Living from bubble tea to bubble tea - Gracie's HSC Journey

[Pearlmilktea]

Hello it's me again. I'm currently sitting in the library frying my brain with Biology Module 8 and 5 content *sad reacts only*.

This is my first time going to a public library after school. Usually I just go to the school library to study but I've realised I'm x874390 less likely to get distracted here because I've realised that due to my extroverted personality, I can make a distraction out of anything.

And yes, you may say - really Gracie, isn't that a slight exaggeration? No, literally I'm so productive in the socialising department that I can leave my locker to go to the school library and a 2 minute sometimes even 1 minute trip (power walking with my head down to avoid distraction) turns into a 30 minute trip. But hey, my social media friend list is popping because of my excessive socialising XD

Besides, school is in mid epidemic at the moment. People are dropping like flies due to year 12 illnesses so instead of looking for formal dresses like my friends, I'm browsing hand sanitizers. I pride myself on finding one that was only $2 and smells like sprite a minute after you put it on. It really sparks joy in my life.

I have a couple of assessments coming up. The most dreaded is French Extension because we need to critique society in français. Some of our themes are 'social class', 'rich vs poor' and 'stereotypes'. Better start writing my practice essays and monologues ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hope all is good for you all. I feel my in denial about the amount of work I have means that I'm always in a good mood. I actually love year 12 despite the amount of study that's required

[mango8]

Hey there Gracie! I've found your journal to be very entertaining and looking forward for more!

It really sparks joy in my life.

YASSS Queen Marie for the WIN! I've never heard of anyone actually loving and enjoying Year 12 and having such a positive outlook on it but I guess it's because you have so many friends and people around you.

[avocadinq]

Haha thank you queen! Oh no, you're going to be disappointed because I'm super basic. I love a good premium pearl milk tea *shivers*. Definitely not as exotic as some of the cool flavours I've heard but I'm definitely a creature of habit when it comes to food and drink orders. XD

How about you? Do you have a fave flavour?

Super disappointed. Just kidding - I can definitely relate to the whole creature of habit thing particularly when ordering food and drinks in general. Whenever I go to chatime, I usually get the peach black fruit tea because it's not too sweet and it tastes super good on a hot day!

[Pearlmilktea]

Hey there Gracie! I've found your journal to be very entertaining and looking forward for more!

YASSS Queen Marie for the WIN! I've never heard of anyone actually loving and enjoying Year 12 and having such a positive outlook on it but I guess it's because you have so many friends and people around you.

Omg thanks queen! Yeah I believe positive people and friends can have a large impact on someone's year 12 experience. Definitely glad that I have such a big year group as I love to socialise haha !

[Pearlmilktea]

Term 2 Week 4 Update

I can't believe we're almost halfway through the term! The assessments are starting to roll in and trials are just around the corner. Here's a little update on the last week and a bit.

On Sunday I did the Balmoral Burn and went to an 18th birthday. Due to that, sport and a French study skills lecture on Saturday I did basically no work but I'm glad I was about to take a break from school.

I received my Bio depth study results yesterday. Legit this was my go to past time on all of my train trips to AN lectures haha. Luckily I pulled out 67/70 which fortunately made up for my tragic 78% in my first Bio task. Thank goodness the first task weighting was only 15% vs the 25% of this task.

In the next few weeks I have a Legal in class essay, an English hand-in creative, an in class French Extension monologue and essay, Bio data analysis and an Italian speaking assessment! Luckily they're on different weeks but surprisingly I'm not too stressed !! Probably the most worrisome ones are Bio (because a module and a half are being assessed) and French (because there is such a breadth of topics that could be tested).

I'm going to start posting a quote of the week, favourite memory of the week and a study tip.

Quote of the week
'Be a rainbow in someone else's cloud' - Maya Angelou (this is my lock screen on my iPad)

Favourite memory of the week
Jogging half of Balmoral Burn (it's basically a 400m fun run up a super steep hill) even though I don't exercise much *whoops* ¯\_(ツ)_/¯and convinced myself I would walk the whole way.

Study tip
Use a traffic light system to rank you knowledge of the syllabus or key points! 

• Red = I would have no idea how to answer a question on this
• Orange/ yellow = I could answer a question on this but I wouldn't get full marks (but I could give a decent crack at it)
• Green = omg slay I would smash anything thrown at me on this, please make the whole paper on this, I know all my syllabus prowords and examples tbh I could probably teach this point to anyone

Creds to the youtuber UnJaded Jade for that tip! It's awesome

I hope you all have a fab week!
Q: any quirky/ original study tips you can think of? I'm looking at writing an article on AN about unusual study tips

[annabeljxde]

Hey Gracie! It's @orenji.study ooft I just happened to stumble across your journal on the forums! I'm looking forward to seeing you update this blog regularly! It seems like you've somehow managed to maintain pretty high levels of motivation so far this term (which is incredible because everyone in my school has seemed to have given up on the HSC lmao ). Assessments are slowly coming in for me too, (I have 3 already!) so the atmosphere every day at school has been pretty distressing. I used to want to stay at school everytime I had a free last period, but now I'd rather have my mum pick me up and take me home because the negative energy from other students has become unbearable! Oh well, I hope I can sustain a sufficient work ethic this term and, but with no guarantee *cries*, stay active on Instagram 

Anyways, I hope the rest of this week is going well for you! You should treat yourself to some bubble tea as well!!

