Tempestuously cruising through the HSC

[Lumenoria]

 Holy crap I never thought I'd say this but I'm so insanely bored from all the spare time I have in this 4 day gap until my English Advanced assessment. Because it's a speech, I can't really be preparing for it other than going over it again and again. I've gotten so bored that I've been taking up offers to edit other people's speeches and I actually love giving people feedback! I spent 40 minutes making suggestions on a girl in my class's and it was actually enjoyable for some reason, maybe I want to be an English teacher??? HAHAHAH. Anyways, I just want to go out but all my friends have their exams this week, whilst I did all of mine last week lol. I am getting a bit paranoid about the quality of my speech though because the other Advanced teacher (who will be the one marking the assessment) has been asking her class to include more detail in their analysis, which makes me feel like mine is waaay too brief. It kinda annoys me that their class has this advantage, because now I'm just perpetually questioning the quality of my work and can't really do anything about it. Even though my teacher said mine is good, I have a strong feeling I'll still do shit because of this situation. Ugh

[Lumenoria]

HOLY CRAP MY ENGLISH ADVANCED ASSESSMENT IS TOMORROW AND I'M FREAKING THE FUCK OUT OMG. I keep changing my speech because I'm in a cycle of perpetual self-doubt, so I can't actually bring myself to print it. I'm so worried that I'm going to accidentally speak too fast aswell UGH - I have a tendency to do that naturally, particularly when I'm in high stress situations such as this. Honestly I'm just so worried at the thought of getting 11 or 12 out of 15, because I know if that happens, it'll literally just be because of an issue with my presentation skills. Plus, today's my birthday, and I've legitimately spent the entire day to practise and refine it over and over again. I've also chosen to do it last period, which means I'll be bursting at the seams in anxiety for the entire day. Oml I actually hate my life.

[sweetiepi]

HOLY CRAP MY ENGLISH ADVANCED ASSESSMENT IS TOMORROW AND I'M FREAKING THE FUCK OUT OMG. I keep changing my speech because I'm in a cycle of perpetual self-doubt, so I can't actually bring myself to print it. I'm so worried that I'm going to accidentally speak too fast aswell UGH - I have a tendency to do that naturally, particularly when I'm in high stress situations such as this. Honestly I'm just so worried at the thought of getting 11 or 12 out of 15, because I know if that happens, it'll literally just be because of an issue with my presentation skills. Plus, today's my birthday, and I've legitimately spent the entire day to practise and refine it over and over again. I've also chosen to do it last period, which means I'll be bursting at the seams in anxiety for the entire day. Oml I actually hate my life.

Hey! Take a deep breath- you can get through this, I (and the rest of AN) believe in you!
If it helps when you do it, stare at a blank space at the back of the room, and try to focus on that spot (and your speech of course!)

(Btw birthday twins <3 happy birthday! )

Good luck though! ^_^

[Lumenoria]

I'm so glad it's the holidays omg. I forgot to update you guys about how my Advanced English assessment went, so I'll address this now while I have the chance.

So, as I mentioned, my session for the speech was last period - I had all day to practise my speech over and over. I took advantage of this by going to school at normal time (8:50), despite the fact that my call time wasn't until 2:10pm Everyone was a bit unsure about whether we had a 30 second leeway, so I asked one of the teachers to clarify - turns out it wasn't a thing. For the remainder of the day, I do heaps of practice runs in front of various groups of friends, which I found really helped my confidence in the "speechy" environment, if you get what I mean. Instead of doing it on my own, this felt much more real. My main concern was speaking too fast. Everyone that had earlier call times than I did came out of it for the most part really happy with their performance, and the common sentiment was that "I was overthinking for no reason". Given that I had done quite a fair bit of practise, I felt relatively okay, albeit a tad nervous. On the way to the marking room, I bumped into my mentor who tried to comfort me a bit, which I thought was nice. Come my actual call time however, any semblance of comfort that I had previous felt COMPLETELY dissipated and I was subsumed by EXTREME waves of anxiety. God it was horrible. I was trying so hard not to puke, which I have an inclination of doing when I'm beset with this extent of anxiety. The teachers actually changed me to go last instead of 3rd so that I would have more time to calm down. Anyways, so I managed to hold myself together in the actual speech, but I was definitely speaking faster than I'd hoped and that I'd practised NOT to do the whole day. I also kept fucking stumbling. I was able to do a lot of eye contact because I had practised so much that most of it managed to seep into my brain, but because I was so anxious, I kept stumbling in the MIDDLE of making eye contact with the teacher. I felt like my face went from confidently knowing my shit to oh fuck about 3-4 times, and the TEACHERS definitely noticed I think. I just hope that my ability to recover from those situations was smooth lol. I had a lot of good points that I felt may have not been picked up by the teachers because of my stumbling, which kinda irks me. When I was done, I actually wanted to cry because of how shitty I felt about myself. I was so disappointed because I knew my practices in front of my friends were FAR better than my actual performance for the assessment. A few minutes after leaving the room, I legitimately threw up because I felt repulsed at myself for letting myself do that badly. My peers also said that I spoke too fast at the beginning and that "it was better than last year", which is NOT reassuring at all because my speech last year was notorious for being the fastest thing ever. I also swear to god the teachers didn't write that many points down in the marking sheet (which I kinda saw when I made eye contact), which is making me feel as though they didn't pick up on anything I said because either I
spoke too fast OR I didn't cover them in my content. I literally can't even tell if my speech was inherently bad or if my perception is distorted because of my anxiety, but I'm really fucking hoping it's latter. I'm mainly upset because everyone seems to have aced it EXCEPT for me. I literally cannot afford to get below 80% in this speech.

