed the filters in a lot of our tanks, they were getting dirty and clogged up by fish poo.
My teacher told us he has PD tomorrow so he isn't going to be there, I'm kinda sad about it because it is our last class for the year, and he was my 3/4 bio teacher so it would have been nice to talk to him after the results come out, but at the same time it might be better not to because he was hoping I did really well and I made a lot of silly mistakes on the exam so I'm just hoping I get 40 :-\ I'm honestly not too concerned about what I get. The number doesn't matter to me unless I fail really badly, the course I want needs an 80, so I will get into it so long as I pass English next year ::) At the same time I know that I'm going to be dissapointed in my score because I know the content, and there is only one question on the exam that I got wrong because I didn't know the answer (the one about classifying a species as autralopithicus or homo) so it annoys me a lot that I got so many wrong due to silly errors. Whilst the number itself doesn't matter to me, it still would have been nice to get a score that reflects how well I know the content, rather than how well I can read questions under exam conditions. I think I will get over it quickly, but having people who expected and wanted me to do well ask what I got is not going to be much fun :(
Tomorrow I'll be up around 6 (normal time) to get ready for school, i'll have a few minutes to check before I need to leave, I'm sure i'll be on my phone on here on the way to school tomorrow.
I have private study 1st period, at 9:45 I have an interview to be the fish keeper (the only leadership position in fish- its a new position because my subject is becoming part of working with animals rather than the science subject it was originally intended to be). I'm fairly sure the teacher in charge of interviews (there's one teacher and two students on the panel) wants me to get it, there's 2 other applying for it, who are actually doing fish (there's a couple of people applying who are doing fish for the first time next year but they won't get it). Both of them have had there interviews, one of them is 99% sure he won't get it, he's expecting to get invertebrates and amphibians, so I'll probably get it, unless I really stuff up the interview.
2nd period I have outdoor Ed which is always a fun class. SSDP apparently my house (4 SSDP groups) are having a picnic - Apparently I need to bring food.
3rd period I have fish, my teacher won't be there but he's asked me to grab some people and do a water change on some of our fish. Then I'm done for the year ;D
I'm so curious to hear about this fish elective, I've never heard of anything like it! Is it a part of your timetable for the whole year and what does it involve?
It's so much fun ;D It's a semester length elective but I've been in it since it was first created at the start of 2016. Originally it was intended to be a science subject, focusing on science related to water. However we inherited some fish when the working with animals program was split into 2 subjects (Feathers & fur, Reptiles). We ended up spending a fair bit of time caring for the fish, and most people enjoyed the practical side more than the theory. The first semester It ran we cleaned out a storage area (big enough to fit 2 cars?). It was full of old tables/chairs etc. We cleaned it out, put concrete paint on the floor and then had to clean the tanks that were donated to us by a fish shop. These tanks had black paint on them which had to be scraped off with heavy duty razor blades (they were 'safety' razor blades - one side was blunt) Then we had to scrape the silicon off. It took weeks to clean them all.
These days we get lots of tanks donated - more than we can possibly know what to do with, we also get some fish donated. Through the existing working with animals program we have the company behind aquaone/reptileone/etc sponsoring us so we get their equipment cheap. We have also recently got sponsorship from Aquarium Industries (the largest importer of aquarium fish into Australia) so they will sell us their fish at cost - Both of which are awesome for us as a poor public school.
From next year we are going to be a working with animals elective so our lessons will mainly be practical. Everyone will have a species (or 2) that they are responsible for taking care of, as opposed to this year where whoever wanted to do prac took care of them. Basically we will do around weekly water changes, feed the fish daily, get to know their usual behaviour so we can notice when water conditions change/when the fish become unhealthy. We will also do a few theory projects throughout the semester (this semester I have done a project on the impact of European carp on our native Silver Perch and a project on ocean acidifcation).
EDIT: I should proofread before i post.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on December 29, 2017, 11:47:14 am
I've been working a lot during the holidays. I did 7 hours on the 23rd & 24th, we were closed christmas day, then 7 hours on the 26/27/28/29 and 5 hours tomorrow. I'm going to get taxed again. I still haven't done my tax return for the last financial year (oops).
I'm finally going to go see Star Wars ;D I went up to IMAX this morning to get a ticket for tomorrow night. I would have gone tonight but all the good tickets are gone ::) (and I don't want to pay the booking fee to book online...)
I gave my youngest brother (he's 12) Spiny Leaf stick insects for christmas. I haven't actually finished the enclosure yet, so they're currently in a small bin with flywire over the top. They are so cute, until you look at their tiny faces, their faces are ugly. I got him 5, 1 male and 1 female that are almost adults, 2 males that are still young, and 1 female that is the youngest (I'll put some photos on the photo thread when i'm a bit more organised).
Their enclosure is mostly done. I made a wooden frame, then attached wire to it, then I got the stick insects, then decided the holes in the wire were too big, so I ripped that off and attached fly wire to one side, It didn't attach well, so I ripped that off and attached it differently. It's almost done, I just haven't done the door. The plan was to pull the fly wire around the side next to the door and attach it with bendable wire, but it leaves too many gaps. Now the plan is to make a 3 sided door frame and have the mesh attached to the actual frame on the fourth side (which is what I wanted to do originally...)
It will be finished when I have a day without work...when the shops are open, maybe after new years.
Post by: AngelWings on December 29, 2017, 01:48:00 pm
So I was planning on going to the library for most of the day to start my holiday homework (Free wifi + air conditioning ;D ) but my boss asked me to work today.What type of work do you do, if you don't mind me asking? I'm sorry if this has been said and I've missed it somewhere.
I've been working a lot during the holidays. I did 7 hours on the 23rd & 24th, we were closed christmas day, then 7 hours on the 26/27/28/29 and 5 hours tomorrow. I'm going to get taxed again. I still haven't done my tax return for the last financial year (oops).
Post by: PhoenixxFire on December 30, 2017, 10:45:34 am
It’s pretty good, I like most of my coworkers and they feed us sometimes (we got chocolate cake yesterday). I’ve been doing day shifts recently and it’s just been my department manager, me and one other woman. It was super awkward though because they have a secret-but-everyone-knows relationship, and I think they had a fight because they both looked upset and they kept talking quietly whilst I pretended not to notice haha. They’re both super nice though so I hope they make up :-\ they look so happy around each other, which is how we all figured it out, and my boss is normally super stressed, especially this time of year.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on January 12, 2018, 05:21:05 pm
I intended to actually do my homework today instead i'm copy/pasting email addresses
Plz don't stalk me now
Post by: chooby on January 12, 2018, 06:00:42 pm
So yesterday I finished typing up my bio notes and sent them to the person who asked me for them. Then I figured i'd see if anyone else wanted them so i posted on the VCE discussion space fb page. My post got deleted but i got 118 email addresses first. I sent them out this morning, figured i'd post again and see if anyone else wanted them. So far 500 people have my bio notes. What have I done.
I intended to actually do my homework today instead i'm copy/pasting email addresses
Plz don't stalk me now
Ahahah, I've always wanted to try and send out my notes for Biology until I realised two things;
1. The amount of people that actually comment on those posts is unreal and I've seen other posts with teams of people trying to send notes out so I'd rather not.
2. My Biology notes are incomprehensible to anyone but me.
Anyways, can't wait to see more of your posts in the future!
Post by: PhoenixxFire on January 12, 2018, 07:12:21 pm
I don't know how there's any bio people left in this group who haven't got them yet. I'm going to need to change emails again soon.
Post by: Bri MT on January 12, 2018, 10:24:40 pm
So yesterday I finished typing up my bio notes and sent them to the person who asked me for them. Then I figured i'd see if anyone else wanted them so i posted on the VCE discussion space fb page. My post got deleted but i got 118 email addresses first. I sent them out this morning, figured i'd post again and see if anyone else wanted them. So far 500 people have my bio notes. What have I done.
I intended to actually do my homework today instead i'm copy/pasting email addresses
Plz don't stalk me now
I used to procrastinate doing bio hw (note making) by doing exam questions so I completely understand avoiding the academic thing you *should* be doing for some other academic-related thing
Post by: PhoenixxFire on January 27, 2018, 07:08:36 pm
I’m doing my (PADI) advanced open water course so we did 3 dives at Brighton beach. First was peak performance boyoncy, which is basically just checking that you’re carrying the correct amount of weight and it’s in the correct locations. Second was underwater navigation (which I just passed - I’ve always been bad at navigation lol). Third was underwater naturalist, which is supposedly about fish identification, but we just swam around and looked at everything that was pretty.
Unfortunately I got quite sunburnt (we pull the wetsuits half off when out of the water to avoid frying ourselves) despite putting on more sunscreen between every dive.
The worst (most annoying) sunburn I got was due to me being an idiot. I was wearing thongs and walking towards the change rooms at the end of the day, one thong kept breaking so I just walked in bare feet instead. Over super hot ground. It was not a good idea, I can barely walk, but I have to walk down a way too long pier tomorrow row carrying around 20kg.
Tomorrow I’m doing a wreck dive and a deep dive. They’re both wrecks that are deep though so basically the same thing. One is a submarine and the other is a naval ship (I can’t remeber the names). We don’t have to do any skills, which is good, it means we can just swim around and look at stuff. I don’t know whether to bring my camera, it’s too big to just put in a pocket so I would have to hold it the whole time, but I might be able to because we’re not doing any skills.
The other 4 people on my course speak mandarin and almost no English, our instructor is bilingual. It doesn’t really matter given we can’t talk underwater anyway, but I never realised how isolating it is when you cant understand the majority of the conversation around you (my instructor only talked in English when talking to me, and I talked to a couple of others who were diving there) Tomorrow there’s a guy diving with us who’s doing a nitrox course, so I’ll have someone to talk to at least.
In other news, I recently learnt that the deal the SDA negotiated with Woolworths means I’m getting paid $15-20 a week less than I would under Award rates (which is the default if there were no agreement) and the best part is I’ve been paying the SDA $7 a week to do it. So I quit the SDA and joined a new union RAFFWU If anyone else works for woolies and can be bothered doing some maths you can check whether you’re being paid below Award rates. If you are (and even if you’re not) you can leave the SDA, join RAFFWU and nominate them as your bargaining representative, the more members they have, the better our chances of getting a decent EBA when negotiations start in February. (SDA sent out a notification about the negotiations and promised to defend our penalty rates...when they’re the reason we don’t have them.) I’m so annoyed it took me this long to find out.
In school news I still haven’t completed the majority of my homework and only have Monday and Tuesday left to do it (oops).
Edit: Many typos
Post by: PhoenixxFire on February 05, 2018, 06:08:25 pm
Life's been pretty awesome recently ;D
I've been doing a lot of things I love, I've got two school camps coming up (outdoor ed, fish & turtle conservation). My fish teacher, another student and I are looking at starting a SCUBA club which will be amazing - the reason I don't dive much is because it is hard to find other people to dive with. I'm also going to apply to Tas Uni's 'Introduction to temperate marine bio' course. It's a week long thing, specifically for years 11 & 12. They are offering a few scholarships for interstate people, so hopefully I will get in.
We have had a few SSDP (that's my school's new version of homeroom) sessions now - We had a community (1/3 of school) meeting on Friday so we missed it then. Today our group (and some others) had to do a mindfulness type activity. We drew a tree and (I don't remember it all exactly) on the trunk we had to write our core beliefs, on the roots things that keep us grounded (religion, culture, family, etc). On the leaves we wrote people we could ask for help/friendship/advice. The fruit were things we hope to achieve in life. Seeds were what we hope to leave behind/how we want to be remembered. Wind was things that could stop us from achieving our goals, rotten fruit/compost was bad things we wanted to be rid of. There were a couple of other things but I don't remember them all. It made me so freakin' uncomfortable. For those of you who don't know, IRL I am a very private person, and we basically got told to write down everything that was important to us, everything we we afraid would stop us and people that are important to us. If everyone I know tried to fill that in together, they might get half of them right. I spent most of the time drawing (aka tracing the example) tree and only filled in a few things (from memory i wrote music, SCUBA diving, the ocean on the roots and empathy, respect and humour on the trunk), i think they're going to make us finish it tomorrow and I so don't want to. - It's not private, we gave them to our teacher and he's going to read them.
I also had English, Math, and Enviro science today. I'm finding school exceptionally boring at the moment. I knew English and Math would be boring, but I was hoping Enviro would be more interesting. So far every lesson has been our teacher at the front of the class talking the whole time. The only activity we've done in class was for 15ish minutes today when we had to look up some divergent species.
Fish has, of course, been heaps of fun - we've got quite a few new students (more than last year) and its always cool to see their enthusiasm. Outdoor ed is also fun, the content is interesting and we actually get to do stuff.
Post by: Bri MT on February 05, 2018, 07:38:24 pm
snip
Is it ok if we temporarily switch lives? I was heavily obsessed with the oceans for a long time and although as of last year I have switched from the marine biology path the ocean is still something that I really connect with. Being around the ocean so much and ocean conservation are both so fantastic (plus camping is just generally great)
Hope you really enjoy these experiences - they sound amazing
(sidenote: empathy happens to be one of my three core values - so cool to see the overlap there)
Sad to hear that enviro isn't living up to what it could be - but at least on the whole it sounds like things are looking good! :)
Post by: PhoenixxFire on February 16, 2018, 07:05:43 pm
School still feels very relaxed at the moment - doesn't really feel like year 12 yet. We haven't had any SACs yet, so I'm still relaxed from the holidays. I'm going on an outdoor ed camp on the 26th (canoeing along the Murray), it should be fun but we're not even bringing tents - just a tarp to chuck over all of our sleeping bags, so no privacy which is going to make me a bit crazy. We're also not allowed to bring our phones, I was going to bring mine anyway and just use it in my tent so I don't get it confiscated, but I guess that won't be happening.
That week is also when my class is doing our first English SAC (creative). It's going to take all three lessons so i'll have to do it when I get back. Not looking forward to it - I hate creatives.
I'm really far behind in maths, but I don't really care because it's all stuff we did in general 1/2 anyway.
Enviro is still boring, we're doing quadrats (counting/identifying plants) on Monday though so that should be a bit better, although quadrats are very boring.
Outdoor Ed is fun in class, but the work is annoying because we need to learn about a specific indigenous community and our textbook only has general information ::)
Fish is great. Today we finally started organising who is going to have which tanks/fish to care for. Most people didn't have specific tanks in the previous years, but we're changing how it is running. I've got my maingano's and mphanga's (of course) and also me and another guy have my Silver Perch - I should film me feeding them some time, they flip half out of the water, it's awesome to watch. I say 'my', the m&m's were mine last year, and the Silver's were mine early last year and 2016. They're so big now, they started off as tiny, tiny babies (fat tiny babies because I fed them too much). We (the fish leaders) are currently working on planning the setup of our fish room - it's a bit of a mess at the moment, with random tanks everywhere, but we really need to get it set up properly, and move all of the fish out of the classroom because it's starting to be used as a general science classroom due to the increase in student numbers. We have a whole room to put fish in, and a garage-ish sized room that's connected to the classroom. The plan is to put our native fish in the big room and our tropicals in the smaller room. The tropicals are all introduced species (at the moment) but we have some introduced temperate (cold water) species so I don't know where we are going to put them - We managed to get a permit for a Carp at the start of last year (and an actual Carp), she's been in the classroom and I don't know where we are going to put her yet. Her name is Krystal because we caught her from the Yarra on camp and we are very immature. Our fish teacher had a tent that had a pole in the middle to hold it up, so we teased him about being a pole dancer - another teacher ran with it and named the fish Krystal, because our teacher constantly jokes about her being his only friend (and then we tell him it's only because he feeds her.) I'll try to include some photos of some of the fish soon, because they are awesome ;D
Is it ok if we temporarily switch lives?The last few days of October and the first couple of weeks of November are available for a life switch :P
Post by: Bri MT on February 21, 2018, 07:10:23 am
The last few days of October and the first couple of weeks of November are available for a life switch :P
Tempting, but I think I'll have to pass and focus on my uni exams
Post by: PhoenixxFire on February 24, 2018, 08:05:19 pm
Turns out its really hard to take photos of fish through glass.
Rambling about fishy things
Krystal the carp
(https://i.imgur.com/hohKD9c.png)
Frank the Umbee
(https://i.imgur.com/fgbG3h7.jpg)
Silver Perch
(https://i.imgur.com/FAiOb9u.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/qxU9f4t.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/qxU9f4t.jpg)
Western sooty grunter
(https://i.imgur.com/97tNsvl.jpg)
Catfish
(https://i.imgur.com/jcAmk1N.jpg)
Baby mainganos and mphangas
(https://i.imgur.com/RaXCqYR.png)
Adult maingano
(https://i.imgur.com/plhxAwW.jpg)
Our smaller room
(https://i.imgur.com/M08bkmE.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/JYudKuo.jpg?1)
(https://i.imgur.com/JYudKuo.jpg?1)
The larger room
(https://i.imgur.com/rmvGpu8.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/AUOe8Xu.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/f1gQFeY.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/AUOe8Xu.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/f1gQFeY.jpg)
Anyway I actually typed that up last night, but then it was midnight so I wanted to go to sleep and I've been at work all day so now I can finish it.
I just got a new keyboard (I've got a surface pro 3 so the keyboard disconnects). It's strange being able to right-click again. This is a bit hard to type because the keys have space between them, but they didn't on my old keyboard so nothing is where I expect it to be.
Our WASHI's (Work and study habits index - our version of GPA's) came out today. I got 3.1 out of 4 overall, which is fine. But I'm really annoyed because my math teacher (who was also my teacher for year 9 math and my failed attempt at Unit 1 methods in year 10) gave me 'seldom works independently' which is the 2nd lowest option in that category, but then he gave me 'Never works in a group' soooooo like, what does he think I do all lesson? I've never really cared about our WASHI's, the only thing they are used for is supposedly determining whether you're allowed to work ahead of your year level, but I've never seen someone kicked out for it.
They are so subjective, it's ridiculous. There really isn't any set guidelines for what each category means, at least there wasn't last year they changed it for this year. Last year there was a category for which the top option was 'always strives to go beyond what is required'. One of my teachers didn't give me the top option because he said that I could have taught the new kids etc. (It was fish). It was fair enough, but I really hate that category anyway. There is always more I could be doing, where does it stop? Anyway so I'm kind of mad because my other subject scores where 4, 3.43, 3.43, 3.14 and I got 2.86 for SSDP which is fair enough because we don't do anything, but then I got 1.71 for math. It feels like my teacher just hates me, I'm a bit behind but that's it. Our class is way ahead of the other classes anyway because apparently we have to be the best ::) To be fair I don't like him either. But like, what does he think I do in class??? Also he gave me often on time (the 2nd highest) when I've never been late.... (I got always on time for all my other classes). He's always so ugh like he picks on people in class and makes a big spectacle of it. Like he always points out how far behind someone else is (they're a little bit behind me) and he'll just walk behind them and be like 'You're only up to 1I.' It just makes me so uncomfortable because that's no one else's business. He hasn't done it to me, I sort of challenged his authority though which might be why he doesn't like me lol. We were supposed to do some things on our CAS and show it to him to prove we could do it. I refused to do it, arguing that I wasn't up to there yet (and i'd already done it all in general anyway so I knew I could). Anyway he mostly leaves me alone and has only commented a couple of times on me being behind. - That's why I didn't want to ask him how to fix my CAS btw (I didn't know it was broken when I refused to do it).
I should be writing my English creative now. I worked today from 9am to 4pm, my English teacher won't normally look at work on Sundays, but she says she'll look at anything we send her tomorrow night because we have a SAC this week (next week for me because I'll be on camp.) So I need to finish that either tonight or early tomorrow, I would have rather done it this morning but I couldn't because of work. It's my creative SAC so the plan is to attempt to memorise at least the main ideas and just replicate it - Which means I can't get feedback off you guys because I don't want to risk plagiarism accusations.
Outdoor Ed and Enviro are opposites at the moment.
In Enviro our teacher just talks the entire lesson
In outdoor ed he sometimes talks a little but we mostly just get given work to do and I don't really even know how to do it - He wants us to know things that aren't in our books and I can't find much on google. Also he wants us to do work but I don't really know what he wants. It's really hard, I can't find much information and when I do, I don't even know if that's what we were supposed to find out.
We planned the setup of our big fish room this week. It should be pretty good :)
Work's been kinda hectic. I work in the Deli at Woolies if you don't know. On Tuesday I worked until 10 (when we close). Except I ended up staying until 10:20 (when the duty manager kicked me out because my mum had parked in the carpark and it closed at 10:30). We just didn't have enough time to do anything. I got paid for it though because the Duty Manager signed an adjustment.
I worked until 10 again on Wednesday, a different duty manager works on wednesdays, she works every day except Monday and Tuesday so she's the main DM. I like her but she just doesn't get some things. She kicked me out at 10:10 and she told me to just do what I can do before 10. But like I can't leave food unwrapped (I had to wrap the ham after 9, normally it is done before), I can't leave dirty dishes lying around, the food on them will never come off in the morning, I have to clean the floors, they're always a total mess and get cleaned every night, I have to clean the slicer, it's hard to clean as it is and I can't make them do it the next morning and I just don't have enough time. It is very stressful.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on March 15, 2018, 07:10:19 pm
This ended up really long so I'm going to dump camp in a spoiler.
Camp!!! (it was the 26th Feb - 2nd March)
So on the Sunday before camp I was out most of the day buying gear for my trip to Nepal (which is in June). So when I got home I couldn't be bothered packing. I wrote a list before I went to bed, and got up early and packed. Guess what this means? I got to school and realised I forgot my bowl and my cutlery ::)
It was okay though, I told my teacher and he got me to raid the staff kitchen, turns out one other student forgot as well but we both 'borrowed' stuff so that was fine.
So the camp was a canoeing trip from Yarrawonga to Cobram. On Monday we got to Yarrawonga and went to have a look at the weir. Whilst I know that there is lots of Carp in the Murray river it was strange seeing at lest 10 of them in such a small area. We met with our instructors there. (my outdoor ed teacher came, as well as another staff member from school and there were 2 canoeing instructors from Rubicon).
