HSC Stuff > The HSC Journey Journal
The Yr12 journey- a diary I "hope" to update...
r1ckworthy:
Just need to get something out of my system. It's a big one.
Spoiler Today was such a mixed bag of emotions. We went out as a class the whole day for an excursion, mainly for history. We went to a museum in the University of Sydney, and there I encountered a wall filled with tombstones from the Roman era. On the floor was a funerary urn, with's it's inscription stating how the son made this for his mother's ashes. Didn't take much more of it, until a good friend told me," hey, isn't it weird that our tombstones will end up like that on the wall?"
Fuck man I was lost at words. I stared at this funerary urn for like 30 minutes or something. The ashes of mother, whom used to be a human being fully living in the world like me, experiencing emotions, being themself, experiencing the world. Now turned to ash. To powder that slips past the fingers into a small little box, eventually to wisp away and end up in a museaum in Australia to be glimpsed temporarily by passerbys, to be remain there alone.
I haven't had too many existential crisis these past three weeks, probably none from the start of this term since I was focussed on schoolwork. It just all came tumbling down today. I was silent, I just knew myself to be awkwardly silent at that moment.
Things kind of got better. My class attended the 'last night of the proms' which was great. Then we walked through the 'vivid' festival, in the Botanic gardens.i walked with a couple of friends, but then I got separated and decided to walk alone.
I don't know, things got kind of intense. I started to think about the future, and all these negative consequences. Getting a bad ATAR, imagining the look on their faces. Fuck, like I don't know, I just kept moving into a negative spiral.
I just starting thinking about my life, and I was just disappointed. I was just feeling very very isolated, lonely kind of. Fuck. Like I just... I don't know.
Thing is, I already have a great home, good enough friends, food and shelter. A bed. I have everything I need, and yet I still feel like I'm missing something. Or someone, I don't know. This bugging feeling inside that something is not right.
I think it is loneliness to be honest. I don't know, but every single fucking time I hear my friends having a good time or just talking, I put myself in such a spiral,FOMO takes over. I guess there is this internal fear that I am perhaps alone in this journey. Every time I envision the future, I keep uttering the word loneliness. I do think know if it is a figment I have created, but it's so painful. To see other people, especially your friends, enjoy themselves without you. It's a very selfish thing, I know, but it still creates some kind of pain.
And when I do go hang out with them, I end up not having much fun and sitting by the corner. I keep telling myself that I am missing out on an opportunity that might make me happy, but I always end up as a recluse, listening to music while they chat. I guess I am creating this kind of expectation, which my friends can't meet.
I feel kind of lonely. I notice myself more and more trying to fit in, immediately making choices that supposedly will bring me in closer with them. But there is an urging feeling sometimes, a feeling that stabs me or something lIke that.
I don't think I like the people in my class as well. I addressed this in my first few posts, but their attitude to certain situations in life is kind of scary. There is an overt belief subtly interwoven into my school's culture of masculinity. For instance, walking down to the opera house, I just told out loud that I (prepare for cringiness) that I was holding a special someones hand right now (UHHH SO CRINGE). My two friends started to refute this. I told them I'll just let it happen naturally, like not forcing myslef to get out there and meet new people. Like let the circumstances dictate what I will do next, and take the opportunity. Letting it happen naturally. They refuted this quite strongly, and here are the exact words one friend said,
"I'm going to be honest, it's a competition."
Fucking hell. There were much worse things said. It's this kind of degrading culture, so subtle in the atmosphere of my school, that I fucking hate so much. Fuck, every single day, they taint the many beautiful things of society, which apparently to them is fucking ridiculous. Fuck. There's not really anyone that I have a deep relationship ship with. I don't know, but it's so overwhelming that no one will kind of hear you out. I guess it's a bit selfish, but yeah.
Ending up alone, I think of how the future will tear apart. Ending up lonely, ending up with disappointed parents, a disappointing mark. Like it's hard.
Hopefully, it goes away sometime. I just needed to tell someone about this, because things get pretty dark sometimes when I'm down this spiral of thoughts.
Seeing everyone enjoying life. That kind of makes me happy but pains me, alway subconsciously asking myself the question 'why am I not as happy?". Its a pretty selfish thing to be honest, and I guess omething I need to get rid of. But the thing is I don't know. I've always been told to stop thinking of myself, to stop being selfish, I guess that may be why I am always going down spirals. I don't know. I just don't know.
