My EPIC and INTENSE VCE Journey

[TigerMum]

Thanks TigerMum for the update! Looking forward to the next one soon

Thank you so much! Your journal is way cooler than mine though. 

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!

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

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!

[TigerMum]

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!! 

• I just got sent an email from UniMelb about a KLD Class of 2021 event on April 4. It's called "A Day at Melbourne" and it looks like we get to participate in these cool workshops/sessions to do with different careers. I'm going to put down engineering and economics as my first two preferences, it should be a lot of fun!
  Side note: Anyone here in KLD Class of 2021 and going to this event? I'd be interested in catching up there!
• I've also gotten back into Radiohead again and I've pretty much being listening to In Rainbows non-stop over the past few weeks. Do yourself a favour and check that album out, it's soooo good!
• Last week I watched Parasite again (for the third time) and I'm pretty much convinced it's one of the best pieces of cinema made this century. It's disgustingly good and it's actually concerning me that I can't find any faults with it despite watching it three times. I started crying when it won Best Picture because I was so happy for Bong Joon-Ho, he deserved it so much. 

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. 

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! 

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!!   

[TigerMum]

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. 

[ashmi]

Hey TigerMum!!

Awesome to see that you are doing amazing as always .
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!

[TigerMum]

Hey TigerMum!!

Awesome to see that you are doing amazing as always .
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!

Thank you!  Good luck with everything, I'm sure you'll get through this!

[TigerMum]

(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! 

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 

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. 

[J_Rho]

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?

[ashmi]

Hey Hey TigerMum!

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 .

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! 

Let's get that juicy rank 1 TigerMum!!! I'm rooting for you .
Also, woah onto probability already? (The best unit in Methods hands down ). 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!

[TigerMum]

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 

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!

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 .

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 .
Also, woah onto probability already? (The best unit in Methods hands down ). 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. 

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. 👍

[TigerMum]

UPDATE: 7/5/2020

Hellooo and welcome back to another installment of this mess 
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! 

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

[ashmi]

Hey TigerMum!

WOOHOOO IT'S ANOTHER UPDATE

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! 

And here we have the famous TigerMum smashing "Fizixs" like there is no tomorrow . 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

[TigerMum]

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..
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 

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!  :) :) :)

[angrybiscuit]

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..

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

[ashmi]

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 . 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.

[TigerMum]

Late replies by me but oh well 

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

 
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 
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!