ATAR Notes: Forum

VCE Stuff => Victorian Education Discussion => The VCE Journey Journal => Topic started by: TigerMum on October 09, 2019, 09:36:25 pm

Title: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on October 09, 2019, 09:36:25 pm
Hello everyone!
I'm a Year 10 student who is about to embark on an EPIC and INTENSE journey through the VCE and I'm making this journal because I'm procrastinating instead of studying. oops.
A bit about yours truly:
- I love music, my tastes go from Beethoven to Radiohead to My Chemical Romance. I love to play the piano, I love to sing, music is pretty much my religion.
- I also love sport, except I've always been the person who prefers to watch it than play it mostly because I'm a bit unco and you will find me on the couch watching AFL, cricket, NFL, rugby, tennis or whatever is on.
- I'm an ENTP on the MBTI, so feel free to argue with me about anything.  8)

Oh yeah, VCE. So at the moment I'm accelerating in 1/2 Methods, which is a lot of fun, maths is my favourite subject.
Next year I am doing: Methods, Eng Lang, Physics, Specialist, Italian and Religion and Society. (Our school forces us to do Religion in Year 11, which sucks, but I guess I will persevere). I am thinking about doing UMEP Maths in Year 12 but we will see about that.
I don't really have a specific ATAR aim, I would like to get at least a 98 but I only need a 95 to get in BCom at UoM, which is looking like my course goal. I would like to major in either Finance + Economics or Actuarial Studies.
I have applied for an 4 week Exchange in Italy in November next year and I seriously cannot wait to see if I got in, that would be amazing.

This is already way too long so I will wrap it up there. Hope to update in the future. Please feel free to ask me questions so that I feel important.
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: J_Rho on October 10, 2019, 11:47:55 am
Hello everyone!
I'm a Year 10 student who is about to embark on an EPIC and INTENSE journey through the VCE and I'm making this journal because I'm procrastinating instead of studying. oops.
A bit about yours truly:
- I love music, my tastes go from Beethoven to Radiohead to My Chemical Romance. I love to play the piano, I love to sing, music is pretty much my religion.
- I also love sport, except I've always been the person who prefers to watch it than play it mostly because I'm a bit unco and you will find me on the couch watching AFL, cricket, NFL, rugby, tennis or whatever is on.
- I'm an ENTP on the MBTI, so feel free to argue with me about anything.  8)

Oh yeah, VCE. So at the moment I'm accelerating in 1/2 Methods, which is a lot of fun, maths is my favourite subject.
Next year I am doing: Methods, Eng Lang, Physics, Specialist, Italian and Religion and Society. (Our school forces us to do Religion in Year 11, which sucks, but I guess I will persevere). I am thinking about doing UMEP Maths in Year 12 but we will see about that.
I don't really have a specific ATAR aim, I would like to get at least a 98 but I only need a 95 to get in BCom at UoM, which is looking like my course goal. I would like to major in either Finance + Economics or Actuarial Studies.
I have applied for an 4 week Exchange in Italy in November next year and I seriously cannot wait to see if I got in, that would be amazing.

This is already way too long so I will wrap it up there. Hope to update in the future. Please feel free to ask me questions so that I feel important.

Hey TigerMum,
Awesome idea to start a journal :)
What is your favorite subject?
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on October 10, 2019, 06:13:53 pm
Hey TigerMum,
Awesome idea to start a journal :)
What is your favorite subject?

Thanks!
My favourite subject is... Maths. I love it.  ;D
I'm very excited for Methods 3/4 next year.
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: chopsticks on October 10, 2019, 08:02:40 pm
Hello everyone!
I'm a Year 10 student who is about to embark on an EPIC and INTENSE journey through the VCE and I'm making this journal because I'm procrastinating instead of studying. oops.
A bit about yours truly:
- I love music, my tastes go from Beethoven to Radiohead to My Chemical Romance. I love to play the piano, I love to sing, music is pretty much my religion.
- I also love sport, except I've always been the person who prefers to watch it than play it mostly because I'm a bit unco and you will find me on the couch watching AFL, cricket, NFL, rugby, tennis or whatever is on.
- I'm an ENTP on the MBTI, so feel free to argue with me about anything.  8)

Oh yeah, VCE. So at the moment I'm accelerating in 1/2 Methods, which is a lot of fun, maths is my favourite subject.
Next year I am doing: Methods, Eng Lang, Physics, Specialist, Italian and Religion and Society. (Our school forces us to do Religion in Year 11, which sucks, but I guess I will persevere). I am thinking about doing UMEP Maths in Year 12 but we will see about that.
I don't really have a specific ATAR aim, I would like to get at least a 98 but I only need a 95 to get in BCom at UoM, which is looking like my course goal. I would like to major in either Finance + Economics or Actuarial Studies.
I have applied for an 4 week Exchange in Italy in November next year and I seriously cannot wait to see if I got in, that would be amazing.

This is already way too long so I will wrap it up there. Hope to update in the future. Please feel free to ask me questions so that I feel important.

Ayy, music is my everything
Literally just been crying over TwoSet's music watch thing being sold out (and it was rose gold too) but then found out my ex-singing teacher has this music shop selling music jewelry (lol sorry, went off-topic)

ENTP? Well hello there, I happen to be an ENFJ XD

Good luck for your Italian exchange!!! Surely, you would've made it

Also welcome to the procrastination club
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on October 10, 2019, 08:41:29 pm
Ayy, music is my everything
Literally just been crying over TwoSet's music watch thing being sold out (and it was rose gold too) but then found out my ex-singing teacher has this music shop selling music jewelry (lol sorry, went off-topic)
I N T E R E S T I N G !

Quote
Good luck for your Italian exchange!!! Surely, you would've made it
Thanks! I have applied but I still have to sit an interview in a few weeks, so here's hoping it all goes well! There are only 5 places available so it's pretty tight.

Quote
Also welcome to the procrastination club
This club seems to have a lot of members at the moment  :)
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: Snow Leopard on October 10, 2019, 08:43:33 pm
Hey TigerMum,
Your journal's been a good read so far!
How's Yr 10 Italian going and what made you decide to do it next year?
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on October 10, 2019, 09:29:51 pm
Hey TigerMum,
Your journal's been a good read so far!
How's Yr 10 Italian going and what made you decide to do it next year?
Thanks so much! Year 10 Italian has been great this year, my reading skills have improved out of sight and I feel like I am making actual progress. Unfortunately, my listening is still not great, I need to practise more. Those Italians speak so fast!
I decided to do Italian because I really love learning the language and being able to communicate in it is so rewarding. I was lucky enough to go to Italy last year and it was truly amazing! I'm the only non-Italian in my class next year which is quite funny.
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: Joseph41 on October 11, 2019, 11:02:54 am
What team do you support in the footy? Haha.
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on October 11, 2019, 04:35:46 pm
What team do you support in the footy? Haha.

The mighty hawks!  ;D
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: J_Rho on October 11, 2019, 05:10:39 pm
The mighty hawks!  ;D

YESS!! Me too!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: caffinatedloz on October 11, 2019, 09:06:25 pm
The mighty hawks!  ;D
i think i might throw up. i was super excited to find a fellow year ten with a journal but now i'm not so sure. cats all the way!!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on October 11, 2019, 09:43:42 pm
i think i might throw up. i was super excited to find a fellow year ten with a journal but now i'm not so sure. cats all the way!!

meow. haha I don't actually hate you lot that much. It's a bit of a respect-hate relationship
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on October 13, 2019, 05:34:48 pm
UPDATE: 13/10/2019

So I finished my first week of term 4. Stuff I did + thoughts + lame attempts at humor below!

- If I'm going to be honest, these last few weeks and my Year 10 exams are a bit of a cbs, considering I'm not continuing with most of my subjects next year. Methods, English and Italian are the only ones I'm still doing and even in English I can't be bothered because we are doing an analytical essay on Macbeth and I don't think I will be doing much of that in Eng Lang.

- Methods is still very fun. We have a calculus test on Monday and I spent some of my weekend watching about a third of blackpenredpen's 100 derivatives video and I can do implicit differentiation now? To those also doing 1/2, have you finished the course yet? I have, but my class hasn't and I feel like we went very slow this year.

- We had to make an anti-drug advertisement for PE so I spent my lunchtime on Friday pretending to be a crack addict in the bathroom.

- I had 2nds cricket training for school and I almost busted my shoulder because I haven't bowled in 6 months.

- I almost fell asleep in RE class when we were looking at the differences between the Gospels of Matthew and Mark.

- We had some assembly both for "Arts Week" and they announced all the new captains of the school for next year. The assembly went for almost 2 hours. Our school is really weird because we have captains for EVERYTHING. There is a Junior School Social Justice Vice Captain. Yes, that's an actual thing.

- I'm still waiting for the interview date for the Exchange to Calabria in Italy next year. I just want to be told if I'm in right now lol, I don't want to get my hopes up only to be mercilessly CRUSHED.
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on October 19, 2019, 08:34:16 pm
UPDATE: 19/10/2019

So a few interesting things happened this week:
1. I was one of the 5 in my school endorsed for Kwong Lee Dow! I probably won't get in though, because I read the application of one of my friends (who is a genius at English) and it was soooo good. It was a work of art. Mine was pretty much "i like maths duhh" haha  ;D Still, I'm pretty happy that I made it this far.

2. Did a Calculus test in Methods and topped the cohort with 49/50! Yay! I actually thought I had messed up the extended response when I walked out of the test, but no, I got it right! I have to say, Methods has been so much fun this year, I feel like I might accidentally do the whole 3/4 textbook over the holidays  :o

In other news:
I went to bed at 12:30 am on Friday night because I forgot that I had to get up really early for school sport the following morning, I got dragged out of bed LOL
I also spent most of the week procrastinating. oops!
Literally everyone I know at school is driving now and I'm one of those kids born in the year after everyone else so I'm still stuck with my tricycle for the meantime.
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: Snow Leopard on October 19, 2019, 10:35:32 pm
Congrats on the awesome result for Methods :)
Do you have any advice on how to do well in Methods?(I'll be doing 1/2 next year)
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on October 19, 2019, 11:17:19 pm
Congrats on the awesome result for Methods :)
Do you have any advice on how to do well in Methods?(I'll be doing 1/2 next year)

Thank you so much!
I think the best thing for me is that I really enjoy the subject and what I am learning, so I often go ahead and complete future topics not because I am going to have a test on them but because I'm actually interested in learning about them. If you can get to this point with any subject, it becomes so much easier to study for because it won't ever feel like a chore.
In terms of more practical advice, I think regular practice of key concepts and getting a real understanding of WHY we do things a certain way rather than just knowing the formula is a real difference maker because a lot of those tricky extended response questions rely on understanding how the concept works, not just plugging values into formulas.
Best of luck for your LOTE 3/4 next year and VCE!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: Bri MT on October 20, 2019, 09:45:47 am
Why commerce?  When did you figure out that that was your likely goal?
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on October 20, 2019, 10:52:06 am
Why commerce?  When did you figure out that that was your likely goal?

