Post by: Potatohater on September 10, 2017, 09:38:18 am
I can't believe there's only 1 and a bit weeks left of classes (since we have a lot of muck up time during week 10) and I'm still kinda in denial that I'm leaving, but at the same time it feels right. My school is my home, it's changed me and allowed me to grow and I'm gonna miss it soooo much.
Won't miss the HSC though... Ugh I'm so not ready for English!
I also find it interesting how my 1st and last exam will be drama hehe.
Today I've gotta go to work (uggh) so idk how much study I can get done but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Post by: Natasha.97 on September 10, 2017, 09:45:04 am
I can't believe it either! It's equal parts frightening and exciting at the same time :3
Isn't everyone? ;)
Post by: strawberries on September 10, 2017, 10:11:09 am
and goodluck for your exams! :)
Post by: jamonwindeyer on September 10, 2017, 10:42:31 am
Post by: fantasticbeasts3 on September 10, 2017, 11:06:00 am
interested to know why you don't like potatoes - that's not something you hear everyday
Post by: katie,rinos on September 10, 2017, 11:40:35 am
I also can't believe that there is only 1 1/2 weeks left!
I'm excited, happy, nervous and scared all at once!
Another person who hates/dislikes English (I think?). I feel your pain a lot and am also not ready.
I had work yesterday (what type/where do you work?). I've had to n/a from the end of school to the end of HSC.
Are we like the cool kids now (I think we can call ourselves a squad ;))?
Excited to read your next updates. :D
Post by: Potatohater on September 10, 2017, 06:58:05 pm
hi!!! welcome to the hsc journal squad ✨ (can we call ourselves a squad? we're cool enough for that right?)Yayeah! I reckon we can call ourselves a squad! As for the potatoes thing, I just really don't like the taste, and they are the only main food I dislike, yet most of the world loves them apparently?
interested to know why you don't like potatoes - that's not something you hear everyday
I had work yesterday (what type/where do you work?). I've had to n/a from the end of school to the end of HSC.I work at maccas (unfortunatley) and I've N/A from week 10 till after our formal, so I still have 2 shifts left. I'm hoping to get an RSA certifficate and maybe I can get a front of house job at the local theatre so I never have to return to fast food again when I'm done.
Will definatley keep y'all updated! ;D
Post by: Potatohater on September 11, 2017, 08:07:02 pm
Today I had 2 classes and 1 free. In Geography I kinda slacked off a bit, but to be fair my teacher wasn't there and the ppt the sub had us working on wasn't even complete so I did as much as I could do.
For my free my friends decided to be rebels and leave school grounds to get coffee, they invited me along but I said I had to study for English since it's my worst subject, naturally I was labelled a nerd haha. Only wrote a few notes though since I started falling asleep....
In Bio we had our class photo taken for the yearbook, got our final rankings (=5/50) finished communication and we started going through the 2005 paper as a class. I still don't feel like all of the points have been covered for communication, but maybe that's because I missed them while I was sick a few weeks ago, and my two friends in that class are notorious for not paying full attention.
After school I went to westfeilds to get my friend a B'day prezie and a bottle of Drayton's wine for my Geography teacher as our class present (Drayton's is our economic enterprise :P) but I was denied service because apparently you're not allowed to be served if you're in school uniform, even if you're 18! I'm kinda annoyed by that, but I guess they didn't have what I was looking for anyway.
And now I guess it's time to stop productively procrastinating, aka. writing this entry, and finish the nights study and get to sleep early so I can survive tomorrow's period 0.
Until next time, Taylor :)
Post by: Potatohater on September 16, 2017, 02:29:09 pm
Here are some highlights of the week gone by:
Science BBQ:
The science faculty threw a BBQ for us. We got to have sausages (there were even vegan sausages so everyone could be included) cake and a cupcake for everybody that Ms Mishra made even though she doesn't have any year 12 classes this year. They also handed out 'Charlie Awards' for each class. The meaning of these were never explained but my guess is that they are for students who do well but are also special in some way, such as the physics student that falls asleep in class, the chem student the is "physically there but never actually there" and the bio student who "has 2 modes, sleep and off. and then there's the rare occasion where she is turned on, and thats where the magic happens" - just to name a few. The descriptions of each recipient were quite amusing!