Hopefully ill get better tomorrow. Il post again and see how I am going.
Bri MT:
--- Quote from: r1ckworthy on June 07, 2019, 12:39:24 am ---Just need to get something out of my system. It's a big one.
Spoiler Today was such a mixed bag of emotions. We went out as a class the whole day for an excursion, mainly for history. We went to a museum in the University of Sydney, and there I encountered a wall filled with tombstones from the Roman era. On the floor was a funerary urn, with's it's inscription stating how the son made this for his mother's ashes. Didn't take much more of it, until a good friend told me," hey, isn't it weird that our tombstones will end up like that on the wall?"
Fuck man I was lost at words. I stared at this funerary urn for like 30 minutes or something. The ashes of mother, whom used to be a human being fully living in the world like me, experiencing emotions, being themself, experiencing the world. Now turned to ash. To powder that slips past the fingers into a small little box, eventually to wisp away and end up in a museaum in Australia to be glimpsed temporarily by passerbys, to be remain there alone.
I haven't had too many existential crisis these past three weeks, probably none from the start of this term since I was focussed on schoolwork. It just all came tumbling down today. I was silent, I just knew myself to be awkwardly silent at that moment.
Things kind of got better. My class attended the 'last night of the proms' which was great. Then we walked through the 'vivid' festival, in the Botanic gardens.i walked with a couple of friends, but then I got separated and decided to walk alone.
I don't know, things got kind of intense. I started to think about the future, and all these negative consequences. Getting a bad ATAR, imagining the look on their faces. Fuck, like I don't know, I just kept moving into a negative spiral.
I just starting thinking about my life, and I was just disappointed. I was just feeling very very isolated, lonely kind of. Fuck. Like I just... I don't know.
Thing is, I already have a great home, good enough friends, food and shelter. A bed. I have everything I need, and yet I still feel like I'm missing something. Or someone, I don't know. This bugging feeling inside that something is not right.
I think it is loneliness to be honest. I don't know, but every single fucking time I hear my friends having a good time or just talking, I put myself in such a spiral,FOMO takes over. I guess there is this internal fear that I am perhaps alone in this journey. Every time I envision the future, I keep uttering the word loneliness. I do think know if it is a figment I have created, but it's so painful. To see other people, especially your friends, enjoy themselves without you. It's a very selfish thing, I know, but it still creates some kind of pain.
And when I do go hang out with them, I end up not having much fun and sitting by the corner. I keep telling myself that I am missing out on an opportunity that might make me happy, but I always end up as a recluse, listening to music while they chat. I guess I am creating this kind of expectation, which my friends can't meet.
I feel kind of lonely. I notice myself more and more trying to fit in, immediately making choices that supposedly will bring me in closer with them. But there is an urging feeling sometimes, a feeling that stabs me or something lIke that.
I don't think I like the people in my class as well. I addressed this in my first few posts, but their attitude to certain situations in life is kind of scary. There is an overt belief subtly interwoven into my school's culture of masculinity. For instance, walking down to the opera house, I just told out loud that I (prepare for cringiness) that I was holding a special someones hand right now (UHHH SO CRINGE). My two friends started to refute this. I told them I'll just let it happen naturally, like not forcing myslef to get out there and meet new people. Like let the circumstances dictate what I will do next, and take the opportunity. Letting it happen naturally. They refuted this quite strongly, and here are the exact words one friend said,
"I'm going to be honest, it's a competition."
Fucking hell. There were much worse things said. It's this kind of degrading culture, so subtle in the atmosphere of my school, that I fucking hate so much. Fuck, every single day, they taint the many beautiful things of society, which apparently to them is fucking ridiculous. Fuck. There's not really anyone that I have a deep relationship ship with. I don't know, but it's so overwhelming that no one will kind of hear you out. I guess it's a bit selfish, but yeah.
Ending up alone, I think of how the future will tear apart. Ending up lonely, ending up with disappointed parents, a disappointing mark. Like it's hard.
Hopefully, it goes away sometime. I just needed to tell someone about this, because things get pretty dark sometimes when I'm down this spiral of thoughts.