On a more positive note, we're finally freed from exams for the meanwhile!! I still feel so guilty about my English assessment, but I'm trying to eschew from thinking about it because it just makes me upset lol. In my first year 12 assessment, I thought the highest I could get for English was 60%, maybe low 70s at best, because I swear I fucked it up - but ended up with close to 90%. I'm really hoping a miracle like that happens - that'd be so good. I still think English was my weakest exam in the half yearlies - which seems to be a common occurrence - but whatever. I haven't worked on my major work in fucking AGES, so my aim is basically to channel all the mental energy I have into that during the holidays. I worked 2-10pm yesterday and am doing the same shift again today, so I've been taking a 2 day break from SCHOOL work but I'm hoping to get back into my major work tomorrow, of all goes well.

[Lumenoria]

Hey! Take a deep breath- you can get through this, I (and the rest of AN) believe in you!
If it helps when you do it, stare at a blank space at the back of the room, and try to focus on that spot (and your speech of course!)

(Btw birthday twins <3 happy birthday! )

Good luck though! ^_^

THANKYOUU, it went worse than I had hoped but I'm trying not to think about it HAHAHA Xx

[Opengangs]

Hey, Lumenoria.

First of all, CONGRATS on finishing your exams. That alone is such a great achievement - enjoy the break, you deserve it :^)

Try to forget about your speech; there's nothing you can do at this point, so just be prepared for the worst but hope that they look past your stumbles if you've actually had decent arguments. And even if you do poorly in this speech, you've still got two more assessments/exams to improve on your ranking.

You've got this!

[Lumenoria]

Hey, Lumenoria.

First of all, CONGRATS on finishing your exams. That alone is such a great achievement - enjoy the break, you deserve it :^)

Try to forget about your speech; there's nothing you can do at this point, so just be prepared for the worst but hope that they look past your stumbles if you've actually had decent arguments. And even if you do poorly in this speech, you've still got two more assessments/exams to improve on your ranking.

You've got this!

Thankyou so much!! I'm trying so hard to look beyond my performance for this assessment. I'm trying to find some solace in the fact that it's only worth 15% lol.

[Lumenoria]

Hey everyone,

Hope the holidays have been kind to you all - they seem to be flying by already haha!! Once again, I have done nothing in terms of study thus far and it's worrying me a bit. I really wanted to finish my major work - or atleast be close to it - by the end of these holidays but that does NOT seem plausible at ALL at this point. I never feel the pressure of school during the holidays so therefore I have basically no inclination to study, which is exactly why I WANT school to resume so that I can get back on track.