We chatted for a bit and then we drove to the area where we were going to stay. Of course we couldn't drive to our sleeping area, so we had to carry all of our gear and the canoes a few hundred metres.
I didn't think that we were going to go canoeing on Monday, but we did! We didn't travel anywhere, we just got used to how they worked and steering. At one point we played a game where we had to follow the instructor around exactly, and he swerved around lots of obstacles. My canoe partner and I are competitive people, we were alternating for first and second most of the time, but then we went around a log and leaned a bit too far and we were the first to capsise. Of course we insisted that the instructor had asked us to demonstrate. After that we all deliberately flipped our canoes and had to practice pulling the flipped canoe over other canoes, turning it, then pushing it back into the water. Then came the hard part, getting back into the canoe. I ended up doing 4 rescues because both my friend, and our teacher managed to flip their canoe whilst they were trying to get back in.
After we finished playing in the canoes we decided to go for a swim, so we went across the river and explored NSW. Unfortunately it started to get dark so we had to come back and make dinner. Due to the lack of room in the canoes, all 14 students were sleeping on a tarp (or under if it rained, which it didn't) so we were all crowded there in our sleeping bags, in the open air. Guess what else I forgot? Mozzie repellent. Luckily other people let me use theirs so I (mostly) survived.
That was the last time we saw a real toilet. By real toilet I mean a drop toilet. Every day after that we had to dig a hole. We finally saw a proper toilet again when we got into Cobram at 11pm on Thursday night.
In the morning we jumped in our canoes and headed out. I was at the back of the canoe so I got to steer. It was great fun ;D We mucked around a fair bit. I was at the front of the group most of the time, we had to stop at one point because some of the people at the back had decided they wanted a swim. There was only like 4 boats at the front, we stopped at a sandy area, and there was a sand dune and a couple of people in the front group decided to run down it and jump in the water and a few of us stayed in the boats. Everyone else caught up and stopped right on the sand dune and they all ended up getting out too. I kinda wish I had, it looked fun, but at the time they were just going to run down and then come back but they ended up staying a while.
We did a really bad job of navigating, we ended up stopping at a beach because it had a rope swing (I say beach, i really mean a sandy area on the edge of the river). Our teachers advised us against going on the rope swing because they could not be sure it was safe but some people went anyway.
We emptied out the canoes and sorted our food into breakfast/lunch/dinner so we could get to it easier. We were sent off to have 'solo time' whilst the teachers started making dinner. It was supposed to go for half an hour, but i fell asleep for almost 2 hours (oops). By the time I woke up dinner was almost ready so we ate and then split up into our study groups (there were 3 groups, water/land management & policy; Indigenous relationships; biodiversity). I was in the Indigenous relationships group, we were the smallest group (there was 3 of us). It was really good though. One the the canoe instructors is aboriginal so we asked him lots of questions and I learnt a lot ;D
Wednesday was much the same. It was super hot the whole week but it was actually pretty comfortable on the water, if we got warm we just splashed ourselves (and each other) to cool off. We decided to take a short cut at one point (it was a narrower area that effectively cut the corner. We turned in and the current picked up. We didn't know that there was a log across most of the river, the first boat got passed it (about a 1m gap). Every canoe after that hit it because we were too close together to stop. We all got some emergency instructions yelled at us, grab the log, lean into it, don't let your canoe flip. After we had all pulled ourselves around it we got out and went to look at it from the river bank. It turns out that there was actually two channels and the other one had a log entirely blocking it! We got told a story about a time one of our canoeing instructors was going down the river with a friend and they hit a log and his friend went under, they were both fine but it was scary. We asked about what to do if we went under. Essentially it was curl into a ball (smallest possible surface area) and hope that there was enough room under the log so that you got pushed through.
We had really strong winds on wednesday so we stopped for a bit and went for a swim, except we really just walked upstream and floated down around the bend a few times. We had a whole lot of fun attempting to push our teacher under and playing keepings off with his cap (we kind of cheated by putting it down the front of girls life jackets so he couldn't try and get it off us haha). We also played a game called Mr. President which is even more fun in water than it is on land. Basically someone puts there finger to their ear (like as if you were a secret service agent with an earpiece), when you see someone doing it you copy them, when there's only one person who hasn't done it everyone runs and tackles them and yells 'get down Mr. President'. We played it on a different camp last year and told everyone except our teacher, would definitely recommend if your teacher won't murder you for it.
We played another game throughout the week, it wasn't really a game. It's called silly salmon, basically whenever someone put their hands together and wobbled them (if that makes any sense) you had to run to the water and jump in (like flopping around in the air and landing sideways). You had to do it regardless of if you were already dry, but some people refused haha.
On Thursday we had to get to a beach called twin nobs by 2:30 to meet some people from Parks Vic who were going to talk to us. Along the way we were collecting sticks because we were planning on making a raft between two canoes. We hit a jackpot at our lunch site when we found a bunch of wooden pallets that someone else had used as a raft. We re-purposed them and tied two of them in between two canoes. I was in one of those canoes and it was a lot of fun when a boat went past, its wake couldn't tip us over, so we stood us and 'surfed'. Of course we also had people jumping off the back of the raft whilst we were canoeing :) Originally we were going to stay at twin nobs for the night and then get up early to go to Cobram. Naturally we had to be a bit more adventurous, so we decided to stay at twin nobs for dinner and then leave about 8 and paddle in the dark to Cobram. It was absolutely amazing paddling in the dark, it was a full moon that night too! I can't describe how amazing it was and I'm very happy we got to do that. Whilst at twin nobs someone managed to lose our hygiene kit (which had our toilet paper in it!) Before we knew that we had lost it one of the students was going to show our teacher where the hole was so me and another student tagged along so we could see where it was. The kid led us along and he keeps going 'oh they dug it ages away' we ended up running for a bit and then our teacher goes 'is this a joke' and the kid goes 'yeah'...turns out it was like 20m from camp but we had run like 800m lol. It was very very funny and I'm surprised he believed it or as long as he did.
We got into Cobram about 11pm...and guess what? There was no camping at that beach. We actually knew that before we left but we did it anyway haha. There were sprinklers across most of the grassy area so we had to squash ourselves in the corner nearest the car park (that was empty except our bus). We struggled to stay awake as we emptied our canoes, and then we got to use a real toilet! It flushed and everything! Despite how tired we all were, we stayed up until 1 ish talking and eating leftover snacks...and I hid in my sleeping bag and browsed AN on my phone that I totally didn't bring haha. The next morning I was up first and everyone else was a little sleepy. We packed up and I scrubbed lots of pots and my hands turned a colour I like to call Trangia Black. For those who don't know a trangia is a portable stove sort of thing. The pots go very, very black on the bottom..and it's greasy and stayed on my hands for most of the weekend despite repeated scrubbing.
Definitely an awesome camp ;D
It was okay though, I told my teacher and he got me to raid the staff kitchen, turns out one other student forgot as well but we both 'borrowed' stuff so that was fine.
So the camp was a canoeing trip from Yarrawonga to Cobram. On Monday we got to Yarrawonga and went to have a look at the weir. Whilst I know that there is lots of Carp in the Murray river it was strange seeing at lest 10 of them in such a small area. We met with our instructors there. (my outdoor ed teacher came, as well as another staff member from school and there were 2 canoeing instructors from Rubicon).
We chatted for a bit and then we drove to the area where we were going to stay. Of course we couldn't drive to our sleeping area, so we had to carry all of our gear and the canoes a few hundred metres.
I didn't think that we were going to go canoeing on Monday, but we did! We didn't travel anywhere, we just got used to how they worked and steering. At one point we played a game where we had to follow the instructor around exactly, and he swerved around lots of obstacles. My canoe partner and I are competitive people, we were alternating for first and second most of the time, but then we went around a log and leaned a bit too far and we were the first to capsise. Of course we insisted that the instructor had asked us to demonstrate. After that we all deliberately flipped our canoes and had to practice pulling the flipped canoe over other canoes, turning it, then pushing it back into the water. Then came the hard part, getting back into the canoe. I ended up doing 4 rescues because both my friend, and our teacher managed to flip their canoe whilst they were trying to get back in.
After we finished playing in the canoes we decided to go for a swim, so we went across the river and explored NSW. Unfortunately it started to get dark so we had to come back and make dinner. Due to the lack of room in the canoes, all 14 students were sleeping on a tarp (or under if it rained, which it didn't) so we were all crowded there in our sleeping bags, in the open air. Guess what else I forgot? Mozzie repellent. Luckily other people let me use theirs so I (mostly) survived.
That was the last time we saw a real toilet. By real toilet I mean a drop toilet. Every day after that we had to dig a hole. We finally saw a proper toilet again when we got into Cobram at 11pm on Thursday night.
In the morning we jumped in our canoes and headed out. I was at the back of the canoe so I got to steer. It was great fun ;D We mucked around a fair bit. I was at the front of the group most of the time, we had to stop at one point because some of the people at the back had decided they wanted a swim. There was only like 4 boats at the front, we stopped at a sandy area, and there was a sand dune and a couple of people in the front group decided to run down it and jump in the water and a few of us stayed in the boats. Everyone else caught up and stopped right on the sand dune and they all ended up getting out too. I kinda wish I had, it looked fun, but at the time they were just going to run down and then come back but they ended up staying a while.
We did a really bad job of navigating, we ended up stopping at a beach because it had a rope swing (I say beach, i really mean a sandy area on the edge of the river). Our teachers advised us against going on the rope swing because they could not be sure it was safe but some people went anyway.
We emptied out the canoes and sorted our food into breakfast/lunch/dinner so we could get to it easier. We were sent off to have 'solo time' whilst the teachers started making dinner. It was supposed to go for half an hour, but i fell asleep for almost 2 hours (oops). By the time I woke up dinner was almost ready so we ate and then split up into our study groups (there were 3 groups, water/land management & policy; Indigenous relationships; biodiversity). I was in the Indigenous relationships group, we were the smallest group (there was 3 of us). It was really good though. One the the canoe instructors is aboriginal so we asked him lots of questions and I learnt a lot ;D
Wednesday was much the same. It was super hot the whole week but it was actually pretty comfortable on the water, if we got warm we just splashed ourselves (and each other) to cool off. We decided to take a short cut at one point (it was a narrower area that effectively cut the corner. We turned in and the current picked up. We didn't know that there was a log across most of the river, the first boat got passed it (about a 1m gap). Every canoe after that hit it because we were too close together to stop. We all got some emergency instructions yelled at us, grab the log, lean into it, don't let your canoe flip. After we had all pulled ourselves around it we got out and went to look at it from the river bank. It turns out that there was actually two channels and the other one had a log entirely blocking it! We got told a story about a time one of our canoeing instructors was going down the river with a friend and they hit a log and his friend went under, they were both fine but it was scary. We asked about what to do if we went under. Essentially it was curl into a ball (smallest possible surface area) and hope that there was enough room under the log so that you got pushed through.
We had really strong winds on wednesday so we stopped for a bit and went for a swim, except we really just walked upstream and floated down around the bend a few times. We had a whole lot of fun attempting to push our teacher under and playing keepings off with his cap (we kind of cheated by putting it down the front of girls life jackets so he couldn't try and get it off us haha). We also played a game called Mr. President which is even more fun in water than it is on land. Basically someone puts there finger to their ear (like as if you were a secret service agent with an earpiece), when you see someone doing it you copy them, when there's only one person who hasn't done it everyone runs and tackles them and yells 'get down Mr. President'. We played it on a different camp last year and told everyone except our teacher, would definitely recommend if your teacher won't murder you for it.
We played another game throughout the week, it wasn't really a game. It's called silly salmon, basically whenever someone put their hands together and wobbled them (if that makes any sense) you had to run to the water and jump in (like flopping around in the air and landing sideways). You had to do it regardless of if you were already dry, but some people refused haha.
On Thursday we had to get to a beach called twin nobs by 2:30 to meet some people from Parks Vic who were going to talk to us. Along the way we were collecting sticks because we were planning on making a raft between two canoes. We hit a jackpot at our lunch site when we found a bunch of wooden pallets that someone else had used as a raft. We re-purposed them and tied two of them in between two canoes. I was in one of those canoes and it was a lot of fun when a boat went past, its wake couldn't tip us over, so we stood us and 'surfed'. Of course we also had people jumping off the back of the raft whilst we were canoeing :) Originally we were going to stay at twin nobs for the night and then get up early to go to Cobram. Naturally we had to be a bit more adventurous, so we decided to stay at twin nobs for dinner and then leave about 8 and paddle in the dark to Cobram. It was absolutely amazing paddling in the dark, it was a full moon that night too! I can't describe how amazing it was and I'm very happy we got to do that. Whilst at twin nobs someone managed to lose our hygiene kit (which had our toilet paper in it!) Before we knew that we had lost it one of the students was going to show our teacher where the hole was so me and another student tagged along so we could see where it was. The kid led us along and he keeps going 'oh they dug it ages away' we ended up running for a bit and then our teacher goes 'is this a joke' and the kid goes 'yeah'...turns out it was like 20m from camp but we had run like 800m lol. It was very very funny and I'm surprised he believed it or as long as he did.
We got into Cobram about 11pm...and guess what? There was no camping at that beach. We actually knew that before we left but we did it anyway haha. There were sprinklers across most of the grassy area so we had to squash ourselves in the corner nearest the car park (that was empty except our bus). We struggled to stay awake as we emptied our canoes, and then we got to use a real toilet! It flushed and everything! Despite how tired we all were, we stayed up until 1 ish talking and eating leftover snacks...and I hid in my sleeping bag and browsed AN on my phone that I totally didn't bring haha. The next morning I was up first and everyone else was a little sleepy. We packed up and I scrubbed lots of pots and my hands turned a colour I like to call Trangia Black. For those who don't know a trangia is a portable stove sort of thing. The pots go very, very black on the bottom..and it's greasy and stayed on my hands for most of the weekend despite repeated scrubbing.
Definitely an awesome camp ;D
Some of my classes weren't running last week because of year 7 camp, U3 classes whose teachers were on the camp didn't even have it on our timetable so I got to go home early a lot :)
I had my first
I was supposed to have my first Enviro SAC this week but it's been moved to Monday which I'm very happy about. I'm on camp (at the Murray again) next week so I get to do it the last week of term...then I realised i'm on another camp Sunday/Monday of the last week of term so I'll probably do that SAC on Tuesday and then my outdoor Ed SAC is on Wednesday.
Next week I'm going to Cohuna for a fish camp. We're going to be working with Turtles Australia to record turtle nests that have been destroyed by foxes (our native freshwater turtles are likely to be critically endangered within the next 30-50 years, mainly due to foxes eating their eggs), we'll also be doing a half day of canoeing (yes again lol), there might be kayaks as well which would be awesome. We'll be going through a redgum swamp so their should be some good photos! I'll be back on Saturday and then I'm leaving early Sunday morning and going to Daylesford for a training trip for my World Challenge expedition to Nepal, which is at the end of June.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on March 24, 2018, 11:37:33 am
Spoiler
BABY TURTLES!!!
Post by: PhoenixxFire on March 25, 2018, 09:07:52 pm
me
To be fair my hat was down low over my eyes so I couldn’t see it and the people in front of me were short enough that they didn’t have to duck.
I wasn’t expecting a random tree fallen across our path, the rest of it was clear haha.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on March 26, 2018, 12:52:34 pm
We bought 4 bags of wraps.
We ate 3 yesterday.
We have 5 wraps to share between 12 people.
Send help.
Post by: Joseph41 on March 26, 2018, 01:13:51 pm
Jumping on the bandwagon....I intended to post this last night but it took me forever to figure out how to add images..and then it took ages to upload ::)SpoilerI made it sound bad at the end - overall I really, really enjoyed the camp!
BABY TURTLES!!!
LOVE this video!
Seriously enjoying your updates. You've gone on more camps in the last few months than I have probably in my life hahaha.
P.S. Franklin is awesome.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on March 27, 2018, 10:51:28 am
I thought it would just be a test but no it seems we’re going to have to write a report type thing, we basically have to include everything we’ve learnt this term in different sections. I’m supposed to know about a specific indigenous community, I tried to find specific information for ages and couldn’t, we’re also supposed to know about a specific environmental movement and I’ve had one lesson on it because I’ve been on camp too much. Fml.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on March 28, 2018, 01:44:55 pm
Ok so I knew I would pass it, but I did better than I thought I would. I got 23/30 which sounds bad but it’s okay because the highest anyone got was 25/30, the highest in my class was 24/30.
My teacher was telling us that quite a few people in our class (and the other classes) got ‘mid-range’ (13-18) so I was a bit terrified, but I did wayy better than I thought I would ;D
I think only one person at my school got 40+ in English last year, so I really have to be rank 1 to do well. Hopefully the other SACs will go okay.
My outdoor ed SAC was a mess as expected. I included quite a bit of information but I’m not sure if I actually answered the questions properly, and I repeated myself a few times :-\
My enviro SAC yesterday went okay I think, I might get the results tomorrow or it might be online on the holidays. We have a small class (9 students doing scored I think) so they are getting cross marked with a school that has 3 enviro science students.
Post by: Joseph41 on March 28, 2018, 02:39:45 pm
I passed my English SAC!!
Ok so I knew I would pass it, but I did better than I thought I would. I got 23/30 which sounds bad but it’s okay because the highest anyone got was 25/30, the highest in my class was 24/30.
My teacher was telling us that quite a few people in our class (and the other classes) got ‘mid-range’ (13-18) so I was a bit terrified, but I did wayy better than I thought I would ;D
I think only one person at my school got 40+ in English last year, so I really have to be rank 1 to do well. Hopefully the other SACs will go okay.
My outdoor ed SAC was a mess as expected. I included quite a bit of information but I’m not sure if I actually answered the questions properly, and I repeated myself a few times :-\
My enviro SAC yesterday went okay I think, I might get the results tomorrow or it might be online on the holidays. We have a small class (9 students doing scored I think) so they are getting cross marked with a school that has 3 enviro science students.
Right on! Congrats on English - that's wicked. :)
Post by: PhoenixxFire on April 14, 2018, 03:06:23 pm
Apparently our outdoor ed teacher told us that he was going to email us our homework at the start of the 2nd week ??? which I didn't know but he hasn't anyway so that's less homework for me haha.
This is my last real holidays of high school ever. I'm away next holidays and then term 3 holidays don't really exist. It may also be the only holidays that I ever finish all of my holiday homework (dependant on me actually writing my media analysis for English...I really have to write it though because I didn't do the last one the teacher set - To be fair I was doing my SAC when she explained and wrote a plan for it)
It's really weird to think that this is the last holidays of high school. That makes me kinda nervous but i'm mostly just counting down the days until I can be done with it.
I'm back at school on Tuesday (Monday is a pupil free day) and I'm not looking forward to it. A lot of my classes feel like a waste of time to go to. Enviro I've complained a lot about before so I won't again haha. Math the teacher doesn't really help - My textbook makes sense so I just do the questions which I could do just as easily from home, it does force me to actually do them though. Outdoor Ed I really enjoy the camps and some of the stuff we do in class but it feels like we're learning lots of unnecessary information. I feel like English is actually the most valuable class despite my hatred for it haha, I really struggle to learn English independently aside from writing essays and making quote banks.
I've actually been to school twice on the holidays. On both Fridays we've had working bee sort of thing for Fish. We did water changes and fed them, we're also finally setting up our plumbing! This is something that we've been planning on doing for almost 2 years haha. We've set up a water tank that connects to a tap in our fish room. We've then attached a hose with a bit of PVC pipe on the end. It means we just have to hook the PVC pipe onto the tank (the pipe is like 3 sides of a square) and then turn it on. There's a tap on the pipe so we don't have to turn the tap off in between (or more accurately, spill water everywhere). The hose is also wider than the previous hose we used so it will be much faster to fill the tanks. Previously we just used a garden hose attached to an outside tap about 50m away. We're also hopefully going to attach pipes to each tank which will let us drain them without transporting water in bins, although we will still have to do that when they need a gravel vac.
When we were setting up the pipes to put a tap into the fish room we thought we had it sorted so we turned it on to see if there were any leaks, water came out of the tap but we'd forgotten that there had been a plan to put a tap in one of the other animals rooms further along so a couple of people went into the dungeon (the animals area is below half of D wing, the dungeon is this slanted dirt space behind animals, under the other half of D wing) to check for leaks and found a pipe just spouting water because it wasn't connected to the rest of the pipe.
I've got a 4 day week next week and then athletics on Monday the second week which I'm not going to go to so I've got two 4 day weeks which is definitely a good thing for the start of term.
I've also got my first math SAC coming up soon and I haven't started my reference book :-[ so i'll probably have to do that next weekend.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on April 20, 2018, 04:01:38 pm
My Enviro teacher is away sick all week so that's fair enough.
My Outdoor Ed teacher is going to tell us next week, but he says he's going to talk to us all individually about what we did wrong and stuff. Like that's a good thing but I wish he would give us our mark before then, I need to mentally prepare myself, i'm going to be so nervous about it now, like I don't really care if I did badly (I already think I did), I just want to know before hand.
My English Media Analysis SAC is in week 3, on a Wednesday afternoon from 2-4:15 because they want all the classes to do it at the same time, but it's really annoying because we normally finish school at 1:30 on Wednesdays and I normally work at 5 but I won't be able to because school is far away from work and I won't get there in time. Annoyingly we are going to see the play medea the Wednesday afternoon the week after that so I'll have a long day then too :-\ I'm worrying about the SAC a bit, but I think I just need more practice writing them. We have a practice SAC on thursday but its only one lesson, so half the time. Its our next lesson because of our athletics day and ANZAC day which is a bit annoying. After that we only have one class on Tuesday, then a class Wednesday morning and then the SAC.
My Math SAC is going to be in Week 4, I'm not too worried about it, it's pretty straightforward, I just need to do more practice questions and not make silly mistakes. EDIT: Have just got an email back from my math teacher and he says I can use a spiral book so yay! They're so much easier to open and use than books with a proper spine.