Seeing everyone enjoying life. That kind of makes me happy but pains me, alway subconsciously asking myself the question 'why am I not as happy?". Its a pretty selfish thing to be honest, and I guess omething I need to get rid of. But the thing is I don't know. I've always been told to stop thinking of myself, to stop being selfish, I guess that may be why I am always going down spirals. I don't know. I just don't know.
Hopefully ill get better tomorrow. Il post again and see how I am going.
--- End quote ---
re spoilerYou might have a different take on this, but are those ashes truly alone? So long after the person they are made up of has passed, there is still an impact being had on others. I don't know the entirety of anyone's life but that doesn't make them any less important or impactful.
Many people will tell you that the ATAR isn't that important in the scheme of things but in some sense to truly understand you have to be outside the highschool-bubble. That bubble is a weird place that can warp your perception of things and it can be a rough place to be in, but as the time passes and you've been out there long enough you'll get what we mean. Best of luck until then.
It's not selfish to want connection with others or to want to be understood. You're right that the responsibility isn't just on your friends to have you feel belonging but it's also not something you need to struggle through alone. If they're good friends you should be able to tell them how you feel - and even that alone can ease difficulty and loneliness.
It's not a pleasant feeling, but there's also nothing wrong with feeling loneliness sometimes. And certainly nothing wrong with you for that. If you do start to think that it's having a significant impact on your life and it doesn't seem to be going away I'd suggest you look into how you can improve and understand your mental wellbeing - including talking to a professional.
If you get an ATAR well below your potential that wouldn't make you a disappointment - mainly it means that you might take a slightly different road to your career and/or study goals. Yeah your parents might be disappointed and that's difficult to go through, but it doesn't mean that that feeling will persist or that you are a disappointment. There is so much more than your grades (especially your highschool grades) and even though it may be hard to understand now you and your parents won't define you by them.
I've had parts of my life where I thought I was a disappointment, not living up to my former potential etc. and even though it can feel all-consuming at the time it isn't. You get past it. I hope you don't go through that to the same extent as many of us in our age group do, but if you do, you won't be alone and it will pass if you give it enough time.
There's nothing wrong with not being happy or wanting to be happy. I prefer to chase fulfillment rather than happiness as I find it is more lasting, but there are a lot of societal messages around happiness being the most important thing which can make that difficult. You can have everything going right in your life and still not always feel happiness; that's not being broken, it's being human.
Easy advice to give and harder to enact, but if you can identify how your spirals start it can make it easier to avoid the plunge.
Best of luck
r1ckworthy:
--- Quote from: Bri MT on June 07, 2019, 11:02:02 am --- re spoilerYou might have a different take on this, but are those ashes truly alone? So long after the person they are made up of has passed, there is still an impact being had on others. I don't know the entirety of anyone's life but that doesn't make them any less important or impactful.
Many people will tell you that the ATAR isn't that important in the scheme of things but in some sense to truly understand you have to be outside the highschool-bubble. That bubble is a weird place that can warp your perception of things and it can be a rough place to be in, but as the time passes and you've been out there long enough you'll get what we mean. Best of luck until then.
It's not selfish to want connection with others or to want to be understood. You're right that the responsibility isn't just on your friends to have you feel belonging but it's also not something you need to struggle through alone. If they're good friends you should be able to tell them how you feel - and even that alone can ease difficulty and loneliness.
It's not a pleasant feeling, but there's also nothing wrong with feeling loneliness sometimes. And certainly nothing wrong with you for that. If you do start to think that it's having a significant impact on your life and it doesn't seem to be going away I'd suggest you look into how you can improve and understand your mental wellbeing - including talking to a professional.
If you get an ATAR well below your potential that wouldn't make you a disappointment - mainly it means that you might take a slightly different road to your career and/or study goals. Yeah your parents might be disappointed and that's difficult to go through, but it doesn't mean that that feeling will persist or that you are a disappointment. There is so much more than your grades (especially your highschool grades) and even though it may be hard to understand now you and your parents won't define you by them.
I've had parts of my life where I thought I was a disappointment, not living up to my former potential etc. and even though it can feel all-consuming at the time it isn't. You get past it. I hope you don't go through that to the same extent as many of us in our age group do, but if you do, you won't be alone and it will pass if you give it enough time.