Academy Awards Ceremony
For our Thursday drama lesson we held and academy awards ceremony. We dressed up in trashy dresses and accessories from the drama store room and walked down the red carpet. There was food, the Oscars sound track was playing and little trophies. Our teacher gave a speech in which she was "channeling Ellen" and then we all got up and presented awards to people (this had been sorted out in a previous lesson). Each recipient then gave an acceptance speech. Some were genuine, others were acting in character, some were funny and some threatened to make us all cry, causing my teacher to say "we don't cry in feather boas ladies" I got my award for "The best logbook" since I'm the only one that stayed on top of my logbook and wasn't finishing it the morning of submission, and my IP logbook ended up being 2 logbooks stuck together since I recorded (almost) EVERYTHING in it. We then took a heap of photos.
Following this we also had an English lunch on the senior lawn which was really just a bunch of fighting the crowds to get food.
Flash mob prep
On Monday we plan to do a flash mob in the quad so today we learnt the dance. Unfortunately the girl choreographing decided to run this session during our Friday maths class. My whole class told the teacher they were leaving but they should be marked present and he kept saying "you're either here or you're not" Within a matter of minutes I was the only one there, alone in a class giving off the appearance of a studious teachers pet, but people from other classes kept coming in and asking me if I would join them. I was so conflicted but eventually I decided to go learn the dance too. Before I can even finish packing up my teacher just gets up and leaves. Doesn't even say goodbye! whilst I understand there was no point for him to stay there I still find the way in which he just left me so incredibly funny! I then went and learnt the dance with about half the year in the gym.
Some other things that happened on Friday - played a revision Kahoot in English. My name was J. Gatsby and I was coming 1st until the teacher said "Gatsby is in the lead, but we all know what happens him in the end" The very next question after that comment I lost my answer streak and ended up coming 2nd. If only those ranking were our English rankings though...
The better half of my group also wrote our names on our table in whiteout at recess, to carry on the tradition and leave our physical mark on the school.
In terms of study though, lets be real, not much is gonna happen now since I have a revue to write, a yearbook to create and a whole bunch of muck up activities to plan.
Until next time, Taylor ;D
Post by: Potatohater on September 29, 2017, 06:24:03 pm
Some brief highlights of my final week of school
- dress in our junior uniforms
- changed the school sign to say "thanks for all the support" and decorated it with old bras
- water fight and flash mob
- dress in boy school uniforms
- graduation school assembly
- graduation evening assembly
- REVUE
In terms of the holidays/study break so far I've cleaned my room, enjoyed my sisters Alice in wonderland tea party for her 16th, did an RSA course and got my competency card and finishing up the year book, as well as studying mostly for bio and English, with a touch of geo and maths. I havnt even looked at drama yet. I feel like I've been studying but now that I look back on the past week I really need to get my act together. Hopefully tomorrow I will finish my mod C essay (which I keep falling asleep while writing) and upload it to the marking thread, and finish most of my bio notes. Please future Taylor, do it for even further future Taylor.
P.S I FINALLY got my geography rank on the last Thursday - no. 1 !!!!!! I was really hoping for that but didn't expect it to actually happen, but it did! The hard work pays off kids!
Until next time, Taylor :D
Post by: Daniyahasan on September 29, 2017, 07:04:05 pm
and WOW! 1ST RANK IS AMAZING !! GOOD ON YOU
Post by: Potatohater on October 04, 2017, 09:47:15 pm
It's nice to think there will come a time where I won't need to analyse literature in such an incredible depth and write essays about it ever again, I can just read for leisure, yay! But it's also scary because I don't think I'm as ready as past Taylor would have liked. Although I think I am starting to really get into studying now (mostly due to the little wave of stress that hit on Monday as I realised paper 1 was only 14 days away). The original plan was to run my day like a school day but lately I've been getting out of bed a bit too late for that, so at the moment I've just been studying and taking breaks as I please. I'm not sure if I should keep going like this (since I don't know weather I've actually been productive or just feel like I have) or actually implement some sort of structure.
I've also (finally) sorted out a solidish plan for my post HSC adventure rather than just talking about it. The plan is for some of my friends and I to drive out to a property in the middle of almost nowhere and camp for a few days between the last HSC exam (drama) and the first school spec rehearsal, since one of my friends is in the orchestra for being an awesome viola player. So yeah, I'm really getting excited for that!
