19/6/22 | T2 Week 9
Why I haven't updated this journal recently
It has been a long while since I last updated this. I wish I could say that it was because I was so busy studying that I didn't have time to think about this, and that might have been true for the first week or two since I last updated this journal, but the main reason for my not updating this journal is because I fell into a rut of procrastination and time wasting. I wasted my time watching anime and YouTube, and playing games when I should have been working on specialist, my data analytics SAT, writing essays for English, or anything else productive. Fundamentally I think I had forgotten something which has driven me in the past, I forgot that you need to make sacrifices in order to break bad routines. The bigger or longer the change is, the greater the sacrifice needed.
Another reason I haven't been updating this in a while is because I want to be able to say "I'm making progress now" or "I'm doing well in this or that", or something along those lines because I don't want to portray such a bleak image of myself or bring any negative thinking to these forums. But, that isn't the truth. I'm not in a great place right now, I have to finish my Data Analytics work this morning because of putting it off all weekend and am probably a month behind in specialist. I also need to improve my skills in English writing a lot more and probably could have put in more effort for the last SAC I did, the creative response. In business, while I'm probably scoring the best in the cohort, or at least second best, I could have done so much more if I had been more committed throughout the year. With physics, even though the subject is not one I aim to do so well in, I can likewise do so much better than I currently am. When you're wasting your time, you don't see the immediate consequences of your actions, if we did, maybe nobody would ever waste a second, but not knowing the outcome doesn't make your responsibilities go away. They will catch up to you eventually and you will face whatever consequences are a result. I haven't been holding myself accountable enough and have wasted too much time, I haven't been writing in this journal because I wanted to be able to rise to my false expectations of what I should be able to do, regardless of reality, without making the necessary sacrifices.
So, now I am writing because I don't want to be fake. I believe that I must be honest with myself in order to move forwards. I owe it to whoever decides to read this (if anyone does) to show how I have accomplished whatever I end up doing and express this VCE journey that I am on in a sincere way. I will let my results speak for me, so I'm not going to say "I'll start making sacrifices now" or "I'm going to work hard from now on" or any wishy washy words like that. I'll do what I can because that is what I must. Whatever results follow I will report on here. I'll worry about bigger goals once I'm up to date.
I did cross country a while ago and came in sixth place, so I'm able to go to the next level up since I came in the top 10 or so. While training for the next stage, I injured my right knee. I think it's likely IT band syndrome, so I've been using a stretch band to do a lot of hip and glute strengthening exercises because the pain is usually caused by problems with those muscles or your running form rather than the actual knee. This happened around 10 days ago and the pain has gone down to the extent that it doesn't cause me much discomfort to walk, but running is still quite painful and I'm definitely a lot slower than I was before getting this injury. I'll still go to the cross country event, which is on this Thursday (the same day as my school's formal), but I doubt that I'll do very well.
I've been working on my Data Analytics SAT, it is a research project which we get about 4 months to work on and develop. I have to collect data, make documentation, and make designs for representing my findings for the task. I'm doing my SAT on the question "Why do some schools have higher median study scores in Victoria?", so I've collected a lot of data from VCAA and other sources relating to SES scores, cohort sizes, median study scores (of course), and some primary data collected from my own sources. Right now, I have to complete part 6 (of 10 parts) of the SAT by tomorrow's lesson, which involves transforming the raw data into graphs and information which I will use in the final solution.
In business, I'm up to date and will work ahead a little bit, but really need to focus on Specialist mainly for now since I am so far behind.
For Physics, I am probably ranked third or fourth in the cohort, which isn't too bad, but could have done a lot better in a SAC for special relativity if I didn't forget that the speed of light is constant for all frames of reference. I also need to catch up with physics work as I am unfamiliar with a lot of the content and have some questions to complete from a few exercises.
I recently completed my creative response for English on the text "Extinction", but it could have been a lot better. I don't think that it will be graded too badly because I have a somewhat creative idea for the piece and any alterations I would make to my writing would only be minor changes of language choices and technical elements to more closely mimic the original text. The next SAC in English is the oral presentation, I'll probably do it on some issue related to education in Australia as I did last year.
Right now my main focus is Specialist, Physics, and a bit of Data Analytics work.
T2 Week 9 Goals:
- Complete most of Data Analytics part 6 for SAT + assigned work
- Specialist Ex. 6G, 6H, Differential Calc. Learning check, 7A, 7B, 7C, 7D, 7E
- Physics Ex. 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and motors worksheets