Thanks for asking!
I've always had an interest in economics and business; I enjoy having a flick through the Fin Review, but I never really thought I would pursue it as a career until late last year/early this year. I became attracted to it through my interest in maths, as I found the maths oriented commerce jobs very appealing and interesting, such as an actuary, areas in quantitative finance etc.
I was considering law at one point, but I did work experience in the legal group of a bank, and even though it was very fun, it made me realise I have to do something with maths in it. I've spent a lot of time investigating options at uni and my career and I think that studying Commerce is the best option for me.
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: Snow Leopard on October 20, 2019, 04:06:14 pm
Best of luck for your LOTE 3/4 next year and VCE!
Thanks for all the advice and good luck for Methods 3/4 next year and beyond :)
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on November 05, 2019, 06:28:48 pm
UPDATE: 5/11/2019

Been a while since I last posted, I hope all you guys doing your exams right now are doing well!
I've been sick over this long weekend with a bad cold, feeling pretty ordinary to be honest. It feels like I permanently alternate between 2 weeks healthy, 1 week sick, 2 weeks healthy, 1 week sick. I haven't gotten much sleep over the past few nights but luckily it's a long weekend so I could rest during the day. However, the worst thing is that I spent this whole weekend inside the house which was pretty boring.

I did a Calculus Test and Task last week for Methods and I screwed up the test. I got 42/47, which sounds decent but I was pretty disappointed considering how much effort I put into the topic. I only know my mark distribution as I haven't actually received the paper back yet. On the other hand, I did the task on Friday so I don't know my mark for that. A few of the questions were really ambiguous as to what they were asking, for example, I was supposed to "make a conclusion" based on some answers which I had found and I had no idea what conclusion I was supposed to be making. Anyway, I've been doing a lot of reading through the Methods 3/4 textbook and the Spesh 1/2 textbook and I'm really excited for both next year, well, the content at least, exams not so much...  :)

I'm really not motivated to study for most of my subjects at the moment, mostly the ones I won't be continuing with next year. For Religion we have to do this really boring Social Justice project and it's extremely tiring to even look at it. I just want to get my exams over and done with this year so I can actually focus on the subjects that I am doing next year (the ones I actually enjoy haha.)

Welp, not much else going on in my boring life lol, best of luck to everyone doing their final exams!

Sidenote: Anyone else here going for KLD? I'm going for it but I don't know anyone from any other school who is going for it.
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: Snow Leopard on November 08, 2019, 06:50:11 pm
When do you have your exams?
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on November 08, 2019, 10:11:07 pm
When do you have your exams?

My first exam is on this Wednesday coming up and my last one is on the Thursday of the following week. The ones I really care about are both Methods exams, English and Italian. The others I'm not continuing with next year so I'm not overly fussed with my result. How about you, when are your exams?
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: Snow Leopard on November 08, 2019, 10:21:11 pm
My first exam is on this Wednesday coming up and my last one is on the Thursday of the following week. The ones I really care about are both Methods exams, English and Italian. The others I'm not continuing with next year so I'm not overly fussed with my result. How about you, when are your exams?
Mine start on this coming Thursday and end on Thursday of the following week.
Good luck!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: caffinatedloz on November 13, 2019, 05:44:10 pm
How was your first exam? Mine also started today! Did you have English? <3
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on November 13, 2019, 08:45:05 pm
How was your first exam? Mine also started today! Did you have English? <3

Pretty good, today I had English and Health & PE. The latter was a bit of a joke; I didn't really study for it as I'm not doing HHD or PE next year and it wasn't that hard either. (It probably would have been really easy if I had done more than just read over the PowerPoints and do two worksheets but whatever.)

English I was pretty happy with, we had to do an Analytical Essay and an Analysis of Arg and Lang. I did the arg and lang first, I found the piece we were looking at to be quite short (it was a letter to the editor) and there wasn't a whole lot to work with. My structure was a little bit wonky, (I only wrote two body paragraphs,) but that was mostly because there was only really two distinct arguments. My actual analysis I thought was quite good. I spent a bit too long on it though, so I was running against the clock when doing my Analytical. We studied Macbeth this semester and I thought the prompts were both quite reasonable. I finished quite literally with 5 seconds left and my hand almost fell off, but I thought I went OK. I'm just glad I got it done.

I can never tell how well I went on an English exam until I get my results so we'll have to wait and see. What about you, how was your first exam today?
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: caffinatedloz on November 13, 2019, 09:38:38 pm
I had English today. Like you, my language analysis was quite short. I had an introduction, a paragraph about the opening strategy and two about the other two arguments. I also had to write a comparative essay in the two-hour exam. Surprisingly, they both went well. Health (in Year 9/10) always feels like a bit of a joke. Do you have exams tomorrow? ;D
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on November 13, 2019, 09:46:45 pm
I had English today. Like you, my language analysis was quite short. I had an introduction, a paragraph about the opening strategy and two about the other two arguments. I also had to write a comparative essay in the two-hour exam. Surprisingly, they both went well. Health (in Year 9/10) always feels like a bit of a joke. Do you have exams tomorrow? ;D

Great job, hope you went really well on your exam! ;D Best of luck for the rest as well!
I probably could have split one of my paragraphs in half as it was quite a long paragraph but whatever. I have a history exam tomorrow on World War II and the Civil Rights Movements in Australia and the US. I'm not doing history next year so I'm not overly worried about it but I still want to do well of course.
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: caffinatedloz on November 13, 2019, 09:51:31 pm
Great job, hope you went really well on your exam! ;D Best of luck for the rest as well!
I probably could have split one of my paragraphs in half as it was quite a long paragraph but whatever. I have a history exam tomorrow on World War II and the Civil Rights Movements in Australia and the US. I'm not doing history next year so I'm not overly worried about it but I still want to do well of course.
My history exam (on the exact same two topics, plus a subunit on migration) is tomorrow as well! What a weird coincidence. I found the way that the timelines of the civil rights movement and WW2 (and even migration) overlapped and effected each other super fascinating. Did you enjoy studying history?
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on November 19, 2019, 06:00:59 pm
UPDATE: 19/11/2019

Hi!
A big week of exams almost finished, bear with me as I hold forth on my latest exciting adventures.
I got an email from UoM just two hours ago notifying me that I got into Kwong Lee Dow! I'm honestly shocked, for two reasons; mostly because I didn't think I had that much of a chance and also because the university website said they were notifying students of the outcome on Friday in three days time, so you can imagine my surprise when the email miraculously appeared in my inbox on a lazy Tuesday afternoon.

I have powered through almost all of my all-important Year 10 exams; I only have my Methods exam 2 tomorrow left. I'm mostly happy with how I have gone so far, you can see my thoughts on my English and PE exams in one of my recent posts. This morning I had my Italian exam, I'm pretty satisfied with how I went, I found the listening comprehension to be somewhat easy when compared to previous exams and I think grammar and reading comprehension are my strongest points so they all went well. My essay was solid, I threw in a few jokes for the teacher such as the suggestion that I am going to Oxford University or that my favourite artists are "two very similar artists: Beethoven and Justin Bieber." I'm pretty cool, I know.
The only other exam I cared about was Methods exam 1, which was on Monday, and I honestly thought it was pretty easy, I finished the exam with plenty of leftover time and I was able to go over the paper twice. Here's hoping I fare similarly tomorrow.  I also have an AMEB piano exam on Thursday just in case I thought I didn't have enough exams going on, which should be a lot of fun.

I'm really happy that year 10 is finally over because I was getting a bit restless sitting through classes and classes of subjects that I wasn't going to continue with next year.
Congratulations to the VCE class of 2019 on finishing secondary school and your exams! Best of luck for whatever you want to pursue down the track!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: AngelWings on November 19, 2019, 06:22:44 pm
I got an email from UoM just two hours ago notifying me that I got into Kwong Lee Dow!
-snip-
 I also have an AMEB piano exam on Thursday just in case I thought I didn't have enough exams going on, which should be a lot of fun.
As a Kwonger Class of 2014 myself (who ironically later studied at Monash), congrats and welcome to the fold. :)

Re: Piano Exam
What grade are you going for, if you don’t mind me asking? Good luck for it!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on November 20, 2019, 02:51:45 pm
As a Kwonger Class of 2014 myself (who ironically later studied at Monash), congrats and welcome to the fold. :)

Re: Piano Exam
What grade are you going for, if you don’t mind me asking? Good luck for it!

Thanks! I'm doing a Grade 6 piano exam. I'm aiming for an A.
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: Snow Leopard on November 29, 2019, 08:07:29 pm
How'd the rest of the Yr 10 exams go, Tigermum?

Do you currently have headstart/early commencement/orientation for Yr 11?
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on December 06, 2019, 01:14:05 pm
UPDATE: 6/12/2019

Helloooooo, it's been a while, and a lot of awesome things have happened since I finished school this year, so here is the rundown of my latest antics.

I found out a few days ago that I have been selected by the school to go on an Exchange to Italy in December next year! I'm so excited and thrilled, I have been thinking about doing it since year 7, so to now know that I will be going is just amazing. There will also be an Italian student staying with me here in August, which is very exciting.
I also got all my results back for my Year 10 exams, and they actually went great; better than I expected! I don't get too fussed over exact marks at this stage because the marking is done quite differently to how it well be done in year 12 and the tests are at a lower standard. Besides, I only really cared about English, Methods and Italian, (since I wasn't go to continue with the others,) and they were my three highest scoring subjects, so I'm quite satisfied.
I then received another result in the mail yesterday and it was feedback for my piano exam. (I did an AMEB Grade 6.) Well, it turns out I went OK and got an A+ lol.  8) I was kicking myself after I came out because I somehow screwed up one little bit on the aural section that I normally find easy, and I kept thinking about it even when I got home. If I look back on it properly, I actually played my pieces pretty well and I'm really happy that the piano wasn't ridiculously loud and echo-y like last time haha. The feedback on the marking sheet was almost illegible at times, so I spent a while pondering over whether my sight reading was sound or if it sucked.

