Hi everyone, I'm pepper77 and my memory doesn't work! ;D I tend to forget what I'm doing/have done pretty easily, which is pretty embarrassing. I've found that bundling up and having a set routine helps me rebuild events, so I'm going to try writing a journal of things I'm likely to forget. I'm taking Physics (my favourite), Biology, English Language, and Chemistry. I'm also studying a tiny bit of Year 10 maths and 1/2 Methods on the side (gotta prepare for next year!!), and am hoping to work up the energy to play around with some Spesh concepts someday. Don't read this if you're looking for inspiration.
My main goal for this year is to get a study score of 35 in Biology! 40 is sickeningly high, and 30 is the bare minimum (if I don't get that I want to repeat). 35 is unlikely and difficult, but just close enough to attainable that I want it. Sub goals are to learn how to study effectively, and to learn to function with a tiny bit of depression and a fair bit of anxiety. In the long-term, I want to do my best during VCE and learn as much as I can so that I'll get into a university course that will let me learn even more. I don't care about my ATAR, I just want the score that will get me in to... oh, wait, I need a great ATAR for that. Crap. I guess that means I'm aiming for 99!!!
So, today: Spoiler
ok I'll be honest I don't remember most of it. Lol. I had a full day, and when I got home I was so tired I couldn't move for a solid 4 hours (assuming I got back at 3.30)! I wanted to do some studying, but that's not going to happen. That's okay, though. Last time I pushed myself to study when I knew I couldn't, I got stuck in my chair for a few hours and had to go to bed late. I know my limits. :P
I stayed awake through Biology! I always doze and it sucks. I stayed awake this time only because it was a prac day and because there was an open flame >30cm from my hand for most of it. Toasted pepper was almost a thing.
Physics is on today/tomorrow. It's my favourite subject, so I've been pretty diligent up until recently. I made a lot of really useful notes and understood the work pretty much straight away, though I've been getting mediocre SAC results since the beginning. I don't know why; I used to be a straight A no-study student hahaha. I have old motion homework I haven't done, so I've been copying out the worked answers. I can't tell how to do the problems because I no longer remember the formulas and I never wrote notes for motion, but the worked answers are bringing it all back. It felt great when I started predicting the answers and getting them right. Who says cheating doesn't help you learn? ;D Now I just have to work out how light works. God I hate Jacplus. They like to hide their worked answers instead of just putting them in the damn book.
I recently took a Chemistry SAC I expect to be maybe 50-60%, and a Physics SAC I scraped 40% on (that's what the old homework was about. I'm in a slump so I didn't do it.) That's 20-30% below what I usually get, but it doesn't matter because it's 1/2 and that's what happens during a slump. I'm just glad I passed. I'm expecting a Bio test back soon, which I'm excited for. It was a really fun test. I hope that means I'll get higher than my usual C.
Tomorrow I will do at least 3 math problems and watch one Edrolo video for Biology. It probably sounds like a baby step to you geniuses, but I promise for me it's more like a jump. If I have more time, I'll do a bit more Physics.
I've been trying to write this post since 9pm... Oops.. Added goal for tomorrow: go to bed before 11.
Spoiler
Well, I got 93% in my English Language SAC.. I should feel pleased, but I feel guilty. I don't study it at all outside of class and I'm still first. It feels unfair, somehow (there's this student who makes these amazing colour-coded notes who deserves it way more than I do). :-\ A classmate I don't really know congratulated me, though, so that was a nice little ego boost. And it is 1/2 so what does it matter? I should just enjoy the one benefit of being part of a weak cohort. rip my average though
Didn't watch the Biology video because I ended up doing 12 problems, not 3. So, I guess I jumped, but I jumped too far and landed on one foot. Maybe I wasn't specific enough. Tonight, I'm going to look at the role of organelles. It's later than I thought (2 hours? where did you go?!) but it's not even 5 minutes. Surely I can sit still for 5 minutes without getting stuck in thought.
(Also, I signed up for an ATARNotes lecture on Biology. Maybe it'll help? It can't hurt, and it's not like I was going to study hard on my birthday ;D. Who knows, maybe an eccentric professor will kidnap me and hide me in her office until exams are over, releasing a slightly-confused teenager with a brain full of interesting facts about ribosomes. or a perfect study score. I'd be happy with either.)
Hey there, Pepper77! Sounds like you're walking a similar path as I did.
I really enjoy reading your colloquial writing style; it somehow packs a lot of charisma into it.
Good luck with your studies and memory! :)
more like crawling thank you! I'll take all the luck I can get. ;)
Nothing much to add, and the little bit I'm posting tonight isn't that interesting, but I wanted to post anyway to hold myself accountable.
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I'm wiped out. (Do people still say wiped out? I guess now they do.) I have to make a poster for Biology, but I haven't really done much of it. I need an introduction, a discussion, some kind of table of results, pictures, acknowledgements. I'm so tired, you guys. I'll do the results table first, since I already have the data. Then I'll work on the introduction and the discussion. I feel like I'd enjoy this if my future wasn't (partially) riding on it. I'd really like to work in a lab, conduct my own experiments and make posters explaining what went down so that other people can enjoy the end result. I'd even be happy just assisting someone else. Realistically it won't happen, but gosh darn it I want to dream!
On a positive note, I just remembered that October exists. (Dunno how/when I managed to forget about a whole month especially considering all the birthdays that happen then, but yeah I continue to surprise myself.) So I have a little bit of time to catch up on sleep before hell.