I've been trying to pick up as many shifts at work as I can, because I know I probably won't be able to work as much going forward to the HSC. This isn't really related to the HSC, but I was supposed to get a pay raise because I turned 17 last Thursday. However, my payrun wasn't until yesterday - and I noticed my rate was still the same as before. I had been dreading bringing this up with my manager for as long as I can remember - I had always hoped that it would change automatically. I actually don't really mind my wage right now, but I didn't want to be underpaid when there was an opportunity to get more. So, I sent her a message saying "Just letting you know that I turned 17 on the 12th April, so my wage needs to be adjusted. Thank you". I was literally bursting at the seams with anxiety when I sent that, fearing I wasn't actually supposed to get a raise but I was 99% sure I was, because that was the general consensus I was getting from the research I'd done. Anyways, so about 30 minutes later, she sends me a thumbs up emoji, which I was internally celebrating lol. BUT then another 30 minutes later, she's like "Hey. I just read your message. We actually pay more than the Fair Work Restaurant Award Rate (which was definitely not true). Your Sunday rate will go up, but the rest will stay the same. Feel free to talk if you have any questions." OMG I WAS SO FURIOUS JUST READING THAT, because I didn't want to stick up for myself and cause drama which may potentially get me fired... but I didn't want to be exploited either. So, after rereading my drafted message back waaaay too many times, I said "Thank you so much for responding! I've done some research myself, however. You were paying more than the restaurant award rate when I was 16, but now that I'm 17, the minimum seems to x on weekdays and y on weekends. See for yourself." Then I attached screenshots of the pay tables from FairWork and its pay calculator. Not sure if it's obvious enough, but I tried to be as nice as possible lol. Almost instantly, she responded "No problem darling. Happy to update your pay. You deserve it. Will update now so that it's ready for the next pay run." Like... umm thanks? I was lowkey a bit frustrated with that response, because why on earth should I have to send screenshots for her to actually take action? If I had been anymore naive or ignorant, then I could've easily been taken advantage of then and there. Honestly, if you really thought I deserved it, why did you play it off as though you had been paying MORE than required? I'm not a fucking idiot lmao. I'm appreciative of the raise nonetheless though - I'm mainly just proud of myself for not succumbing to merely her word. Just a lil something that I thought I'd share haha!

I'm going to try get some of my major work done today, so until next time!!

[jamonwindeyer]

Go you for handling that sticky situation at work! Good on you for not letting someone put on a smile and pretend they are doing you a favour when they are really ripping you off. Hopefully she was just unaware, even though I doubt that is the case. Maybe give a little nudge to your coworkers to check their own entitlements?

I know someone who is 21 and getting paid way below minimum purely because she doesn't think it is worth the drama to confront her manager about it. It's a tough thing to do especially if your work environment doesn't promote it. You've done better than most experienced working adults would do, and sounds like you did it super professionally - Nice

[Lumenoria]

Go you for handling that sticky situation at work! Good on you for not letting someone put on a smile and pretend they are doing you a favour when they are really ripping you off. Hopefully she was just unaware, even though I doubt that is the case. Maybe give a little nudge to your coworkers to check their own entitlements?

I know someone who is 21 and getting paid way below minimum purely because she doesn't think it is worth the drama to confront her manager about it. It's a tough thing to do especially if your work environment doesn't promote it. You've done better than most experienced working adults would do, and sounds like you did it super professionally - Nice

Hahaha thankyou!!

I know, I highly doubt she was unaware though because she is quite notorious for such practices with others workers here, too. The other people can't really do much, because they're international students so they're not as "protected" as we are I suppose - which sucks.

That is so frustrating, but I completely feel her!! I've been underpaid two times here (on accident hopefully) and I never spoke up about it - which annoyed me because both of those occurrences just happened to involve Public Holidays where I was supposed to get double time. But I was too worried about looking "greedy" to my manager over just $10 so I figured it wasn't worth the trouble. I definitely regret it in hindsight though - if your friend's missing out on potentially thousands per year, seriously! Easier said than done though.

[Lumenoria]

Hey guys!!
So, one week of the holidays has flown by already, holy shit. I'm so anxious for school to come around because I really do NOT want to be confronted by my half-yearly results. I mean, I do because, you know, of sheer curiosity, but I also know they'll be underwhelming. AND OMG this sounds so crazy, but I keep having fucking nightmares of me in class during the result turnaround and received like 40% lol! Like, last night, I had a similar dream fucking AGAIN, of me getting 86% in Legal, which, I know is not inherently a bad mark at all, but I would not be happy with it considering the amount of study I did for it. Anyways, so in the dream, my legal teacher was praising my friend (who is tied 1st with me atm) about how amazing her essay was and how it got full marks blablablah... and I was waiting for her to come to me to talk about my performance. And basically, she said, "What happened??? There is so little LCMID in your essay, you usually write so much better!!" and was just overall really disappointed with me. That was essentially the end of it, but omg now I'm really anxious - particularly for legal and english - because I see my dreams as a "warning about the future" lol. Really hoping that does NOT come to fruition though omg, that would shatter my heart into a million pieces lmao. My friends have also had similar dreams too about their economic exams lol. #truenerds lol

On a more positive note, I downloaded an app called "Forest" recently and it has been insanely helpful in keeping me on track with my studies. It cost $2 on the app store, but  I highly, highly recommend it! I kept avoiding my major project for weeks, but after getting this app, I spent 20 hours on it over the span of 3 days - all of which were entirely productive sessions. With that being said, I really do want to finish it as early into next term as possible because I really don't it to interfere with my studies for trials.

