Katie-A Rhino's charge through the HSC!

[fantasticbeasts3]

Thanks, feels great! JFK's pretty cool although I never did the public and private option. Did you study him when you did extension?
Can't believe there is just over two weeks left of school! I still have classes for the whole of next week and then the Monday and half of the Tuesday of the week afterwards. Week 9 is mainly fun stuff though (class parties, staff v. students soccer match, graduation, formal,etc.) !
Hope you have an amazing end of term aswell! 

yea i did! it was really good in correlation with the cold war option in modern :-)

i know aye, we don't have long to go and it's quite a crazy feeling to almost be finished. sounds like you have a really fun week ahead of you (staff v students soccer match? amazing)

[katie,rinos]

7/9/17
This morning we received our interim reports which included our marks and ranks. We hadn't seen our full ranks yet so I was really happy with extension (1st/7), maths (2nd/50) and hospitality (2nd/11). However I need to work on English which was 24/33. Our teachers also included comments on what we do to improve from now until HSC which look helpful and that I should try and start to follow soon. I think that I should start a study plan/timetable for now until HSC but I'm a bit worried that I won't follow it well.

Formal dress update: So today, I finally decided on my formal dress. I guess it's pretty late seeing that the formal is in just over two weeks but 1. I am really indecisive, and 2. I hate clothes shopping. I'm borrowing one of my Girls Brigade's leaders dresses (she let me try on 6 and this one fits really well).
It's a short purple dress and the majority of my year are wearing longer dresses.

My dress

This is a picture of it. (obviously not me).

8/9/17
Today, my hospitality class catered for an event the school was hosting for VA teachers. This counted for 5 hours of work placement (still have 6 hrs left) and we catered for around 30 people.
For morning tea we made slices (lemon, raspberry), chocolate fudge, mini muffins and fruit/cheese platters.
For lunch we made mixed sandwiches, sausage rolls and pizza pinwheels.
Afterwards there was heaps of leftovers so we got to eat some!
We then had to do a lot of cleaning and I was on the dishwasher which was boring. By the end of the day, my feet were sore (as we had to walk from our classroom to the area they were eating with the food) and I was pretty tired.
I have about four periods of class work to catch up on for today (however I think some was just revision).

I'm still feeling really unmotivated to study since trials which is really annoying.
I want to try to at least rewrite one of my English essays from the trials (Paper two) on the weekend and may post it for feedback. I need to start doing more past papers for all of my subjects really.

[Natasha.97]

Congrats on those ranks!!!

:O THAT LOOKS SO PRETTY <3

now you've made me hungry

gotta start doing that as well!
 

[jamonwindeyer]

Congrats on those ranks!!!

:O THAT LOOKS SO PRETTY <3

now you've made me hungry

gotta start doing that as well!
 

This is literally the thought process reading that update!

[Potatohater]

We have the same English rank! Except I think mine is out of 80 somthing. I'm probably gonna need to rewrite my trial English essays too cause they're not the greatest... I don't know what it is about English that makes the exam so hard!

[katie,rinos]

We have the same English rank! Except I think mine is out of 80 somthing. I'm probably gonna need to rewrite my trial English essays too cause they're not the greatest... I don't know what it is about English that makes the exam so hard!

You have heaps more people in Advanced English then my year! Most other subjects I can write essays ok, but English is just terrible.
I'm not great at English exams but I especially disliked paper 2 (Three essays in two hours is a lot!)
I need to do a lot more studying for English but it is my least favourite subject and I'm not a huge fan of writing English essays or most of my texts (especially The Art of Travel).

I started writing a Hamlet essay this morning and am only on the third paragraph after about an hour, and I was planning to finish it tonight. A lot of that time was spent procrastinating though.

[Potatohater]

You have heaps more people in Advanced English then my year! Most other subjects I can write essays ok, but English is just terrible.
I'm not great at English exams but I especially disliked paper 2 (Three essays in two hours is a lot!)
I need to do a lot more studying for English but it is my least favourite subject and I'm not a huge fan of writing English essays or most of my texts (especially The Art of Travel).
I started writing a Hamlet essay this morning and am only on the third paragraph after about an hour, and I was planning to finish it tonight. A lot of that time was spent procrastinating though.

Yeah I feel the same, my drama and geo essays are pretty good but English is so terrible in comparison. Maybe it's because the only module I have ok notes for is mod A (I love Gatsby!) but Hamlet and Art Of Travel are a trek and a half. At least you got somthing done though, unlike me who is using my current headache as a reason to take the night off.

[katie,rinos]

13/9/17
Another long school day (7:30-5:15)
Before school (canteen workplacement): To increase my workplacement hours for hospitality I have been working in the canteen some mornings before school (7:30-8:40). Today, I made and cooked the choc chip muffins, caesar salads and trayed the chicken tenders.