Until next time, Taylor ;D
Post by: Potatohater on October 06, 2017, 08:00:16 pm
Other than that I'm hoping to be more productive to tomorrow, as the plan is to go to the library with my friend and pick each other's brains, but she hasn't confirmed yet.
Unti next time, Taylor :)
Post by: Potatohater on October 09, 2017, 09:04:20 pm
Yesterday I went to the library with my friend to do English and whilst it's good to get other people's ideas, it kinda limited productivity since there was a lot of collaboration and not much product, also we did get a bit distracted by food and chatting....
I then had my friend I met at year 10 drama camp over as a break from study and we've planned to meet up again to do drama and maths study but my dad doesn't like him and seems to think he can stop me studying with him. (Which he can't)
Today I think the foot really went on the accelerator despite the interruption of the Sydney water people. I didn't realise they were knocking on the door since I was so into my Hamlet brainstorm, so they just let themselves in the back gate and we're looking at something near the creek (I have a creek running through our property) then they left. Meanwhile I'm inside watching through the windows, shitting myself and trying to contact my parents because I just saw 4 unknown figures just casually trespass, and their van also was plain white with no markings adding to my fright. Eventully after they'd left my mum called back and told me it was just Sydney water people cause we've had a few sewrage problems. Phew!
So yeah, apart from that I actually did some work I'm quite proud of. I finished my bio notes, did some brainstorms of key ideas for each module, and started to gather my thoughts quote wise for mod A, made essay plans for every past HSC mod A question with my prescribed texts and started writing some paragraphs about different ideas. I did also try and do a timed essay but I ended up having a nap in the middle, then my sister got home from school and it all fell apart from there.
Not sure what to do tomorrow since I have work but hopefully some geography and either AOS or modules, not sure yet, gosh I suck at making study plans!
Until next time, Taylor :D
Post by: Potatohater on October 11, 2017, 10:09:04 pm
Also did a few communication practice questions for bio and actually found some of them hard, which has never happened to me in bio before, so I left them blank and hope to seek out the answers at some point.
Tomorrow I'm going to go up to Hornsby just to do a mock paper 2 even though it's so far away, because my school did trials before learning mod C so I haven't practiced the full paper yet and don't trust myself to simulate one at home since I get distracted easily (when I do my practice papers at home I do them with all the sections separated) I still havn't compiled and memorised all my mod C quotes so this will be interesting what I do and don't remeber...
Overall I think I acheived everything I hoped to today despite not using my time as effectivley as I know I can. The only things I didn't achieve were AOS creative writing and finishing off those mod C quotes.
Until next time, Taylor :)
Post by: Potatohater on October 12, 2017, 09:05:22 pm
We then procrastinated in the shopping centre for a bit too long...
This afternoon I've been trying to work on my creative but am kinda getting nowhere. I have ideas, but they are either so conceptual and vauge I don't know how to turn it into a plot, or I have a plot but can't excecute it how I would like. The creative is my time to shine but right now I ain't doing much shining on the paper. I do have creatives I've written in the past but I'm worried about either being too personal or too stereotypical, and my trial one didn't do as well as I thought it would. I have some ambitious ideas and/or good concepts but not enough time to excecute them. Arrgh why did I leave my AOS prep so late!? Especially the creative!
3 days to go....
Until next time, Taylor :)
Post by: Potatohater on November 02, 2017, 09:55:30 pm
16th October - English paper 1
Meh, it was alright, I did what I could and hopefully I'll get a average to high mark - hopefully I can scape into band 5 range
17th October - English paper 2
Better than paper 1 although my Gatsby paragraph on infidelity for mod A was a mess, as was the Art of travel paragraph for the unease caused by a landscape. For Hamlet I forgot some quotes, particularly in the procrastination paragraph which had no textual evidence whoops.... The play is riddled with inaction yet I couldn't think of any at the time - naturally they all came back to be the next day ugh!
23rd October - Genny Maths
Pretty damn good as far as I'm aware of right now I only mucked up the beers and the jewellery box but could be a few more errors idk of yet. I'm annoyed about the jewlery box though cause I know how to do it but after reading "the cube of h" my brain thought "let's square root it!" Gosh damnit Taylor!
25th October - Biology
Best exam yet! I knew the answer to every question, now it just comes down to how well I answered them. People kept leaving during the exam though which made me nervous.
