Pros and the Con: angewina_naguen's Journey Waddling Through Uni

[angewina_naguen]

25/05/2020

Hey, everyone!

Just handed the first out of the four assignments I have for the rest of the semester! I can't believe it's already the last week (but won't say I'm not relieved that it is  ). I have lots to do so this will be a quick update on some of the things I've been up to amidst my major assessments period!

At insanipi's suggestion, I've made a thread dedicated to all things music-related here! I'm really excited to post lots in it and have you all interact with me there. I'm also open to analysing and exploring works that you like too so if you have music you would like to see me comment on, let me know in the thread or here in this journal!

To help me study for ClassRom which has an insane amount of lengthy set works, my Spotify playlist for the subject is now complete and running. It's FOUR TIMES as long as my Modern Times playlist from last year so I'm really just in awe at how much music we've covered in this unit. I'm hoping to focus more on the works towards the latter half of the semester because I'm feeling fairly confident about the first half considering how intense and rigorous I studied for the mid-sem. Out of everything there, if you're interested in listening to perhaps my top three, my personal favourites are Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante in Eb Major, Chopin's Ballade No. 4 in f# minor and Verdi's Aida (I had Acts 1 and 2 prescribed for study) 

And in the spirit of my recent teaching assessment, here's a video of me doing the Curwen hand signs to Do-Re-Mi from 'The Sound of Music'  I had heaps of fun coming up with some actions for it and spent about half an hour trying to get the coda which has the hands doing different things right. Hope you enjoy it!

Now, back to my last round of ClassRom tutorial prep! Have an amazing week and will try and keep you all posted with how I go 

Angelina 

[angewina_naguen]

05/06/2020

Hey, everyone!

Super quick update for today's entry  I'm currently writing up my 3000 word essay for East Asian Music which is going to be a marathon but we are getting there. My exam times for next week have been confirmed and they're not pretty. I have Harmony 3 on Thursday, AP2 and ClassRom on Friday  Having a double exam day was not how I wanted to have my finals but I hope that the study I do leading up to it will be productive and pay off. I'm really looking forward to completing my exams and taking a well-deserved break to focus on work and getting back into some of my hobbies (fingers crossed the bowling alley will open up during my time off uni)!

I'll be largely off the forums for the rest of next week to make sure I can conquer these last exams, with maybe a small update after my monster essay is submitted. I'm excited to report on how it all goes and will see you all on the other side! Enjoy your weekends 

Angelina 

[kauac]

That's a pretty intense exam schedule - 3 in 2 days! At least you'll get them all done in one roll. Hope they go well! Soon we'll all be enjoying our 9 week break, thanks to USYD haha!

Are you going to learn some more curwen in the break?

[angewina_naguen]

That's a pretty intense exam schedule - 3 in 2 days! At least you'll get them all done in one roll. Hope they go well! Soon we'll all be enjoying our 9 week break, thanks to USYD haha!

Are you going to learn some more curwen in the break?

Hey!

I know; it's a total nightmare! How's your exam timetable looking? I'm definitely excited for that long break 

And 100%! I'm hoping to get up to some more Kodaly/Curwen shenanigans once my schedule clears up. I think now's the best time to be creative and to make some magic. Only a week or so more to go!

Angelina 

[kauac]

Hey!

I know; it's a total nightmare! How's your exam timetable looking? I'm definitely excited for that long break 

And 100%! I'm hoping to get up to some more Kodaly/Curwen shenanigans once my schedule clears up. I think now's the best time to be creative and to make some magic. Only a week or so more to go!

Angelina 

I'm pretty happy with my timetable - I've got 1-2 days between each exam.

Nice! Very true - without creativity, it is very easy to get bored haha!

[angewina_naguen]

09/06/2020

Hey, everyone!