After Year 10 was all finished, we had quite a short headstart for Year 11. It's great to finally be doing lots of subjects that I am truly passionate about (apart from compulsory RE but whatever) and my teachers are all fantastic! I hope to enjoy and savour these summer holidays but I also want to get a bit done for Methods 3/4 next year, so I've started on the textbook and actually been quite productive; I have almost finished the first chapter lol

I hope you all have a great Christmas and a relaxing break and I guess we'll go at it again next year!  :)

Grazie per quest'anno e vi auguro buon Natale.
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: yourfriendlyneighbourhoodghost on December 06, 2019, 01:19:28 pm
Wow good job!
That is so sick you get to go to Italy ❤️
Do you know which part?
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: Joseph41 on December 06, 2019, 01:22:28 pm
The mighty hawks!  ;D

Super late response, but I'm very jealous of you haha.
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: Snow Leopard on December 08, 2019, 02:16:01 pm
Congrats on the exam marks and getting into the Italian Exchange! Will an Italia student be hosting you at their home?
I hope to enjoy and savour these summer holidays but I also want to get a bit done for Methods 3/4 next year, so I've started on the textbook and actually been quite productive; I have almost finished the first chapter lol
How far do you plan to get ahead?
Also, what do you reckon is the best way to study for Methods Tests and Application Tasks?
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on December 08, 2019, 10:01:18 pm
Wow good job!
That is so sick you get to go to Italy ❤️
Do you know which part?

Thanks! We are staying in Calabria. I think we will also get to do a bit of sightseeing and go to Sicily and a few other places in the South, which is pretty awesome!

Congrats on the exam marks and getting into the Italian Exchange! Will an Italia student be hosting you at their home? How far do you plan to get ahead?
Also, what do you reckon is the best way to study for Methods Tests and Application Tasks?

Thank you so much! Yes, I will be staying in the home of an Italian student who I will have hosted here in August.
As for Methods, I don't have a specific plan as to how much I want to do over the holidays, hopefully as much as I can. I already "know" most of the content, but I haven't done much in practice. In regards to studying for Methods tests and tasks, as cliche as this sounds, I try not to focus too much on studying for the test itself, the marks will come through practice and gaining a deep understanding of the content. Once you have a strong understanding of the content, then you can do exam-style questions to test how well you can apply this knowledge but the understanding is the most important part. Best of luck for Methods next year!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: Snow Leopard on December 08, 2019, 10:08:42 pm
Thank you so much! Yes, I will be staying in the home of an Italian student who I will have hosted here in August.
As for Methods, I don't have a specific plan as to how much I want to do over the holidays, hopefully as much as I can. I already "know" most of the content, but I haven't done much in practice. In regards to studying for Methods tests and tasks, as cliche as this sounds, I try not to focus too much on studying for the test itself, the marks will come through practice and gaining a deep understanding of the content. Once you have a strong understanding of the content, then you can do exam-style questions to test how well you can apply this knowledge but the understanding is the most important part. Best of luck for Methods next year!
That Italian Exchange sounds very exciting! I hope you enjoy it :)

Thanks a million for all the advice! I think we're gonna have our first Test and Application Task on Quadratics in the 3 week back (if you count the Friday that we're back as week 1). The terrifying thing is that I swear I have like Sacs for all of my subjects in week 3...so I better be prepared!

If you ever need any advice or help with Italian, I'd be happy to help ;)
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: yesh.weerakkody on December 09, 2019, 04:25:16 pm
UPDATE: 6/12/2019

Helloooooo, it's been a while, and a lot of awesome things have happened since I finished school this year, so here is the rundown of my latest antics.

I found out a few days ago that I have been selected by the school to go on an Exchange to Italy in December next year! I'm so excited and thrilled, I have been thinking about doing it since year 7, so to now know that I will be going is just amazing. There will also be an Italian student staying with me here in August, which is very exciting.
I also got all my results back for my Year 10 exams, and they actually went great; better than I expected! I don't get too fussed over exact marks at this stage because the marking is done quite differently to how it well be done in year 12 and the tests are at a lower standard. Besides, I only really cared about English, Methods and Italian, (since I wasn't go to continue with the others,) and they were my three highest scoring subjects, so I'm quite satisfied.
I then received another result in the mail yesterday and it was feedback for my piano exam. (I did an AMEB Grade 6.) Well, it turns out I went OK and got an A+ lol.  8) I was kicking myself after I came out because I somehow screwed up one little bit on the aural section that I normally find easy, and I kept thinking about it even when I got home. If I look back on it properly, I actually played my pieces pretty well and I'm really happy that the piano wasn't ridiculously loud and echo-y like last time haha. The feedback on the marking sheet was almost illegible at times, so I spent a while pondering over whether my sight reading was sound or if it sucked.

After Year 10 was all finished, we had quite a short headstart for Year 11. It's great to finally be doing lots of subjects that I am truly passionate about (apart from compulsory RE but whatever) and my teachers are all fantastic! I hope to enjoy and savour these summer holidays but I also want to get a bit done for Methods 3/4 next year, so I've started on the textbook and actually been quite productive; I have almost finished the first chapter lol

I hope you all have a great Christmas and a relaxing break and I guess we'll go at it again next year!  :)

Grazie per quest'anno e vi auguro buon Natale.
Heyo heyo! Omg wowza congrats on all the achievements!! How are you finding spesh btw? ;D Good luck with all your subjects!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on December 09, 2019, 06:22:50 pm
Heyo heyo! Omg wowza congrats on all the achievements!! How are you finding spesh btw? ;D Good luck with all your subjects!

Thank you! I'm doing 1/2 Spesh next year and my teacher was away for almost all of the (short) headstart period, so I haven't done much yet. I'm pretty excited though as maths is my favourite subject. Good luck for your VCE as well, great to see another Class of 2021er on here!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: Snow Leopard on January 18, 2020, 05:23:53 pm
How have the rest of your holidays been, TigerMum?
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on February 08, 2020, 10:27:53 pm
How have the rest of your holidays been, TigerMum?

Oops! Sorry I haven't updated this journal in a while, I sort of forgot about it over the holidays. Seeing as my first week of Year 11 is done and dusted, I guess it would be a good time to make an update. Thank you for asking about me though, I do appreciate it.  :)

UPDATE: 8/2/2020

My first week back at school went better than expected. My teachers are all great and I'm so so so happy to finally be able to concentrate on subjects that I actually ENJOY and CARE about. Well, apart from the fact that my school still makes us do Religion in Year 11, so that's the only class I don't look forward to. But I guess I will have to PERSEVERE!!  :D
I'll give a quick summary of each of my subjects and how I feel about them so far.

Methods (3/4)

Aah, Methods, my only 3/4 subject this year and my favourite subject. Not gonna lie, I'm kind of excited for this year. I've actually managed to occasionally depart from my usual procrastinating self and so I have finished the first five chapters of the Cambridge book to get a headstart on the year, and I hope to get through the textbook nice and fast so I can focus on exam-style questions. It's a bit of a shame that quite a lot of 3/4 Methods is just a repeat of 1/2 apart from some more integration and the prob/stats stuff, but this also gives me a confidence boost for the year, because I didn't find 1/2 methods that hard, so here's hoping I will fare similarly this year! My first Methods SAC is in all the way in term 2, which is a while away but I'm sure it will come hurtling right around the corner when I am most busy!  ;D

Specialist

I'm quite excited for Spesh this year; my class only has 10 people, and it's a really cool atmosphere where we just get to talk about nerdy maths stuff and do nerdy maths stuff. I've only completed the first two chapters, and it's all content I have seen before, so not much to say here. Now that I'm looking through the whole book, it seems like 1/2 Spesh has a lot of random stuff in it without much focus, (since there isn't any calculus), and several topics that aren't needed for 3/4 Spesh. My teacher said they weren't really the biggest fan of the structure of Spesh 1/2 and that 3/4 is way more juicy (harder, as well, but still). Anyway, it's another maths subject on my timetable, so that's pretty awesome.

English Language

Well, what can I say, after only one week, I already know that I 100% made the right choice in choosing Eng Lang over normal English. I find this subject sooo much more interesting and engaging, and I feel like it complements my LOTE very well. We've been mainly focusing on the basics; learning about the subsystems of language and things like that; which some people may think is dry, but I find learning about how our language is actually structured and how it compares to other languages to be fascinating.

Physics

Physics has been pretty fun so far. We're only doing Thermodynamics at the moment, which isn't in Units 3/4, so I won't worry too much about deeply understanding the concepts, but I find it interesting enough so I'll probably do that anyway. I've also done quite a bit of Physics reading for motion and forces, and I think the concepts are freaking awesome to learn about; I'm really looking forward to it. I do think the minimal maths in VCE Physics is a bit of a shame because you can't delve into the concepts as deeply without using calculus, but I guess they want to avoid just turning it into another maths subject, which is fair enough.

LOTE: Italian

Doing a language is one of those things where cramming is absolutely impossible and the only way to improve is regular practice. Unfortunately, I have a habit of leaving everything to the last minute and spending hours procrastinating. I guess this is the year where I have to change if I really want to excel in Italian. I feel like I am quite good at reading; we had to read this Italian novella (About 35 pages) over the holidays and I hardly used my dictionary; but my listening and speaking isn't really at the same standard. I always feel like when I am reading, I can read at a slower pace and I can understand the structure of the sentence when I see it in front of me, but when I'm listening, a lot of the words fly past me and I don't quite pick up the structure of the sentence. Anyway, I love the subject and I'm really excited to go on the exchange to Calabria at the end of the year, it's going to be awesome.

Other Stuff
Oh yeah, I'm doing Religion & Society 1/2 as well, but I don't really care about it, so I won't write anything for it haha.  ;D
I spent a lot of the holidays looking into what I want to do once I leave school, and it feels like the more research I do, the more torn I get. There are essentially a few areas that I'm thinking of going into: Engineering (probably Mechanical or Electrical), Computer Science, Mathematics or maybe Commerce. (I originally thought I was set on doing Commerce, but it's looking less likely now.) I'm also considering applying to overseas universities, but I think I should choose a course first before I choose a university.

If you're still reading all the way down here, I tip my hat to you for slogging through my incoherent ramblings. Wishing you all the best for a successful and productive 2020!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: ashmi on February 08, 2020, 11:08:51 pm
Hey TigerMum!

Super good to see that you enjoyed the first week of school and that you have been super productive ;D
It's amazing to hear you have a Methods SAC in Term 2 (Lucky!!) which gives you plenty of time to adjust and solidify your understanding of the topic.

I've also done quite a bit of Physics reading for motion and forces, and I think the concepts are freaking awesome to learn about; I'm really looking forward to it. I do think the minimal maths in VCE Physics is a bit of a shame because you can't delve into the concepts as deeply without using calculus, but I guess they want to avoid just turning it into another maths subject, which is fair enough.

I can absolutely confirm this ;D. Motion in Physics is probably one of the most interesting and fun topics to learn about! Although Physics is quite a maths-based subject, it's really more focused on understanding how everything works rather than the numbers. Imagine if Physics did have more maths in it..... ??? (I wonder what it would be like. Maybe Spesh 2.0?)