Man, it's all starting to pick up. I'm kind of glad - this means I don't have any time to freak out about Animal Crossing on Switch. (2019!!!!!!!! ...Oops.)
I just ate an entire punnet of strawberries. 0 needles, 0 regrets.
Spoiler
I finished the poster and submitted it an hour before the deadline. I'm glad it's gone... I probably won't get above a C, but I don't care. I just wanted to get rid of it. I feel like it could have been a good project, but it wasn't fun at all. Probably because I don't care about E. coli enough to study it out of class. I like the evolution/dating part of this subject best.
Over the holidays I have to write a 1k word essay (was 1.5k but someone threw a fit and the teacher reduced it hahaha) on Indian English. I'm half Indian, how hard can it be? Pretty damn hard, because I know 0 Indian people and -1 alive Indian people with accents. :'( I was going to do Taglish since my old facebook has more Taglish than English, but chose not to since that's a pidgin.
We did a weird experiment in Physics the other day. Cut up some jelly into what were supposed to be lenses and shone light through them. The lenses were more like amorphous blobs tbh, but mine did refract the light the way it was supposed to. Yay. I got a bit of a talking-to for working alone and was sent to work with my classmates. It was more fun working with them (because I didn't know what they were trying to do and getting them to talk is kind of hard), but it's a lot harder to get anything done (because I didn't know what they were trying to do and getting them to talk is kind of hard). I'm not sure if I prefer this to working on my kitchen counter in an empty house. Not much equipment and solitude vs piles of equipment and people. Hmm.
There's an EPI coming up for Physics. I don't care about motion, but since it's probably the easiest topic to study I'm picking it. :P (If a Year 11 student from the future is reading this and trying to choose a topic, I'm going to study a pendulum and how its mass/string length affects the velocity. 10/10 easy and will make your teacher happy. Someone else is going to run electric currents through pencils, which sounds a lot cooler but is probably going to be harder.)
I forgot to do my maths homework... End of term can't come fast enough. My tutor won't mind (she's somewhat lenient because rather than teaching me concepts she's trying to make me more confident), but I do. It feels like I'm setting myself up to fail next year.
Edit: WAIT I just remembered. EXAMS. WHAT DID I GET ON MY EXAMS.
snip
Will do! I do kind of want to do something exciting, but I think it's better just to play it safe. Thanks for the luck.
Spoiler
So today my Bio teacher handed out these revision booklets and a practice test. Well, it turns out I forgot all the biology I learned over the course of the year. Except for the stuff I taught myself. I guess I really am just not suited to classroom learning. I'm upset that all the time I spent on questions was for nothing, but I'm also really really happy that I retained information from January. January!! ;D
Yesterday we had (presumably) the last chemistry prac of the term, which was a lot of fun. I like the precision that titration demands. It's calming to focus on a single drop while people in the background smash burettes and squirt water into the backs of their throats. (Fingers crossed we don't get holiday homework, someone might taste the acid.)
Had a tutoring session... It went terribly. I never learnt logs in Year 10, and while we were going over that I completely forgot basic addition. I got stuck thinking 3+3=9 (I think the six got flipped around in my head??). Usually the worst thing I do is forget how to say numbers or repeatedly write the wrong number down. So embarrassing... Oh well, worse things have happened. Near the start of the year, I got called up to the front of the room and forgot how to write "6" in front of thirty-odd people who probably think I can't divide. ;D
I want to study over the holidays.. but I just discovered that I like stitching.. but I have to study...
Also, no idea what I got on my exams. I wonder how I went on the GAT?
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Stop making me feel bad about myself! ;D
Yeah, so, I wrote a post telling everyone what I got in Bio but accidentally closed the tab. And then I forgot to come back here for a month. I changed my mind and have decided to keep my study score a secret for now (hint: it made me happy and my Asian mum angry), but I thought I should set out some goals for the year while it's still January. It is still January, right? (Also, I got my GAT results and they're telling me I should dump science/maths and go do art. Thanks ever so, VCAA.)
Short term goals Spoiler
- Start my English Language essay and get started on reading Living Lingo
- Work with my EngLang teacher to find out why analysing conversations and understanding relationships between interlocutors is so difficult for me, and fix that ish before exam time
- Watch the Khan Academy videos about motion, which I still don't understand :( it's fine when I have the worked answers, but I need to practise getting there without them. I'm hoping I can get a tutor
Long term goals Spoiler
- Continue thinking about what I want to study at university
- Build my confidence by doing more homework. No more hearing someone else whisper the wrong answer to a problem and changing my (obviously correct) answer to match theirs. :P :-[
- Gradually cut back on studying a LOTE (I started up during the summer holidays because I was bored, and I've fallen into the habit of working a little bit each day). I'm concerned it's going to cut into my study time this year
- Read at least 3 new books this year. Last year I gave up on reading for pleasure because I was so focused on school and only read one (very long) web serial. I'd like my 2019 to be more balanced
God, it's hot. I haven't gone outside or turned my little fan off in days but I'm still melting. I am going away to Sorrento for a week tomorrow, and I'm really looking forward to relaxing. Hope it cools down a bit before then. I honestly don't think I've been able to rest properly since Spoiler
I had to keep changing that year because I kept remembering awful things that happened lmao I miss being a seven year old with a library card
If anyone reading this is still in high school, do your homework try writing a few goals just so that you can reflect on them at the end of the year. Highly recommend it. And please get plenty of rest during January and February, because the heat combined with the increased workload can really mess with your health.