Outdoor Ed is freaking me out the most. The content is easy enough but I just don't know how to answer the questions. There isn't any suggested answers in the book so even when I attempt the questions I have no idea if I got it right or not and I don't really want to check with my teacher for every single question :( We also have to learn about a specific environment and a specific indigenous community and absolutely nothing in the book is specific. We're supposed to know about their specific sacred sites and where they moved during different times of the year, that sort of stuff but I've tried googling and still hardly found anything. There are quite a few other people in my class who have the same problem, the only people finding it easy are the people who are repeating the subject and the people who regularly go camping with their families so they already know a lot about a specific area. I know what I need to be doing to improve in my other subjects but besides taking notes and trying to answer the questions (and not knowing if i'm answering them correctly) I don't know what to do for outdoor Ed. My teacher is always trying to make us figure things out ourselves so if I ask him he'll probably just say to do the questions or something :'(
I've got a day walk for Outdoor Ed in week 4, which will be fun but is also annoying because I'll miss a day of school and my math SAC is over 2 lessons so I might have to reschedule part of that. We also have a trip to the Desalination plant in Week 7 and a mountain biking trip in week 10, which i'm not going on because I'm leaving for Nepal the Sunday after week 10.
The trip we were planning on going on for fish to Fitzroy Island in Queensland is going to be next year now :'( :'( :'( so I don't get to go, although everyone's trying to get me to go anyway (which school might let me, maybe). The reason is that my fish teacher is taking 3/4 bio and he doesn't want to leave them for 2 weeks (even though my Enviro teacher has already missed 3 weeks worth of classes...) It's fair enough though, from what he's said previously they're doing pretty badly.
Pretty tiring week back, even though it shouldn't have been given it was only 4 days and I had 3 private study + 2 Enviro classes that became private study so I only had 7 VCE classes + 3 fish classes.
Almost forgot - I'm really not enjoying SSDP (our version of homeroom/tutorial). Some weeks we ave something specific we have to do (think health, fit2drive, that sort of stuff) but some weeks/days we're supposed to be working on our own project. I really think that its a bit useless and a waste of time. We can work on anything we want but the problem is if there's something interesting I want to research or do i'll just do it so I can't think of any projects to do. Some people are organising activities, some people are doing some research about footy scores or something but I can't think of anything that isn't just doing it because I have to do something, and it just feels like a waste of time. I wish they would let me do my homework then. I really just can't be bothered putting in the energy to organise something that's actually interesting, I would end up spending time on it outside of school and I just don't have that much time at the moment.
It probably doesn't help that I worked Tuesday and Wednesday night so I didn't get home until at least 11pm which meant I didn't go to sleep until midnight (or later) and then I was up at 5/5:30 because I had homework to do that I should have done on the holidays. - I actually finished all of my holiday homework! I didn't finish it all on the holidays but I did finish it all before it was due so I count that as a success ;D
Edit: Also I didn't get into the marine science thingy in Tasmania that I applied for. Not really bothered though, it would have been awesome but I expected not to get it.
EDIT2:
I'm a planet. We have 3 'communities' at my school (each with 4 houses). One community's colour is gold and their theme is Egyptian gods. Another's colour is green and their theme is greek gods. But then they had to go and give my house blue (which I wanted) and the theme of planets :-\ They're gods. And I'm planets. It was the school captains who picked the themes and colours too (based on suggestions from students - I'm told the colours were picked by majority). I was very indignant. Then I realised that the planets are named after Roman gods. So I guess we can pretend to be roman gods? Now i'm slightly less indignant (but still kinda weird having 2 the same and 1 different - they could have given us Norse gods or something).
I now know what happened. Originally one community wanted to be planets (us) and both of the others wanted to be greek gods. So one of them decided to be Egyptian instead. They realised that we would then be left out so then we were supposed to be roman gods, but one of the community leaders hurried sending out the email announcing it because they wanted it to be their name on the email, and she messed it up. It's annoying that they don't just say it was a mistake and change it.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on April 27, 2018, 05:11:28 pm
I haven't gotten my results for Outdoor Ed >:( My teacher went through a few peoples with them on Tuesday but didn't get through many and didn't go through any today. One person who likely did the best or close to got 43/50 and one of my friends got 25/50. The teacher said he had the correct information but his structure and actually answering the questions was bad. I reckon he's going to tell me that i structured it right but didn't actually answer the questions haha.
I have my first math SAC the week after next so that will be *fun*. Should be easy though, I'm not really worried about it. I'm more worried about how my reference book is going to go. If it is hard to use I'll probably end up redoing it so hopefully it works well. (I still need to make my Index...)
I did an English practice SAC yesterday and finished it at lunchtime so I had the same (or close) length of time as I will in the actual SAC. I finished it but the quality definitely deteriorated at the end...and wasn't particularly good to start with. I'm going to write some more over the weekend.
It's my brother's birthday tomorrow but I'm working in the middle of the day so we're going to have dinner when I get home and then on Sunday we're going to an escape room (which will hopefully go better than it did last time...) and then to eat and then we're going to see infinity war that night. I haven't got him a present. I actually thought of an idea a few hours ago of something i could get him (it's food) and I can probably get it on my way home from work tomorrow so yay.
I went to the movies with that brother on Sunday night to see black panther which was really good. Marvel is good at giving their villains enough backstory to make me feel bad for them lol. Seriously my favourite marvel character is Loki (and I suspect he will die in infinity war :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'()
I also went to see ready player one with my youngest brother on Tuesday night. It's awesome. And way too realistic, it feels like something that could actually happen in the future which is kind of creepy.
This feels like English - I need more synonyms for 'good'
This year is going so insanely fast.
Oh and fishies! Haven't done much particularly interesting. Fed fish. Water changes. Fed fish again. We moved some fish to their new tanks and had to empty out the rack of tanks they were in to get to the middle tank which was leaking a while ago and has been empty since. Taking the tanks off the rack was a bit of a logistical challenge and we smashed up the foam which was stuck to the bottom (and that I forgot was there until it started breaking...) but it would have been impossible to get them off without breaking the foam so oh well. We also tried to put the tanks on a trolley and forgot that there was a bit of pipe sticking out the bottom of them so they ended up with bits sticking off the edge but they should be fine...
I have to do a 'passion project' which can be anything. It will be fun but I'm not creative enough to come up with what to do. I kind of want to design the tank that my maingano's and mphanga's are in because its just got some rocks in it at the moment (they like to hide). Or design a tank for my Silver Perch which are going to be moved out of the aquaponics tank that they're in at the moment (we're planning on getting barrumundi which will go in the aquaponics tank). I don't want to do another research type project, there are definitely things I'd like to learn about but I've done so many of them. My teacher suggested printing and laminating pictures from our camps to stick on the wall above the window so maybe I'l do that if I can't design a tank. One of my friends might beat me to it though, she looked very interested.
Post by: sarangiya on April 29, 2018, 11:56:33 pm
Your school experience sounds so damn lit I am actually wondering how on earth you're going to try and better it!
Post by: PhoenixxFire on April 30, 2018, 06:44:45 am
I'm sorry if this has already been asked or you're written about it before, but what are your aspirations for after school?I actually don’t think I’ve said what my plans are in here. I’m going to do a double degree in Enviro science/science at ANU ;D after that hopefully work in some sort of marine bio area for a bit, I don’t know exactly I’ll probably change my mind a few thousand times before then but I love the ocean and fishies so something like that.
Your school experience sounds so damn lit I am actually wondering how on earth you're going to try and better it!
I won’t have to write creatives or text responses in Uni so that will definitely help ;)
Post by: PhoenixxFire on May 06, 2018, 05:13:21 pm
I had my English Media analysis SAC on Wednesday afternoon which went absolutely terribly :'( The piece we got to analyse was way longer than all the ones we were given as practices and we got a piece with an image embedded and 2 comments which is fine, but all the ones we were given as practice throughout the year were a piece, a comment, and a separate picture so that was a bit annoying. I didn't analyse the picture much and all my analyses was pretty bad. I wasn't expecting to do well, but I think I did really badly. It was hard to actually identify what the arguments were for the first piece and my teacher really emphasised that we had to do that well. It was also after school (2-4:15) when we normally finish at 1:30 on Wednesdays and it was all the classes in together where we normally hold exams which was kind of annoying.
I've had a cold all week, so with the SAC finally over I didn't go to school on Thursday. On Friday I was supposed to have Private study, Outdoor Ed, SSDP, Fish, and then finish early, like we do on Wednesdays. I was halfway to school (which is an arduous journey consisting of a tram and 3 busses) when we got the daily bulletin emailed out...and my fish teacher wasn't at school because he was sick (I don't know if I gave it to him or he gave it to me, I'll blame him anyway :P) I almost went home then but I didn't feel too shitty so I went to school. It was a mistake. I was going to do my maths practice SAC first period, but my brain was so darn fuzzy that I just kept rereading the first line so I gave up on that. 2nd period we didn't do much and then I left after that that and didn't stay for SSDP or fish. I still haven't actually started my project that I'm supposed to do for SSDP, and my teacher said that he was going to base our next WASHI (our version of GPA) on how well we'd worked on our project so RIP lol.
I actually felt a bit better on Saturday (although it was probably just a result of having 2 types of colds medicine and neurofen...). I went to the VCE and careers expo with my friend. I met Nick (again) and avoided talking to people and went to seminars which were a bit boring. Especially because 2 of the english ones were at least half the same stuff, I almost walked out of the second one. My friend is in year 10 and he hasn't decided what uni he wants to go to and whilst I was in seminars he had managed to talk to just about every uni there. Seriously. He had a massive pile of course booklets because he doesn't know how to say no and keep walking. I got another stress ball from Access education (I'm sure I still have the one I got 2 years ago lying around somewhere) but I somehow missed seeing Douchy :'(. It was very entertaining seeing all of the people posting selfies with him on facebook though. I left a bit early and met up with another friend in the city. We grabbed food and watched this guy trying to flip over audience people which was okay but they weren't that good (way better than me though lol).
Today I was supposed to work 1-8 but I had to call in sick because this stupid cold used to be making my head blocked up but it's moved and I've been coughing all day instead. And I work with food. I haven't actually worked all week now though because I was supposed to work Wednesday night but I couldn't because of the SAC and my boss asked me to work Thursday night, but I hadn't even gone to school so like no. I get paid more on Sundays too and I'm casual so no sick pay :'(
I've spent the day sleeping, coughing and catching up on new episodes of designated survivor on netflix which was a very....productive use of my time. I still haven't done my practice SAC for math and the first lesson for it is tomorrow, then tuesday, then thursday, then next monday. It's a 4 part sac on the first 4 chapters of our textbook, but it's not separated into chapters. Also I really hate my reference book and I'll probably end up redoing it at some point because it's too long but I need to memorise the unimportant stuff first. It's period 4 tomorrow which is annoying because I can't just go home early and I really don't want to go but if I don't then i have to go get a medical certificate :(
I'm so behind on work because I haven't done much whilst I've been sick, but I really enjoyed doing absolutely nothing on Thursday (and today).
Post by: Joseph41 on May 06, 2018, 06:04:46 pm
;)
Post by: PhoenixxFire on May 06, 2018, 06:09:20 pm
Post by: PhoenixxFire on May 11, 2018, 04:07:12 pm
In outdoor ed today we went for a walk down to the creek and spent most of the time doing a risk assessment on using the drain as a waterslide. Almost half the boys and one girl said they'd go through it if they had shoes, helmet, pfd, wetsuit, and people upstream and downstream looking for hazards. I wouldn't do it but it seemed safe enough.
My library is closed because they got water damage from all this rain. They'll probably be closed tomorrow as well :'(
I only went to school for p4 on monday because I had the first lesson of my math SAC then. I know I messed up one of the questions because I was supposed to draw a graph but I had 10 minutes left so I did it on my CAS so I could answer the 2 questions about the graph, but I didn't have time to do the actual graph. The second lesson went a bit better but I still only just finished on time. The third lesson was the same, but there was one question where I had no idea what it wanted me to say. All the parts of the SAC are based on data about cardiovascular disease and the question was asking us to talk about the organisation's claim in relation to the data we had analysed. The data was completely irrelevant though ??? It was about height & bmi, the claim was about the amount of disease that is attributable to bmi so I wrote how many of the sample people would have the disease according to their research because I had no idea what they wanted.
My Enviro attendance is below 90% which is really annoying. There's been 23 classes this year, I've missed 3. 2 were because I was sick and one was because my teacher was away for the week and both of the other classes got taken off compass so I assumed that one would too, but it wasn't. We only have 2 classes a week at the moment because my teacher broke his finger badly and he has to have a day off to get it checked each week. He's also going to miss some days because of grad camp (which I'm not going on) so those classes will probably be cancelled. We need to have 30 classes before the 1st of June, otherwise I have to go to catch up after school so I don't fail.
I haven't been to SSDP all week. Monday I was sick, Tuesday I had a cyber safety presentation, Wednesday I went to see the play Medea for English, Thursday he was sick and today I had a meeting with the other fish leader and out teacher.I'm expecting a WASHI of between 0-1 from him LOL my maths should be way better than it was last time though now that I have a teacher who doesn't hate me, so my overall WASHI probably won't change.
We're organising an excursion in fish to Melbourne polytechnic to look at their aquaculture stuff and to aquarium industries (Australia's largest importer of aquarium fish). We're also going to get a bunch of new fishies from AI whilst we're there, they sell them to us for wholesale price which is cool. We recently got our first 2 fighter fish, and we're getting 10 more as well as a bunch of native fish.
I had work last night and they fed us lots. The store manager has worked for woolies for 30 years. There was way too much food. Was very good though. The state manager came to visit, so her day was just stressful even though it wasn't supposed to be haha
Post by: PhoenixxFire on May 14, 2018, 05:55:44 pm
Post by: PhoenixxFire on May 18, 2018, 05:58:41 pm
I still haven't go my outdoor ed resultsand I'm so not game to ask for them. I mean I assume he would have told me by now if I failed it?
Had a fairly standard week, I've got so much work to do at the moment. I have my next Enviro SAC on Thursday, and I barely know what I'm doing. We got given articles which we need for the SAC somehow? I really have no clue what I'm doing lol. I've got all of this extracurricular stuff going on at the moment as well. I have two EAG excursions to clean up rubbish from a creek & a beach on the 21st and 28th and an outdoor ed excursion on the 31st and a fish excursion (which is gonna be awesome!) on the 1st. It's all really great and I want to do it, I just have no time.
PF's weird metaphors and nonexistent art skills
(https://i.imgur.com/Q5OSnSQ.png)
Also the three best people that I work with are all taking leave over the next few weeks because of uni exams. We're also hiring some more people, which is good, but this is what happened at the end of last year when I ended up having to train 2 people at once whilst shortstaffed. It was not fun. There are a couple of other people who could teach them, a few people I wouldn't want to teach them (because they're fairly new themselves). The deli manager and assistant manager will be there but only during the day and I doubt the new people will work during the day much. My boss asked if he could give me more shifts whilst they're on leave and stupid me said yes ::) I mean I want the money but byebye free time and sleep. I normally get 2-3 shifts a week so I'll be onto 4 probably, at least 3 of which will be nights and I'll be stuck training the new kids :-\ Sometimes new people are okay, sometimes they're completely hopeless. Mostly dependant on their age and whether they've had a job before. We had this new girl a few months ago who I got to train for 2 weeks and then she called in sick and resigned later that day. And it was a day I was closing and we were short staffed >:( Yay Also I don't know why they're hiring new people going into winter when we normally have less people working...It's probably because uni people and I are all on leave at the same time and they'll be screwed otherwise.
I had to go get my immunisations for Nepal today, and then send off my application for a Visa (which I probably should have done a while ago). I need to get my visa to fill out my forms for school, which have been sitting on my desk for 2 weeks! It's all feeling very real, and fairly terrifying. Even if they let us bring our phones they've said that they won't let us buy sims over there, and that if we want to contact Australia we have to ask one of them to call which shits me so much. My schools is all one person policy this... one person policy that... but teachers are allowed to get sims and we're not >:( and one of our teachers doesn't even want us to bring our phones. I found a slightly dodgy but seemingly legit way to buy a sim for Nepal before I go but its $45 for 15 days..... I mean I would happily pay it if that was for 30 days but of course its not. We won't have reception during our main trek anyway, which is towards the end, and we finish that like 3 days before we come back, so I guess I could just get one for the first half. Comes with 4gig data... I dunno whether to get it or not. Like I get that they want us to hang out with each other and not be staring at our phones but I don't particularly like most of the other people going, and I don't like being completely cut off like that. My arm hurts. The flu shot hurt more initially but now the vivaxim is worse :(
I should probably stop procrastinating and actually go back to doing my work now...
Hope you've all had a great week ;D
Post by: sarangiya on May 19, 2018, 02:06:41 pm
My arm hurts. The flu shot hurt more initially but now the vivaxim is worse :(Lol I've heard the fluvacc this year is particularly painful (and doesn't hit till later lol). I don't know whether to get it. I've never been vaccinated against the flu before and I heard it is best to get it every year once you start. Have you had it before?
I've never been that awfully sick from the flu but I don't want to be regretting it lmao.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on May 19, 2018, 03:56:17 pm
Post by: sarangiya on May 19, 2018, 05:00:19 pm
I hadn’t got it before, my doctor said to because it would be pretty bad if I got the flu whilst overseas. I’d heard it was really painful as well but it only hurt for an hour or so and I can’t feel it at all anymore. I would say you may as well get it, it would really suck to get the flu in the middle of year 12Fair point and true about overseas.
Thanks for the advice! Hope you're doing well.
Also dw about your envrio results i'm sure they'll be great!! fingers crossed for you :))
Post by: PhoenixxFire on May 27, 2018, 01:19:01 pm
I still haven't go my outdoor ed resultsOkay so apparently it's not his fault. He says he tried to upload them but the system isn't working and they haven't fixed it yet. He could just give us our actual SACs back though....I haven't got my English results back either. I'm sure it's going to be terrible though
I'm still sick :( Not very sick, just coughing constantly sort of sick. It's really annoying.
I didn't go to school on Monday, which meant I didn't go on my excursion. It also meant my Enviro attendance dropped to 85% so I had to go to catch up classes afterschool :(
I've been working a ton. 9 hours yesterday which was just great. I managed to freak my mum out because I forgot to tell her that my shift got changed last minute. I was supposed to be working 10-7 but it got changed to 12-9. She called my work because I wasn't home lol oops. We're very, very short staffed. As in, today is my department manager's 14th day of work in a row. There's a couple more people taking leave soon as well so it's just going to get worse. I'm pretty sure they'll be back either just before or just after I take leave though. Also I sort of accidentally got my brother a job. My department manager was like 'do you know anyone who wants a job?' and I was like 'my brother but I don't wanna work with him' and now he's maybe got a job in produce (I work in deli) haha.
I had my enviro SAC on Thursday. It went about as expected. AKA badly. I really hate the way my teacher assigns marks. It's always really unclear what exactly he wants, and he doesn't give us practice sacs or anything. The whole SAC was about the effect of light pollution on baby sea turtles and there was this table that we had to fill out. It was about beneficial and harmful effects of light pollution on biosphere/hydrophere/lithosphere/atmosphere. There's literally no information in our textbook about it - (paraphrased quote) 'Everything has an impact. Spheres & their definitions. EMS's help ensure that there is minimal impact'. That's it. Seriously?? He didn't give us any more information on it either. How tf am I supposed to know how light pollution harms the ground??? *Screams*
I'm a bit behind again in maths. I have SACs over the next few weeks for all of my subjects so that's going to be great fun.
Oh also we got our latest WASHI (GPA) and my SSDP teacher gave me 2.7 even though I haven't done any work the entire term
He said that he'd give us a bad washi if we hadn't worked on our project. I was expecting like a 1 lol. Also I got a 4 from my new math teacher, my old teacher gave me 1.4 so my WASHI average is the highest I've ever got at my current school (3.5/4) so yay i guess? (not like it actually matters though)World Ocean Day is June 8th so my fish class is organising a fashion day type thing. Basically you have to make an outfit out of plastic rubbish from your home. Dressing up so isn't my thing so I'm judging. We got a donation for the prize, it's a ticket for a swim with dolphins thing in Sorrento (I think?) worth $150 which is awesome. Unfortunately it's only one ticket, we were hoping for two but I'm surprised they gave us one that easily (also we're going to go on an excursion there and they're giving us tickets for $90 each ;D)
I really need to start going for walks with my pack on given i'm going on a 12 day hike in Nepal ::) I really don't have the time for it though. I've got so much homework I should be doing, and I also need to get ahead so I'm not really behind when I get back. Everyone else is bringing diamox to help with the altitude but my doctor wouldn't give me any so rip me lol
Post by: sarangiya on May 27, 2018, 08:11:49 pm
I can definitely relate to marks and teachers and all that, but don't worry too much. They'll come eventually. Also, my fingers are crossed for the SACs you didn't think went well. Try to keep positive (easier said than done, right?) but you never know, so better to keep a good mood until then. If they really are not what you hoped, then you can curse them out hahaha. Doing it beforehand is too much energy, in my opinion.
Also just scab the diamox from your friends if they have enough. Or better yet, find another doctor :P
Good luck and have a great week!!
Post by: PhoenixxFire on May 30, 2018, 08:36:05 pm
So the average English mark for the media analysis was 16/40 LMAO I'm screwed Some people are getting them back at the end of this week but i'll get mine next week because the SACs were distributed amongst all of the English teachers and my teacher says she's going to mark all of ours herself as well and fight the teacher who marked it if she thinks we should have gotten higher than we did.
My maths teacher has only marked the first 2 parts of the SAC, but he said we had areas to improve on and that it's a good learning opportunity so that means it was bad lol. It's going to be a while before we get them back.