I spent a lot of the holidays looking into what I want to do once I leave school, and it feels like the more research I do, the more torn I get. There are essentially a few areas that I'm thinking of going into: Engineering (probably Mechanical or Electrical), Computer Science, Mathematics or maybe Commerce.
The more options you have the harder it is to pick :P
It's amazing to see that you have branched out and looked at different options. If you don't mind me asking, why do you want to do engineering? (I also want to do Electrical too🤣).
Computer science, mathematics and commerce also sound like great areas of interests too! Make sure you attend some uni open days to get a feel of what the courses/areas of interests are like. (It will probably help, especially when applying overseas.)

Thanks TigerMum for the update! Looking forward to the next one soon ;D
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: rkjthguakj on February 09, 2020, 10:31:24 am
I'm quite excited for Spesh this year; my class only has 10 people, and it's a really cool atmosphere where we just get to talk about nerdy maths stuff and do nerdy maths stuff. I've only completed the first two chapters, and it's all content I have seen before, so not much to say here. Now that I'm looking through the whole book, it seems like 1/2 Spesh has a lot of random stuff in it without much focus, (since there isn't any calculus), and several topics that aren't needed for 3/4 Spesh. My teacher said they weren't really the biggest fan of the structure of Spesh 1/2 and that 3/4 is way more juicy (harder, as well, but still). Anyway, it's another maths subject on my timetable, so that's pretty awesome.

That's awesome to have spesh enjoyed in that type of way. Most people I know who do spesh tend to feel forced to it, so that's great to actually like spesh! Keep up the great work!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: hmv19 on February 10, 2020, 06:23:42 pm
I got an email from UoM just two hours ago notifying me that I got into Kwong Lee Dow! I'm honestly shocked, for two reasons; mostly because I didn't think I had that much of a chance and also because the university website said they were notifying students of the outcome on Friday in three days time, so you can imagine my surprise when the email miraculously appeared in my inbox on a lazy Tuesday afternoon.

Just came across your journal and thought it was super cool! I'm a member of the KLD Class of 2021 too! Nice to meet you :D

I wish I could spend time making a journal like this, but I think I'd be too boring and forget about it anyway haha! I applaud your productivity.
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on February 10, 2020, 08:34:14 pm
Thanks TigerMum for the update! Looking forward to the next one soon ;D

Thank you so much! Your journal is way cooler than mine though.  ;D ;D
Quote
Imagine if Physics did have more maths in it..... ??? (I wonder what it would be like. Maybe Spesh 2.0?)

A lot of the forces and dynamics stuff would be quite similar to what is found in Spesh, but the other stuff would be quite different. I don't have too much of an issue with the relatively low amount of maths in physics; if you like maths you should do maths subjects. I guess it's still interesting to think about!
Quote
It's amazing to see that you have branched out and looked at different options. If you don't mind me asking, why do you want to do engineering? (I also want to do Electrical too🤣).
Computer science, mathematics and commerce also sound like great areas of interests too! Make sure you attend some uni open days to get a feel of what the courses/areas of interests are like. (It will probably help, especially when applying overseas.)

Thanks for asking, I'm obviously not set on doing Engineering yet but I'm attracted to it because I love maths and physics and I've always enjoyed solving problems and understanding how things work. Thanks for the advice as well, best of luck in potentially doing engineering!
That's awesome to have spesh enjoyed in that type of way. Most people I know who do spesh tend to feel forced to it, so that's great to actually like spesh! Keep up the great work!

Thank you! I tried not to let what other people thought I should do influence my decisions and I'm pretty satisfied that I have chosen subjects that I enjoy.
Just came across your journal and thought it was super cool! I'm a member of the KLD Class of 2021 too! Nice to meet you :D

I wish I could spend time making a journal like this, but I think I'd be too boring and forget about it anyway haha! I applaud your productivity.
Thank you so much for the kind words, nice to meet you too!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on March 11, 2020, 11:00:56 pm
UPDATE: 11/2/2020

Well, well, well, after a month of laziness I've finally gotten my act together and decided to update this journal.
Believe it or not, a few mildly interesting things have occurred in my life over the past month, so hopefully I can ramble about them for a bit without sending you all to sleep!!  :) :)


Now onto my school life. I'll be the first to admit I've been pretty lazy these last few weeks. I haven't suffered in marks because our tests have been pretty easy so far, but I really need to get my act together on certain subjects. (Pet Hate: I can't stand it when teachers refer to Unit 1/2 tests as SACs, I don't know what it is, it just really gets on my nerves lol)

Methods 3/4

Methods hasn't taken too much out of me yet, we are doing the Unit 3 SAC next term so the subject has actually been surprisingly chill. Unfortunately this has meant I've slacked off a little and not pushed ahead as much as I had aimed to;I'm at the end of Chapter 6 at the moment and I would have liked to be up to Diff by now. I also have to say that sketching sine and cosine graphs has to be the worst thing on the entire Methods course. Extremely tedious and annoying to find the x-intercepts and then I always butcher the shape of my graphs and have to do them again. Anyway, enough with my negativity, we had two tests on some early chapters and I didn't drop a mark on any, so things are looking good for Methods this year.  ;D

Spesh

Spesh is pretty cool at the moment too. I'm really enjoying the new topics and our class is just a lot of fun; we watched a video the other day about Reuleaux Triangles, which are these cool shapes that can act as wheels despite not being round and it was pretty awesome. I still think it's a bit of a shame that we don't get to do calculus in Spesh 1/2, but I'm still excited for a few topics like complex numbers, further trig and vectors so I think I will survive!  :D

Physics

Physics has been decent so far. We had a test on Thermodynamics and I lost one mark, which I was pretty happy with. The test was really easy and to be honest, the mark I lost was kind of embarrassing but I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I haven't been super motivated to work in this subject because for some reason I keep reminding myself that thermodynamics and nuclear physics (which we are doing now) aren't in Physics 3/4. I shouldn't really be thinking like that but at the end of the day the 3/4 is all that really matters.

Eng Lang

English Language has been the real surprise this year. I'm so happy that I decided to choose it over normal English, I enjoy it so much more already and we've only done the metalanguage, which some people say is the driest part of the course. I find being able to precisely describe elements of our own language to be really satisfying, so I'm looking forward to using this in cool examples later in the year!

Italian

Italian as a subject has been quite good so far this year, but unfortunately there is an elephant in the room and that is the coronavirus. I'm supposed to be going on an exchange to Italy in December after hosting someone here in August and with the travel ban placed on Italy, it's looking very unlikely. We haven't had any confirmation yet, but I would be devastated if the exchange doesn't go ahead because I've been looking forward to it for so long and opportunities like that don't come around that often.

I'm also doing Religion and Society, which I don't care about that much, but I got 96% on a test that I did zero study for so that was nice lol.

Well, I think that just about does it and HOLY COW that was long. If you actually read this whole thing, I want to give you a medal. Hopefully I update this a little earlier next time so I don't end up with a thesis like this again!!   ;)
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on March 21, 2020, 10:19:57 pm
UPDATE: 21/3/2020

Hello everyone, hope you're all keeping well. It's obviously a strange time not just for school but for life in general, so I hope you're going alright and staying safe. Thought I'd make a quick update.

So I had my last day at school on Friday, we now move to online classes for the foreseeable future, and to be honest, I'm a bit lost. I was thinking yesterday, now that school has been closed, what would have to happen for it to open again? As in, what development with the virus would have to occur for my school to decide to open up again? I can't see anything within the next 2-3 months that would be enough for school to open again and I'm worried that it will be a very long time before we go back. I feel especially bad for those doing folio subjects, I know some people who are doing PDT and they can't actually build their thing at home because they don't have the equipment or the materials to do it. I'm lucky that a) I'm only in Year 11 and b) my 3/4 is Methods, a subject that I can easily teach myself and study for without being at school.

Speaking of subjects, I'll just give a super quick snapshot of each of my subjects and how they are going.

Methods 3/4
The last 2 weeks have been really good for Methods, I'm finally being productive again after a few weeks of complacency and I'm now in the middle of Chapter 9. Methods is actually looking really positive and I would love to just smash the subject this year to build up my confidence for year 12.
Spesh
Spesh is pretty chill at the moment, I reckon the early topics are fairly easy so nothing has been that challenging yet. I would like to push ahead a bit over the holidays, so here's hoping I can get my act together.
Physics
I'm going to be honest, I've been pretty lazy with Physics recently. I'm finding it hard to motivate myself to work hard in this subject because nothing we have done so far is in the 3/4 course, which I shouldn't let dictate how I feel about topics, but for some reason my brain keeps telling me this every time I think about studying for Physics.
English Language
Not much is really going on in Eng Lang, we were supposed to have a test next week but that's not happening now that school is online. Once again, thank God I'm doing Language, I don't think I would survive in normal English.
Italian
As I slowly recover from the realisation that my exchange to Italy is looking dead in the water, I am remembering that I can still practice the language here at home. We had to present this advertisement for an aged care home and I was actually pretty happy with mine. We had to speak to the class about it and even though I probably spoke twice as bad to the class than any of the times I practised at home, it wasn't too bad and the content was all there.

Not too much to report on, and it looks like these coming weeks will become increasingly boring as nothing is on at the moment, but hey, I'd rather be bored than have what is happening to so many people right now. Please stay safe and wash your hands, hope you enjoy the last week of the term, whether you're at home or still at school! Ciao.  :)
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: ashmi on March 22, 2020, 09:43:05 am
Hey TigerMum!!

Awesome to see that you are doing amazing as always ;D.
How is the virtual school going on your end? Is it manageable or does it consume more time than a normal school day?

UPDATE: 21/3/2020
I feel especially bad for those doing folio subjects, I know some people who are doing PDT and they can't actually build their thing at home because they don't have the equipment or the materials to do it.

Hahaha this is me 😭. I feel really bad for the folio students especially who don't have equipment at home or who are missing vital pieces that are needed to make their products. (I really need an overlocker to give my product a professional finish and now I think I'm going to lose marks based on this).
Italian
As I slowly recover from the realisation that my exchange to Italy is looking dead in the water, I am remembering that I can still practice the language here at home.

This is absolutely terrible, having everything crushed because of this virus. I can totally sympathise with you right now.

I hope everything else in your life is going alright! Take care of your self and keep updating in the future! :D
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on March 22, 2020, 12:23:48 pm
Hey TigerMum!!

Awesome to see that you are doing amazing as always ;D.
How is the virtual school going on your end? Is it manageable or does it consume more time than a normal school day?
Thanks, hope you're doing amazing too! I haven't had any online classes because our last day at school was just on Friday, so tomorrow will be my first day. It seems to me that each teacher will go about things differently; some will just send us the work to do and we ask them if we have any questions and others will actually record themselves teaching something.