[Pearlmilktea]

Ok wow. Long time no see :O Hello, may I preface this by saying that I am an ENFP and due to this, I can have extreme bursts of energy and motivation but then get distracted and log off for a while. But I'm back now and hope to use this as a uni journey journal!

Updates
- I received my ATAR! My marks and ATAR are in my signature and I would say that overall I'm happy. There were some marks that I wish could've been higher *cough* Francais *cough* Legal but I was pretty stoked in general. I remember when my text came in with my results I could only see my Bio mark. It was a huge relief to see the mark of 94, especially since I thought I wouldn't get a band 6 after my first assessment ahhhhhhh I can relax now
- I have been doing lots of adulting lately. I just applied for my TFN, I'm trying to renew my passport and I've enrolled in uni (well almost). I have renewed my volunteer memberships and have started tutoring so overall things are going well. Plus my chaotic, sporadic bursts of energy have allowed me to Marie Kondo certain parts of my room (however other parts remain questionable). I love being reminded of my past hoarder-ish tendencies and of schoolwork from previous years (like I haven't taken Maths since year 10 but I have found so so so many sheets and notebooks :/

But could I please do a call out for help/ advice with uni. How do people go about enrolling in first year courses. I've enrolled in a Bachelor of Adv. Science/ Arts @ UNSW but I'm not sure what I want to major in. There is a 99% chance it will be a Life Science, with my current top picks being Pathology or Genetics. They do have many crossover prerequisites but I'm still slightly overwhelmed with the whole enrolment process. Any advice would be appreciated!

Also, inspired by Bea, I've decided to add a driving tracker to the bottom of my posts. I really need to get my Ps so hopefully this will serve as some motivation !

I hope everyone had a fab holiday season Gracie

Hours driven: 42hrs 1min (day) 17hrs 57 mins (night)
= 59hrs 58 mins (total)

[fantasticbeasts3]

Congrats on those amazing results!!!!

For uni, don't worry too much about deciding what you're going to major in now - use this year as a taster year and you can figure out what you want to do later :-) Besides, you have the freedom to change majors at any time! I personally didn't decide until halfway through Term 1 of my second year!

As for picking subjects, consult your course handbook and do Level 1 courses, i.e. XXXX1234, with the 1 showing that it's Level 1 :-) I've had a look through your course handbook just now, and you only have one compulsory course which is SCIF1131 so if you want, you can do that one in T1. You can probably do a Level 1 course in either of those majors you're interested in for science and pretty much anything for Arts! I hope this helps and feel free to consult the UNSW General Chat thread or message me if you have any questions!

[Pearlmilktea]

Congrats on those amazing results!!!!

As for picking subjects, consult your course handbook and do Level 1 courses, i.e. XXXX1234, with the 1 showing that it's Level 1 :-) I've had a look through your course handbook just now, and you only have one compulsory course which is SCIF1131 so if you want, you can do that one in T1. You can probably do a Level 1 course in either of those majors you're interested in for science and pretty much anything for Arts! I hope this helps and feel free to consult the UNSW General Chat thread or message me if you have any questions!

Thank you so much!! I consulted all these resources and finally made my timetable. Thank you- you've definitely alleviated a lot of stress

[Jimmmy]

Hi Gracie!

I too have suffered the quick arrival of adulthood....TFN, Passport, Uni enrollment and a bunch of other things necessary for work! Also, let's just say you're 59 hours ahead of me driving wise 

What are you looking forward to most about Uni?

[Pearlmilktea]

Hi Gracie!

I too have suffered the quick arrival of adulthood....TFN, Passport, Uni enrollment and a bunch of other things necessary for work! Also, let's just say you're 59 hours ahead of me driving wise 

What are you looking forward to most about Uni?

Oh my gosh I agree that adulthood comes round the corner far too quickly ! Good luck with your driving - I think starting/ returning to driving is the hardest part so once we’re past this stage we should be good!

I’d say that I’m most excited about specialising in subjects that I’m interested in and becoming involved in uni life. I’m really excited to make some new friends and have a wider selection of activities on offer than high school.

How about you? How are you feeling about uni?

[Jimmmy]

Oh my gosh I agree that adulthood comes round the corner far too quickly ! Good luck with your driving - I think starting/ returning to driving is the hardest part so once we’re past this stage we should be good!

I’d say that I’m most excited about specialising in subjects that I’m interested in and becoming involved in uni life. I’m really excited to make some new friends and have a wider selection of activities on offer than high school.

How about you? How are you feeling about uni?

Yeah, I'm definitely excited about the range of extra-curricular activities at Uni and getting involved in as much as I can. I was heavily involved at high school, so I'm hoping to replicate and accelerate from that!