Hope you all had a great long weekend and have started the week off nicely! Super quick update for the night. I just submitted my 3000 word essay for EAM and I feel relieved. This assignment almost made me go insane but we finally got there in the end. For your enjoyment, I have put the three songs I analysed in the essay below if you wanted to see what I suffered through for the last few days to get this assignment done 

Japanese Music That Angelina Admires Aesthetically but is Also Now Lowkey Sick of

Only a few more days to go and I will be done for the semester  :) Time for some well-deserved rest to help me get through my last exams  ;D

Angelina  ;D

[angewina_naguen]

13/06/2020

Hey, everyone!

I'm finally finished with exams and done with my third semester of uni!  I had my last one yesterday and here are my thoughts on how I went for each.

Harmony and Analysis 3 was something else. I spent a little too much time on one section of the exam because my inner perfectionist got the better of me so I had to rush through the final section. I finished it with only two minutes to spare though so I'm just hoping I checked everything through properly.

My AP2 exam went quite well. I messed up the rhythm part of solfege but surprisingly got it correct for LAB (it's usually the other way around). I think I could've prepared a little more for it but I definitely passed it for the semester and I'm not getting graded anyway for it  I'll definitely be trying a lot harder for AP3 to make up for it.

As for ClassRom, I don't think any amount of studying could've prepared me for that exam. I was really on top of everything with ClassRom over this semester, as you can probably tell from the journal, but I made a few silly mistakes and just had mind blanks left, right, centre throughout it. I'm certain I passed it but I don't know whether I'll be able to maintain my current HD average. I think my participation mark and essay might just keep me up there but we will have to see when results are out. It was also my first time doing a ProctorU exam which I'll talk about in my unit review for the course.

Overall, I'm feeling great now that it's all done! These are some of the many things I'll be getting up to during the break.

- Doing lots of lesson planning and resource development ahead for Tutesmart (and catch up marking for my students)
- Preparing for the July HSC English Standard Lecture 
- Writing a suite of poems on the concept of closure for the newspaper society which will be published in the first edition for Semester 2 
- Attending a wedding which will be my first big social event since quarantine 
- Celebrating my birthday in August!
- Analysing more music in my musicology thread here on the forums!
- Recording a good number of covers and live-streaming some music (I miss doing gigs!) 
- Arranging a song or two for Barbersoc (fingers crossed acapella society will be back on campus next semester).

Looking forward to being productive but also taking time for myself to recover  I'll check in again soon!

Toodles,

Angelina 

[angewina_naguen]

28/06/2020

Hey, everyone!

I'm currently a few stops away from Sydenham station ready for my singing lesson. I have been busy busy with lesson planning, writing a rather nasty Trials paper (good luck, Class of 2020 TuteSmart) and getting my slides ready for a jam-packed revision lecture in mid-July I've been finding work far easier to do now that I'm not also juggling university simultaneously with it.

Two days ago, I received my marks for two of my assignments for Choir 3 and ClassRom. I'm really pleased to inform that I was awarded full marks for my Choir assignment and 27.6/30 for my ClassRom essay! I was over the moon! I also found the comments for ClassRom helpful and while I argued a really controversial point for one of my arguments, it appears David Larkin was okay with it! I'm feeling a lot more confident about my performance this semester compared to this exact same time last year so fingers crossed the rest of my results will follow similar success.

Last night, I added a new post to the MMME thread which you can check out here! I chose to analyse one of my favourite songs of all time and would highly recommend everyone checking it out. I'd love to hear your thoughts about the song and the analysis and observations 

That's all for today's update! Hope you all have a great Sunday 

Toodles,

Angelina

[angewina_naguen]

02/07/2020

Hey, everyone!

Hope you've all had a great week so far! Super quick post today  It's almost school holidays so I'm hoping the following fortnight, despite TS having Trials season and lectures, will be heaps more chill. I'm currently formatting the last of the papers for the English faculty in preparation for it. While I'm excited for the students to sit it, I'm sure they feel anything but the same 

In light of recent Black Lives Matter initiatives, I have recently started up a 31 day challenge to post music from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. My tutor for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Music last semester really encouraged us to stream, attend concerts and support their music as a way to decolonise the music industry we have here in Australia. Although I'm sharing this day by day on Instagram, you can check out the full playlist of songs here! You might also consider donating to the following charities and causes in support of both national and international efforts towards racial justice!