Hahaha this is me 😭. I feel really bad for the folio students especially who don't have equipment at home or who are missing vital pieces that are needed to make their products. (I really need an overlocker to give my product a professional finish and now I think I'm going to lose marks based on this).
Yeah, you popped into my head when I was writing about PDT, I hope the current circumstances don't affect you too badly!

This is absolutely terrible, having everything crushed because of this virus. I can totally sympathise with you right now.
I hope everything else in your life is going alright! Take care of your self and keep updating in the future! :D
Thank you!  :) Good luck with everything, I'm sure you'll get through this!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on April 27, 2020, 08:03:16 pm
(Also I would love to see you update your journal sometime)

UPDATE: 27/04/2020

It's been a while, (by "a while" I mean over a month), but I was just reminded the other day that this journal exists, so I thought this would be a good way to procrastinate for a bit  ;)

So online school has actually been solid so far, obviously it has its pros and cons. The big thing is that I can have an extra hour of sleep every morning (like holy cow, imagine waking up at 8:15 and getting to class on time). I also like how I have more flexibility in terms of when I do all my work, and being a year 11 student, this has allowed me to prioritise my 3/4 subject, which is pretty neat. All this said, I do miss the face-to-face social interactions that you have at school. Even though I'm still yakking away with friends online 24/7, it's not quite the same.
Anyway, onto subject specific things...

Methematical Mathods
At the moment, I'm just hoping that we do our Unit 3 SAC at school, because I really don't want any dodgy online nonsense to get in the way of that juicy rank 1. I'm going at a fairly solid pace through the textbook; I'm going to start probability tomorrow, and I feel quite confident with all the content, so things are looking up for my only 3/4 subject this year!  ;D

Spesh
Not much going on here, just going through the content. I haven't really gone ahead because I've been focusing on Methods mostly.

E Lang
Similar story to Spesh, not a lot to report on. We're looking at language acquisition at the moment, which is pretty fascinating. I'm really starting to get a good hold over all the metalanguage which should really help me in the long run.
Spoiler
Something random and weird I found hilarious: I had to watch this video of a guy with his really young daughter, and at one point he said "my daughter understands the concept of interrogative sentences" which made me laugh for some reason  :o

Fizix
Physics has been getting better the last few weeks. I have a test on Thursday on nuclear physics, which I feel a bit unprepared for, but my school normally makes pretty easy tests across the board for 1/2 subjects, so I can't imagine it will be that difficult.

Italiano
Good news, the amount of extra work I have put into Italian since online classes started is probably the most out of all my subjects. The main reason being that I can easily just whip out some Duolingo or an Italian article in between each class and get some regular practice in. My main problem for Italian was that my usual cramming method of doing homework and study doesn't really work for a second language, so being able to do lots of short practice "sessions" during the day has been a great benefit.

Spoiler
random personal-ish rant: Due to a couple of recent events, one of these being the shutdown, I have had quite a big change in mindset, not only towards school, but towards my career and life in general. It's pretty much to realise what the important things in my life are and what actually makes me happy. Over the past couple of months, I feel like I was beginning to become obsessed with VCE and my ATAR to the point where I was assigning way too much value onto a single number, (despite being in a position where I feel pretty confident that I will be able to achieve the ATAR required for any of my possible uni options). I'm not suggesting that I'm going to start studying less, (because, to be honest, despite being obsessed with my ATAR, I wasn't actually studying that much), instead, I just want to put things into perspective and try and enjoy the things that really do make me happy, and that is the relationships that I have with those around me. I've always been an extrovert who loves talking to people, and I think being stuck at home has really made me appreciate how important people are to me, and that there is more to my life than just school and work. Idk if that made any sense but I just wanted to let it out a bit.

Well, that should just about do it. Hope you are doing well and staying safe, now we'll see if takes me another month to update this again! It definitely will.  ;)
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: J_Rho on April 27, 2020, 08:59:18 pm
UPDATE: 27/04/2020

It's been a while, (by "a while" I mean over a month), but I was just reminded the other day that this journal exists, so I thought this would be a good way to procrastinate for a bit  ;)
YAYYYY AN UPDATE!

So online school has actually been solid so far, obviously it has its pros and cons. The big thing is that I can have an extra hour of sleep every morning (like holy cow, imagine waking up at 8:15 and getting to class on time). I also like how I have more flexibility in terms of when I do all my work, and being a year 11 student, this has allowed me to prioritise my 3/4 subject, which is pretty neat. All this said, I do miss the face-to-face social interactions that you have at school. Even though I'm still yakking away with friends online 24/7, it's not quite the same.
But i mean HOW GOOOOOD are the sleep ins!! Have you tried video calling friends much? My friends and I did it the other day and it was so good! It was better than messaging cause we were like all together but not.

subjects
How are you finding having all the extra time? Are you finding you are using your time more/less productively??
Also, thanks for the laugh I loved your subject titles for methods and physics!

Spoiler
random personal-ish rant: Due to a couple of recent events, one of these being the shutdown, I have had quite a big change in mindset, not only towards school, but towards my career and life in general. It's pretty much to realise what the important things in my life are and what actually makes me happy. Over the past couple of months, I feel like I was beginning to become obsessed with VCE and my ATAR to the point where I was assigning way too much value onto a single number, (despite being in a position where I feel pretty confident that I will be able to achieve the ATAR required for any of my possible uni options). I'm not suggesting that I'm going to start studying less, (because, to be honest, despite being obsessed with my ATAR, I wasn't actually studying that much), instead, I just want to put things into perspective and try and enjoy the things that really do make me happy, and that is the relationships that I have with those around me. I've always been an extrovert who loves talking to people, and I think being stuck at home has really made me appreciate how important people are to me, and that there is more to my life than just school and work. Idk if that made any sense but I just wanted to let it out a bit.
Its really good you've been able to find perspective, and obsessing over scores id v counterproductive. What have you been getting up to in iso?
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: ashmi on April 27, 2020, 09:11:01 pm
Hey Hey TigerMum! ;D

I don't think I've ever screamed so loudly to see a new update on a journal before🤣

Sounds like you are getting through a lot of stuff during remote learning and it's amazing to see what you are getting up too :D.

Methematical Mathods
At the moment, I'm just hoping that we do our Unit 3 SAC at school, because I really don't want any dodgy online nonsense to get in the way of that juicy rank 1. I'm going at a fairly solid pace through the textbook; I'm going to start probability tomorrow, and I feel quite confident with all the content, so things are looking up for my only 3/4 subject this year!  ;D
Let's get that juicy rank 1 TigerMum!!! I'm rooting for you 8).
Also, woah onto probability already? (The best unit in Methods hands down :P ). Good job getting ahead and keep that spectacular pace up. I absolutely know you are going to ace this subject and I can't wait to hear more updates soon!

Fizix
Physics has been getting better the last few weeks. I have a test on Thursday on nuclear physics, which I feel a bit unprepared for, but my school normally makes pretty easy tests across the board for 1/2 subjects, so I can't imagine it will be that difficult.
You had me already laughing at the Methods title, but 'Fizix' takes the cake anyday😂. Good luck for your Physics test this Thursday! Don't worry, you will be absolutely fine and there is only so many things they can ask for nuclear physics.

Spoiler
Also, with your personal rant, it's great to see that you are getting the problem off your chest and realising how the number game can severely impact your health. I can totally understand the obsession of the 'number game' and it's pretty hard to see past it at this time (especially VCE time yolo), but in the end, it's not going to do much but provide a pathway. Family and friends are definitely more important and it's good to see how you are approaching a balancing stage.
Take the time to look after yourself during Year 11, and make sure to not stress too much over numbers (don't be like me who obsessed over numbers and did super poorly), in fact, try to obliterate the numbers from your life as much as possible (I know, sounds crazy).
Something that I've been doing since December last year was instead of looking at specific numbers for my subjects, I decided to make specific goals e.g. on the end of year exam for Physics, I want to get all the Special Rel questions correct. Might work for you too when you start Year 12 as it helps you focus more on the quality of your learning and progression of mistakes rather than a quantitative score. (Just try to avoid making specific goals that will be impacted by the performance of others if that makes sense?)

Thank you so much TigerMum for the detailed update! I'm really looking forward to more soon and good luck for the rest of the week!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on April 29, 2020, 10:37:41 pm
YAYYYY AN UPDATE!
But i mean HOW GOOOOOD are the sleep ins!! Have you tried video calling friends much? My friends and I did it the other day and it was so good! It was better than messaging cause we were like all together but not.
Oh yeah, we do video calls a lot, which is pretty good, but obviously it still isn't the same as speaking in person. Funny thing about sleeping in, today I woke up and looked at the clock and thought it said 8:35 so I was scrambling to eat breakfast and open my computer. I was about halfway through breakfast when my brain switched back on and realised the small hand was before the 8, not after it, so it was actually 7:35. Sometimes I really worry about myself  ;D
How are you finding having all the extra time? Are you finding you are using your time more/less productively??
The extra time is good because I can be more flexible and prioritise certain subjects when I need to, but at the moment I'm pretty much putting all my effort into methods (because it's my only 3/4) and kind of neglecting my other subjects, which isn't that ideal.
Its really good you've been able to find perspective, and obsessing over scores id v counterproductive. What have you been getting up to in iso?
I really haven't been doing much over the past few weeks. I've either been studying, doodling around on the internet or playing piano. Luckily, I have been able to go out for a quite a few walks so I haven't been stuck inside for the whole time. Thanks for the reply and I hope you've been keeping well over the past few weeks too!  :)

Hey Hey TigerMum! ;D

I don't think I've ever screamed so loudly to see a new update on a journal before🤣

Sounds like you are getting through a lot of stuff during remote learning and it's amazing to see what you are getting up too :D.
Wow, I appreciate the enthusiasm! thanks! :) Maybe I shouldn't wait a month before the next update  ;)
Let's get that juicy rank 1 TigerMum!!! I'm rooting for you 8).
Also, woah onto probability already? (The best unit in Methods hands down :P ). Good job getting ahead and keep that spectacular pace up. I absolutely know you are going to ace this subject and I can't wait to hear more updates soon!
Thanks so much, best of luck for methods and all your subjects as well! Also, I beg to differ, calculus is the best unit in methods, no debate.  ;D
Also, thanks for the laugh I loved your subject titles for methods and physics!
You had me already laughing at the Methods title, but 'Fizix' takes the cake anyday😂.
Haha thanks, unfortunately I can't take credit for Fizix, that was one of the physics teachers at my school, but meth mathods was my creation   ;)
Spoiler
Also, with your personal rant, it's great to see that you are getting the problem off your chest and realising how the number game can severely impact your health. I can totally understand the obsession of the 'number game' and it's pretty hard to see past it at this time (especially VCE time yolo), but in the end, it's not going to do much but provide a pathway. Family and friends are definitely more important and it's good to see how you are approaching a balancing stage.
Take the time to look after yourself during Year 11, and make sure to not stress too much over numbers (don't be like me who obsessed over numbers and did super poorly), in fact, try to obliterate the numbers from your life as much as possible (I know, sounds crazy).
Something that I've been doing since December last year was instead of looking at specific numbers for my subjects, I decided to make specific goals e.g. on the end of year exam for Physics, I want to get all the Special Rel questions correct. Might work for you too when you start Year 12 as it helps you focus more on the quality of your learning and progression of mistakes rather than a quantitative score. (Just try to avoid making specific goals that will be impacted by the performance of others if that makes sense?)
Yeah, thanks a lot for the advice, that idea about numbers sounds pretty good! I'll see if I can use that over the next two years.
Thank you so much TigerMum for the detailed update! I'm really looking forward to more soon and good luck for the rest of the week!
Thank you, hope you enjoy the rest of your week too. 👍
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on May 07, 2020, 09:04:05 pm
UPDATE: 7/5/2020

Hellooo and welcome back to another installment of this mess  ;D
I think the novelty of online classes is really starting to wear on me now; it feels like I'm just stuck in my room at home, staring at a screen all day. I've been able to do a lot of video calls w/ friends, which is pretty good, but I still feel like there is a giant, social life-shaped hole in my life at the moment. I'm also having some difficulty in motivating myself to do work for most of my subjects, however, I'm not TOO concerned because we all have motivation slumps every now and then.  :) Not much has really been going on apart from school which seems to be the case for everyone right now.
Anyway, on to the subject stuff...

