Hi,
Call me Enoria, I'm a 16 year old girl from the Northern Beaches. I've spent the past two hours going through each and every post etched within these threads, and I've gotta admit, they're incredibly goddamn interesting to read. Despite the vast majority of them emanating from current HSC students—with me just having finished my prelim year—I thought it would be pretty extraordinary to have one of my own nonetheless.
To introduce myself, I am addicted to medical dramas and police dramas—respectively Greys Anatomy and Law and Order: SVU. OHMYGOD AND FOOD. I have an irrational obsession with Poké bowls, there's this place in Manly which makes them insanely good with avocado and nori and seaweed salad and brown rice and sesame and coconut chips, and ugh, it is ridiculously GOOD. As an actual hobby, I love netball with a passion and played as GD but I quit in Year 10 for unforeseen reasons and haven't bounced back into it since unfortunately. I'm self taught in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and After Effects and have been refining my flair in these programs since I discovered them at 10 years of age; however due to school, I have not been utilising my expertise in my free time as actively and flexibly as I used to be. I'm a graphic designer that creates community geofilters for Snapchat with 80 million views/uses combined on my designs, a few out of 50+ locations being: Honolulu, Venice, Shanghai, Byron Bay, Noosa, Bondi Beach and Manly. I also spend time working on designs for businesses who pay me in exchange for a customised Snapchat geofilter to promote their events, products etc. This can both be frustrating and satisfying honestly because sometimes I have, what they call, "editor's block" or my clients are literally insatiable and keep suggesting things that are, in the eyes of a designer, a really bad idea... but overall it's something I enjoy once I'm into it. Though, an increased focus on school in the past year has been reflected in my work, as my ability to create content and accept business opportunities for both personal and monetary gain has diminished exponentially. I also take shifts at a casual job as a waitress in an Asian restaurant. I think I've been rambling a bit about random things but whatever lol—don't really have anything better to do at this point hahah.
Academically, I would consider myself fairly competent, except for maths, which I'm really trying to improve on. The fact that I hate it so much doesn't really help though... ugh. My ATAR goal is 95 for a Bachelor of Politics and International Relations at UNSW, which seems impossible, but it can't hurt to dream lol. I'm also interested in Law, but that's even more impossible, so I suppose that speaks for itself hahah. I'm not really sure what else to say, but I suppose I'll provide a quick run through of the subjects I'm taking into year 12 and my thoughts/performance on them?
Advanced English; English is one of the subjects I look forward to the most, I've never really understood why it seems to be the most hated subject on here. Sure, it can be a bit tedious to grapple with initially, but once you've delved into its depths, it has the potential to be incredibly interesting. And I'm saying this in spite of my mediocre rank for it (12/70). I'm lucky to have had amazing teachers for the subject throughout my prelim and (soon-to-be) HSC year, but I think it'll be far more difficult to maintain a good rank next year because the cohort is SO much more competitive and competent now that the school has cut the bottom 30 from the course. (You had to be within the top 40, or they dropped you to Standard) Anyway, I'm just hoping I can scrape within top 5 because I think I'm capable of it, despite the inconsistency in my prelim marks. But, I am more than willing to put in the time for this, so I have faith... hopefully this won't erode throughout the year haha.
English Extension 1: I actually like English Extension a lot, but our new teacher (previous teacher went on maternity leave) diminishes the enjoyability of this subject quite a fair bit unfortunately. I love her as a person, but she's just dull at teaching if that makes sense. We did Romanticism and Gothic in Year 11, which was pretty fascinating, and I'm ranked 3rd atm (on a score of 85%) but I know this is subject to change when we get our prelim results back. I have never left an exam that last minute in my entire life. I didn't prioritise it because it was the last exam of the block and the weight of my other subjects seemed more important at the time, so I ended up writing a draft 2 nights before and it was SO half assed, it was so late that I couldn't even hand it in to the teacher. Also, that stimulus was traumatising af so I'll be lucky to scrape a 70 tbh. In retrospect, I probably should've started drafting WAY before the exam block hit, but it didn't seem apparent even then lol. It's amazing what procrastination can do. We're doing the After the Bomb module for our HSC year which I'm so thankful for, because the history behind it is so interesting.
Mathematics: Have been ranking 49/93 for this subject on absolutely atrocious scores which hopefully I'll pull up in my HSC year. I definitely haven't been taking this subject as seriously as I should've been, like I was literally online shopping for 5 straight hours on the night prior to the prelim final. Plus, I had a double up with Legal, so I obviously prioritised that over this because maths, to me, is a lost cause. It's like, the difference between whether I study or not is the different between 50% and 40%, and it just doesn't seem feasible to invest so much time for such little gain. That's probably the most toxic mentality ever which will only exacerbate my marks, but I just can't bring myself to do maths due to this. It's kinda sad, because I used to get marks in the 90s for it and now I'm literally failing. I would've dropped it for English Extension 2, but our principal is only letting it run with a cohort of atleast 8 otherwise it's apparently "economically impractical", which sucks because only 5 people are interested. It sucks even more hearing that there are other schools running it with just one person in it, UGH. So now, I'm stuck with mathematics.
(
Legal Studies: Legal is probably my favourite subject of all, predominantly due to the fact that I have an amazing teacher who provides such comprehensive feedback. The fact that the essays are essentially just one fat sophisticated rant really allures me, and drives my passion for this subject. I've yet to receive my prelim final marks back (which I think I fucked up in the multiple choice and longer response), but I'm currently ranked 3/54 at 90%. I love spending time on Legal and am so excited for Crime in the HSC year, hopefully I can rank within top 3 yet again.
Economics: I think economics is relatively okay as a subject, I love the social and political aspects to it. I do periodically struggle to apply my knowledge in exams though, which sucks because that's what the subject is centralised around—applicability. It doesn't help that I dislike my teacher, he is the slackest person who does the bare minimum for his students to thrive. I can't even rely on handing in essay drafts to him because, guaranteed, he won't even read the entirety of it. I'm not sure where I'm positioned in rankings atm, but my mark is roughly around the 80-83 range.
Industrial Tech (Multimedia): I love this subject because it's where my creativity in digital design and production comes in. I bludge all the lessons and I'm ranked 1/30 with an average of 93%. I literally never study for the non practical exams and I can still maintain my rank easily, which is kinda a bad habit which I should break soon enough. The idea of a major work for it stresses me out though because I don't know if I'll hold out long enough in terms of inspiration, but the freedom of expression also excites me. Really hoping I can rank 1st again in my HSC year.
Geezuz, that was exponentially longer than I anticipated... whoops. Sorry haha! Probably won't update again for a while, seeing as it's the holidays, but yeah, I'm hoping this form of self reflection will motivate me and some of you guys. Hehe I'm kinda excited for the year to start so I can have things to update here haha
Love,
Lumenoria