Heard nothing on outdoor ed ::)
Post by: PhoenixxFire on June 01, 2018, 06:36:35 pm
I didn't end up getting to go on either of the EAG excursions, the first one I didn't go on because I didn't go to school that day, the second one wasn't going to get back to school until 4:30 and I had a meeting at 3:30 :'( The meeting was for World Challenge, it was our last official meeting before we leave. Which is scary. My outdoor ed teacher was originally supposed to go on the trip but he has a leadership job at school now so he can't disappear I completely blanked on how to spell that for 4 weeks. Anyway, he keeps asking me if I'm ready and when we were at the beach the other day and he's like 'the scenery will be very different in a few weeks'. I don't know if he's trying to scare me but it's kinda working
So my outdoor ed excursion to the desal plant was supposed to be on Thursday. Well originally in the booklet we got at the start of the year it said Tuesday, turns out the booklet was right, my teacher was wrong. So on Monday we found out that the excursion was actually on Tuesday. The desal plant was cool, it was also really awesome because she talked a lot about so many technical sort of things and it all made sense from a combination of things I'd learnt from Outdoor ed, enviro, and biology which was awesome. After we went there the 1/2 enviro kids had to go do some sort of research for their next sac and we got to go to the beach. it was very windy, and it turns out I don't run away fast enough to get away from waves. My shoes were slightly damp. There were a couple of birds trying to fly against the wind which was very funny to watch.
I also had my fish excursion today which was seriously awesome. We went to Melbourne Polytechnic first and had a look at their aquaculture setup, then got a talk about ways of getting into the aquaculture industry and jobs that exist there, then we watched a documentary about some of the seriously cool marine life that exists in port phillip bay. We learnt a bit about algae - they can do everything
Then we got to anaesthetise a couple of Murray cod. Then we got a tour of aquarium industries and saw some crazy looking fish Spoiler
(http://img.xcitefun.net/users/2011/01/224877,xcitefun-bubble-eye-goldfish-15.jpg)
Post by: You dont know me on June 01, 2018, 09:42:55 pm
I've already talked about SAC's so I don't really have anything to add to that, just a few updates on excursions I've had this week.I regret not doing outdoor ed, it sounds like a ton of fun going on all the camps and what not. From what i've heard at least ;D.
I didn't end up getting to go on either of the EAG excursions, the first one I didn't go on because I didn't go to school that day, the second one wasn't going to get back to school until 4:30 and I had a meeting at 3:30 :'( The meeting was for World Challenge, it was our last official meeting before we leave. Which is scary. My outdoor ed teacher was originally supposed to go on the trip but he has a leadership job at school now so he can't disappear I completely blanked on how to spell that for 4 weeks. Anyway, he keeps asking me if I'm ready and when we were at the beach the other day and he's like 'the scenery will be very different in a few weeks'. I don't know if he's trying to scare me but it's kinda working
So my outdoor ed excursion to the desal plant was supposed to be on Thursday. Well originally in the booklet we got at the start of the year it said Tuesday, turns out the booklet was right, my teacher was wrong. So on Monday we found out that the excursion was actually on Tuesday. The desal plant was cool, it was also really awesome because she talked a lot about so many technical sort of things and it all made sense from a combination of things I'd learnt from Outdoor ed, enviro, and biology which was awesome. After we went there the 1/2 enviro kids had to go do some sort of research for their next sac and we got to go to the beach. it was very windy, and it turns out I don't run away fast enough to get away from waves. My shoes were slightly damp. There were a couple of birds trying to fly against the wind which was very funny to watch.
I also had my fish excursion today which was seriously awesome. We went to Melbourne Polytechnic first and had a look at their aquaculture setup, then got a talk about ways of getting into the aquaculture industry and jobs that exist there, then we watched a documentary about some of the seriously cool marine life that exists in port phillip bay. We learnt a bit about algae - they can do everythingWas a very cool day.Spoiler(http://img.xcitefun.net/users/2011/01/224877,xcitefun-bubble-eye-goldfish-15.jpg)
Keen to read updates on everything :).
Post by: PhoenixxFire on June 07, 2018, 06:57:46 pm
Raging about Enviro
I got my Enviro SAC back on Tuesday and we went through it in class today. Have I mentioned that I hate my teacher? So there was that question which I think I already mentioned which was about the beneficial and harmful effects of light pollution on the spheres of the Earth. I got 4 out of the 8 parts of it correct so 2/4 marks, which, like, whatever, I don't care but my teacher's suggested answers are so annoying I can't think of a worse description without swearing hahaha
So all the information we had in our textbook that related to it was a definition of each sphere and our teacher didn't give us any other information or mention it at all because he was too busy telling us how much he hates Agapanthus. Seriously he's told us 3 times and I've only got 80% attendance.
So anyway his suggested answers didn't even really relate to the sphere. Unless I don't really understand what the spheres are supposed to mean (BECAUSE YA KNOW, HE HASN'T TAUGHT IT)
Atmosphere, beneficial: He said that the light would mean that planes don't hit buildings. But I was under the impression that life stuff can only go in biosphere, because the definition of atmosphere is 'the gaseous envelope of air surrounding earth'. So I assumed that the beneficial thing would have to actually effect that gaseous envelope, but no, it seems he's okay with anything so long as it happens in the atmosphere......
or not. Because then we get to harmful effects on the hydrosphere and he says that the correct answer was something about how the excess light would cause algae blooms which would damage water quality 'because it's the hydrosphere it has to be something that affects the water'. YEAH COS A PLANE HITTING A BUILDING AFFECTS THE ATMOSPHERE!??
But oh wait maybe it does because one of the options for beneficial effects on the hydrosphere was that boats could see where they're going.
But nope it doesn't because the options for harmful effects on the lithosphere were
1. The light will disrupt decay processes because it will kill bacteria that need dark.
2. People will be outside more and therefore cause more erosion
HOW TF AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT BACTERIA NEED DARK, AND THAT BACTERIA HELP PLANTS, AND THAT THOSE PLANTS HELP THE SOIL!!
Okay so I mean I did know that, but it's not in our textbook and he didn't teach us that (BECAUSE HE WAS TOO BUSY TALKING ABOUT AGAPANTHUS) so how tf did he expect us to know it, and how tf were we supposed to know that that's what he wanted us to include.
Oh and just to make it worse the correct answer for beneficial effects on the lithosphere was there are none. Seriously?? He did suggest that we could have written improved soil quality due to bacteria that need light working for longer due to it being light for longer but
1. That contradicts the point above
2. HOW TF WOULD WE KNOW THAT
Also one of the multichoice questions was a true/false that asked about the user-pays principle. The questions says what it is and then says 'In order to achieve this, the cost is shared by all the user or a community equally'. I picked true, the answer was false because 'the cost is shared by users'. I had to go back and reread the questions. That's what is says right?? I don't really get why its false, it's bad wording. I think what he meant was the cost is shared depending on how much of the thing is used by each person whereas the question says equally but like I interpret that questions to mean the users pay for it, which is correct.
So all the information we had in our textbook that related to it was a definition of each sphere and our teacher didn't give us any other information or mention it at all because he was too busy telling us how much he hates Agapanthus. Seriously he's told us 3 times and I've only got 80% attendance.
So anyway his suggested answers didn't even really relate to the sphere. Unless I don't really understand what the spheres are supposed to mean (BECAUSE YA KNOW, HE HASN'T TAUGHT IT)
Atmosphere, beneficial: He said that the light would mean that planes don't hit buildings. But I was under the impression that life stuff can only go in biosphere, because the definition of atmosphere is 'the gaseous envelope of air surrounding earth'. So I assumed that the beneficial thing would have to actually effect that gaseous envelope, but no, it seems he's okay with anything so long as it happens in the atmosphere......
or not. Because then we get to harmful effects on the hydrosphere and he says that the correct answer was something about how the excess light would cause algae blooms which would damage water quality 'because it's the hydrosphere it has to be something that affects the water'. YEAH COS A PLANE HITTING A BUILDING AFFECTS THE ATMOSPHERE!??
But oh wait maybe it does because one of the options for beneficial effects on the hydrosphere was that boats could see where they're going.
But nope it doesn't because the options for harmful effects on the lithosphere were
1. The light will disrupt decay processes because it will kill bacteria that need dark.
2. People will be outside more and therefore cause more erosion
HOW TF AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT BACTERIA NEED DARK, AND THAT BACTERIA HELP PLANTS, AND THAT THOSE PLANTS HELP THE SOIL!!
Okay so I mean I did know that, but it's not in our textbook and he didn't teach us that (BECAUSE HE WAS TOO BUSY TALKING ABOUT AGAPANTHUS) so how tf did he expect us to know it, and how tf were we supposed to know that that's what he wanted us to include.
Oh and just to make it worse the correct answer for beneficial effects on the lithosphere was there are none. Seriously?? He did suggest that we could have written improved soil quality due to bacteria that need light working for longer due to it being light for longer but
1. That contradicts the point above
2. HOW TF WOULD WE KNOW THAT
Also one of the multichoice questions was a true/false that asked about the user-pays principle. The questions says what it is and then says 'In order to achieve this, the cost is shared by all the user or a community equally'. I picked true, the answer was false because 'the cost is shared by users'. I had to go back and reread the questions. That's what is says right?? I don't really get why its false, it's bad wording. I think what he meant was the cost is shared depending on how much of the thing is used by each person whereas the question says equally but like I interpret that questions to mean the users pay for it, which is correct.
So annnyyway
Public holiday Monday, Outdoor Ed SAC Tuesday, GAT Wednesday, English SAC thursday and monday, math SAC the week after that, and I don't know if we have another Enviro SAC this term. He said we were going to do our poster at the end of this term but I haven't heard anything.
I've been working lots, and not sleeping much lately. I woke up when my alarms (it took several) went off this morning but then I went back to sleep and slept in until 7:30 so then I was half an hour late for school, and my first class was English where we were doing a practice SAC. I still haven't written an entire Medea Essay and our SAC is next week :(
Math is annoying because my teacher spends half the lesson talking, and I'm still really behind so it's useless to me, and I can't learn maths from someone trying to explain it anyway, I have to actually try a question to see how it all fits together.
Today was a really bad day, like everything went wrong. and some things happened that brought up stupid bad memories and angstyness that I can't post on here
Oh and my English teacher brought her dog into school yesterday. She's a spoodle and is very cute, but she kept running away from me and following my teacher around :'( I did get to throw her saliva-laden ball for her a few times though ;D
Hopefully tomorrow will be better, I like Fridays.
songs
There's a few songs I want to post this week, so I'm going to cheat and post two here, given they're really just about today.
I regret not doing outdoor ed, it sounds like a ton of fun going on all the camps and what not. From what i've heard at least ;D.The camps are great fun, the lack of resources not so much. There's one textbook which is units 1-4 combined and that's pretty much it haha
Keen to read updates on everything :).
Post by: clovvy on June 07, 2018, 07:05:22 pm
I don't like Thursdays. Thursday's are the only day when I actually have class every period. Monday, Tuesday, and Friday i have a private study and Wednesday and Friday I finish early. I also have a meeting at lunchtime on Thursdays so they're very tiring.
I can definitely relate to this especially back in the junior years (Now I have free periods often)... However you don't feel as much pressure as you do now.. Kinda miss the good old times tbh
Post by: PhoenixxFire on June 07, 2018, 07:21:09 pm
I can definitely relate to this especially back in the junior years (Now I have free periods often)... However you don't feel as much pressure as you do now.. Kinda miss the good old times tbhI was very spoilt last year haha. I had two private studies (although one was supposed to be EngLang) so I always had at least one class off each day. I'm already very used to having Wednesday and Friday afternoons off, I get very salty when I have to stay until 3:30 on those days. I have English and math on thursdays which I have to really concentrate for, as well as Enviro which always gives me a headache. I wish I had outdoor ed because at least that's more fun.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on June 15, 2018, 02:25:51 pm
I had the first part of my outdoor ed SAC on Tuesday, it was supposed to be 2 questions, but it ended up being 3 which some people got annoyed about but the question was exactly the same as one from last years exam that he sent us and told us to look at on Sunday (but on a different article). I think it went okay but not brilliantly, he’s marked them and he said he was going to go through them with us today but guess what? He only went through one. (Déjà vu anyone? Most of us still haven’t gotten our results for our first SAC either ::)) The second part of that SAC is on Tuesday.
I also had the first lesson for my English Medea SAC, I didn’t do much except plan a bit because I don’t know the text very well, and basically haven’t memorised any quotes so I’m going to write it tonight and memorise it over the weekend and write it in our second lesson on Monday (yes I’m aware it’s a bad idea and that I can’t do it for the exam). Oh and I got my mark back for my media analysis SAC. I did above average! The average was 16/40 and I got 53% lol :'(
I also have my second math SAC next week on Wednesday and Thursday. I got the results for my last SAC, they’re going to be moderated though so they’ll go up a little bit. The highest was 85% and the highest in my class was 76%. I got 66% so RIP me. It was kinda ridiculous though because another school wrote it and none of the teachers even read it properly beforehand because afterwards they realised that there was no way that we’d be able to answer some of the questions :( also apparently the majority of the lost marks was because people ran out of time and didn’t even attempt to answer them.
We had our rubbish fashion parade thing that we organised in fish today. The winner was someone who made a dress entirely out of plastic bags. It was really really good, she used multiple colours and it was entirely from plastic rubbish bags - even the thread she used to sew them together was strips of bags. There were some other really cool costumes - one of the assistant principles even made a dress out of chicken feed bags.
Also in fish we just got a heap of new fish, they cost us about $400 - if you tried to buy them from a pet shop it would cost about 1600. They’re all very small at the moment but we’ll end up with lots of cool looking fish soon ;D
Edit: Still haven’t got all the stuff I need for Nepal and I’m leaving next Sunday ;D :-\
Post by: Joseph41 on June 15, 2018, 04:18:29 pm
Post by: PhoenixxFire on June 15, 2018, 05:00:26 pm
Where in Nepal will you be?Quite a few places haha
Flying into Kathmandu then a 2 day hike in Helambu, then to Pokhara (and a giant zipline ;D) where we'll be for a weekish and then a 12 day annapurna sanctuary trek Which is going to kill me but at least the sights will be pretty
Post by: PhoenixxFire on June 24, 2018, 04:54:36 pm
I don’t get to go on the zip line :'( They failed World Challenge’s safety assessment (apparently because they didn’t hand the paperwork in on time).
So anyway I’m leaving tonight. Kind of just in limbo at the moment - can’t really do anything because there isn’t enough time but there’s also too much time. I should probably actually pack my bag - it was packed but then I pulled it all apart again haha. It’s very full and very heavy. I also got a new camera lens and I love it. I might upload the picture I took of a random bird before I leave (after I pack my bag though).
So, I’ll see y’all in a month, I guess (except of course I’m going to be on here as soon as we find wifi haha - I’ll upload some photos or something if I can). Enjoy your holidays everyone ;D
(http://i.imgur.com/LwVP4UE.jpg)
Post by: Poet on June 24, 2018, 05:15:57 pm
So, I’ll see y’all in a month, I guess (except of course I’m going to be on here as soon as we find wifi haha - I’ll upload some photos or something if I can). Enjoy your holidays everyone ;DWe'll miss you, Phoenixx! Have fun! The biology thread'll be a lot quieter without you around.
recycled meme because we're all pretty incapable of expressing emotions
(http://i.imgur.com/PFbrEbN.jpg)
also while I'm here why not...
(https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/34941364.jpg)(http://cdn.funnyand.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Hiking-Trip1.jpg)
Post by: Joseph41 on June 25, 2018, 09:33:26 am
Post by: PhoenixxFire on June 30, 2018, 03:39:09 pm
I’m currently on (in?) a bus on my way to Pokhara. It’s an 8 hour bus ride, but the bus is very comfy
photo
(http://i.imgur.com/4MAQIe2.jpg)
Thursday and Friday we went on our acclimatisation trek. It was about 14km each way and I reckon at least half of it was stairs - and my right knee gives out sometimes if I try and step up too high so that was *fun* it was mostly down yesterday, which was way easier but my calves are aching.
Mon-Fri next week we’re going to be at a remote school a little while from Pokhara helping to repair classrooms and whatnot. I don’t really know how I feel about the voluntourism in that, but at least World Challenge doesn’t work with orphanages anymore.
I’m really enjoying being in Nepal but I’m not enjoying the people I’m with. Almost all of them (and one of the teachers) are the type of person I would go out of my way to avoid if I had a choice. They’re so godamned privileged and they don’t even realise it, or they just refuse to acknowledge it. It feels like I’m back in primary school with all the popular kids trying to be popular by showing off their pretty clothes and brand name stuff and constantly demanding attention and it’s driving me a bit crazy.
Also one of the girls went to primary school with one of my (younger) friends that I knew from swimming and used to bully her and my friend would tell me about it at swimming and she was so upset by it and I can’t just ignore that. Especially given she’s the most annoying one here. Seriously picture a stereotypical popular kid and add a toddlers ‘me, me, me’ attitude and you’d have her personality.
Sorry for all the complaining, I need to get my frustration out somehow.
Anyway, happier things. Before our trek we went to the monkey temple (stairs!) and the garden of dreams which were both really awesome.
some photos
(http://i.imgur.com/VE5wBzj.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/zDxI2pU.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/D2NUUTX.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/R3X44Hl.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/46Q0AAG.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/2vBQcoA.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/znyJBRG.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/8fl6hyd.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/H4524qg.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/zDxI2pU.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/D2NUUTX.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/R3X44Hl.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/46Q0AAG.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/2vBQcoA.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/znyJBRG.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/8fl6hyd.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/H4524qg.jpg)
Sorry for turning my VCE journal into a travel diary - I actually have a paper diary because our teachers want us to write, but I don’t like writing by hand and this bus is way too bumpy.
Oh! I do actually have something VCE related to say - I got my outdoor ed results back for our first SAC and the first half of our second SAC - I got exactly 82% for both which is a bit weird but it’s way better than I was expecting so yay!
There’s way more things I want to say, but I can’t really seem to organise my thoughts well enough to write it down (and this bus isn’t helping) so I’ll probably post again at some point when I have time.
Post by: Bri MT on June 30, 2018, 06:07:37 pm
snip
No need to apologise about complaining - not only did your post not come across as complain-y but this is your space and sometimes in VCE there will be times where it's quite healthy to let that out. Also no need to complain about the "travel diary", I for one, and finding this very interesting and it IS part of your VCE experience.
Ouch 28 km of changing altitude is rough... I hope the views were great (when you weren't just focusing on trying not to fall & to keep going) , were you able to see many clouds and stuff?
Hopefully you can get some chances to have a bit of space & just breathe, being around that type of social environment can certainly get to be a bit much.
I'm glad that you got to see some really interesting and great places (especially after I remembered to click on the pictures to see them un-stretched ahaha)
Congrats on your outdoor ed results & I hope that you continue to find pockets of space and clarity :)
Post by: PhoenixxFire on July 08, 2018, 04:06:17 am
I don’t have anywhere near as much free time on this trip as I thought I would. We supposedly had a rest day today, but we slept in, ate breakfast, had a really long group chat, ate lunch, went to the world peace pagoda (and our bus stalled and got stuck so we had to walk the last 15min...), met our trek guide, went shopping for some last minute supplies (toilet paper!), had dinner, another meeting, packed our bags, and now it’s 10:30pm and it’s the first time today I’ve had more than a few minutes to myself. We also have to be packed and downstairs at 6am tomorrow but I’m on here instead lol.
The project we did was awesome. We repaired and painted two classrooms and painted a mural in another classroom. We also hired people to fix the toilets and bought material to increase the height of the wall.
One of the girls loved taking photos on my phone so I now have a heap of cute (and some blurry) photos
photos of kiddos and the rooms we painted
(http://i.imgur.com/LfTX7dg.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/OYWM7IX.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/42Rx7Ry.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/sOHo45L.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/FcGbLWe.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/3X5di7I.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/Bv6LE11.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/IHHnyy1.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/9d5TOzg.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/OYWM7IX.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/42Rx7Ry.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/sOHo45L.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/FcGbLWe.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/3X5di7I.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/Bv6LE11.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/IHHnyy1.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/9d5TOzg.jpg)
Tomorrow we’re starting our 12 day hike at Annapurna sanctuary. Apparently there’s a 250m long cable bridge that doesn’t have the supporting wires attatched so that will be *fun*. I’m worried about the whole less oxygen in the air thing because I know I’ll panic if I can’t breathe properly. It’s going to rain probably every day - part of our discussion today was about whether we should just use our savings to stay in tea houses every night - we decided to only stay in tea houses if sleeping in tents would be dangerous - WC will give us money for the tea houses if tents are too dangerous so it also means we won’t have to spend savings on it. I’m going to have a very wet couple of weeks though.
Quote
were you able to see many clouds and stuff?We woke up in a cloud on Friday morning! It was so awesome, I’ll have to steal a photo from someone
Quote
Hopefully you can get some chances to have a bit of space & just breathe, being around that type of social environment can certainly get to be a bit much.The teachers all know to give me space when I’m stressed now (they learnt that the hard way hahaha). They’ve basically given me permission for to just ignore everyone for a bit if I need to be alone, which is good but it’s been so hectic I still don’t really have much of a chance to just chill. To be honest, I thought I’d be feeling a lot worse than I am given how little privacy there is here, I haven’t been alone at all today, whereas at home I’m alone the majority of the time.
Everything else you saidThat is reassuring, I’m really bad at judging when what I’m saying becomes annoying <3
Post by: PhoenixxFire on July 19, 2018, 09:39:06 pm
look at this cute puppy I can’t pat
(http://i.imgur.com/WcBJW7I.jpg)
We got back from the 12 day hike this morning, we had an amazing view of machapuchare and Annapurna south from machapuchare base camp, it got cloudy as we left for Annapurna base camp but it cleared up again.