I've been on a major work streak lately, as I mentioned before, so I told myself that I would focus on English Advanced today - which I did. I spent 3 hours on revising Module A and refining my essay. Weirdly enough, I condense it from 1450 to 1100 words - which is strange as hell because my essays are never, ever that short. Now I'm questioning whether I cut out too much, but I swear I didn't. My intro went from 220 words to 130, and my teacher always says that intros should be at minimum 200 words, but I feel like it still addresses everything an introduction needs to? Like, when I compare the 130 one to the original 220 one, the difference is minimal - the condensed one just seems much more concise, and to an extent, simpler. Anyways, I wrote out an essay summary for Mod A in note form for reference later down the track, which took me awhile, but I got there. I started to do the same process for my discovery essay, which is also far too long at 1400 words. It's so strange though, because I haven't looked at that one since the end of 2017 and my writing style seems so different. Like, I can't really put my finger on what exactly it is, but I cut it down so much, when I remember this was NOT even possible when I attempted to condense it the last time. Once I've finished this, I really need to start doing some practice essays on the spot to past questions, because I haven't done that at all yet.

I'm going out for dinner with my friends today for a belated birthday celebration in the city, which will be fun!! I'm so keen because I haven't gotten out of the house yet these holidays for anything besides work. Speaking of which, I got 4 shifts this week which is good. I feel like although these holidays have gone by fast, the days themselves just feel so fucking slow because I'm so bored all the time. Except for when I work. HAHAHAH, that's kinda why I'm looking forward to school albeit the foreseeable trauma of half-yearly result turnaround lol.

Hope you guys are having a fabulous holiday!! x

[Lumenoria]

Omg okay, so I was in the midst of doing some economics revision today when it occurred to me that I missed out a crucial point of discussion in one of my short answers in my half-yearly exam. I'm so infuriated at myself rn HAHAHAHA, I'm just really hoping it doesn't cost me a lot in terms of marks AHH. I'm literally so behind with my notes right now (2-3 topics behind lmao), but honestly, most of the content is in my head so catching up on them isn't of paramount concern to me. I'm honestly just writing them out rn for the sake of it, but it is helping a bit in terms of reinforcing content. I've mainly been focusing on my major work and English these holidays though, haven't really touched anything else... but I have the rest of the term to do the rest lol.

I'm honestly so bored of the holidays, so I'm looking forward to school (besides result turnaround) because it will be pull me back into my ordinary routine. The fact that I have to endure 2 fucking shifts over the weekend for Monday to come is honestly a pain to even think about lol. Ugh

[Lumenoria]

 On the bus to my first day of school right now and I'm so fucking anxious. I legitimately could not sleep yesterday because I kept thinking about how we're getting our half yearly marks back and how horrendous I probably did in my exams. I have English first, which is amazing because I'm least confidence in my performance for that. Ugh. I'll probably end up in tears when today's over lmao

[Lumenoria]

Omg guys,
So I had English first, as I mentioned, and we got our marks back for the Mod A oral assessment task. I was freaking the fuck out because I was almost definite I failed, which really annoyed me because I had worked insurmountably on my speech (literally more than any other subject) and felt as though my entire performance was futile because I wasn't able to perpetuate that hard work orally (I swear I spoke so fast). In addition, I threw up the day of the speech from being overwhelmed with anxiety that I swear any semblance of a double digit mark was elusively out of reach for me. Anyways, so as the speeches were marked by two teachers simultaneously, we weren't able to look at the actual feedback (since there would've been 2 sheets), but my teacher gave us back our actual marks - the numbers themselves - on a postit note lol. I was seriously expecting (not kidding whatsoever btw) 9 or something, but I got 13/15!! What the shit. I swear some god must be looking over me (despite my status as an intransigent atheist lol), because I keep thinking I fucked up every English assessment, stressing over it in the holidays then coming back to a good mark! And it's always coincidentally 87% - this happened in my first year 12 assessment too lol. I felt so bad because everyone was like "considering what you went through, 12 would be good for you so fair enough", so I burst into excitement in telling my friend, who was so keen to find out her mark for this, my mark. The impression she made on me made it seem like she was super confident with her performance, so I didn't think this upset her, but she ended up getting lower than me - to my surprise. It was just, awkward. My other friend got full marks on it, so now 4 people are tied 2nd (I think) with me in Advanced.

Next comes maths, where I got 86%. Nothing much to say on this, I was disappointed because I was expecting 90%, but not intensely upset either. Most of my errors emanated from stupidity and carelessness, which was annoying, but that's life haha.