Legal (double period): We have almost finished our last topic (family law). Today we looked at surrogacy and birth control. It was interesting but I think we are moving really fast through the course at the moment so we can try to get it all finished which is annoying because we aren't going into as much detail at times.

Ancient (double period): Today we had a surprise birthday party for our Ancient teacher. We decorated the room during recess with purple (his favourite colour) decorations and baloons. To make sure that he wouldn’t come into the room, one of the girls in our class went to talk to him. She told him that because she was doing 13 units her mum wanted her to drop Ancient. We all felt a bit bad, because our teacher looked sad but he was fine once he knew it wasn’t true. His reaction once we surprised him was really nice as he so happy and didn’t really expect us to do it. We all had party hats, party poppers, and heaps of party food (cake, lollies, chocolate, chips, soft drink).

We all played an Ancient themed escape room. The story was that our teacher had been shot and we had to unlock a suitcase where there would be a vial of medicine to save him. We had to solve some Ancient themed puzzles on the Julio Claudians, Agrippina and Pompeii to unlock the box. There were also clues that our teacher had hidden around the room such as in invisible ink on a picture, behind a shield or in a history book. Once we finally unlocked the box, we realised there was still another box to unlock and puzzles to be done for Sparta. Once we did those, we found a key and unlocked the box to find a vial of medicine (caramel syrup) and a picture of the class. We also took a few more class pictures. It was a really fun class, and although it isn’t our last yet I’m going to be really sad when Ancient finishes.

Lunch: Today was the first of our staff vs students sport matches (we also have volleyball on Friday and soccer on Tuesday). It was netball today and the students won 4-3. I didn’t actually play (I don’t do sport), but it was really fun to watch. It was great to see some of the teachers getting involved, and watching them and our year play.

Music: As part of the graduation assembly, the music class traditionally plays a song or a mashup of songs. Our class is pretty unorganised and is mainly still trying to choose songs to play and find chords for them. I’m not sure if I will actually play in this because most of the songs they are thinking of are rock songs that don’t really work with a clarinet (majority of my class plays piano, guitar and drums). We’re pretty unproductive at the moment and i’m not too sure if the performance will actually work out well as we haven’t practised it a lot and the graduation is next Thursday.

Maths: We were all pretty tired, hot and not bothered today in maths. We were given the 2014 specimen HSC multiple choice to do in class, but I didn’t really even finish it.

Extension history: Today was our last ever lesson! We had a bit of a party (with lots of food!) and played a lot of fun revision activities. We played kahoot (I won a lot of these!), celebrity heads (with historians), quizlet live (for purposes of historians and the key terms) and Jeopardy (for JFK and What is history?-My team won!).

[katie,rinos]

18/9/17
Today was my last ever full day of classes (& last Maths, English and Bible class)!

PC (Pastoral care/roll call): Today one of the year 7 girls PC class gave everyone in yr 12 a mini survival pack. Mine was in a brown paper bag and was decorated with my name in the middle and lots of different coloured circles. In the corner they wrote 'hang in there' and it looked like they had put effort into it and it was so cute. In it there was bubble wrap, bubbles, a lollipop, flake, balloon, bookmark (laminated with my name, it's meaning and a bible verse). It was something that the girls in my PC really appreciated and we were going to go to their room to say thanks but the bell went for class so we may go tomorrow. Also our last PC which is really sad because I love having mornings talking to the girls of my PC and my teacher is so amazingly friendly.

Legal: The only class today where we really did work. We looked through two of the exemplar essays for family law from last year and highlighted their use of evidence (cases/stats/laws/media) and their judgements.

English: We had a class party today and everybody brought in lollies, chocolates and drinks. Our teacher brought in a red velvet cake and we lit candles. We also gave our teacher her present, which was some flowers and a photo frame with a picture of our class acting like Maria from Metropolis. Although I don't love English it's still sad that this is our last lesson (besides one in the holidays).

Maths: Our teacher wasn't at school today as she was sick. We took a few class photos and selfies. We then had a combined maths party with around 3 other maths classes. We had heaps of food, were listening to music and the boys were dancing.

Hospitality: Today, me and one of the other girls in our class worked in the canteen. I made muffins, jelly, cut salad ingredients and trayed the chicken tenders.
I have now finished all of my work placement hours!

Tomorrow I have a year 12 staff/students breakfast in the morning, graduation practice, 3 more classes, the staff v students soccer match and a year 12 movie night. On Thursday morning we have our graduation and on Friday we have the formal.

[katie,rinos]

21/9/17
Graduation 🎓🎓
We had to go to school at 9:45 and sat and talked and took photos until the graduation started at 10:30.
At 10:30, we all walked in a line into the hall in our PC groups to our chairs on the side of the hall while the music was playing. I was a mix of nerves and excitement.