Our guide says the view we got of the mountains in the morning was the best he’d seen during monsoon season.
photos
Machapuchare (fish tail mountain)
(http://i.imgur.com/nOaxlfA.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/QoT900j.jpg)
Annapurna south (and the clouds rolling in)
(http://i.imgur.com/lz2MwGb.jpg)
Our guide, Karma, and me. The photo is in front of the Annapurna Base Camp sign but I’m not good enough at taking selfies to actually get it in the photo haha
(http://i.imgur.com/OtATwoW.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/nOaxlfA.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/QoT900j.jpg)
Annapurna south (and the clouds rolling in)
(http://i.imgur.com/lz2MwGb.jpg)
Our guide, Karma, and me. The photo is in front of the Annapurna Base Camp sign but I’m not good enough at taking selfies to actually get it in the photo haha
(http://i.imgur.com/OtATwoW.jpg)
We’re going white water rafting tomorrow, but only for 2 hours because all the rainfall has made the the river run really fast - it was supposed to be 3-4 hours. I’ve never been white water rafting before and at the start of the trip our WC leader told us about a teacher who got trapped underwater and drowned and I really didn’t need to know about that haha
After that we’re going straight to Kathmandu we’re we’ll be for 3 nights. It’s only really one day though because we’ll get in late tomorrow and have to leave early for the airport. One full day for shopping though haha. I don’t really have much I want to buy - the whole group has got matching Annapurna base camp tshirts and I want to get one of the shirts that says ‘Nepali flat; little bit up, little bit down’ because when our guide says flat he does not mean that - seriously I think they just average it out, 100m up, 100m down - that’s flat. And I’m there like no, no that is definitely not flat - our guide laughed at me.
Also I managed to get a cold that has made the last couple of days a bit shit - at least we were going downhill and ‘flat’ not uphill.
And this morning I managed to break the toenail of the little toe on my left foot. I split it right across parallel to the nail bed and darn it hurts. At least we’re done with the hiking.
Post by: Bri MT on July 20, 2018, 10:47:17 am
look at this cute puppy I can’t pat(http://i.imgur.com/WcBJW7I.jpg)
We got back from the 12 day hike this morning, we had an amazing view of machapuchare and Annapurna south from machapuchare base camp, it got cloudy as we left for Annapurna base camp but it cleared up again.
Our guide says the view we got of the mountains in the morning was the best he’d seen during monsoon season.I have other photos but not enough time or energy to upload them.photosMachapuchare (fish tail mountain)
(http://i.imgur.com/nOaxlfA.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/QoT900j.jpg)
Annapurna south (and the clouds rolling in)
(http://i.imgur.com/lz2MwGb.jpg)
Our guide, Karma, and me. The photo is in front of the Annapurna Base Camp sign but I’m not good enough at taking selfies to actually get it in the photo haha
(http://i.imgur.com/OtATwoW.jpg)
We’re going white water rafting tomorrow, but only for 2 hours because all the rainfall has made the the river run really fast - it was supposed to be 3-4 hours. I’ve never been white water rafting before and at the start of the trip our WC leader told us about a teacher who got trapped underwater and drowned and I really didn’t need to know about that haha
After that we’re going straight to Kathmandu we’re we’ll be for 3 nights. It’s only really one day though because we’ll get in late tomorrow and have to leave early for the airport. One full day for shopping though haha. I don’t really have much I want to buy - the whole group has got matching Annapurna base camp tshirts and I want to get one of the shirts that says ‘Nepali flat; little bit up, little bit down’ because when our guide says flat he does not mean that - seriously I think they just average it out, 100m up, 100m down - that’s flat. And I’m there like no, no that is definitely not flat - our guide laughed at me.
Also I managed to get a cold that has made the last couple of days a bit shit - at least we were going downhill and ‘flat’ not uphill.
And this morning I managed to break the toenail of the little toe on my left foot. I split it right across parallel to the nail bed and darn it hurts. At least we’re done with the hiking.
The mountain looks absolutely incredible & white water rafting has been on my bucket list for a long time (I've done white water kayaking which was fun but not the rafting). On the other hand I can completely understand you being low on energy... 12 days of hiking would be quite draining even without the cross sectional map being a zigzag!
I hope that you feel better soon and that the rafting is exhilarating but not terrifying :)
Post by: PhoenixxFire on July 27, 2018, 02:45:07 pm
I got back into Australia at midday on Tuesday and my sleep is so messed up still lol. Slept in to 11am because because I was on the plane, didn’t sleep at all Tuesday night because I was too busy writing my English speech (I wrote one whilst I was away but I hated it so I redid it - I made the minimum time requirement though so I passed). Then I slept 11 hours Wednesday night, then 4 hours last night (I was too busy watching Criminal Minds). I should probably actually go to bed early tonight.
My brother had a lump on his neck before I left, he’d had some tests on it but it was still inconclusive, turns out it was cancerous so he had to have it cut out - he’s fine now, the doctors reckon they got all of it but he has a wicked scar along his neck, his ear is numb, and he can’t move his arm properly. That was a *fun* surprise to come back to :-\
I’m not too far behind in maths, I’m already halfway caught up. We’re doing matrices and I already did it in 1/2, although I seem to remember guessing a lot of that SAC
Outdoor Ed I can catch up on fairly easily because we’re mostly just doing things from our textbook.
Enviro on the other hand....
We’re doing a prac at the moment and I have no clue what’s going on - seriously I had to ask the teacher 3 times before he actually explained, and he got annoyed at me for not doing anything (kinda hard when I don’t know what on earth is going on ::)). I still don’t really know what’s going on, we’re testing water to see how much detergent and dirt is in it. I assume it’s for our poster SAC.
I’m not going back to work until next Thursday, so hopefully I’ll be mostly caught up by then. I have to read I am Malala before next Wednesday so maybe I’ll actually put all my time on public transport to good use for once
I’ve been enjoying hugging my dogs. I never used to miss them whilst I was at school but now I look forward to going home just so I can hug them (although they’re both in desperate need of haircuts). Also my mum and brother fed my fish way too much. They’ve grown a ton and they’re all fat ::) I told them that they’re better off missing food rather than being fed twice but they just kept feeding them - it’s really easy to kill fish through over feeding but goldfish can easily go a few days without food. Their tank is kind of too small for them now but we don’t really have anywhere we can put a bigger one (I seriously think they’re 2cm longer than they were before I left). My brother keeps joking that I should feed them to the turtle >:(
Post by: Joseph41 on July 27, 2018, 02:52:20 pm
Post by: Bri MT on July 27, 2018, 03:01:01 pm
Glad that the academic stuff, at least, has been relatively easy for you to catch up on
My brother keeps joking that I should feed them to the turtle >:(
[/quote
Don't worry, I don't eat fish anyway
Post by: PhoenixxFire on August 06, 2018, 04:34:05 pm
I’ve got my math SAC Wednesday and Thursday this week, which should be fine - although I just spent 20minutes staring at the first multiple choice question on our practice SAC, turns out all of the answers were wrong ::) I thought I’d forgotten everything haha
My Enviro SAC was supposed to be on Tuesday next week but it’s been moved to the 20th (On my birthday >:() Also the enviro sac is on AOS1 so I have no idea what that prac was for...
Outdoor ed SAC is in a couple of weeks, I think I know most of the content for it but I need to know a bit more to relate it to a specific environment (which is always the bit I mess up).
I should probably actually read I am Malala, it seems fairly interesting from the few and random chapters I’ve read (I had to write chapter summaries haha). Our teacher’s been telling us the entire year that she thinks it’s a bit dry so it’s beating my expectations so far.
My fish teacher has been away doing organising stuff to help the principals (they’re hiring a new AP though so he’ll be back). Everyone in both classes has their own tank now so it’s way more organised. I don’t have a tank though because my teacher wants me to do leader stuff rather than have a tank.
I started rambling about fish (again) oops
I knew that’s what he wanted, but the kid who’s taking care of (what used to be) my fish didn’t give them a water change when they were supposed to last week, and there was heaps of fish poo in the tank and the filter wasn’t doing a good job of converting it to nitrate, it looked a bit off so I checked the nitrate levels on Friday and they were 10ppm which is ridiculously low for a tank that had no plants and hadn’t had a water change in a week and a half. Turns out it was because he ammonia wasn’t being converted - it was at 0.5ppm which is bad but not super bad. I also don’t think she knows how to test water because she’d written 1.5 under nitrate on the care sheet but he minimum out nitrate tests show is 5....(I’m a bit protective, they’re my babies haha)
We also got mail from school and it has stuff about how to apply for uni and the date & RSVP form for our graduation....I kinda don’t want to go though, I mean like I know it’s like a once only thing (but then I didn’t go to formal either) but it’s speeches and dancing and that sounds like hell. I’ll probably have to go though :(
Also way more motivated about finishing school than I was before although I suspect a month of actually sleeping for a decent amount of time had something to do with that haha
Post by: sweetiepi on August 06, 2018, 07:49:56 pm
It also sucks to have a test/SAC/assignment on your birthday! I had that happen to me earlier this year- it was pretty brutal, aha! Hopefully you have time to treat yourself afterwards though, that's always good! ;D
Post by: PhoenixxFire on August 16, 2018, 03:26:06 pm
And despite how much I joke about it, I'm actually totally screwed.
Anyway I got 13/30 for my Medea text response and I think about 50% for my oral (I got told at PT interviews but I don't remember exactly). So uh yeah lol.
The average in my class for the Medea SAC was 14/30 but I know people in the other classes got 29/30 so RIP. (the highest in my class was 20). They're both pretty much what I was expecting though, My Medea SAC was in a week when i had 5 other SAC's and then my oral i literally wrote in one night so I'm just happy I passed that haha.
But nah I'm screwed. I've just got my Malala & Dagenham comparison left and I don't know when I'm supposed to have time to prepare for that and for my other SAC's and somehow remember everything from Medea and write practice essays on it and media analysis and I'm screwed.
Maths is going good though I think. I'm pretty sure I got 91% and 95% for last two SAC's (after that abysmal first SAC that everyone did badly on). One more SAC left and it should be fairly straightforward. Somehow math is the easiest subject and I don't even hate it that much anymore. Having said that I know my school's SAC's are going to be way easier than most schools because my school is very low ranked and no one does particularly well at anything.
I think I've been spending too much time on outdoor Ed. Like I don't really have to spend time on math outside of class (except when I was catching up) because it's easy but I've been spending heaps of time on Enviro and outdoor Ed but I should probably stop doing that because Outdoor Ed scales down 4-6 points so unless I do really well in it it's going to be my 5th or 6th subject, and I should really be using that time to do English instead. The problem is I like outdoor ed and I don't like English :(
Fish is a bit frustrating at the moment because I don't actually have fish to take care of and I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing instead which just leaves me bored and pondering how much time I'm wasting.
All my teachers at PT interviews today were asking what I'm doing for uni and what I'm planning on doing after uni etc. and it's so annoying because they all have their own opinions on it and it was kinda of annoying having to repeat myself 5 times. And they were (my english & outdoor ed teachers especially) being like you gotta work harder to get into that and like I know that, thanks. ugh. Also I have no idea what I want to do after uni and thinking about that is kinda terrifying because I don't know what I would enjoy doing but I guess I'll figure that out later.
Hope you're all having a better week than I am <3
Post by: Poet on August 16, 2018, 06:10:12 pm
But ugh, that sucks about the English scores, I'm sorry girl. Feeling you there. :(
You seem pretty down, so here are some memes:
Spoiler
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSOXR1Joklctaqw0h0hDVe_TE_3DBf8-5lpRHxm3avB4BoTpLkapw)
(https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-08/2/20/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-2058-1501721013-7.png?downsize=715:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto)(https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-08/2/8/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-2828-1501677223-15.png?downsize=715:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto)(https://www.askideas.com/media/47/Whos-Awesome-You-Are-Awesome-Funny-Cool-Meme-Image.jpg)
(https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-08/2/20/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-2058-1501721013-7.png?downsize=715:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto)(https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-08/2/8/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-2828-1501677223-15.png?downsize=715:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto)(https://www.askideas.com/media/47/Whos-Awesome-You-Are-Awesome-Funny-Cool-Meme-Image.jpg)
All the love gorl
Post by: sarangiya on August 20, 2018, 10:54:10 pm
Term 3 seems like it sucks for everyone so far. It looks like you're doing fine though, don't sweat it :)
You won't know whether you're screwed or not till the 14th of December so fear not!! Just keep hustling and I'm sure everything will work itself out.
Good luck with pondering over uni stuff and for future SACs. Don't worry, you've got this!
Post by: PhoenixxFire on August 24, 2018, 03:59:40 pm
My Enviro SAC went pretty good - I got 92% which is the best I've gotten so far, but the SAC was really easy. Even our teacher said he made it too easy. I didn't make any big mistakes which is good. I lost 3 marks because I took a guess about whether peak oil is when the maximum amount of oil is used or when the maximum rate of oil extraction occurs. I guessed the first option, it was the latter (there was a multiple choice and a short answer on it - I won't be making that mistake again). I also lost a mark because I didn't include enough information on a question - I missed the 'describe' part
I've finally finished reading my English book (Yay!) but now I have to actually start writing (:'().
My next Enviro SAC is a report not a test which is annoying - I also have to do a poster for AOS3 so no actual tests left. I have the mark allocation for each section and stuff already, so if I'm allowed to bring notes in it's going to be an easy SAC, otherwise I'll just memorise it or something.
I think my outdoor Ed SAC went okay, although I know I analysed one of the questions that said 'evaluate' so I'm sure I'll lose marks for that. - Will probably have to wait a month or two for results though haha.
We're finally learning a bit of marine biology in fish, rather than just freshwater biology. It's all pretty basic stuff (kind of hard when you have a mix of ages from year 7 to year 12 in the same room) but I'm still learning new things so yay ;D
I'm going on another camp. It's Thur/Fri of week 1, term 4. Probably a bad idea but it's just one night and it's a fish camp - we're going snorkelling with seals and maybe dolphins if they show up. It should be awesome, I've hardly been in the ocean all year and I miss it.
A cat playing jenga popped up on my fb, it's cute haha
Post by: Bri MT on August 24, 2018, 04:12:41 pm
What type of stuff are you learning? Anatomy? Biochemistry? Ecology? Oceanography?
Post by: PhoenixxFire on August 24, 2018, 04:23:43 pm
Next week we're researching a specific coastal environment (seagrass meadows, sponge gardens, mangroves, etc) and their importance to oceans/life, nothing particularly new but should be interesting regardless.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on August 24, 2018, 05:07:09 pm
I forgot! One of the kids in my fish class has baby barramundi and he taught them to eat out of his fingers and he let me feed one of them today! I held their food pellet between my fingers and it just swam right up and ate it, was very awesome ;D ;D (most of our fish are way too shy to do that)
Post by: PhoenixxFire on August 27, 2018, 05:47:19 pm
I’ve kind of just been ignoring the fact that I’m very near the end of high school. Even doing my uni applications I was sort of just looking forward to it and not really thinking about what it meant. It feels more permanent now. Actually, I think that was part of the reason I never got a grad hoodie and I didn’t go to my last athletics carnival, I missed my last swimming carnival because of a camp. I’ve skipped all of our grad morning teas and dress up days (which basically no one does now we have free dress haha). I don’t even really feel like I’m in year 12. All of the other year 12’s seem older than me even though they aren’t. Especially last semester, it didn’t really feel like I was one of them. I feel a bit older this term, but it’s still weird. I remember when I was in year 7/8 I would look at the older kids doing their exams and whatnot and it would feel so far away. Strange to think that it’s me here now. I think subconsciously (actually I think I was aware of it and just ignoring it) I was avoiding all of that so that I could pretend that things were the same.
I mean, I’ve never really liked school - I like learning, I like some of my teachers, and some of my classes, but I’ve never really liked school. But as much as I’m looking forward to going to uni and moving out (yay!) next year, its only really started feeling final when people started saying that they were gonna miss me and I realised I don’t have any camps left and it all just feels really final. I guess I’d never really thought about things that are going to change until now, I was just looking at what was ahead and not really paying attention to what I would be leaving behind. I guess the only thing I’d really thought about was leaving my little brothers - my youngest brother is in year 7 this year and he’ll be in year 12 the year after I finish uni, and that’s really weird to think about. I’m the first one of my family who’ll be moving out (although my oldest sister is potentially moving overseas next year). And so it’s weird for me to think that’s he’s going to have siblings who aren’t living at home through most of his high school. Really bizarre. Also I’m going to miss my puppies haha. But I’d never really thought about everything else, leaving work, leaving friends who I probably wont stay particularly close to - especially the ones who are younger than me.
Feels weird.
Sorry for the rambly post. It was half this length then I reread it and added tons of stuff
Post by: PhoenixxFire on September 03, 2018, 05:30:53 pm
The report for my Enviro SAC is going to be easy. It's a really standard format and we're allowed to bring in as much info to use to write it with as we want (statistics sort of info, we can't just write it before hand haha). I might just memorise it though, I managed to write and memorise my creative in 2 nights so I know I can, I don't know if I'll bother though. i'll definitely write it out beforehand though. It's next Thursday.
My English comparative is next Wednesday afternoon. My teacher tried to get us all to say we have appointments and do it on Friday instead, but I don't want to be doing a 2.5 hour SAC on a Friday afternoon so I'm just going to do it on Wednesday. I'd only written one paragraph of the essay we were supposed to have done today, but the most anyone had done was an intro and one paragraph. I don't know why our teacher hasn't given up on us yet lol. Anyway she read it and gave me a few pointers. One of the bits I was really unsure about including was her favourite bit so yay lol.
One SAC left for math - it's next Thursday as well.
I think I have two SAC's left for outdoor Ed (we're splitting AOS2 into 2 parts) but I don't know when they are exactly (or maybe we're doing one SAC and he just split the practice SAC into 2 parts?)
Wednesday and Thursday next week are going to be hectic. If we're doing our outdoor Ed SAC in two parts then part 1 will be next week as well. I still haven't gotten my results back for U4AOS1 (or for that matter U3 AOS2 part 2......) ugh. I'm want to know where I sit by the end of the term. I know it doesn't matter because I can't change it but I still want to know.
We only had one fish lesson last week because my teacher was sick so I don't really have anything to update you on. There's some work I was supposed to have done but I haven't. I want to, it's interesting stuff, I just can't really afford to prioritise it over my 3/4 work.
I feel like I should be a lot more worried than I am. I'm not really worried about getting into my course. Given the scores I already have I'd have to screw up pretty badly in everything else to get below 80. I want to get above that, and I hope I do, but I'm not worried about it if that makes sense. I'm sure that'll change as soon as I start trying to write 3 essays in three hours though lol.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on September 04, 2018, 04:29:01 pm
I don’t know why I thought it was next week - I even have it in my calendar for this week.
We have 100min for it and classes are 70min so we have to start partway through lunch which is incredibly annoying. Also our teacher said we could bring food so people are going to be noisy and distracting. Ugh.
One of the English teachers is running a lunchtime session on our texts for our comparative analysis which I was going to go to but now I can’t :(
I don’t get why my school can’t just run SACs during class time. Even my English SAC goes till 4:30 (school normally finishes at 3:30). And we only get 2 weeks notice which means if I was working I would have to get my shifts changed after the rosters had already been made which is so, so annoying.
I’m so sick of my Enviro class. It’s incredibly frustrating and my teacher is barely above useless. He literally has not taught us anything that isn’t in our textbook anyway. I don’t even bother writing notes when he talks because absolutely everything he says I’ve already written notes on because it was in the book (except how much he hates Agapantha’s, maybe I should add that to my notes ::))
I’m not having a particularly good day if you couldn’t tell haha - had fun in fish though!
We moved my although technically not mine anymore Mainganoes and Mphangas into a larger tank in our other fish room. Last time we put them in a bigger tank they got territorial and started killing each other so hopefully that doesn’t happen again - it shouldn’t, I spent all lesson precariously balancing rocks to make hidey holes for them.
Sorry for the ranty post
Love y’all <3
Edit: Also yay we got one million posts!!! 😁🎉🎉🎉
Post by: PhoenixxFire on September 07, 2018, 03:53:37 pm
I finally finished writing my practice comparative essay for English, sent it to my teacher on Wednesday but she hasn't given me feedback on it yet :( hopefully tonight or tomorrow she will. I'm gonna write another one, maybe tonight, I was going to do it tomorrow night but I just had another coffee so I'm finally feeling a bit more awake haha.
My last math SAC is Friday afternoon next week which is kind of annoying because my english SAC is Wednesday afternoon so I don't get any early finishes next week :'(
I don't know when my last outdoor Ed SAC is, our teacher said he was going to tell us today but then he didn't. Someone asked him when it was going to be and he said he's made a decision but wouldn't tell us, which was very frustrating. I think that means that he decided to do it next term which sucks. I really don't want to have to be worrying about a SAC over the holidays as well, I'd rather just get it done with.
I still haven't gotten my results back from the last outdoor ed SAC we did. He went through them in class with a few people earlier in the week. Someone asked him today what she got but he wouldn't tell her because he says he wants to go through them with us. The thing is he said that about the first SAC and he got through about 5 people and the rest of the class didn't get our results until the end of term 2 in our report. I haven't gotten any feedback or seen any of my outdoor ed SACs at all this year. I don't know how on Earth he expects me to improve when I don't know what I'm getting wrong. Now that I think about it, aside from class discussions I haven't gotten any feedback from him about anything. He's said several times that he knows that he needs to give us more feedback - we did this survey thing a few weeks ago and the majority of the class said that he doesn't give us enough feedback and yet nothing has changed.
I'm considering emailing him and asking for my results and my SACs back. I kinda doubt he's actually written any feedback on them though, because surely if he had he would have given them to us rather than insisting on going through them with us :( Also I feel like if I ask for them he'll insist on going through them with me which is a bit of a waste of time, especially given I won't remember it exactly if he hasn't written feedback on them and also he said after I got back from Nepal that he was gonna have a chat to me about what I missed during one of my private studies because he doesn't teach in that time, but he never did, so if he insists on going through them I feel like it will never happen. I dunno what to do about it though, it's so frustrating.
photos of my cichlids in their new tank
(https://i.imgur.com/axtJcm5.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/HcgWn0Z.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/HcgWn0Z.jpg)
Post by: PhoenixxFire on September 12, 2018, 05:38:22 pm
I don’t know if it’s possible to actually fail English but I think I’m about to find out. I don’t know why I thought I could actually do this I still suck at English.
I just finished my comparative SAC and it was way way worse than even my Medea one - and I got 40% (ish) for that having not written any practice essays.
One of the topics was very similar to one that I wrote earlier and so it should have been easy but I just couldn’t think. I couldn’t remember anything it felt like there was a wall in my head and I know that I should have been able to write it but I just couldn’t. My plan was better than the actual essay. At least I included film techniques and stuff in that. I just couldn’t actually write the essay. 50 minutes into the 2.5 hour SAC and I’d written one sentence. Did I mention that I’m completely screwed? How on Earth am I supposed to write 3 essays in 3 hours when I can’t even write 1 in 2.5 hours??!!! (AND it was on a prompt very similar to one I’d already done) I’m so screwed.
