Hey there laura_ and Geoo! You two are relentlessly lovely. Thank you both, seriously, for checking in on my little thread!
I'm so sorry I've been so inactive -- I didn't intend on radio silence, but my how the days have gone by!
I hope the both of you have been doing well. Here's a long, long overdue update!
November 11, Nothing!, 2019Twelve months! And what a year! It's been exactly 365 days since the medically recorded beginning of my chronic fatigue syndrome.
A couple of weeks ago I completed all of my work and finished Unit 2 of Biology, Psychology, Chemistry, and Literature.
If you're curious, here are my averages in each subject.
These are the average scores across all of my SACs throughout units 1 and 2 of each subject.
Literature: 83%
Psychology: 88%
Chemistry: 93%
Biology: 93%
It's kind of bittersweet. I don't remember much at all of what I learned, but I am happy that I made it out alive!
A bit of recap on each subject.
Literature and Psychology were certainly a challenge. Psychology was my most unforgiving subject. Usually I'm decent at recall, but with how unreliable my memory has been, much of the content was lost by the time I had to repeat it. Ouch!
I'm still glad I took literature as opposed to english - it seems like analysis has been my only saving grace, whereas my greatest struggles have been in the creative department. I will never not, however, be wildly salty that we don't have english language. I'd give anything to learn it, whereas admittedly I don't feel as if I am learning much in literature.
Chemistry was, in all honesty, a nightmare. The material was fun and interesting for the most part, but appeared entirely estranged from the study design - meaning that every practice exam I did made exactly zero sense. Either that or I am absolutely terrible at exams. Regardless of the subject, I never seem to do very well in exams, admittedly -- I'm not sure what's up there, but I plan on taking more practice ones throughout the holidays.
And biology is still my favorite! I had a brilliant teacher and found the content highly engaging. I'm really excited for next year's content.
So, what now? Not to drag this post on forever (just making up for lost time!) but over these holidays, I plan on working hard at all of my upcoming subjects: Methods, more literature, biology, and more chemistry.
I'm honestly terrified of methods. I'm going to have to look into tutoring, but it will be my top priority to understand it before the year begins, and secondarily, I'd love to have read the biology and chemistry textbooks through before then.
I'll be doing plenty of practice exams and, hopefully, regaining some sense of cognition! I have begun listening to Douchy's Biology -- and I adore his enthusiasm. Though I don't quite follow all the time, I'm happy to be forming the foundation for the next two units.
Lastly, I have picked up reading again. And what a relief! I'm not nearly as good at it as I used to be, but it feels like a part of my soul is back. I missed, dearly missed, being positively lost in the pages of a book. I just completed Dr. Richard Shepherd's
Unnatural Causes. I adored it. My next is Kathleen McAullife's
This Is Your Brain On Parasites, and I'm looking forward to starting it very soon!
I've found some of my sanity back in games, too. Forcing some leisure seems just as important in productivity as working, studying, etc. I played through The Legend Of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (my first Zelda game!) and loved it. I'm very excited for Pokemon Sword/Shield, too.
Anyway! Goodness, if you've read through this whole thing, kudos to you - and thank you for your interest! I can't express how much it means to me. Take care of yourself in the current exam or post-exam season! Take a deep breath. You've got this.