So third, economics. My god. This was a shocker. I was quietly confident in my performance in this, so I was expecting 90+ but the marking was SO harsh holyshit. No one in the class got above 90, which is strange. The class average was a laughable 47% - stupid cohort. Anyways, this is a long story. Initially I got 58.5/70 (84%), and a guy topped this with 60.5/70 (JUST 2 MARKS UGHH). Upon inspecting the exam however, I realised one of the multiple choice questions was marked wrong - or the answer key was wrong. My friends and I had studied this concept religiously, so it was definitely a mistake on the teacher's part. It was about the subsidy graph, and all 3 of us had done calculations according to the vertical distance (for subsidy size), but the answer was NOT that. I looked at the question 8 times and there was no way we were wrong, I was definite. To make things worse, my teacher even specifically referenced the Tim Riley textbook - which isn't the class textbook, but I had looked at it in the library the day before the exam - which I had ironically also gotten my information from aswell for this part. The thing was, I had coincidentally had a photo of this subsidy graph according to that textbook (I took pics of all the pages so I wouldnt have to buy the $90 textbook to use at home lmao), so I checked it... and of course, I was correct. I confronted him after about this, and he said it was the vertical distance where it intersected the other subsidy line - to which I disputed with my photo of the Tim Riley book lol. He stared at my phone for way too long, but realised I was correct so everyone had to turn in their multiple choice sheets for remarking. We were happy, because we all gained marks, but everyone else was mad at us because it made them lose marks. One girl kept arguing with me that it would be best to take the question out and award everyone a mark increase because it's not their fault they weren't taught properly/didnt have the Tim Riley book... but I said, we WERE taught it - I legit had a worksheet proving it from the teacher. I said "why should we be disadvantaged because we did some widereading to reinforce pre existing knowledge?" Plus, your own learning is your own responsibility - you can't blame the teacher for everything ugh. And she was like, "but you won't be disadvantaged because everyone will be awarded a mark"... but like "why should they deserve it if we put effort studying to get it right?" You know? Sounds petty, but it was getting on my nerves a bit. In the end, I gained one mark and the initial 1st ranker lost his mark so basically I tied first with him in this assessment.. so yay for that. Ultimately, I got 85% on the dot, which I'm not ecstatic, but am at peace with. That was a fucking trek to type out lol.

Next, legal. This is a long story too, but in short, I got 92% in this half yearly assessment. I'm aware it's not inherently a bad mark, but it made my rank drop from 1st to 3rd which is upsetting. 2 friends and I were initially tied first on 100%, so this was bound to happen, but still. I studied my butt off for this exam, and it just feels like no matter how hard I try, it's never good enough. There are always people who try harder... or have better exam technique than you. I lost 2 marks in the short answers for stupidity, and 2 in multichoice, but got full marks in the extended response. One of the short answers mark loss was understandable, but the other, I'm not so sure. It was asking about the impact of state sovereignty on domestic countries or something, and I lost a mark/3 for not stating clearly what state sovereignty is. I was so annoyed because in any other subject I would never do that, and it's asking you for the impact - not the definition - so would you not assume the marker already knows what it is? I just answered the question straight up and supported my stance with 2 pieces of LCMID, which I thought would suffice - but apparently not. I was definitely disappointed, but my teacher pulled me and my friend over like "hey, you two, come here" at the end of the lesson. At first I thought she was going to get angry at us for talking so much, but she was praising our essays and how "they were the best essays. They were worth more than 15, and if I could give you guys more marks, I would." It was just so nice of her honestly haha.

I still have yet to receive one exam back, but overall I'm elated. I for sure did better in the first term assessments, but these were definitely harder. I'm so glad I've maintained my goal of 85+ in every single assessment so far in year 12, it feels really damn good to see your hard work reflected in your results. I do however, wish I could've cracked a few more 90s. I had a cry about that a few hours ago lol, but I'm happy.

I'm really keen but scared for HSC timetables tomorrow - yikes! I'm praying I do not have any double ups omg. Hope everyone is doing well!!

[jamonwindeyer]

I still have yet to receive one exam back, but overall I'm elated. I for sure did better in the first term assessments, but these were definitely harder. I'm so glad I've maintained my goal of 85+ in every single assessment so far in year 12, it feels really damn good to see your hard work reflected in your results. I do however, wish I could've cracked a few more 90s. I had a cry about that a few hours ago lol, but I'm happy.

I'm really keen but scared for HSC timetables tomorrow - yikes! I'm praying I do not have any double ups omg. Hope everyone is doing well!!

What a journey! Congratulations, really happy that you are happy with your results!! I think keeping an 85% plus streak going is bloody impressive, certainly better than I managed in my HSC - You should be proud!