We had addresses from our Principal, Year Advisors and Captains. While they were long and are usually really boring, we found them more interesting because they were about our year .

Our music class played a mash up of four pieces today. We played hey ya, Africa, All Star and love story. It ended up really good despite how we didn't have heaps of practice. Our year was clapping to the beat and singing/dancing during it, which was great and I think they enjoyed it.

All the girls walked up on the stage after the performance in our PC classes. When they called my name (I was so surprised they pronounced it correctly-they always pronounce it wrong), they also announced that I had done Mates (a program where I was paired with a primary kid and met them once a week during lunchtimes), and that I got first in extension. The principal shook hands with me and gave me my portfolio and I also hugged my PC teacher and then lined up on the stage. We got graduation portfolios which had certificates, and a little booklet where some of my teachers (17!) had wrote warm fuzzies in. They wrote some really nice messages and bible passages that are great to read.

We had kindergarten and year six sing a song for us and they were so cute. The kindergartens one was based off the melodies from the musical and called ‘Super Dupa are our buddies!’ We also had a huge photo slideshow which showed photos from both primary and high school. I had a couple of pictures in it, one from year 7 and a some more of yr 11-12.

At the end of the graduation all the teachers did a guard of honour. We were able to hug/handshake all of our teachers and it was a really nice thing to be able to do. It’s a bittersweet feeling because while I’m so happy school is over I also really love my teachers and friends.

Afterwards we all took photos together and then we had a morning tea in the hall for all of year 12 and our parents. Year 9 food tech and year 11 hospitality catered which was something that I had done in yrs 9 & 11. We took a lot of photos and talked with my friends.

My Ancient teacher also emailed Mary Beard the other day and got two replies! Mary Beard is a historian that my class and teacher love! In one of her replies she congratulated us for graduating and wished us good luck which was cool.

This afternoon I got my nails done for formal (2nd time ever I have had my nails done-last time was yr 6). They are a light pink, kinda natural colour. I’m still not sure what to do with my hair and I’m getting it done tomorrow morning. I’m pretty excited for formal-we are meeting at the botanical gardens to take photos and then my groups organised a limo to take us to the formal. It should be fun! 

I also brought a weekly planner whiteboard and whiteboard markers from K-mart. I’ve been wanting to buy a whiteboard for ages and haven’t really gotten around to it until today. Should be good for organising everything.

So excited to see some of you at the meetup on Monday! Can’t wait-4 days left! 

[katie,rinos]

24/9/17
I finally put in my UAC application tonight (A little late: 4 days before the processing charge increases). This has been something I’ve been stressing over so I’m glad that I’ve been able to choose courses that I am happy with.

At the moment they are:
1.   Bachelor of Music/Bachelor of Education (secondary): UNSW
2.   Bachelor of Music (Music education): USyd
3.   Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Education (Secondary):UNSW
4.   Bachelor of education/Bachelor of Arts: USyd
5.   Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Education: Macquarie

With the Bachelor of Arts courses I think I would be either majoring/minoring in history or music. I’m pretty excited for uni at the moment-I’ve been researching some of the units that I may be able to do and they sound really interesting!

I still need to fill in audition forms, write a teaching statement (for USyd) and pay for UAC and Usyd auditions.

25/9/17
Had a really good time at the NSW AN meetup. Was great to finally meet everyone!

Didn’t do a whole lot of studying today. Really want to start studying a lot more this week because todays the first day of holidays (not that we have a proper holiday or anything). I want to try to start doing more practice papers-I would love to be able to get one done for all of my subjects by the end of the week (will end up being about 8 ) and hopefully even more next week (as well as other study).

Just finished watching all of Emily’s English revision videos. Found them really helpful/interesting! Thanks heaps Emily! Looking forward to the other videos!

Tomorrow I have a hospitality study day at school (although I’m not too sure how many people will turn up). On Wednesday I have a legal study day in the morning and a concert (The Vamps) that night which I’m really excited about! I also have an English study day on Friday and a maths one next week.

[katie,rinos]

9/10/17
Haven’t really updated for a while …
I’ve been busy studying. I’ve been doing essay plans, mind maps, detail tables, flashcards and some past papers. I was putting off essays a bit throughout the holidays so I need to get more on top of it this week and next (as well as more past papers).

I’ve gotten into doing essay plans on my white board during the holidays (especially for Legal and Ancient but also for English quotes). I think at the moment it’s tricking me into studying because it’s not the normal pen and paper and I have heaps of different colours. I’ve included a picture of one of my favourite one’s (on law reform):

My legal mind map!

The pictures really blurry, but still looks ok.

I’ve realised there’s still so much more content I need to work on memorising and revising. I need to know so many dates, quotes, archaeological evidence, legislation and media. Also, because I have 8 exams I feel like I’m not studying for everything evenly and there are some subjects that I need to study a lot more for.