Methods
I already gave my thoughts on the changes to the study design on the discussion topic , but I'll kind of sum up how I feel about it. I completely understand why they had to remove some content from the course (I would have preferred that they kept continuous probability distributions over normal distributions but it is what it is); however I really don't understand how VCAA came to the conclusion that increasing the weighting of a SAC covering content taught during online classes is supposed to decrease the burden of online classes on students. My preference was that they increased the weighting of the end-of-year examinations considering they are the fairest way to assess and it avoids the chaos that comes with online SACs. Otherwise, Methods has been going fine recently, for some reason we are having our SAC really late, which I don't have a massive problem with, as long as I don't do the SAC online.

Specialist
A similar story to last time, there isn't much going on in Spesh, we are just going through the work and there haven't been any recent assessments.

Italian
This is probably the subject that has been boosted the most over the past few weeks. I've been reading a lot of Italian news, which has vastly improved my reading skills, in fact, I would say that my reading is far and away my strongest skill in Italian. My listening and speaking both need some work, especially after COVID-19 decided I wouldn't be going on my exchange later this year. We had an interesting writing assessment the other week where we had to respond, make inferences and suggestions based on some data from a survey on Italian students and their attitudes/views towards work, school and the media. I haven't received my results yet but I was pretty satisfied with how I went.

Physics
We had a test last week on Nuclear/Atomic Physics and I got a nice 40/40, which was pretty cool. The test was quite easy, which I was kind of expecting because my school tends to make fairly easy tests for 1/2 subjects. We are doing electrical physics at the moment, which is quite good. I've been enjoying Physics a lot more recently and I've been checking out some of the 3/4 textbook in my spare time. Some of the concepts look super interesting!  :D

English Language
We are currently looking at child language development and the theories of language acquisition, which I have found really fascinating. I've been doing some mini-analytical commentaries and I really like the precision involved in English Language; you have the tools to describe everything exactly without any wishy-washy explanations in your writing.

I might wrap it up there, hope you are all looking after yourselves and staying safe. Enjoy the rest of your week! yep I actually updated this in less than two weeks ;D
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: ashmi on May 07, 2020, 09:51:36 pm
Hey TigerMum! :D

WOOHOOO IT'S ANOTHER UPDATE ;D

I totally feel you and the social life 'hole'. No matter how connected you stay online, it's just a really bizarre feeling not being able to meet in person.
Otherwise, Methods has been going fine recently, for some reason we are having our SAC really late, which I don't have a massive problem with, as long as I don't do the SAC online.
You are not the only ones who will be doing your SAC really late. (For authentication reasons, my school is pushing back our official SAC till we get back..). I really would have loved them to keep the continuous probability distributions too and the weighting of Unit 3 seems a little unfair but ah well life happens :'(. Other than that, it's super amazing to see you are smashing this subject!! (I'm so proud of you)

Physics
We had a test last week on Nuclear/Atomic Physics and I got a nice 40/40, which was pretty cool. The test was quite easy, which I was kind of expecting because my school tends to make fairly easy tests for 1/2 subjects. We are doing electrical physics at the moment, which is quite good. I've been enjoying Physics a lot more recently and I've been checking out some of the 3/4 textbook in my spare time. Some of the concepts look super interesting!  :D
And here we have the famous TigerMum smashing "Fizixs" like there is no tomorrow ;D. AMAZING job for 100%! (That's a big achievement!). I can 100000% reassure you that 3/4 Physics is sooooooo good! As someone that despised 1/2 with a burning passion, 3/4 is like a miracle sent by the holy spirits of VCE. Physics has some super interesting stuff to learn about and is quite an enjoyable subject! (Shooting people with Nerf guns and Luna Park come with the 3/4 Physics package🤣)

Can I also just say, I'm so proud of you for updating your journal in less than two weeks? This is one of my fav journals to read on AN.
Have an amazing week TigerMum and keep us updated in the future :D
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on July 16, 2020, 06:58:07 pm
UPDATE: 16/07/2020

Hello and welcome back to this sorry excuse of a journal! After over two months of laziness I have finally decided to update this thing. I just had the first half of my Methods Unit 3 SAC this afternoon (aka my first SAC ever) so I thought this would be a good time to start doing this again. I'll talk a bit more about it when I get to the subjects.
Outside of school, nothing much is really happening now that we are back in lockdown again. I was lucky enough to get away interstate over the holidays before they stopped people from leaving Victoria, which was pretty nice. (The ban only goes one way, so we were able to sneak back in)  :) Over the last month or so I've become DANGEROUSLY re-obsessed with a bunch of musicals, most notably Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, Hamilton, Miss Saigon, among others. Hence, I have spent very unhealthy lengths of time listening to cast recordings and watching full slime tutorials.. ;D
Now to completely rip off a bunch of awesome journals with song of the week, or maybe song of the month seeing how often I update this lol  :D
Spoiler
The first 2ish minutes of this pretty much describe me walking into my SAC
Anyway, onto the subject specific stuff.
Methods
Spoiler
Incoming wall of text/rant
As I said earlier, I had my Unit 3 SAC for Methods literally this afternoon. I have... mixed feelings about it. I felt extremely confident for the vast majority of the exam, in fact, I was able to finish it with quite a bit of time remaining except for one question which was actually labelled "tricky". I looked at it for ages but had absolutely no clue how to do it despite attacking it from many different angles and so I ultimately didn't answer it. This isn't what is annoying me though because I spoke to a bunch of smart people when I was going out and no one else I spoke to got it either so I thought rank 1 was still in play.
Unfortunately, I realised about 10 minutes later that there was one question that I just COMPLETELY forgot to answer. It was an easy question worth 2 marks that I originally skipped over because I was a little confused as to what it was asking for, but I just completely forgot that it existed despite looking over my paper. I think what happened is that the question was the first part of a whole big question, was all in words with no numbers and there was not much space between it and the next question, so I don't think my brain registered that there was actually a question that I hadn't answered. (I probably thought the words were just part of the explanation for the whole big question at the top of the page.)
I know that it's only 2 marks, but I am seriously pissed off about it, because I had such a good chance to really stamp my foot down on rank 1 in my cohort and I almost definitely won't be now because of such a stupid thing like completely forgetting to do a question. I've never ever forgotten to do a question in my entire life and of course it happens the first time I do a test that actually counts towards something. I'm feeling pretty down at the moment, but I think the best thing I can do is just move on, I have the second part of the SAC next Thursday, I just hope that I won't do anything that dumb next week.
I know I spent a lot of time venting in this, however I'm still mostly pleased with how the rest of the SAC went, hoping that rank 3-4 is still on the tables.

All my other subjects
I'm too lazy to actually write anything substantial for the rest of my subjects considering that I only just got back and we haven't had any assessments this term :D :D so here's the rundown
Spesh is all going good, we did some exams at the end of the semester in class (because the official exams were all cancelled) and I went pretty well on all of them. We're looking at complex numbers now, which is quite fun and new.  :)
Similar story for Fizix, not much really going on, we're doing the motion unit which is pretty easy in 1/2.
I've really been liking Italian 🇮🇹 over the past few months, I've substantially upped the amount of time I spend reading, listening and watching content in Italian and I'm certainly noticing some improvement. :) That said, some of the topics that we look at in class can make it a little bit of a chore if I don't care about the topic that much, and I think that the most important thing when doing a language is to do things that you are interested in and that really engage you.
Not a lot going on in English Language, we did some outcomes towards the end of last term which I went quite well on. I find it quite funny how much learning a second language gave me a headstart with some things in this subject because I was already used to looking at language with a heavier focus on grammar and the like.

Anyway, I think that just about wraps up this update, I hope you all had a great holidays and are ready to destroy the rest of the year!  :) :) :)
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: angrybiscuit on July 16, 2020, 07:15:04 pm
Over the last month or so I've become DANGEROUSLY re-obsessed with a bunch of musicals, most notably Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, Hamilton, Miss Saigon, among others. Hence, I have spent very unhealthy lengths of time listening to cast recordings and watching full slime tutorials.. ;D
Warning: Musical rant ahead
AHH a fellow musical lover. I discovered Phantom (the 25th anniversary one, hmu for a google drive version) while browsing the net during online learning and I RISKED learning absolutely nothing by watching and listening to it non-stop while doing my school work. Absolutely worth it tho lmao. Now I am back to school I am scared of getting sucked into a musical hole and never re-emerge lol so I much proceed with caution. I also really love Les Mis, every time I hear it I want to throw a revolution. Also "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" is just :'( I am yet to watch Hamilton, but I do have Disney+, it's on top of my watch list as soon as my schedule is freer. How did you like it? Did it meet your expectations?

On a serious note, congrats on your first ever SAC :) You should be proud with whatever you achieve :D
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: ashmi on July 16, 2020, 09:47:39 pm
Hey TigerMum!😄😄

(I absolutely love seeing when you update your journal it's amazing)

I just had the first half of my Methods Unit 3 SAC this afternoon (aka my first SAC ever) so I thought this would be a good time to start doing this again.
Bro, I just had the first half of my Methods SAC this afternoon too... (Got another one on Monday haha).
Ok enough of that, I'm glad to hear that you were able to do something productive on the holidays (yes to those slime tutorials) and I must say, I love the music choice! (Please do more of these in the future🥺).