All I could think about the entire SAC was how completely screwed I am. Hell I’m not even doing well in the subjects I thought I’d would do well in. I haven’t started doing exam revision for anything and I don’t remember anything from U3 - especially for Outdoor Ed and Math. I never really learnt how to do a language analysis and I didn’t even know any quotes from Medea back when I was actually studying it.
My entire essay was just rambling and wasn’t even completely relevant. I didn’t really write any sentences to link the texts together in the paragraphs even though I found that really easy when I was writing earlier. I only wrote a really crap introduction and two and a half body paragraphs and they’re not at all good. I didn’t even use the ideas I wrote in my plan. I don’t know why. I just wrote down random crap rather than actually using the bad but not completely terrible ideas I’d come up with. I just couldn’t focus at all and I felt like I was about to throw up half the time and the other half was spent trying not to cry. Ugh. I couldn’t have gotten a better topic (unless it was the exact same as one if already written) so I don’t know why I fucked it up so badly. I’m so screwed. (I keep saying that, it’s kinda just on a loop in my head). This was my last chance to improve my marks a little and I fucked it up.
I’ve actually been really out of it all day. Earlier in outdoor ed people were talking about this SAC and they’d both done 3 practice essays. Someone in their class had done 8. I only did one (and only 5 people in my class did it - to the best of my knowledge the most anyone in my class did was 2) and it still took my teacher almost a week to give me feedback on it. I finally got it on Monday morning, and I had work that night so I couldn’t really even do anything about it.
I’m so tired. I just want to go home and sleep but going home will be stressful and I have my last math SAC on Friday....and I just realised that I left my Math book at school. Fuck. I’m 2 chapters behind, we have class tomorrow morning and I have private study Friday morning but that’s it. Also I haven’t finished adding things to my reference book for it so I need to do that too.
Sorry for making you read all that (if anyone actually did haha) I don’t really have anyone I can rant to IRL
Also I still feel like I’m gonna throw up but at least I’m not crying anymore?
Oh and my outdoor Ed SAC is next Friday
Post by: Poet on September 12, 2018, 05:59:51 pm
Sorry for making you read all that (if anyone actually did haha) I don’t really have anyone I can rant to IRL
Hey, my friend,
I read that, and I'm sure others will too. We'll read it all the way through, because you matter to us, and we hurt with you when you're upset. That's not to say you shouldn't write about it - let it out, and know that, with hard work, it'll get better. And that you have support here. The countdown is really hitting us all now, and that's just another stress that would've affected your performance. But work on it. And you will get there. Believe in your ability to push beyond the boundaries, and get that second wind. Hell, that fiftieth wind. And hey, just do your best. That's what matters.
See you at the lectures - I'm sure you'll be fine for the next couple of weeks. You're a strong one, Phoenixx. We believe in you. <3
Post by: Bri MT on September 12, 2018, 06:04:58 pm
I think it's very very likley that the reason you couldn't think is because of your headspace - and that that in turn is related to the pressure you're experiencing and how likely it is that you're approaching (or experiencing) burnout.
It is very possible that you won't be in this headspace when exam time approaches. (I suspect you've done enough science to know about the evils of over generalising :P)
Sometimes venting helps, I hope that in this case it did, and I'm glad that you could do that here
Post by: Maya24 on September 12, 2018, 06:19:46 pm
Post by: PhoenixxFire on September 15, 2018, 07:23:44 pm
I got a really bad headache on Friday - I should have been expecting it, I always do a few days after something stressful but I always manage to forget that - At least that means that I actually did manage to relax a bit on Thursday.
On Friday I just had private study, outdoor ed, fish and then my Math SAC. I'd already had panadol but that didn't make my headache go away (it never does - nurofen normally helps a little but I didn't have any on me :() anyway, the weather was really nice (unlike now) so we sat outside in outdoor ed and after our teacher had gone through the chapter he told me to put my head in the shade and have a nap haha. I must have really looked like shit. So I basically did nothing that class, the weather was perfect for lying about and doing nothing so I lay about and did nothing. It was nice though, just being able to relax.
My math SAC seemed really easy - I'm a bit worried about how much harder doing past exams is going to be given all our SACs so far have been really straightforward (my school isn't exactly high achieving haha).
In fish some people did presentations on the habitat that they did research on. One of the groups made a song about mangroves - I actually have a video of them singing it but I'm not sure they'd ever forgive me if I uploaded it here, so instead here are the lyrics (as best as I could tell)
Quote
Somebody once told me
Mangroves are probably
The coolest ecosystem
They may look kinda dumb
With their roots out in the sun
But they protect the little fishes
But the tide keeps coming and the tide keeps coming
(Something about their roots?)
It makes sense why they can't run
Because they are a plant you moron
So much protecc
So much attacc
But most importantly
They stop sediments
From going into the ocean
Hey look, it's a mangrove
It's roots go, into dirt
and into the water cos it's not a wimp
and all the fishes are safe
cos they found a mangrove in this place
On Monday we have more time to get info and stuff for our Enviro SAC - the actual SAC part is on Tuesday (and maybe Thursday as well?) and we have to put that info into a poster format over the holidays.
Our poster is on the speed of hydrogen powered cars vs solar powered cars. We're using tiny model cars - the solar car was disappointingly slow and the hydrogen car started spinning in circles so we measured it for half a metre and figured it'd speed out from that (the solar car was for 5 meters) - Very reliable experiment
I've been working a lot lately which is good cos money ;D but it is making life really busy.
I'm not doing much tonight (I had work all morning). I intended to clean my room, but I've been home for a few hours now and haven't yet haha. But I'm going to get all the stuff done that I've been putting off for ages (I really need to sort out when I'm taking leave from work today). I figure if I'm not constantly trying to remember everything else I have to do then I'll be less stressed, so we shall see how that works out for me.
Oh and totally not relevant to anything but my catfish (Felix and Vlad) are hanging out at front of their tank finally, rather than hiding in the back behind things, so that's really awesome ;D
Edit: So I’m finally cleaning my room - I’ve given up trying to pick up the rubbish first so I’m emptying my cupboards so I can fit the stuff on my floor into my cupboards. I figure given I’m moving out and have no intention of moving back in (like, I’ll come visit but not move in ya know?) that I should donate a bunch of stuff I don’t plan on taking to Canberra and/or give it to my siblings. It’s way harder than I thought it would be. I have sooo many soft toys and decorative pillows haha (evertime my siblings got rid of them I took them) anyway it’s weird to think that I’ve got to get rid of so much stuff, but logically I know that there’s no point keeping it given I can’t fit all my stuff in my room in Canberra lol. I knew I had a lot of stuff but damn I didn’t realise quite how much. Still feels weird getting rid of it. I suppose I could keep it for a few more months but I have to get rid of some stuff cos it doesn’t all fit in my room 😂
Post by: PhoenixxFire on September 21, 2018, 03:17:01 pm
Spoiler
Also I am now terrified of magpies. There were four staring at me. FOUR.
My AOS 3 Enviro SAC really was a complete mess though. He didn’t even bother to edit it, there were bits that said things like what is the method that you will use in your experiment - and we’d already done our experiment 🙄
I totally should have changed that thumbnail, it’s not the most flattering image hahahaha
Post by: S200 on September 21, 2018, 05:30:50 pm
Can't wait to see you tomoz... :D
tbh, you're really different from what I thought, but in a better way... ;)
Hope your Outdoor Ed SAC went ok! :D
Post by: PhoenixxFire on September 21, 2018, 07:05:47 pm
tbh, you're really different from what I thought, but in a better way... ;)You obviously haven’t stalked me enough :P there’s another video of me earlier on in this thread
Post by: S200 on September 21, 2018, 08:33:03 pm
TS would tell you that I'm actually a decent guy... ;)
except today, when I am actually messed up 'cause I drunk too much at 2day's colour run...
Edit: Actually stalked this Journal... :)
This you mean?
Quote
I’m really enjoying being in Nepal but I’m not enjoying the people I’m with. Almost all of them (and one of the teachers) are the type of person I would go out of my way to avoid if I had a choice. They’re so godamned privileged and they don’t even realise it, or they just refuse to acknowledge it. It feels like I’m back in primary school with all the popular kids trying to be popular by showing off their pretty clothes and brand name stuff and constantly demanding attention and it’s driving me a bit crazy.This is primary school for you?
This is literally the Yr 11's from our other campuses... :D
Post by: PhoenixxFire on September 22, 2018, 08:58:27 am
Edit: Actually stalked this Journal... :)Aren’t baby turtles cute?! (There’s only one correct answer to that question btw)
This you mean?
Also damn I was optimistic back on page 2 lol
This is primary school for you?It’s more that I can avoid them now whereas I couldn’t in primary school, not that they don’t exist.
This is literally the Yr 11's from our other campuses... :D
Post by: PhoenixxFire on September 26, 2018, 09:56:27 am
For some reason I'm in a really good mood at the moment! I dunno why Probs to do with my mum being away all week. Yay no fighting but I'm not gonna complain
I've done a few practice exams and it's going better than I thought it would be so that's awesome. I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to get 80 (to get into my course) without too much difficulty so I'm not really too stressed atm.
Of course the problem is (as always) English. I don't have a minimum study score that I have to get or anything so I'm not super worried about it but it's really frustrating that I don't really have any idea of how good *cough* terrible my essays actually are - My teacher told me (before the comparative) that I'm in the top third of my cohort - and I'm averaging about 60% lol, My teachers are insisting that they're trying to mark our essays harshly so that VCAA doesn't scale them down but I still really don't know where that puts me. Actually I'll probs make a thread about it, maybe someone will have some clue about how VCAA's marking works
Also sort of related but unrelated, I've been shortening words and using slang a lot lately and I never really used to, I don't really know how I feel about it.
Enjoy this not-particularly-interesting video of my Silver Perch splashing half the water out of their tank as they try and eat (and miss the food most of the time)
Spoiler
Another dogs-in-class pic, A kid in my fish class brought her puppy to school so naturally we had to introduce her to the fishies
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/QjxwwDH.jpg)
Post by: PhoenixxFire on October 04, 2018, 04:31:41 pm
It was on the 2009 further math exam 1. Pretty sure it’s the first time I’ve ever gotten 100% on anything in VCE!
I also did exam 2 from the same year today and got 97% so yay. That’s the best I’ve gotten so far on math practice exams. The exams felt fairly easy though compared to the 2006-2008 ones, but then maybe it’s just because I’m slowly figuring out which questions aren’t on the study design anymore.
I’m gonna write an English essay tonight (lol) and maybe finally finish my outdoor Ed notes.
I haven’t done any practice exams for enviro or outdoor ed yet, partially because they’re later than math and English but also because I don’t feel like I know the content well enough. Will definitely be doing them next week at the latest though.
I really don’t want to go to school next week. It just feels like such a waste of time, but oh well 🤷♀️ It’s six days I’m sure I’ll manage. The early mornings aren’t going to be fun though, I’ve been getting into the habit of sleeping in. Although I really can’t keep that up given I’m going to have to leave home at 7 ish to get to my English exam on time.
So I just told my mum I got 100%, which I wouldn’t normally do but I was excited. And she said ‘as you should’ like fkn hell would it kill her to just be happy for me? rather than making me feel like I was supposed to have somehow got 100% on all of them :’( I really should know better than to expect anything from her by now, nothing I do is ever enough
Post by: PhoenixxFire on October 10, 2018, 03:27:57 pm
I’m in a bit of a weird mood today. Feeling quite reflective. I suppose it has something to with with going back to school and it being the last term and all.
I guess I’m just reflecting on expectations. My own expectations and how I perceive other people’s expectations of me. The important part of that is perceptions. There’s no guarantee that my perceptions are correct (and it’s likely they aren’t). There’s a few things I want to say, but I’m actually kind of hesitant to write some of them because I think it could easily be misconstrued. None of this is either positive or negative. It just is, and that’s okay.
So - expectations. I hate them. I really, really hate them. It’s why I refuse to set goals and create study timetables (to the immense annoyance of my teachers), it’s why I constantly joke about having failed methods and almost failing English, even now I feel the urge to make a joke along the lines of ‘Except I’m actually failing’. But it’s not true. Sure I’m not getting great (or even good) scores. I got 43% for one of my SACs! Most people would consider that a fail - but who really decides what counts as failing? An arbitrarily decided mark of 50%. Half. You got the majority of it right, so you have passed. Why? Shouldn’t a pass be determined by what score you need in order to do what you want to do? In that case, assuming I get into my course, the purpose of receiving these test scores, and study scores, and ATARs, then won’t I have passed? Does it matter if I get a 20 or a 50? I suppose only I can answer that. No one else can decide what matters to me.
What makes something matter to me?
I suppose it all comes back to expectations. My own expectations of how well I will do in VCE and what I think other people expect from me.
I suppose it’s hard because being ‘smart’ has become something I pride myself on, It’s always been something I’ve prided myself on. Even if primary school I was the kid who was singled out for those math competitions and whatnot.
Now’s the bit I’m expecting mixed reactions on I’ve been reflecting on the role AN has on the expectations other people have of me, expectations they have of how I will do in VCE specifically. I don’t really know what you guys expect of me. Does anyone, really? But these perceived expectations have been bothering me a bit, and I think that’s something I should talk about. To be honest, I feel extremely unqualified to be giving anyone advice. I’ve been reminded of this today especially. My teacher found out that I got modded on here (not from me though lol) - he says he didn’t realise that I had kept involved with biology stuff, and he was reminded of something he used to do - get past students to give advice to his current bio class. He asked me if I was okay with coming in and answering their questions about studying etc. I said yes. Of course I would help other people. Why wouldn’t I? But I realised I felt a bit uncomfortable about it and I couldn’t really pinpoint why.
I’ve realised that it’s because I feel so unqualified to be giving advice - I’m just a year 12 student, who says that I know how to study any better than they do? Why would my way of studying be any better than what they’re currently doing? But that’s not really the point is it? It’s not that they’re going to do exactly what I did and it’s going to work perfectly for them. What I did didn’t work perfectly for me! I realise now some of the things that I could have done differently which would have worked better for me, but I’m sure there’s other things I don’t even know about that may have worked even better. And that is what I’m really getting at here.
Despite my hatred of expectations, I had set expectations of myself and they weren’t at all realistic. I expected myself to be perfect - felt that I needed to do well in everything in order to be ‘qualified’ to give anyone advice. Given the type of people that AN is known to attract, this is obviously a bit of a problem. Someone else got a higher study score than me, are they more qualified to give advice than I am? I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t think there is an answer to that. Who am I to judge how useful advice is?
Advice that may be useless to someone may be absolutely perfect for someone else, and who am I to not give advice just because I don’t necessarily value the advice I give? Someone else may value it.
I suppose I’ve also been considering how other people may perceive this. If someone asks how to study for bio and I reply to it, are there then people who aren’t replying because they had a different idea to me and don’t want to contradict me? I don’t know the answer to that, but I really hope not. I guess what I’m saying is that advice may be useful, it may not, but it is still valuable. You never know who it may help.
Regardless of what numbers appear on my screen on December 14, it will be okay. I’m really just being too hard on myself. Seeing everyone else around me doing extremely well is hard. But it’s okay. My pass mark will not be an arbitrary number and neither will yours. Our pass marks are different, we are all different, and that’s okay.
I’m not where I thought I would be at the start of the year, but I’m okay with where I am now - and that’s what really matters :)
Take care of yourself everyone. <3
Also sorry if this appears to be a lot of negativity in this post - it’s certinly not intended in that way at all. The sky is blue and the grass is green. Birds are flying (unfortunately some of them are magpies) and I am happy. You guys are the most amazing, generous, and compassionate people I know, and I love you all so much. ❤️❤️
Post by: Poet on October 10, 2018, 04:54:19 pm
Quote
I’m in a bit of a weird mood today. Feeling quite reflective.
Man, this is the #MoodoftheMonth (or year lol) - we're reaching the finish line, and it's a serious period of transition. Don't sweat being in a weird mood, or feeling like something you say might be judged - it won't. And to elaborate on this point:
Quote
I’ve been reflecting on the role AN has on the expectations other people have of me, expectations they have of how I will do in VCE specifically. I don’t really know what you guys expect of me. Does anyone, really? But these perceived expectations have been bothering me a bit, and I think that’s something I should talk about. To be honest, I feel extremely unqualified to be giving anyone advice. I’ve been reminded of this today especially. My teacher found out that I got modded on here (not from me though lol) - he says he didn’t realise that I had kept involved with biology stuff, and he was reminded of something he used to do - get past students to give advice to his current bio class. He asked me if I was okay with coming in and answering their questions about studying etc. I said yes. Of course I would help other people. Why wouldn’t I? But I realised I felt a bit uncomfortable about it and I couldn’t really pinpoint why.
I’ve realised that it’s because I feel so unqualified to be giving advice - I’m just a year 12 student, who says that I know how to study any better than they do? Why would my way of studying be any better than what they’re currently doing? But that’s not really the point is it? It’s not that they’re going to do exactly what I did and it’s going to work perfectly for them. What I did didn’t work perfectly for me! I realise now some of the things that I could have done differently which would have worked better for me, but I’m sure there’s other things I don’t even know about that may have worked even better. And that is what I’m really getting at here.
Despite my hatred of expectations, I had set expectations of myself and they weren’t at all realistic. I expected myself to be perfect - felt that I needed to do well in everything in order to be ‘qualified’ to give anyone advice. Given the type of people that AN is known to attract, this is obviously a bit of a problem. Someone else got a higher study score than me, are they more qualified to give advice than I am? I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t think there is an answer to that. Who am I to judge how useful advice is?
First of all, expectations are a *universal* peeve. What we see of someone isn't always what's true - but, on the flipside, expectations have a basis. You've done so well in previous assessments, and this feeling of uncertainty is probably (speaking from personal experience) the knowledge that you have "no excuse to fail", at least in your own mind. As a role model on AN, this is also true. As a moderator, and someone basically idolised for their selfless work (like damn, you go girl), you don't see the expectations as particularly valid, in a sense, because you don't really see what we see.
Along with that is the fact that we here know that you'll do your best - and for better or for worse, in your own opinion, doing your best is all that matters. We would never ask you for a specific score - this community you're a part of doesn't care about that. And neither should others in your life. Doing well in one thing is no guarantee - every day is different, every subject, every year and, most of all, every person. Focus on you, and you alone. Not the perceived expectations of others, or any crap beating you down. Your positivity and determination still shines through, and as long as you keep pushing, you'll get there.
We respect and care for you here, Phoenixx. There hasn't been a single time I've disagreed with one of your biology answers, and I doubt anyone who had a different opinion wouldn't speak up just because you're there. You are selfless, you are kind, and you are intelligent. And I love that you can see that.
Take care of yourself - it's a beautiful day, and you're part of it. xoxo
Post by: Bri MT on October 10, 2018, 07:29:57 pm
SpoilerNow’s the bit I’m expecting mixed reactions on I’ve been reflecting on the role AN has on the expectations other people have of me, expectations they have of how I will do in VCE specifically. I don’t really know what you guys expect of me. Does anyone, really? But these perceived expectations have been bothering me a bit, and I think that’s something I should talk about. To be honest, I feel extremely unqualified to be giving anyone advice. I’ve been reminded of this today especially. My teacher found out that I got modded on here (not from me though lol) - he says he didn’t realise that I had kept involved with biology stuff, and he was reminded of something he used to do - get past students to give advice to his current bio class. He asked me if I was okay with coming in and answering their questions about studying etc. I said yes. Of course I would help other people. Why wouldn’t I? But I realised I felt a bit uncomfortable about it and I couldn’t really pinpoint why.
I’ve realised that it’s because I feel so unqualified to be giving advice - I’m just a year 12 student, who says that I know how to study any better than they do? Why would my way of studying be any better than what they’re currently doing? But that’s not really the point is it? It’s not that they’re going to do exactly what I did and it’s going to work perfectly for them. What I did didn’t work perfectly for me! I realise now some of the things that I could have done differently which would have worked better for me, but I’m sure there’s other things I don’t even know about that may have worked even better. And that is what I’m really getting at here.
Despite my hatred of expectations, I had set expectations of myself and they weren’t at all realistic. I expected myself to be perfect - felt that I needed to do well in everything in order to be ‘qualified’ to give anyone advice. Given the type of people that AN is known to attract, this is obviously a bit of a problem. Someone else got a higher study score than me, are they more qualified to give advice than I am? I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t think there is an answer to that. Who am I to judge how useful advice is?
Advice that may be useless to someone may be absolutely perfect for someone else, and who am I to not give advice just because I don’t necessarily value the advice I give? Someone else may value it.
I suppose I’ve also been considering how other people may perceive this. If someone asks how to study for bio and I reply to it, are there then people who aren’t replying because they had a different idea to me and don’t want to contradict me? I don’t know the answer to that, but I really hope not. I guess what I’m saying is that advice may be useful, it may not, but it is still valuable. You never know who it may help.
I was going to pm you but I think this is valuable for more people to see too.
Disclaimer: I don't make the judgement call about who gets modded and who doesn't.
In the conversions I saw about you potentially being modded, your study score did not come up. No one is modded because of their study score - modding is about contributing to the AN community, not your ability to sit tests and give them the answer they want.(In fact, there are times as a mod when you knowingly give people answers they don't want to hear.) There are some people who use their academic achievements to guide how they contribute to the community (eg. "How I got a 50"etc) but even before you received your bio study score you were already a fantastic contributor there so it's certainly not a prerequisite.
No one is modded out of charity or because you're expected to get x score, it was granted to you with consideration of your proven track record as a trusted great contributor and as someone who helps AN flourish.
I can't speak for the whole team (a team which you're part of) but I have no expectations for your ATAR or study scores. What will be expected is that you continue to help this community be a better and better place :)
Post by: turinturambar on October 10, 2018, 10:41:16 pm
The other thing I come to realise is that I know myself well enough to see flaws in my answers that other people don't seem to see. Sometimes that makes me feel like a fraud, and not know why people are relying on me. But I also assume that others have some of that too, that they are seeing flaws in answers they give that satisfy me, or that I'm holding myself to standards harsher than I hold other people to.
