All VCE graduates, please feel free to post what you did with your holidays.
All 2013ers, please feel free to post what you are going to do with your holidays.
Now, what I think you SHOULD do with your holidays.
Relax.I know you guys have a massive task ahead of you and the very thought of your final year can make you tremble with trepidation. I know a lot of you might be thinking of doing a huge amount of work in order to assuage your nerves and reassure yourself that you aren't behind. Right now, you know you're competing against everyone else so you're thinking "Shit, I've heard of people doing the whole course over the holidays... I'm so behind already!
"
Fact of the matter is, you're not behind. You're already ahead. Your on ATARNotes when most people aren't, that's definitely an advantage. The fact that you're stressing? - Advantage.
But don't get caught up in the looming task ahead. Did Harry Potter have the answer to the 2nd task in a Goblet of Fire? No, he didn't know how the shit he was going to breathe. He would've been stressed as, especially with Hermione all up in his goddamn grill. He turned up anyway, and someone gave him some weed to calm down. And then he swam. He swam like he never swam before. And he saved people in the process.
This is what you should do. Recognise that YOU HAVE GOT THIS, chill out a little bit and stop sensationalising Year 12. And along the way, help people out (and make sure you save the French girl's sister).
Okay enough funny business.
-Read your English texts a
minimum of two times each. The first time, just get the gist of things, keep track of the plot and try to identify themes and see how the characters develop a little bit, but don't stress so much. The second time you should go through and annotate it. If you're super keen, write up character summaries and plot summaries just so you've got something to freshen your memory when it's time to do it during the year. But you don't need to do anything too drastic. The way I did this was I got the texts as soon as I got the booklist, read them in the first week of December, and then read them and annotated them again in the last week of holidays (one of them was a play and I'm a quick reader, so maybe give yourself a week and a half).
*This is a must. Reading your texts is absolutely
vital. I don't even care if you're a math genius and you think you'll get a 95 and just scrape the 25 in English just to make your course.
YOU HAVE TO READ YOUR TEXTS.-Write your English speech. Do some research etc etc. But then,
practice in front of the mirror or in front of an audience if you're quite scared. If you're really scared, video yourself and feel free to message me on AN with a link to your Facebook and you can send me the video as a Facey message and I'll give you some feedback. Also, while we're on the topic: Don't let nerves get the better of you. Chances are, you're the smart kid in your class. Everybody knows the smart kid. What they don't know is that you are nervous. Don't let them see that. Because you are the smart kid, people will EXPECT to see an amazing speech. Even if you give them an average speech, chances are their perception of it will be higher just for the fact that you're the smart kid. If you aren't the smart kid, write a really good speech.
-Do all your holiday homework to a
good standard. This one is a no brainer.
-Organise all your pens, books, folders, binders, etc etc. Allocate exercise books for each subject.
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Print off the study design for that subject and stick it on the inside of the exercise book. Read the study design.-If you don't know how study scores work and stuff, read Paul's guide. *You don't need to be a genius. Just get the gist of it so you know that you're SACs are important so you rank well etc etc.
Those things, I think you should certainly do.
Things that are optional and will benefit you, but things you don't need to do all the same.-Go through past question threads on AN out of interest (not like a crazy stalker psychopath that must see questions people got wrong)
-Loosely read your textbook and highlight information (more applicable to humanities).
-To go further, highlight the information for AoS 1, Unit 3 and type up notes for that area of study. This should be the absolute most work you possibly do.
-Math kids, I don't even know if you guys have separated stuff like we do(?). For Further, I got my girlfriend to teach me Core loosely (and the only reason I did this is because I didn't take a Math sub in 2011) and that took about 35 minutes. Then I did like the first exercise or something until I knew what categorical data was (funny to think this used to intimidate me because of 2011 lol). P.S; I should get more than 40 in Further. This is all the holiday work I did.
(SOMEONE PLEASE ADVISE THE SPESH AND METHODS KIDS TO SOMETHING REASONABLE)
-Language people; I never took a language but the general consensus is that you should brush up a bit on your vocabulary and especially the grammar rules where applicable and maybe watch a few episodes of television in the relevant language.
What you shouldn't do-Go psychotic and finish the whole course for every one of your subjects. This is subjective and there will be people that disagree with me but doing the whole course is just superfluous and at times detrimental. It's a waste of your holiday time. The first AoS is PLENTY. I did the first AoS for Psych and it was beneficial but it made me slightly arrogant at the same time. Doing the whole course (this applies to 2014 graduates doing a Year 12 subject) has the potential to just make you bored and less motivated in class, make you overconfident, make you think you grasp concepts you actually don't because you haven't had them properly explained and a whole other bunch of reasons. More importantly, you need a break. You need mental preparation time. I'm not even kidding. There were a few times during 2012 where I just broke down and cried. Hardcore, gasping for air kinda shit. One of them was the very last day of Term 1. I was so emotionally drained from ten weeks of school (and I received some bad results that day) that everything just came loose and my English teacher listened to me rant about the flaws in the education system, how I didn't want to let it turn me into a monster, how I still wanted to help and blahblahblah. That was after 10 weeks and a light holiday load. I hate to imagine what I would have been like if I had have been studying hard for ANOTHER 10 weeks during my big break.
I also took a camping trip with 7 of my close friends at the time down at the Murray. With only 1 parent who was on another campsite separated from us, this was awesome, and felt like American Pie 2 when they go to the beach house and they feel so happy and stuff. This was an awesome thing to do and if it's viable (probably not with all the curry rules and stuff like that) then I recommend it. If not, just do cool things! Go get ice-cream in the city for kicks, go to the beach, go see movies, have picnics. MAKE THE MOST OF LIFE.
Just, relax, okay guys? That's what I wanted to get across the most. Just, enjoy yourself. 2013 is going to be a massive year for you guys, the magnitude of which you can't even comprehend yet. You're going to grow and mature as people. You'll cry, laugh, and learn. Make the most of it. 2013 is your time to shine. Just make sure you don't burn.
The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long -> Pretty relevant here. If you burn twice as much fuel during the holidays, you'll burn half as long, get to August and be in a massive slump. It happens to a LOT of people. (I made the Motivation Corner in this time).
SO. Graduates, your experience is required. Go ahead.
Best of luck guys,
Lots of love,
Brenden xoxoxo