Don't worry too much about Methods! You GOT this and in the end, it's a learning experience to help you for your end of year exams ;D. I know that feeling all too well and with a bit more time throughout the year you definitely will get better at picking up small mistakes (and not forgetting questions)

Also, amazing job with how you are going with your other subjects! Great to hear Fizixs is going well (gotta love motion) and as angrybiscuit has already said, be proud of completing your first Methods SAC! Make sure to celebrate and I'm looking forward to a future update soon. ;D
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on July 19, 2020, 02:41:58 pm
Late replies by me but oh well  ;D
angrybiscuit
Phantom
Thanks for replying, awesome to see some more musical fans on here! Yeah, the 25th anniversary recording is soooo good, I have a giant "talent crush" on Ramin, Sierra and Hadley, it's pretty awesome that we live in a time where something like that is free and available.
Les Mis
And yeah, Les Mis is definitely my favourite musical, I first got into it when I was about 10 and I haven't looked back since  :) 
I am yet to watch Hamilton, but I do have Disney+, it's on top of my watch list as soon as my schedule is freer. How did you like it? Did it meet your expectations?

About Hamilton, I'm a bit broke so I don't have Disney+ lol.
On a serious note, congrats on your first ever SAC :) You should be proud with whatever you achieve :D
 
Thanks for the kind words about the SAC, I'm really trying to get past it considering that I now know I did even worse than I first thought, I guess the best thing I can do is just move on and make up for it on the next one.  :)
ashmi
Bro, I just had the first half of my Methods SAC this afternoon too... (Got another one on Monday haha).
Wow that's pretty crazy, I guess a number of schools pushed their SACs into term 3. I hope you went well, at least better than I did  :)
Ok enough of that, I'm glad to hear that you were able to do something productive on the holidays (yes to those slime tutorials) and I must say, I love the music choice! (Please do more of these in the future🥺).
Glad you liked the music choice, tbh I wouldn't mind if that just played whenever I entered a room lol  ;D
Thanks for the kind words about the SAC, I'm really trying to stop thinking about it but it frustrates me so much because I found every test we did this year to be easy and then I just choked the SAC when it actually mattered. Anyway, I guess all I can do is move on to the next one. Best of luck for your second part tomorrow! 
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on August 05, 2020, 06:29:59 pm
UPDATE: 5/08/2020

Hello friends and welcome back to the latest installment of this very INTENSE VCE journal, proudly brought to you by a certain someone not doing work during online religion class (me).   ;)
I haven't been up to much outside school over the past few weeks for obvious reasons, but I have been able to spend a lot of time on some hobbies. Over the past year and a half, and the past few months especially, I've become really interested in a number of fields, most notably politics, philosophy and sociology to the point where I may actually consider studying these at university. (At the moment, I'm still looking at a science degree and majoring somewhere in maths or engineering, but if I study at Unimelb I could potentially do some of these other interests as breadth subjects.) In general, I feel like I have so many interests in so many different areas that choosing is going to be so difficult.  ;D

Song of the Week
Listening to this at 12:30am in the morning in a dark room with headphones was a bit of an experience, such a beautiful song, even better in the context of the album.

Anyway, moving onto my subjects...
Maff Mefods
So over the past three weeks I did my Unit 3 Methods SAC, which was my very first SAC for VCE (also happens to contribute 22% lol) We actually did it in three parts instead of two because the first one was only an hour and a half, so we did an extra half hour that was tech free later. I was feeling a bit annoyed after the first one because I knew I messed up a couple of easy questions, but I pretty much came to an attitude of "whatever happens, happens" after that and tried to not think about questions I may have gotten wrong. Well, this morning I got my "results" back, and even though I don't know what my exact marks were on each of the parts, I was essentially told by my teacher that I got a moderated score of 98% which was... the highest in the cohort  :) Colour me shocked, after the SACs I was hoping for maybe a top 4, I thought my rank 1 dreams were dead in the water. I'm just so so happy that all the work I put into this subject has actually payed off into something. Of course, it's no time to get complacent, but at the moment I have just had a triple dose of confidence injected into my veins and it feels pretty good.  ;)

Spesh
Spesh has been going along rather smoothly, we did a quick test on Complex Numbers the other day and I got a nice hundo. (The test was fairly straightforward due to the topic not really having any applications in spesh.) We're doing vectors now, which is a lot of fun, luckily I had the infamously difficult tip-to-tail vector addition already down pat thanks to 1/2 Physics  8)

Fizzics
As I hinted at above, we are tackling the notoriously hard topic of motion in physics at the moment. I have spent many hours trying to wrap my feeble brain around the concept of velocity, which is understandable given how abstract it is. I have asked my teacher if we can move on to some topics with more real-world applications like Relativity but to no avail.

la bellissima lingua italiana
please forgive me, I'm going to write some stuff in my awful italian
la settimana scorsa ho fatto una presentazione PowerPoint sulla geografia dell'Italia. (ho dovuto parlare per circa 5 minuti, il PowerPoint era solo un visivo) Come al solito, ho iniziato il PowerPoint la notte prima della scadenza nonostante il fatto che avevo scritto la sceneggiatura quasi due settimane prima. Quasi tutti gli altri nella mia classe hanno fatto un video invece di un PowerPoint, ma ho molta familiarita' con PowerPoint (ne ho fatti un sacco), pensavo che sarebbe stato piu' facile. Onestamente, il mio design era bellissimo  8) ma l'ho registrato alle ventidue, quindi la mia voce era un po' troppo silenziosa. (stavo provando a non fare rumore). Comunque, sono contento del risultato, speriamo che sia un successo.

Eng Lang
English Language has generally been pretty chill over the last few weeks with not much going on. We're looking at the history of English which is interesting enough. The state of affairs with the world at the moment has actually given us lots of things to talk about with language, e.g. the way politicians message the public about the coronavirus. I've also found the subject has had some interesting links with some sociology stuff I've been looking at (for example, why do people refuse to refer to trans women as women or use she/her pronouns because "it iGnoReS bIoLoGy" but have no issue with referring to adopting parents as "mum" or "dad". Goes to show that these words are not inherently defined by biology but also by social constructs.)

I've done enough rambling for one day, and if you noticed, at the start I said I was in the middle of RE class (which was at about 1pm), so that can give you an idea of my tendency to procrastinate.  ;) Please stay safe during this time and best of luck for the rest of the week!
for some reason the emojis stopped working halfway through writing this so there should be a bunch of weird semi colons and stuff throughout this lol
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: Evolio on August 05, 2020, 07:02:07 pm
Hello TigerMum!  ;D

Quote
I was essentially told by my teacher that I got a moderated score of 98% which was... the highest in the cohort. I'm just so so happy that all the work I put into this subject has actually payed off into something. Of course, it's no time to get complacent, but at the moment I have just had a triple dose of confidence injected into my veins and it feels pretty good.
A massive congratulations! 🎉 That's amazing! I'm so happy for you! It's great that you're using this as motivation for your next sacs and that you're still keeping your eye on the prize.  8)

Quote
Spesh has been going along rather smoothly, we did a quick test on Complex Numbers the other day and I got a nice hundo. We're doing vectors now, which is a lot of fun, luckily I had the infamously difficult tip-to-tail vector addition already down pat thanks to 1/2 Physics  8)
Good job on the test! I love complex numbers, mainly due to the algebra lol. Ah, vectors. Vectors are interesting because there's so much you can do with them...like in the 3 4 course, I think there are 3 topics in the textbook that use vector concepts. What's your favourite topic so far in spec? It's pretty sweet that you're doing physics as it complements spec so well, since it makes concepts easier to understand.

Have a great rest of the week and stay safe too!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on August 06, 2020, 03:25:29 pm
Hello TigerMum!  ;D
A massive congratulations! 🎉 That's amazing! I'm so happy for you! It's great that you're using this as motivation for your next sacs and that you're still keeping your eye on the prize.  8)
Hey Evolio, thank you so much for the kind words!  :) Best of luck for any upcoming SACs you may have, I'm sure you're going to crush them!  ;D
Good job on the test! I love complex numbers, mainly due to the algebra lol. Ah, vectors. Vectors are interesting because there's so much you can do with them...like in the 3 4 course, I think there are 3 topics in the textbook that use vector concepts. What's your favourite topic so far in spec? It's pretty sweet that you're doing physics as it complements spec so well, since it makes concepts easier to understand.
Yeah, complex numbers are quite fun, anything to do with algebra I tend to like. My favourite topic in spesh is integration except we don't do that in unit 1/2. Of the stuff we've done this year, I'd probably say either trig or complex numbers, I just like algebra and more "pure" maths.
Thanks for replying and enjoy your week as well!
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: Bri MT on August 06, 2020, 05:02:15 pm
Velocity is the vector version of speed. I.e. speed but with a direction.

E.g. let's say you had a question about throwing a ball up in the air. First, define up as being positive. Our initial velocity is some positive number. The acceleration due to gravity is negative (-9.8 m/s/s) so this positive velocity gets smaller and smaller and smaller until at the peak of the ball's motion it has 0 velocity (it's a stationary point). Then when the ball starts moving down, it has negative velocity which gets bigger and bigger (more and more negative).
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: homeworkisapotato on August 07, 2020, 10:13:32 am
Hi TigerMum, I love your journal just as much as I love your name and amazing job for methods!
Every time I read your username I get a mental image of a pregnant humanoid tiger tho haha
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on August 07, 2020, 10:44:36 am
Velocity is the vector version of speed. I.e. speed but with a direction.

E.g. let's say you had a question about throwing a ball up in the air. First, define up as being positive. Our initial velocity is some positive number. The acceleration due to gravity is negative (-9.8 m/s/s) so this positive velocity gets smaller and smaller and smaller until at the peak of the ball's motion it has 0 velocity (it's a stationary point). Then when the ball starts moving down, it has negative velocity which gets bigger and bigger (more and more negative).
Oh I'm really sorry Bri, my comment about velocity was a terrible joke!  😔 At least among people in my school, I can't speak for others, but most people I know tend to find the motion in Unit 1/2 quite easy due to it being a fairly familiar and applicable topic. I tried to hint that I was joking about finding it difficult by saying "I want to move onto a less abstract concept with more real-world applications like Special Relativity". 😂
Anyway, that was a great explanation, hopefully others will find it useful!
Hi TigerMum, I love your journal just as much as I love your name and amazing job for methods!
Every time I read your username I get a mental image of a pregnant humanoid tiger tho haha
Hey homeworkisapotato,
Thanks so much for the kinds words, I'm glad you liked my username, can't say I've ever thought about it like that before!
Enjoy your weekend   :)
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on November 15, 2020, 01:15:11 am
UPDATE: 15/11/2020

Ummmmm..... hello and welcome back to my journal! After a very long hiatus, I've decided to come back for a second season and this leading single is gonna be an absolute banger....
Well, that's a lie; it's probably gonna be super boring but I guess it's the effort that counts?
Anyway, I'm currently in the middle of my 1/2 exam period and counting down the days for my methods exams (aka the only subject I care about). I'll talk about them in a little more depth under each of the subject headings. Outside of school not much as really being going on, I did an AMEB piano exam the other day except it was a little bit different from usual; I had to record myself playing the pieces at home and then send it in online. The whole thing had to be in one take so I recorded a bunch of different times over the past week or so before I got one that I really liked. It felt a lot more chill just playing the pieces at home, and it was also easier cause it's on my piano and I know how the pedals and the touch react so that was cool.