People trusting you can be both a gift and a burden, but it is a recognition that you have already done things that helped others, and we expect you can continue to do them and do them well.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on October 17, 2018, 04:30:41 pm
Anyway, I’M FINISHED HIGH SCHOOL. Obviously not actually finished, there’s still exams and stuff, but no more classes!! ;D ;D
Kinda sad that it’s over, but mostly just YAY!!
Oh and I got my English comparative mark back 😂 I got 22/60 lol. I think I should probably be upset about that, but I’m not.
No one got above 50/60, and only like 15ish people (out of 90ish) got above 30. The average was below 30 😂😂 we’re all going to do so great in the exam.
Also got results for my last math SAC (94%) and U4 AOS1 Outdoor ed (92%) - I have no idea how that happened. I’m sure our outdoor ed sacs are going to get scaled down because he is marking way too easily.
I think the weirdest part of having finished classes is the loss of the structure. I’m planning on getting into a routine from now until the end of exams to help with that - hopefully this will involve a bit more than the 5-6 hours of sleep I’ve been getting the last couple of weeks. Also I reckon it’s going to be weird not having adults around constantly - if that makes any sense, which it probably doesn’t.
I’m actually feeling a bit shit at the moment, but I’m pretty sure it’s just because I haven’t been sleeping enough and just generally not taking particularly good care of myself because I’ve been so, so busy. Should be better now that school’s finished :)
Also my fish (and bio) teacher bought me chocolates and got the kids in my fish class (I’m the only year 12) to sign a card. Isn’t that sweet ;D (the chocolates are sweet too ;)) He’s been my teacher for 3 years and was my mentor (aka homeroom or whatever) for 2 years. We used to have these super interesting conversation about random biology stuff and environmental issues etc. Not so much this year given we’ve both been super busy, but I’m going to miss that. Also he’s the reason I love biology and fish. He said to keep in touch - and I want to, just not entirely sure how that’s going to work out.
Anyway that’s the end of this (accidentally long) update.
(Lol I thought it was the end)
My brain keeps trying to convince me that I should be stressed - which is super annoying because logically I know I don’t really need to be. I think part of the problem is that I haven’t done any proper practice exams for enviro or outdoor ed. Also I’m aware that most of the reason I’ve done so many math exams is because I feel comfortable doing them, whereas I’m not at all confident in my other subjects. I’ve really got to force myself to do it though - especially English. I look at a prompt and I just completely blank, like I can’t even figure out how to split it up into paragraphs lol.
But anyway, this is actually the end now. Cya <3
because this is long enough already
@all of you^
Thank you all so much <3
Your perspective is very much appreciated when I get stuck believing things that logically I know aren’t true ❤️❤️
Thank you all so much <3
Your perspective is very much appreciated when I get stuck believing things that logically I know aren’t true ❤️❤️
Post by: PhoenixxFire on October 18, 2018, 02:02:54 pm
Quote from: VCAA
Practical work is a central component of learning and assessment. As a guide, between 3.5 and 5 hours of class time should be devoted to student practical work and investigations for each of Areas if Study 1 and 2.We did 0. No joke, the only things we did in class was listen to our teacher talk, and occassionally write out answers to questions he’d give us. And there was the 2 lessons we did on the poster SAC. That’s it. This is actually sad.
Also apparently we were supposed to spend 7-10 hours on our AOS3 investigation. It was less than 3 hours (maybe five at the most if you count the SAC and time spent making the poster over the holidays). Excuse the ranting, I’m actually upset about this
Post by: PhoenixxFire on October 20, 2018, 02:17:36 pm
I'm actually terrified about English now. I seriously reckon I'm gonna walk in there and not be able to write anything :-\
'scuse me
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
My plan at the moment is to just memorise some quotes and some 'literary techniques'
Still don't really know what I'm doing at all. Legit scared that I'm going to fuck up badly enough in English that I'm not even going to get into my course. And, like if I get 42ish in further then I just have to get 20 in english lol. Like I said I'm doubting even that though. This is what I get for having avoided English as much as possible for the last 12 years though. kinda panicking and that's just making things worse.
Relevant meme
(https://scontent.fmel5-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/41922933_701173103564747_4654745977557614592_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&_nc_ht=scontent.fmel5-1.fna&oh=2a3ef02fc9a4c323183915cdb9972014&oe=5C3EE7B9)
EDIT: In other news I did the 2017 enviro exam and got 75% so that's okay. Kind of irrelevant though because I'd have to get about 40 in enviro to make it count in my top 4, which I really really doubt will happen. Also tried to do the 2017 outdoor ed exam and had no idea what I was doing. I reckon I can do okayish in that, but again irrelevant because even if I got 40 in outdoor ed it would scale down to a 34 which would make it my 5th or 6th subject lol.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on October 26, 2018, 02:04:07 pm
Don't know if it's because I actually cbf or if it's just because I'm stressed.
This just all seems so super pointless. Like, I'm supposed to waste this entire week studying for english and then never do another English essay again. So, like what's the point of studying? Like, obviously the whole actually-getting-into-uni thing, but it still just seems really pointless. There's so much other stuff I'd rather be doing and this is super boring. Also I'm still so screwed lol.
Not really worried about math or Eviro, very worried about english (obviously), and also about outdoor ed. Don't really know why I'm worrying about that, it scales down so much it's fairly inconsequential anyway.
I really doubt I'm actually going to be able to write 3 complete essays in 3 hours. Also really doubt they're going to have sufficient quotes/those-other-things-what-are-they-called-thematic-devices??
Meme again
(https://scontent.fmel5-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/44679897_394661231071507_5807484392003600384_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&_nc_ht=scontent.fmel5-1.fna&oh=13b36364ff342c53ea5053ecea030df7&oe=5C83A8ED)
Sorry everything in here's been really negative lately and I really hate it. Can't wait until exams are done, problem is if I do really bad in exams then I'm going to keep stressing about it until ATAR's are released. ugh.
Also another meme because I made it whilst procrastinating doing english work
(https://scontent.fmel5-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/44512395_1152621328245636_4185586109742317568_n.jpg?_nc_cat=103&_nc_ht=scontent.fmel5-1.fna&oh=74b8dda655af68069101e21819475491&oe=5C7E74F7)
Post by: Bri MT on October 26, 2018, 05:26:13 pm
This experience is also valuable to learn about your coping strategies and their effectiveness, how you process stess, your ability to get through this etc. The ATAR is an imperfect gauge used to see if you get in, but the experience of year 12 has a heck load more meaning in it than that.
Best of luck :)
Post by: PhoenixxFire on October 30, 2018, 06:11:44 pm
I remembered a few quotes, but I literally mean a few. And I definitely need to know more than that. That’s what I’ve been trying to do today. Do very quick plans of prompts and memorise quotes. Fun.
Kinda hating on myself for not having done all of this wayyy earlier, but I knew I should have and didnt anyway and it’s too late now 🤷♀️
So yeah, I’m screwed.
Really doubt I’m going to be able to finish all the essays tomorrow given I couldn’t yesterday and I doubt my writing skillz are going to be above primary school level so yay 🙃
At least it’ll be done though.
Post by: headsup on October 30, 2018, 06:22:29 pm
I actually did the 2017 English exam yesterday. I didn’t finish it in 3 hours though :'( I only got through section C, one and a half paragraphs of section B, and two paragraphs of section A...Great job!!! Any little bit helps...
I remembered a few quotes, but I literally mean a few. And I definitely need to know more than that. That’s what I’ve been trying to do today. Do very quick plans of prompts and memorise quotes. Fun.
Kinda hating on myself for not having done all of this wayyy earlier, but I knew I should have and didnt anyway and it’s too late now 🤷♀️
So yeah, I’m screwed.
Really doubt I’m going to be able to finish all the essays tomorrow given I couldn’t yesterday and I doubt my writing skillz are going to be above primary school level so yay 🙃
At least it’ll be done though.until I start worrying about my SS and ATAR
I found flashcards great for remembering quotes and also essay plans. With the plans try not to use your quote tables unless you have to.... i'm sure you will be fine!!
Its never too late... I hated myself at the time too as i left it so late and didn't even complete a full paper practice before the exams but still managed to finish all my essays (not to the best standard but still).... just try to stick to your timing and leave it... if you haven't got a conclusion or finished the last paragraph by the time that the section time is up just move on.... mostly your mark with be decided by this point... if you have time at the end good and well you can go back...
At least it will be done!! it is not the be all and end all..
all the very best.... thinking of ya all!
Post by: PhoenixxFire on October 31, 2018, 01:13:26 pm
I finished section C, did 2.5 paragraphs and a conclusion (I got a bit stuck) for Section A. I screwed up Section B though, which I wasn’t expecting. I picked the wrong prompt, but I’d already wasted too much time so I just had to go with it :(
I only wrote 2 paragraphs for it, and there wasn’t anywhere near enough actual comparison :'(
I remembered more quotes than I thought I would though! I think I included an okay number. It wasn’t great by any means, but I think it was okay. Very primary school level writing haha
Really happy it’s done now though, it was so long I really struggled with concentrating in it. Also writing 3 essays in a row was hard, even without the time pressure.
Post by: headsup on October 31, 2018, 05:23:24 pm
Congrats on finishing the first paper. Best of luck with the remaining ones...
Post by: PhoenixxFire on November 02, 2018, 10:38:09 am
Further is pretty easy, but I'm worried that I'm going to make stupid mistakes. Like, if it's a tricky question and I get it wrong, then I'm okay with that. But if I do something dumb like forget to change the annual interest rate into the monthly rate or something then I'll be really annoyed at myself.
I'm going to put a really big asterisk next to any even slightly complicated question so I know which ones to come back and double check.
Currently I'm just going through all of the practice exams I've done and redoing the questions I screwed up. I have the answers in front of me because there's no point printing off a new copy, but I still think it's useful to go through the motions of actually working the questions out. Also I'm eating chocolate cake, because why not
Oh and I dreamt about AN last night :o It wasn't even a particularly interesting dream though
Post by: PhoenixxFire on November 02, 2018, 04:01:04 pm
I wasted far too much time double checking the super easy questions at the start to make sure I didn’t make any stupid mistakes and then I had to rush through the harder questions at the end. I’d only lost 1-2 marks in all the practice exams but I reckon I lost at least 4/5 in that. Fuck I’m so mad at myself. I really should have known better than that, but I was so paranoid about making silly mistakes that I managed to fuck it up worse :'(
Post by: Bri MT on November 02, 2018, 04:07:53 pm
Fuck. I’m so angry at myself. I did all my practice exams in an hour easily so like a complete noob I figured i’d do it slower to make sure I got everything right. And of course I did it too slow and I basically guessed the last question and I’m 110% sure I fucked it up.:'(
I wasted far too much time double checking the super easy questions at the start to make sure I didn’t make any stupid mistakes and then I had to rush through the harder questions at the end. I’d only lost 1-2 marks in all the practice exams but I reckon I lost at least 4/5 in that. Fuck I’m so mad at myself. I really should have known better than that, but I was so paranoid about making silly mistakes that I managed to fuck it up worse :'(
Remember that because of your state of mind rn it's very difficult to assess how many exactly you probably got wrong and since you're stressed and disappointed your mind is more likely to believe things that are more pessimistic than reality. It's completely understandable to feel a whole bunch of emotions right now, but I hope that you feel better soonish and, less importantly, that this helps you for exam 2.
<3
Post by: PhoenixxFire on November 02, 2018, 06:32:58 pm
:'(You’re right as always mt <3
Remember that because of your state of mind rn it's very difficult to assess how many exactly you probably got wrong and since you're stressed and disappointed your mind is more likely to believe things that are more pessimistic than reality. It's completely understandable to feel a whole bunch of emotions right now, but I hope that you feel better soonish and, less importantly, that this helps you for exam 2.
<3
From the answers people are posting I’m pretty sure I just got Q8 of both the modules wrong. They were both a complete guess so that was entirely expected. It’s better than I thought, but I’m still so annoyed :'( Especially the networks one because I almost guessed the correct answer. I would have been able to get both of those if I’d had time. They weren’t overly complicated, and I can’t change it now but damn it’s frustrating :'( :'(
Gonna have to work on my timing before exam 2 lol.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on November 05, 2018, 02:09:39 pm
Fuck I’m still so pissed about that. Ugh whyyyyyyyyyyyy
My guess is I’ll get around a 43-45 for further, assuming this exam went as well as I think it did.
I don’t know what rank I am, I did pretty badly in the first sac, but afaik almost everyone did just as badly (except a few people who did well). The rest of my SACs were all in the 90s, and I know I was wayyyy above my class for them. Like, I don’t know what the average was exactly, but my teacher just chucked our SACs on the table and said to grab ours so I know I saw heaps of marks that’s were 60-70% or even lower, and I didn’t see any that were close to mine. But then I don’t know about the other classes.
So yeah, no cohort to rely on to help with my scores (no one at my school got 40+ for further last year), so I’m kind of worried about how my SACs are going to scale. But other than that this exam was pretty good (I think).
I’m actually sort of more annoyed about how much I fkd exam 1 now though, I could have actually done really well in further if I hadn’t fkd it up :'( :'( :'(
(But then doing badly in this exam would have been just as bad so doing well shouldn’t really make doing bad in exam 1 worse...if that makes any sense).
tl;dr because this got rambly and incoherent:
-that exam was pretty good
-I’m still majorly frustrated that I fkd exam 1.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on November 10, 2018, 02:44:36 pm
I feel a bit like I'm stuck in limbo at the moment. I can't relax because of exams and all, but I also can't cram because that's just going to make me panic and then I'll end up doing worse.
I keep flipping between wanting to actually try and do as well as I can in outdoor ed and enviro, and not caring because (unless I've seriously misjudged something haha) I can get away with doing fuck all for the next week and still get into my course. Also I keep beating myself up about all the time I could have tried harder throughout the year. And I kind of wish I had tried harder. But despite how much I keep telling myself I should have done more or studied harder, I also keep thinking about how much worse that would have made this year. I mean, I haven't particularly enjoyed this year - especially school-wise - it's been really, really boring. In terms of the stuff I've been learning in my VCE classes, very little of it has actually interested me. It's been the stuff outside of VCE that's actually kept me fairly entertained, and mostly sane, this year.
Whilst I'm studying haha 'studying' nice joke PF at the library, I keep looking at all the books around me. All the interesting things that I could be learning about (there's this book called 'she has her mother's laugh' by Carl Zimmer and it is seriously taunting me - don't even know if it's any good but damn I want to read it haha). But instead I'm stuck there trying to cram all of this useless information in my head. Do you know what the difference between recreation and conservation interactions is? Recreational users will modify an environment to make their activity more enjoyable, Conservationists will protect the environment as it is. Yippey, so interesting. Now don't get me wrong - the way that people's perceptions of an environment influencing the actions that they would be willing to take to protect the environment, and how that relates to the best ways of convincing people to take conservation actions is interesting. But the crap we have to memorise is not interesting, I'd much rather just learn about it, not learn the best way to explain it in an exam.
It was really different with biology, I never really had any problems with being able to write things clearly, so I never had to worry about how to write things and instead I could just learn things. And that was interesting. But now I'm so, so bored. Which is why I keep convincing myself that it doesn't really matter, and that I can take breaks and do other things that are more interesting. But then I'm all like, 'but it's only one more week...I should just keep trying' and then I do for a bit, and then I get really bored, or really frustrated (yeah VCAA I'd guessed that when you ask for 4 examples I'm going to get a mark for each, if you could potentially give me some suggested answers in your examiners report that would be fantastic) and then I give up again.
My outdoor ed exam is on Monday and I haven't actually done any proper practice exams for it. Part of that is because I can't mark them - almost our entire study design has to relate to a specific environment or to a specific issues out of several options, which makes it incredibly hard to mark, even on the rare occasion when VCAA feels like putting answers in their examiners report (the 2016 report is brilliant, every other year is rather lacking), it's still unlikely that the environments will be the same as the one I use. The study design is also incredibly short though (4-5 dot points for each area of study lol), so I've just been going through all the past years exams and trying to find suggested answers for the very limited range of questions that they can ask, the hard part is finding answers that work for the environments I'm using - but I have been having some success.
I'm kind of (actually a lot, but I don't like talking in absolutes) dissapointed in how little study I've done this week. I've never really cared much for English, stressed a lot but not cared much, and I found math really easy to study for. But outdoor Ed is screwing with me (I think Enviro will be boring but at least fairly straightforward). I'm also kind of mad at myself for being dissapointed that I haven't been studying constantly. It's so silly to be beating myself up about something that's only going to matter for a few weeks. But here I am doing it anyway.
Also I know that everyone IRL is going to ask what I got - hell even people I work with who I barely know asked last year - and everyone is going to have their own opinions and fuck I don't want to deal with that. They're either going to try and convince me that I've done well, even if I don't think I have, or they're going to say it's good but I'll know they don't actually think that. Some of my teacher's have basically already said that I could have done better - not in so many words, but they've said that I should have studied more, or that if I'd tried harder I'd be rank 1, and fuck I KNOW that. I know I could have. But why on Earth does it matter so much to them? Why do they have to keep telling me that? I almost wrote that I decided not to so that I could do other things (like all the camps I've gone on etc.), but that's not really true. I reckon I could have still done all that and still done better academically than I have this year. Really, I decided (although it wasn't really a conscious decision) that it wasn't worth the extra stress. Sure I could have gotten a 95+ ATAR, but why?? what would be the point of that? What would be the point of trying so damn hard and worrying and being stressed when there's no point to it. and to think that I almost got through this post without any severe ranting.
Sure it would have proved that I'm capable of that, but so what? Instead I've proven to myself that I can choose not to be perfect. Sure there were plenty of times when I wanted to get 100%, and sure I hoped that I could do that without putting in any work (lol), but ultimately I chose not to put that work in, and I knew what that meant, I knew that I wouldn't do super well in any of my subjects (although I'm still really mad about math because I almost managed to do really well in that despite having done absolutely no math work outside of class time until September - I did a little in private study at school, but none after school). Trying to be the best is always something I've done. And it's always been futile. Rather than focusing on where I could be, and trying desperately to get there, I should be focusing on doing the best I can where I am now. I don't really know how to describe it better than that. It's sort of an attitude thing. Everything around me kind of just fades away when I'm focusing on something else and I'm trying not to do that. I'm trying to focus on what's around me instead, especially on the people around me. That's not to say that I can't also have a goal, it just shouldn't be my only focus, which is something that I often end up making it.
And that kind of sounds philosophical, but really I just realised that as I wrote it. It's still true though, I just haven't quite convinced myself yet.
'grats if you actually managed to read all that. I think that's more than I wrote the entire year for English. One more thing I want to say though (bare with me lol)
You're all really fucking great. Seriously. I tend to get caught up in all the crap that goes on in the world. I just see everyone hating each other, and hurting each other, and it's also so damn pointless and horrible. But then there's AN, just this little sanctuary on the internet where people are so damn nice and wholesome and I love you all so much <3 Every time I see all this crap, and start thinking that there's no hope for humanity and that we're all doomed, I just have to remember that you're all here, and you all give me hope
Post by: Joseph41 on November 12, 2018, 05:07:53 pm
Post by: PhoenixxFire on November 13, 2018, 12:46:42 pm
My lack of motivation for anything is really annoying me. But I kind of just want to go back to sleep and forget that the real world exists for a few weeks.
I know I haven’t been sleeping enough, and hay fever is making it a bit hard to breathe properly, which is incredibly annoying. So I’m sure that’s part of the reason why I’m stresssed about everything. Even work is stressful and I’ve been working there for 3 years, you’d think I’d just about be able to do that in my sleep by now. These exams are fucking me up pretty good.
But anyway, outdoor ed: I’m pretty sure I wrote more in that than I did in my English exam. It was a 2 hour exam but my hand hurt more than it did after English lol. There was only one question on relationships. There’s this thing on the study design; indigenous and European relationships with the environment, and then also how relationships are affected by a bunch of different things including arrival of Europeans, increasing population, industrialisation, nation building. The only question on that was Q1 which was only worth 3 marks.
Our 10mark question at the end was weird. It asked us to select an environmental movement, but the options were Environmental conflicts not movements. In past exams the options would be things like The wildernesss society, Greenpeace, Gould league, etc. instead the options were Lake Pedder, Little desert, Franklin river, which was weird. They’re different parts of the study design and the question was worded really weirdly. I did the franklin river and talked about the wilderness society (because we also had to talk about the movement). Was very weird that they didn’t call them conflicts at all, just kept calling them movements which is not what the study design calls it. I didn’t get anywhere near full marks for that, but given somewhere between 10-15% of the state normally get 0 marks, I don’t think I did too badly.
I’m trying to do some past Enviro exams at the moment. But I’ve just kinda been staring at the page and reading it and then forgetting what I read. So that’s *fun.*
I’m so damn tired. And I know it’s just because of the exams, but it’s making everything seem stressful, even though everything else shouldn’t be stressful. and that was a very grammatically incorrect sentence. I think. I dunno and so I keep avoiding doing things, but then I keep thinking about having to do them and that’s just more stressful so I should just do them. But I’m probably not going to lol
Also now im starting to worry about next year. Which I was trying to avoid until after exams at least. So many questions. The first being if I’m going to transfer to a woolies store in Canberra or quit and try and find a new job. Which is probably a stupid idea because I imagine it’s hard. Hopefully I’ll actaully manage to get a job with set shifts. It’s really annoying having them change every week. Makes it very hard to plan anything. And see this is what I mean. Why tf am I worrying about this already lol.
And now I’ve been at the library for 2 hours and have done about half an hour of actual studying. Damnit.
I did intend for this to be a short post 🤷♀️🤦♀️
Post by: Bri MT on November 13, 2018, 01:07:31 pm
The outdoor ed exam sounds weird, but I'm glad that even with the curveballs you managed to adapt and get something down.