31st October - Geography
My best subject yet I feel meh about the exam. I think I probably actually did well but I feel like the questions didn't really give the oppotunity to show off as much as I would have liked. I think my extended responses also kinda got a bit waffely but hopefully my points still come across well enough. I didn't get time to check over any answers which is also annoying so hopefully I didn't make any silly mistakes. Regardless of how I go externally I've been getting over 90% internally so I know I'm good at geo - one exam isn't going to change that.
7th November - Drama
Future results still in the making ;)
Edit from 7th November: Drama was good! They don't give enough time to write everything which is a shame so my arm died and got covered in ink (I'm a right hander, we can get inky hands too!). Overall I hope the mess gives way to present something beautiful to the markers. So yeah, quite happy with my performance :)
So yeah there's my relitavley quick summary of the past
Until next time,
Taylor ;D
Post by: Potatohater on November 05, 2017, 09:06:18 pm
Other than that I only wrote 2 3/4 ish essays and read some example paragraphs. I don't know why but despite having the past week to solely focus on drama I can't seem to get myself to stress enough to get my ass into gear. I feel like the fact that it's only 40% of external marking and I already know everything (I think) from my trial study, I've approached it in a bit too chill of a manner. Sure my trial marks of 17/20 for both essays is good but I should really have been using this time to get them to 20/20 - and I've been too relaxed to do so, argh!
Hopefully tomorrow I'll finally realise how close it is and actually enact the plan I've just made for myself: to pretend it's a school day and write one essay every period, then finish the day off with a full past paper. Hopefully it won't be too torturous since I love the subject and actually care about what I'm writing for once (unlike English)
Let's see how that goes then hey?
Until next time, Taylor :P
Post by: Potatohater on November 07, 2017, 04:05:55 pm
FINALLY FINISHED!!
I can't believe it! It's nice knowing I can relax and not feel guilty about study but at the same time I still haven't gotten my head around the fact there's nothing to study for! I feel like I should be to whipping up a biology video to watch as I eat my belated lunch and start doing some school work, as that has been the routine for so long now, but there is nothing to do. I keep saying I'll do "this, this and this" after the HSC but I never actually kept track and now the 4 month holiday is here I don't even know where to start. I'm sure I'll find enough to keep me occupied though. I think today I should pack for camping, some other little house keeping tasks and look for a new job, but yeah, it's all so strange. I reckon I'll keep this journal going up until ATAR release because I feel like that is the moment year 12 truly ends.
See you all tomorrow (to those coming to the meet up)!
Until next time,
Taylor ;D
Post by: katie,rinos on November 07, 2017, 04:23:37 pm
See you tomorrow :)
Post by: fantasticbeasts3 on November 07, 2017, 04:26:57 pm
see you tomorrow :-)
Post by: beatroot on November 07, 2017, 05:47:14 pm
Post by: Potatohater on November 08, 2017, 05:33:44 pm
congrats on finishing!!!!!
see you tomorrow :-)
congrats!!!!
Congrats Taylor!! ;D
See you tomorrow :)
Thank you! It was so nice meeting you all today by the way ;D
Post by: Potatohater on December 11, 2017, 07:34:54 pm
8/11 - ATAR notes meet up
9/11 to 11/11 - TARALGA
went camping out on a property in the middle of nowhere with 6 of my friends, explored the hills, skimmed rocks, played games and much, much more. It was AWESOME!!
13/11 - Drama Camp meet up
I went to arts alive drama camp in year 10 and yes, some of us still stay in touch and hang out several times throughout the year
14/11 - Formal
Won an award for "most likley to return to Riverside as a teacher"
20/11 to 4/12 - work experience
Did 6 days work experience at Blacktown City Council town planning cause I got accepted into a Bachelor of Planning at WSU (dunno if I mentioned it but yah, I got an SRS offer!) but it was sooooooooo boring. My mum works at the library and since that is also part of council she transferred me to the library for the other 4 days thank goodness! I was going insane with boredom at planning!
24/11 - a job interview for a job I didn't get
25/11 - Paddy Paulin Challenge
SUPER FUN but I wish we had more time to get to more checkpoints
5/12 to 8/12 - FORSTER
yet another cheap getaway with my friends, but with less of them for this trip. Got to swim, hang out on the beach, watch movies and play a heap of card games. The trip honeslty didn't last long enough!