Now onto my subjects....

METHODS

Yeah, so obviously methods is on tuesday and wednesday, and to be honest, I'm kind of terrified. I've been doing a bunch of practice exams and the pattern is pretty clear: I find the exam to be OK, get most of the hard questions right and then routinely screw over a bunch of extremely basic questions by dropping a negative sign or something. It's really frustrating because I know the content well enough to have a real crack on all the 5% separator questions but it's no use if I make simple algebra errors on easy questions. Anyway, I'm just praying that I switch into gear in the exam. And I do NOT have a study score aim, I don't want to put any more pressure on myself than I already have.

Other subjects/exams

So I've been having exams for all my other subjects, I'll give a brief rundown of how they went and how I'm feeling for next year.
English Language
Our 1/2 Eng Lang exam was fairly straightforward, there was just a short answer question worth 50 marks and an essay worth 50 marks, I pretty much rehashed a lot of arguments from essays I had written earlier during the year and that seemed to work OK. Apparently Eng Lang really steps up a notch in 3/4 so I guess I'll have to step up my game for that.
Religion & Society
Excellent news! On Thursday I did the last religion exam I will ever have to do in my life! Yeah, I have no issue with religious people, I mean whatever floats your boat, it's just not something that really appeals to me, especially organised religion. Not to mention the way I heard so many religious people talk about LGBT folk growing up in the name of "God", it kinda left a bad taste in my mouth. lol bit of a random tone shift there  :o
Italian
My Italian exam went OK, we had to move rooms after it turned out the sound wasn't working for our listening in the room we were in which was kinda funny. I understood most of the listening and I thought some of my writing responses were pretty solid and ticked a lot of the boxes. I didn't manage time as well as I would have liked and so my essay was on the shorter side but oh well. Tbh I dropped off a bit for Italian in the second half of this year, I think the exchange being cancelled made me lost a bit of motivation. Hopefully I will get into some good routines over the summer holidays so I'm ready for next year!
Fizix
Yeah of course I'm gonna spell it like that, what are you looking at? haha  ;D So I had my exam on Friday, crazy story, there was a fire in the woodwork building at my school before the exam so my school had a short lockdown. I was still in the building where my locker is and so like 20 of us got stuck in that building and couldn't get to the exam so they had to delay it until we could get down to the examination building. The exam went OK, I didn't study for it as much as I should've but I got a bonus mark for drawing a llama above my name on the front of the paper so that should make up for it lmao  ;)
Spesh
I haven't done any spesh exams yet, they are on monday and wednesday. I should be fine for them, but I'm not really gonna be studying because of methods lol. I aim to get a good headstart over the holidays for spesh like I did with methods but hopefully I don't temporarily burn myself out like I also did with methods haha

Well, I think I might leave it there considering it's almost a quarter past 1 in the morning  :o
Many apologies for the three-month disappearance, I hope to catch up on a bunch of your journals as well! Congrats to everyone for your exams so far and best of luck for any you have upcoming! Byeeee
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: ashmi on November 15, 2020, 12:48:24 pm
ITS A JOURNAL UPDATE FROM TIGERMUM WOOOHOOO!!!

You know how excited I am to see an update from you?? ;D

First of all amazing job for all of your hard work this year in Methods! You will be absolutely fine and just remember to stay calm during the exam. You have done all the work you can possibly do and I know deep down (just like everyone else on AN) that you will smash it.

And I do NOT have a study score aim, I don't want to put any more pressure on myself than I already have.
This is what I call the best positive mindset you can go in with!!! Just do your best and that is all anyone can ask of you.❤️

Fizix
Yeah of course I'm gonna spell it like that, what are you looking at? haha  ;D
👀👀🤣
If there is one thing I love about this journal, it is your magnificent sense of humour. Also, a FIRE in the WOODWORK building?? What type of monstrosity is going on over there?? (I know we PDT people are crazy, but that is just next level).

Anyway, congrats for getting most of your exams done and good luck for the Methods/Spesh exam you have coming up! I am so glad to hear that most of your exams went smoothly and that you are happy with your performance. Also, congrats on doing your AMEB Piano exam! That is definitely an accomplishment to be proud of.

Thank you so much for the update TigerMum and I really look forward to hearing more in the future from you!! ;D
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on February 04, 2021, 01:03:22 am
UPDATE: 4/2/2021

Hey AN, apologies for the uhhh...... checks notes second three month disappearance in a row. oops. Now that school is back up and running I thought I would get back to this very sorry journal so let's see how this goes.
I have to say, it's kind of crazy to think I'm in Year 12 already, it always seemed like some distant year that would just never happen to me but it's appeared out of nowhere from around the corner and it's about to slam me in the face.
My subjects for this year are English Language, Italian, Specialist Mathematics, Physics and UMEP Mathematics. I'll briefly summarise how I feel about the subjects going into this year but don't expect any study score goals, I'm not going to put that pressure on myself haha.  ;D

Spoiler
I understand I haven't updated my journal since before ATARs and study scores came out so for those who are interested, I got a 45 in Methods last year. I was extremely shocked, even though I was aiming for/expecting 45+ before the exams I felt like I absolutely bombed the exams with dumb errors and thought a 41/42 was the best I could hope for, so I'm very happy with that.
I'd also like to extend my congratulations to the class of 2020 on here, you had such a difficult and unusual Year 12 that I wouldn't wish upon anyone but you rose to the challenge and blew it the fuck out of the water. Congrats!  :)

Subject Stuph

Spesh
Very excited for spesh this year, the course looks super interesting and it's a subject that both rewards achievement and is a lot of fun (in my opinion haha) so I know I will never be upset to see it pop up on my timetable. I didn't do as much work over the holidays as I would have liked but I've got some motivation now that the year has started and I feel confident thanks to Methods so I'm looking forward to it!  :D

Fizix
Physics and Spesh are definitely the two subjects in which I feel most confident in my ability to do well just because the STEM stuff seems to make sense in my brain. I've done most of the motion AOS and it's been really fun so far, looking at the course I think I will enjoy 3/4 a lot more than 1/2 which is good. The only problem with physics is that I start thinking about it in real life and taking note of the normal force as I sit on a chair hahaha I'll stop being weird now.  ;D

Italian
Probably the subject I feel the most nervous for. Even with the decent scaling on this subject, I feel like it's going to be my 10% subject just because Eng Lang has to be in my top 4 and I feel better about Spesh and Physics. My Italian practice lapsed a bit over the holidays which is unfortunate but I've got a few people I speak to pretty regularly in Italian, both online and in person which is nice. My reading is still substantially better than all my other skills, which is why I'm kind of terrified of the oral exam lol  :o

English Language
As I alluded to before, Eng Lang will essentially be the subject that makes or breaks my ATAR. It's by no means by strongest subject but unfortunately, it will have to be in my top 4. That said, I still really enjoy the subject for what it's worth, the content is fascinating and I love class discussions. Speaking specifically in regards to the exam, I feel like I am more suited to the analytical nature of Part A (short answer) and Part B (analytical commentary) while Part C (essay), is much more of a wildcard.

Uni Maths
I'm not sure whether I explicitly said that I was applying for uni maths last year but anyway, I got in and I had my first class this week which was pretty exciting. It was a bit weird because almost everyone else there was in a group of 2 or 3 from their school while I was the only person from my school there, so there were already established groups. I'm really looking forward to the year, especially Calculus in semester 2, learning new and interesting maths is always fun and I get to meet some like-minded people.

Uni Stuph
I'm still very much undecided when it comes to uni, and unfortunately it doesn't look like that's going to change any time soon. At the moment I'm tossing up between Science - would major in Applied Maths, Engineering - would probably major in Electrical Engineering, not too sure which one, and Commerce - would major in Economics/Finance. I would like to go to unimelb however I might lean towards Monash if I decide to do Engineering so I don't have to do a BSci and a Masters.

It's 1 in the morning so I might leave it there, thank you so much if you actually managed to slog your way through this snoozefest, I'll try to make sure it isn't another 3 months before I update this again. Byeeee!!  :)
Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: Bri MT on February 04, 2021, 02:00:28 pm

Fizix
Physics and Spesh are definitely the two subjects in which I feel most confident in my ability to do well just because the STEM stuff seems to make sense in my brain. I've done most of the motion AOS and it's been really fun so far, looking at the course I think I will enjoy 3/4 a lot more than 1/2 which is good. The only problem with physics is that I start thinking about it in real life and taking note of the normal force as I sit on a chair hahaha I'll stop being weird now.  ;D



How am I meant to think you know velocity when you don't know what the name of the subject is??? ???

Ftr, there are absolutely people who struggle more with motion than with special relativity, as weird as that may seem. I find that my knowledge about special relativity actually tends to be more useful irl than motion stuff (throw ball up, ball come down is good to know but most of us already knew that & I'm not going to run the numbers in my head) whereas understanding of mass-energy is more relevant to, say, policy debates).

Also you have nothing to apologise for whatsoever :)

Thinking about physics all the time is real, just about every single time I'm in an elevator I think of questions about the normal force. Just make sure you don't fall into the trap w/ the normal force and newton's 3rd law. Kinda ruins some movies but picking them apart is fun in its own way.

Title: Re: My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey
Post by: TigerMum on February 05, 2021, 10:08:52 pm
Hey Bri, thanks so much for replying!
Quote
How am I meant to think you know velocity when you don't know what the name of the subject is??? ???
>:( Grrrr I'm doing my best to spell it... nah my teacher from last year would spell it like that in emails so I decided to bring it on here haha 🤣
Quote
Ftr, there are absolutely people who struggle more with motion than with special relativity, as weird as that may seem. I find that my knowledge about special relativity actually tends to be more useful irl than motion stuff (throw ball up, ball come down is good to know but most of us already knew that & I'm not going to run the numbers in my head) whereas understanding of mass-energy is more relevant to, say, policy debates).
Yeah that's pretty interesting, I guess you don't really need to take a physics class to intuitively understand how motion/forces work. Also that's quite cool, I didn't fully appreciate how the applications special relativity can have.
Thanks again for replying, hope you enjoy your weekend and stay safe!  :)