Imo you should think about whether doing practice exams right now is the best use of your time. Only you can decide if taking a break will help you get your headspace better or if you'll just feel more guilty afterwards but I strongly recommend thinking (& coming to a quick decision) about it.
Hope you feel better soon - not long left now :)
Post by: PhoenixxFire on November 16, 2018, 05:58:34 pm
Did you guess it?
I’M DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
‘Scuse the excitement, I’m excited ;D
There are literally birds chirping. Very beautiful weather as well, definitely a good day to have my last exam.
I’m actually really happy. I’m was worried that I’d be upset about how much more study I could have done, but I’m not. Let’s hope this lasts hahaha. I know I’m going to be really worried in the few days before ATAR release, but hopefully I can avoid worrying about it until then.
Ya know how I said that exams stressing me out was making me worry about everything else? I was right, I’m not really worried about everything else anymore lol. That is generally how things go for me, and I’m getting way better at recognising that it’s just one thing stressing me out rather than everything so yay for that!
So, the actual exam:
-I almost ran out of time. I’ve always hated skipping parts of the exam and coming back to them but I did it this time. Enviro is mostly 2/3 mark questions but it also has a few longer ones, I initially skipped the 6marker because I knew I could do a better job if I had time to plan it first, but I didn’t want to risk running out of time.
I got very worried that I was actually going to run out of time and not be able to finish it, but I did end up finishing it. There were a few points that I left to last, and I ended up completely guessing about 4marks, but I only had 5 min left and it was better than writing nothing.
-The exam was pretty much exactly what I expected. It actually seemed fairly easy and straightforward, but there were definitely a few things I got wrong due to lack of study.
There wasn’t anything entirely unexpected though, which is something I was worried about. Quite a lot of it I’d seen in almost identical form on past exams.
I’m hoping I can scrape a 40 in Enviro, but I’m not confident about that at all. Especially given I know that I’m not rank 1 for unit 3, I don’t know if I’m rank 1 for unit 4.
It’s literally just me and one other kid in my class who actually care about results at all - she’s the same person who was rank 1 for U3 bio and rank 2 for U4 last year.
Also, I’m really hungry. Who thought an exam finishing at 5:15pm was a good idea?? (+an hour to get home...::))
Anyways, the tl;dr version is I’m done with high school forever and I’m very excited ;D ;D
Now I’ve really got to finish watching season 3 of lucifer. My brothers are mocking me because I’ve watched half the season in a month and they watched all three seasons in under a week (after I told them about it of course haha).
I’m probably going to keep posting in here, until offers probably, then I’ll end this. But I doubt it’ll be anywhere near as frequent now I’m done!!! (I’m so excited!! and hungry)
Post by: Joseph41 on November 16, 2018, 06:01:47 pm
Post by: Poet on November 16, 2018, 06:54:50 pm
‘Scuse the excitement, I’m excited ;DYEESSSS PHOENIX YEEESSSS SO HAPPY FOR YOOUUUUU ;D ;D ;D
Post by: PhoenixxFire on November 28, 2018, 05:30:46 pm
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/czqkuKQ.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/gTsJKQc.jpg)
Haven't really been doing much, I still haven't even managed to finish cleaning my room
(I started though!) Still haven't finished watching season 3 of Lucifer either lol (1 episode left, I should watch it now haha)I don't think I could actually tell you what I've been doing since exams finished - a whole lot of nothing haha - (pretty sure I spent a couple of hours yesterday patting my puppies). But that's okay, I was so sick of studying that I couldn't even bring myself to read a book because I had to focus too much haha
Not really sure what I'm going to do with the rest of my holidays, I suppose it depends how bored I get - I'm not really that bored at the moment although I expected to be, I suppose I'm just finally enjoying not having school -- I've been doing VCE for 4 years after all, it's been a long time since I didn't have homework to worry about.
I actually had a nightmare that I had completely screwed up all my exams a few days ago - pretty sure it was because that was the night I burned all my exams, so I was thinking about school. Took me ages after waking up to remember that school was finished though
I'm not really sure what the point of this update was
Post by: PhoenixxFire on December 07, 2018, 12:06:12 pm
This post even gets a soundtrack
I need a hobby. Okay so maybe that's not how I should start this. I'm finally starting to worry about results, which sucks. I don't think I'm actually worried about what ATAR I'll get though. I mean, maybe I am, I don't know. But I don't think I am. I think I'm more worried that it'll make this real. That it'll somehow legitimise how I think this year has gone.
-- I'm sorry this entire post is probably going to be as incoherent as the bit above --
So anyway, I'm not really sure what the point of actually posting this is - but I suppose I just want to keep a record of it. I'm actually not really sure how to write what I want to say #WhyI'mFailingEnglish but I'm gonna try anyway.
Right, so anyway. Legitimising how I think this year has gone. Yeah. So...badly? I suppose. I mean, throughout the year I wasn't trying particularly hard - I'm sure I've said that before. And like, throughout the year I didn't particularly care about that - I knew I wasn't trying very hard, but I also knew that it didn't really matter because I didn't need a high ATAR. I don't need a high ATAR. But also, I don't really know what I've done with this year? Like, if I didn't try particularly hard in school, then what did I do? And I think that's partly because of what I see of people around me. People either do well in school or they don't. But when they don't it's normally justified. They did something else. They didn't do well in school because they were doing something else. Or they didn't do well but it doesn't matter because of something else.
And I don't know what I've been doing. And it's weird. Because throughout the year it felt like I was doing something. But now I can't seem to remember what that was. And, like, my memory sucks so that's probably part of it haha. It feels weird. And confusing.
I'm so used to being tested by tests. I was thinking yesterday, and I was almost...looking forward to doing tests in uni?? And I think that's mostly because I'm still judging myself based on results. And that sucks.
So anyway I should probably get back to what I was talking about and stop rambling. Results. Those horrible things.
So, I don't think I'm going to be surprised by my results. I'm fairly sure I'll get something between 85 and 90, probably closer to the 85 end. (nek minnit I get below 85 lol)Whoops now I'm actually worried about that
I think it's partly related to things other people have said. But it's also not, because I shouldn't still be worrying about that, and they certainly didn't intend it like that. But here we are. I hate that I'm still worrying about what other people think, and other people's expectations. But I also don't really know how to stop myself from doing that.
I don't really know what to do with myself now. I kinda feel like I'm just wasting my time, kinda just floating along until results get here (but I also don't know what I'm going to do after that). I want to do something. I just don't know what. I feel like I should be working towards something. Now that schools finished I don't really have anything to work towards though. I'm just...existing until the next thing comes along. I suppose there are things I could be doing. I did intend to volunteer somewhere over the holidays. But I haven't. (If I'm being honest, a big part of that is because that would involve talking to people and being social lol.)
I really don't like not having anything to be working on. But I also don't think it's a good idea to always be working on something, gotta be able to relax sometime. I just don't really know how to do that. I don't even really know what I enjoy doing, it's been a long time since I've been able to just have fun.
I used to like sport - specifically swimming. Part of the reason I used to swim a lot was because I've always been forced to. But I do really like being in the water. Maybe I should go scuba diving again - it's so much fun. There's a few problems with that though. a. It's expensive. b. It involves other people. c. I don't know anyone who would go with me so d. It involves strangers. and e. It would involve convincing my mum to drive me to wherever we're diving from.
So maybe I won't be going scuba diving lol.
What else did I used to like? I used to read a lot, like a lot. Reading feels a bit tedious at the moment though - I still love reading, I'm just not sure I can sit still for more than a couple of hours at a time.
I don't know what else I used to like doing. Cooking? I was thinking that I should make a giant gingerbread house. There's a few problems with that though. a. It would have to be when my siblings aren't around because b. they would get in my way and spend the whole time being annoying/laughing at me/telling me it's a waste of time etc. c. They'd try and steal all the lollies and gingerbread to eat it. and d. I'd probably mess it up and break the whole thing anyway lol
So yeah, I need a hobby. I really don't like doing nothing but I also don't know what to do with my time. And the 14th is gonna suck.
(lol I thought I was done but more rambling)
I actually dunno what I'm going to do that morning. Last year my mother dearest gave me all of 5 min to myself before she came running into my room asking what I got. good thing she's (hopefully) not reading this anymore lol It's actually kind of annoying that I've been so open about my results so far because everyone's going to expect the same from me this year lol.
I also reckon I'm gonna get an award from my school. I didn't fill in any of my graduation forms and one of them was the rsvp form for the awards morning. It's fairly likely that I'll get the subject award for math - over the last few years only 2 people got over 40 and they were 41/42 so unless there's a big change this year I'll probably get the best score at my school. I might also have a decent chance at getting dux, but I'm a lot more sceptical about that - dux at my school is generally around 90, but I'm pretty sure I know who'll get it this year, and it won't be me. But anyway that's not the point. I actually don't want any of those awards, hence the not filling in the form thing. I don't think I deserve them - there's so many people who've tried harder than I have this year regardless of whether their results reflect that. But the point of this paragraph is back to the whole expectations thingTM If I get an award then people are going to expect me to go, and I don't want to.
I also think I'm massively overthinking everything lol. But oh well, writing it out helped anyway, even though none of this is actually at all realistic and I'm just worrying over nothing haha. Gotta stop doing that too. I need a hobby. Maybe I should attempt to learn how to play piano again.
Post by: Bri MT on December 07, 2018, 01:34:30 pm
In my experience, there are many many people who by their own perception "wasted" year 12. From my perception, you've spent a lot of time on your subjects through direct studying, contributing on AN, practice etc. I see high ATARs as keys that unlock choices - so from that perspective it makes sense that you decided to not expend even more time and resources to access choices you're very confident you don't want to make. Ultimately it's down to your perception, but please keep in mind that the importance of the ATAR to you will probably significantly decrease next year. Super high ATARs are very visible which can trick us into thinking that they should be the benchmark against we measure ourselves, but whatever rank you get won't change the innate qualities that make you exceedingly valuable.
I feel like I should be able to give you good advice about the people expectations stuff, but the only things I can think of that helped me are: a) recognising that it's not the expectations of others hurting you, but your perceptions and assumptions related to that b) practicing reframing c) time.
I'd do SCUBA too but same. Maybe you could do just swimming? in the meantime I'd be happy to go on some ptv accesible hikes if you'd be interested. Another option is to look into volunteering for a cause you're passionate about.
I thought there'd be a whole bunch of pressure on me on ATAR day to reveal my results but generally people were very wrapped up in their own results rather than badgering me for mine :P Whether or not the same thing happens for you, know that we don't need to know your scores to know how much we value your role here. There's nothing wrong with asking for time to process on your own.There's nothing wrong with not displaying your scores in your signature or your posts either.
I'm glad you were able to help yourself by writing things out :)
As always, best of luck
Post by: PhoenixxFire on December 14, 2018, 06:40:55 pm
Kinda feeling a bit lost atm - but that was expected. It's done now, and there's just 'life' in front of me and that's scary.
Anyways, results.
I actually woke up at 6 this morning - I'd set my alarms (plural because I'm good at sleeping through them) for 6:30 but I woke up at 6 anyway and then couldn't get back to sleep because my family was being noisy.
Didn't exactly go as planned - finally dragged myself out of bed at about 6:40 and attempted to turn my laptop on. I say attempted because my laptop kinda just runs on its own schedule lol. So as I'm trying to get it to turn on my phone buzzes - an email from vass. Of course I knew straight away what it was, I wasn't expecting it though - I don't remember getting one last year? So whilst still trying to get my laptop to turn on, I opened my emails. I swear I could feel my heart beating in my chest haha. I saw English first - just above my prediction so that was great ;D then I saw outdoor ed and got a bit distracted and had to remind myself that it didn't really matter because scaling. Then I saw enviro and was like 'wtf'. I had to triple check that one. Math was a bit disappointing but not too surprising. Tried to get on to see my ATAR on the app but it wasn't on there yet. It was a tense wait until I got my ATAR (and I entered my password incorrectly the first time). From my study scores I was thinking that I had a good shot at high 80's - didn't even consider that I would get 90 lol. I spent most of last night convincing myself that I had no chance lol ::)
SO yeah, I'm incredibly relieved that I got 90. It kind of feels like I don't have to worry about results anymore - It's good enough that I'm not worried about having to avoid questions or whatever.
Results
(https://i.imgur.com/3vuQp54.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/hk0RWcq.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/hTo0tPK.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/hk0RWcq.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/hTo0tPK.png)
I think there was other things I was going to write in here but I keep getting distracted - I'm probably going to make another post on here at some point when I figure out what it is exactly that I want to say maybe I'll just post memes lol
I've got so many tabs open at the moment haha, I've been writing this for an hour now
and I've completely forgotten what I was saying.Results: So yeah, bit disappointed with math - I was truly expecting a 46, I must have done worse in exam 2 than I thought, or I wasn't rank 1. Bit confused about outdoor Ed, I was expecting better than that. But then I really didn't have any sort of guide to go off given I hadn't done any full practice exams (and couldn't have marked them if I had) and I never got any feedback on any of my SACs (ngl, I'm still angry about that). SO yeah, bit disappointed with those two. Really happy with Enviro though - I wasn't expecting that. At my parent/teacher interviews at the start of term 3 my teacher said that if I kept trying I might be able to get a score in the low 30's - Even at the time I knew he had no idea what he was talking about, I was pretty confident that I was going to get at least mid 30s. But yeah, super happy with 43 In your face [teacher], he's actually not teaching the subject next year. I guess enough of us complained. I just wish they'd believed us/cared earlier Edit: That B for GA1 is just sad though
I think outdoor ed is the most disappointing of them, it had the least effect on my ATAR (thanks scaling) but I was hoping to do better.
Will probably just leave this update to results and post again sometime with everything else I want to say because it's now been 2 hours since I started writing this and I'm still getting distracted lol.
tl;dr
- Very happy I got 90
- Kinda disappointed with Outdoor Ed and math
- Now I have to do this life thing and that's scary.
Post by: PhoenixxFire on December 18, 2018, 11:51:13 am
I'm just really conflicted at the moment, I don't quite know how to feel.
I kinda feel bad for some people at my school - people who tried way, way harder than me, and yet I somehow got higher scores than them. It sucks.
Also just frustrated at my school, and education in general. Surely when an entire class is averaging below 50% on SACs for the entire year you'd realise that you need to be doing something differently? - I know our school average for at least 2 of the english SACs was below 50%, my class was below 50% for every SAC. And I'm sure a lot of that is due to people not particularly caring and/or not needing good scores, but that's still ridiculous.
I've been thinking about this year, I should probably stop doing that and just move on from it. But it's so frustrating. I can't help but wonder how different things would be if I'd gone to a different school - Don't get me wrong, I absolutely did not want to go to a different school and I do not regret moving schools whatsoever, but it's not so much about going to a different school as it is having teachers that bother to challenge students. I got very lucky with my psych and bio teachers, they both actually cared and tried to help us do well - very different to my teachers this year. Anyone who's read some of my older posts in here will know how much I've complained about my Enviro and Outdoor Ed teachers in particular. My Enviro and English classes felt a lot like babysitting. It felt like we were just being taught because that's what we had to do. Outdoor Ed was certainly better in that regard however he consistently promised us more feedback, more resources, time to go over our SACs, etc. and we never got any of that, despite us reminding him.
Some of the SACs we were given were changed last minute to a different format, some were horribly inadequate (e.g. lacking marking guidelines, had the same questions multiple times), it's just so frustrating.
I really don't want to keep complaining about my teachers though, because that's really pointless. But damn I wish my school did a better job of getting VCE teachers - they do great with electives etc. but not very well at VCE.
I'm actually still disappointed with myself about math. I think a lot of the reason for that is because it's probably the subject I tried hardest in - not the subject I spent the longest on, that award goes to Enviro, but it's the only one that I actually put effort into, and wanted to do well in, and I really hate that I fucked it up. Also fkn Outdoor Ed. I still don't know how I managed to screw that up so badly :(
The guy I thought would get it duxed my school! I think he might've actually set a new record for highest ATAR ever as well (assuming my guesses at his SS for the subjects he got below 40 in are somewhat accurate). He's the same guy who got 50 in further, and I'm kinda salty about that lol. I got the second highest score for further (assuming everyone signed the consent form), we had quite a few 40+'s for further though. I got the highest in Enviro - I feel so bad for the only other kid in my class who actually tried though. If my GA1 grade is anything to go by, she didn't do anywhere near as good as she was trying to :( Also no one got 40+ in English lol. Normally there'a at least someone. And no one got 40+ in outdoor Ed, to the surprise of absolutely no one, but it still sucks.
I've got to go to work (it's so ridiculously busy with it being Christmas time, and I'm working so much) so that's enough complaining for now :-\ Going to make a point of having something positive to write about in my next post. I don't know what it'll be, but I'll come up with something :)
Also, I've written disappointed enough lately that I finally know how to spell it, and that sucks.
Post by: vceme on December 18, 2018, 12:52:59 pm
I've seen you around the forums even back in the 2017 biology days! (I did bio in 2017 too- You truly, really know your stuff). I just wanted to say congratulations for getting a score above 90! You do truly deserved it, regardless if you feel like you don't deserve it. Perhaps, with all the hours you put in helping others on this forum, it helped you as well? ;) I get how you are feeling about your peers getting lower scores than you. I knew quite a few people who worked so hard! and didn't get the scores that reflected their tremendous efforts. This is probably an (unfortunate) example of working smarter and not harder. The way i've seen is that those people who tried really hard to reach their goals are gonna do really well in their prospective careers!
I feel you in this one. I really wanted Further Maths to be my top score because I had so much encouragement from my peers and my teacher. I ended up stuffing my exam and getting like 8 points lower than my dream study score lmao.
I'm actually still disappointed with myself about math.
But really, the point of this reply back :P was to congratulate you! You should be extremely proud of the efforts you gave into your subjects, even if they did not seem as much as your peers. You should also be really proud for helping so many others out (including myself). You're going to be one of the good ones in this world :P I hope you have a happy holiday! and survive the Christmas rush next week.
Post by: sarangiya on December 19, 2018, 04:45:52 pm
I kinda feel bad for some people at my school - people who tried way, way harder than me, and yet I somehow got higher scores than them. It sucks.This is relatable and yeah, it really sucks. I sat next to my friend all year in chemistry. She worked at least 10 times harder than me, and we helped each other out all the time. In the end we got the same score for chemistry. As cool as that was (lol), I kind of felt that she should have gotten higher than me.
Don't worry though - in the end, it's just a number. I only hope that my friends got scores high enough for them to get into the course they want. Even if we feel a little guilty, let's be happy for their achievement and hope for the best for them :)
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Also, I've written disappointed enough lately that I finally know how to spell it, and that sucks.I had a laugh at that (sorry!) lol
Congratulations on your fantastic scores! I can feel and understand your disappointment, but you've honestly achieved so much and should be proud. I hope once all the hype is over and you're fully contented in the course or place of your dreams, you can see that and pat yourself on the back. :)
Looking forward to your next post! :)
Post by: PhoenixxFire on January 01, 2019, 05:36:30 pm
So, this is going to be the last update here, I don't really know what to write, but I'm sure I'll figure it out as I go :)
One last school related thing - I got the subject awards for both Enviro and for outdoor Ed. Was expecting Enviro, but getting Outdoor Ed sucks. I know that someone last year got 37 and they repeated the subject this year - they didn't repeat it just to get a higher score (they did it for the camps lol), but presumably they still wanted a higher score. So yeah, that really sucks :(
But enough about school - I've barely even thought about school over the last couple of weeks, been much too busy working and trying to figure out this uni and adulting thing.
I haven't really been able to do anything for uni because they haven't sent me the email with the password (apparently they know that some people didn't get it) but I can't call them to get it all sorted out until Jan 2. Accommodation is also a bit annoying because I haven't gotten an accommodation offer yet (they're being sent out throughout January). Problem being that I'm doing the chem bridging course which starts Feb 6 and I don't think I'll be able to move into the accommodation until after that, which means organising temporary accommodation, but I can't really do that until I know when I can move in there...you see the problem haha.
Also got to figure out what to do for work - can probably just transfer to another store, but I don't know how to do that, and tbh I don't really know if I want to. I probably will though, for now at least. I have nothing against working at woolies, it's a decent job and I like the people I work with etc. But it's also kinda boring (don't know what I'd do instead though). Have got to talk to my manager and get everything organised and stuff soon, he knows I'm leaving but he doesn't know exactly when. We don't work at the same time much though which makes it hard, I'll probably just end up texting him or something lol.
Despite all of that though, I'm actually really excited. Being at home so much has just reminded me why I'm so eager to move out. Also uni in general will (hopefully) be more fun than high school. Going to miss all my pets though :'( I'm going to have to figure out where the nearest dog park is and go hang out there lol. Or volunteer at an animal shelter or something.
Speaking of pets - my family got me a mug with a photo of my dogs on it, and a calendar with photos of my pets on each month 😍😍😍 and my brother got me a frypan - which is a bit of a joke because my mum wants to throw out the old frypan I'd been using, but damn I hadn't realised how bad the old one was until I started using the new one hahaha
I finally went and got my ID verified so I can claim youth allowance and got my own medicare card and all that fun stuff. I’ve got to buy a new computer – I don’t know which one to get (why are there so many??). But I guess I’ll try and figure that out tonight, and then tomorrow I can sort out all the paperwork for centrelink, and call uni and hopefully get that sorted so I can actually enrol and all that fun stuff.
I’ve got 4 days off work in a row soon, so I’m probably going to go down to Tasmania for a bit. Will probably camp in Wellington Park simply because there’s a public bus that goes there lol. Just need to get out of here and away from people for a bit and actually have a break :) (Just gotta hope it doesn’t rain too much and my roster doesn’t change before then).
I did promise you all something positive, so accept these photos of pretty birdos. I actually took my littlest (he’s not actually that little but whatever) brother with me to take those. He got a camera for Christmas, so of course it had to be tested – my photos are better than his ;). Was fun spending time with him though, it feels like I’ve barely seen my family most of the year.
Thanks for all of your support over the year y'all <3
Oh I laughed at it too when I realised that I could finally spell it!QuoteAlso, I've written disappointed enough lately that I finally know how to spell it, and that sucks.I had a laugh at that (sorry!) lol