Procrastination has been my worst enemy at the moment. I’m doing it so much, even right now! It doesn’t help that half the time studying feels really boring (even though I like my subjects).

Apart from studying, in the holidays I went to The Vamps concert with my sister (really good, first ever time in a most pit, we were so close), to the shops and also to the beach on the weekend (had the best Greek souvlaki). I also had a few study days at school which were pretty helpful (got to see my friends, did some past papers and revision).

Today I did a practise essay for Extension (section 1), an essay on Law reform for legal and worked on memorising dates for Julio Claudians for Ancient. Really need to work on English and music tomorrow (they are my only exams next week)- can’t believe there’s only 7 days left! Part of me can’t wait until this is over.

Might go into school sometime this week to study and hand in some essays to my teachers for feedback. But we were emailed today saying that we come in we still need to wear our uniform.

Hope all of the new year 12’s had a great day today! (Feel’s weird saying that!)
I hope study is going ok for everyone! Good luck guys-not too long now!

[K888]

Really enjoyed your update, Katie!

Sounds like your prep for exams is going pretty well. I love that you're using your whiteboard - I honestly think whiteboards were the best revision tool I used during year 12.

With procrastination (feel your pain), maybe Brenden's wisdom might be of use:

As for avoiding procrastination… I kind of just embrace it? I don’t feel bad for procrastinating. I just do what I want and get it out of my system, then when I’ve not-done-something for so long that I genuinely need to get on it or I’m fucked, I usually work uninterrupted hahahaha. If I don't want to procrastinate, I don't procrastinate. If I want to procrastinate, I do it until I don't want to anymore. The problem wth people asking "how do I stop procrastinating" is they are actually asking, "How do I stop procrastinating when I want to procrastinate?" and I guess my solution is just... don't. Instead, work on not wanting to procrastinate.

Might go into school sometime this week to study and hand in some essays to my teachers for feedback. But we were emailed today saying that we come in we still need to wear our uniform.

We had to do this too - honestly, I didn't mind it, because wearing school uniform put me into the work mindset so I felt like I was more likely to knuckle down and focus. I was definitely glad we had to wear uniform for exams - even if we had the choice to wear casual clothes, I think I probably would have worn uniform haha.

Wishing you all the luck in the world for your upcoming exams!

[katie,rinos]

10/10/17
I've actually had a really productive two days:
- Wrote a discovery essay with the 2016 HSC question
- One of the comprehension part of Paper 1
- Worked on some essay plans for Sparta. I have now done essay plans for all HSC questions from 2011-2016! I'm going to have to turn some of these into essays soon but I also really need to work on the Julio Claudian and Agrippina sections as well.
- Did one of the AN topic tests for maths

11/10/17
- I got some feedback from Jamon on my mod C essay this morning! It left me feeling more confident however there are a few things I need to work on and fix up (hopefully tomorrow).
- I also need to work on coming up with a good creative because I always find it really difficult to come up with great original ideas and then to write it. (Should have done a proper one ages ago-will probably end up doing something history based)
- I wrote some of my mod C quotes on my whiteboard today so hopefully I'll know them by Tuesday. I may need to record myself saying them because that normally works really well.
- Listened to some music and picked some concepts to analyse for aural for music (even though I got pretty distracted by the lyrics)
- I did the 2016 Hospitality HSC paper (I've now done from 2014-2016). We got the majority of this paper for trials so it was good to look over it and see how I have improved.
- I worked on my Agrippina detail and interpretation tables. Hopefully will finish that soon as I need to do a lot more essays for Ancient.
- I think I'm coming down with a cold (I've got a running nose, headaches.). I'm so scared that I'll be sick for the HSC (even though I'm not even that bad now).

Really enjoyed your update, Katie!

Sounds like your prep for exams is going pretty well. I love that you're using your whiteboard - I honestly think whiteboards were the best revision tool I used during year 12.

We had to do this too - honestly, I didn't mind it, because wearing school uniform put me into the work mindset so I felt like I was more likely to knuckle down and focus. I was definitely glad we had to wear uniform for exams - even if we had the choice to wear casual clothes, I think I probably would have worn uniform haha.

Wishing you all the luck in the world for your upcoming exams!

Thanks K888! 
I'm also so glad that we have to wear our uniform for exams-I don't think I would focus as well in other clothes (and it would be so much easier in the mornings not having to choose what outfit to wear).

[katie,rinos]

15/10/17
Not too long now! Tomorrow I have two different exams (English Paper 1 and Music)!
This weekend I mainly worked on getting together and working on all my quotes, working on some of my essays and making essay plans. I’m going to try and memorise my discovery essay and mould it to the question tomorrow (listening to a recording of it now )

Good luck to everybody for tomorrow! Sending you all internet hugs . Try to stay calm during the exam and don’t stress too much! I know all of your hard work will pay off!