9/12 - Vibz Concert
Went to my sister's dance concert, and SHE SLAYED! I'm so impressed with how far she's come this year! With me in the audience this year rather than the stage, my streak of winning the mini scholorship was broken but she carried on our family legacy, I'm so proud!
Apart from that I've also had a few work shifts and parties, causing me to have only 3 completley free days between the end of HSC and now, certainly no space for boredom here!
Wow our results are released at the end of this week, I don't know how to feel about that
Until next time,
Taylor ;D
Post by: Potatohater on December 28, 2017, 01:20:06 pm
Before I upgrade to a university journey journal that is ;)
I'm pretty late to do this but oh well *shrugs* - It's story time!
HSC results
My HSC results woke me up at 5:45 on the 14th. I was just gonna pick up my phone to confirm that it was indeed NESA on that Thursday morning and go back to sleep. But there it was.
"NSW HSC 2017
Bio 96 6"
96! I was not expecting that! I opened up the rest of my results, hoping the news would only get better. It did and it didn't.
I'll be honest, I was a tad dissapointed and confused. My geography results and Drama results were lower than I was hoping for, and considering they were my favourite subjects and I put a lot of work into them I was kinda dissapointed. To counteract this though, my bio and English results were higher than expected! For English I reached my goal of 85, even though I was honestly expecting a 70 at that point, and bio exceeded my goal of 95. My whole perception of my strengths and weaknesses was turned on its head. After letting them sink in and analysing the exam and assesment mark breakdown I eventually settled at being happy with my results, because they are actually overall good. Here's what I got
Spoiler
Bio 96 - band 6
Drama 86 - band 5
Geo 92 - band 6
English Advanced 85 - band 5
General Maths 92 - band 6
Drama 86 - band 5
Geo 92 - band 6
English Advanced 85 - band 5
General Maths 92 - band 6
ATAR release
I kept telling myself and others that I didn't care about my ATAR. I'd already been accepted into Western Sydney to do a Bachelor of Planning, and I was clearly gonna exceed the cut off for my 1st preference based on my HSC results. Afterall, the ATAR is just a rank, the HSC results are a much more accurate reflection of your acedemic achievment and efforts throughout the year, in my opinion. Sure, the HSC system still has flaws, but ultimately I was more worried about getting those band 6's than my ATAR.
My mum came in that morning and woke me up by trying to get into my iPad. Jokes on her, it was a 9am release today, not 6. Also, she couldn't have known my student number and pin.
Everyone in the house then left for school and work whilst I played "stick of truth" on the PlayStation. My game was soon interrupted, however, by a message that ATARs were released early. I logged on. There it was, BAM, staring me in the face:
93.90
How anticlimactic. I had my hopes at over 95, but was fine with anything over 90. 93.9 fell right between them so I just turned back to my game and let it sink in for a bit. Your ATAR really does mean nothing, and I realised that pretty damn quickly. The only thing I need it for now is some tutoring jobs I've applied for, and of course, to get into uni.
Uni Offers
I have 4 Uni courses on my UAC list. I now have 3 offers.
First came my SRS offer for Western Sydney Planning (2nd Preference), which I accepted at the time. Then MQU offered me a place to do Arts (4th preference) through their acedemic achievment program. I ignored this one though because I really don't want to go to MQU anymore.
Finally I got offered my 1st preference - Arts and Advanced studies at USYD. I accepted this one too, but it doesn't feel real. I'm now enrolled in 2 uni's and I have to withdraw from one before the census date.
The thing is though - I'm not sure what to pick. Ok, I've decided to persue arts after much internal debate, but once that decision was made came the lectures. My father came and lectured me to tears 3 times is one night because he doesn't agree with an arts degree. My mother was next. Then my grandparents, aunts, uncles, my best friend.... Every one of them telling me that I was wasting my time and money on a useless degree. "You got a high ATAR and you're going to do Arts?!" One uncle said on Christmas Day. He may have meant it as a joke, but honestly I'm sick of it.
So there's still a bit of doubt in my mind so who knows, maybe I'll completley change my plans and throw a plot twist into my life. But at the moment, I'm doing arts at USyd. I've picked my 1st year units and no one can do anything about it. I'll do what I want to do regardless of what everyone says.
See ya later alligators!
Hope you had a Merry Christmas, have a Happy New year, and enjoy the holidays!
Taylor :P
Post by: jamonwindeyer on December 28, 2017, 01:41:00 pm