As a final note, I'm very keen for Hamilton on Disney Plus and will hopefully get a chance to stream it some time this weekend. I will also be having friends over to do a home theatre watch party which I'm hyped for 

Hope you all have a great end of the week and will update with more exciting stuff soon!

Angelina 

[angewina_naguen]

18/08/2020

Hey, everyone!

It's been over a month since my last update  I've been really enjoying my holidays and taking a long break to ready myself for possibly the craziest semester to come. This week, I'm finishing off my poems for Honi Soit which will be published in the first week back's edition and getting a head start on the plentiful readings I have to do for university. This semester, I am taking the following subjects.

- MCGY2615 The Ultimate Art: 400 Years of Opera (Online)
- MCGY2004 Aural Perception 3 (Online)
- MCGY2011 Harmony and Analysis 4 (Online)
- MUED1009 Psychology of Learning and Instruction (Online)
- MUED2302 Classroom Management (Online)
- MUED2605 Children, Music and Educational Settings (Online Weeks 1-3/In Person Weeks 4-12)
- MUED3031 Teaching Jazz in Secondary Education (Online Weeks 1-7/In Person Weeks 8-12)

Some fun things to note!

- I chose MCGY2615 for my major this semester. I need to do a Historical Studies unit for my musicology principal study and was really inspired during the weeks we covered opera in ClassRom last semester. This elective unit is co-taught by three lecturers, two of which I have already had units with and thoroughly enjoyed, so I'm really looking forward to it! It may also be my last musicology unit because I am thinking of doing Honours next year and will be discontinuing my principal study if that's the case. I'm definitely going to make my time in it count 

- MUED2605 usually has our first professional experience integrated within the course but due to COVID-19, we will not be doing our prac until next year  I'm interested to see how the rest of the time that we would normally use for prac will be spent in the degree and how they will adjust between online and in-person teaching.

- MUED2302 is a new subject for all music education students and is why I will be overloading this semester with an added 3CP subject. I'm personally a little annoyed about having to overload, especially with COVID-19 already making learning more difficult than it has to be, but one of my favourite tutors from first year will be co-teaching the unit with one of our associate professors so I'm hoping it will be worth the extra work.

This is what my timetable looks like for the semester. I'm so glad I have two days free because the overloading will definitely need me to have off days as catch-up and relax periods. It'll be a packed three days in the middle of the week but I'm thinking of watching my pre-recorded lectures on Monday night to give myself a sleep in on Tuesdays. Hopefully it will all work out fine 

2020 Semester 2 Timetable

Overall, I'm feeling excited as much as I am terrified at the thought of the workload I will be dealing with. I've decided that I will be taking a step back from my extra-curricular commitments with Barbersoc to help me manage everything. Although I am a bit disappointed that I won't be able to do any society activities this semester, besides perhaps the odd Honi Soit article here and there if I have time, I'm sure it will be the best move long term for my wellbeing. I look forward to sharing another semester's worth of adventures here and wishing you all a great week!

Toodles,

Angelina 

[angewina_naguen]

06/09/2020

Hey, everyone!

Just a super quick update  It's been two weeks of university and I am already keen for the mid-semester break. The amount of work I have been getting is an absolute joke but so far, I'm balancing life okay. I have an assignment due this Thursday which is currently occupying most of my time and another three due the following week so I've really got my work cut out for me until those are over  I'm hoping to try and fit in exercise and lots of practice for my AMEB exam to keep me sane 

On more exciting notes though, my sister, boyfriend and I released a cover last week! We're entering a Japanese talent contest but I'm currently still waiting on copyright approval before I can submit our application. You can watch it here  I also had my poems published for the university's newspaper in the previous week's edition which I've linked here  While I'm stepping back a lot with my extra-curricular commitments, I'm keen to still get involved in a small project here or there whenever there is some more down time in my semester 

That's all for this entry. Hope you're having a great Father's Day and wishing you all an amazing week ahead!

Toodles,

Angelina