There's nothing wrong with not being happy or wanting to be happy. I prefer to chase fulfillment rather than happiness as I find it is more lasting, but there are a lot of societal messages around happiness being the most important thing which can make that difficult. You can have everything going right in your life and still not always feel happiness; that's not being broken, it's being human.
Easy advice to give and harder to enact, but if you can identify how your spirals start it can make it easier to avoid the plunge.
Best of luck
--- End quote ---
Thanks Bri MT for the kind words. I especially like how being sometimes unhappy is not being broke but being human. That point really spoke to me.
I kind of relate to you on being a disappointment. The night where I had to show my report card to my parents was the worst. I remember in year 9, after receiving some bad grades, I walked back home from school. I looked to my house and I kind of broke down. I've always kind of felt like a disappointment, but you are absolutely right in saying that it will pass. It sucks to be in it, but it will surely pass. Like you said, it's to be human to experience these things.
Today was a little bit better. I submitted my chemistry assessment, had the school athletics carnival today. It was so boring. We just sat around having nothing to do. I think these spirals often begin when I am alone. When alone, sitting down, FOMO, anxiety, regret, all these negative emotions wash down on me. Which is kind of sad, to be honest, because I used to love being alone. I would often try and find the time to just sit down and watch the wind brush the tress, the sun setting down, the wind gently flowing through the branches, hearing the bustle of far away school children nearby. I used to love that, sitting by myself and just being in the moment. I remember one time, I just closed my eyes and I felt a kind of peace I had never experienced before, not thinking about anything and just experiencing the world, in the present moment.
Now my thoughts kind of take over me. I become more anxious, more scared of the future more than ever, which is kind of unfortunate. I might try some meditation to fix this, I'll let you know how it goes.
So yeah. I am feeling a little bit better than yesterday, which is an improvement.
Did feel a bit lonely today as well. Also, a bit of a side note, ive made my school sound like shit. It really isn't. It's just their belief system that I have a problem with. The teachers are actually amazing, going out of their way to help us students. My friends can also be great supporters, although sometimes I feel left out.
The more and more I think about it, there really is a balance between everything in life. It is when one side gets tipped over that conflict starts to arise. Whatever it is, I hope to repair this balance and become a better version of myself.
I might stop at these kinds of reflections to be honest, they take quite a bit of time and ends with me feeling a little bit dreadful ???. I'll try to 'balance' ( :)) it out with daily stuff. However, if people are starting to like this a lot, I'll take the chance and do it, because I often feel more in tune with myself when writing this.
Finally, thank you if you have read this far. I'll make an update this weekend.
Peace,
r1ckworthy.
(PS kind of playing around with the idea of video blogs, stay tuned!)
r1ckworthy:
Hey peeps!!!
Context: My friends and I planned out something for the long weekend last monday, and I decided to vlog it. Be prepared for a mouthful of cringe, you gonna get it ;D ;D ;D.
A few things to keep wary:
-My first vlog, don't judge ;D
-My laugh be super weird sometimes, excuse me for that ;D
-I'm ending all my my points with this emoji ;D cause I'm a sick lad
-ENJOY!!! I was initially hesitant to upload it, but my friends convinced me otherwise. Uploading it here so that I'll remember to watch it when I look back ;D
BTW. I know at the end I mentioned uploading it yesterday, premiere pro won't import some of my files until 11:00PM yesterday so yesssss.
r1ckworthy:
Hey y'all!
Hope you have enjoyed the vlog up above. I initially wanted to edit it on Friday evening, but premiere pro won't officially import all my files. After 2-3 hors, I realised that there were videos less than 1 second long. The footage was finally imported at 11:00 after deleting those files. I didn't want to feel as if the day was wasted, so isat around editing it until 1:00AM. It was totally worth it.
I had initially thought that I should not uploading to my journal. I thought it would be too cringe, and revealing my face to the wonderful users here would kind 'disturb' what they think of me as a person. As can be seen from the video, I am a really awkward and cringe person, who occasionally thinks quite deeply about the world. But I showed it to my friends (who are in the video) and they totally changed my mind. It took quite some time to upload (the final export was 1.9Gb!). Totally worth it, and I hope you have enjoyed it!
In terms of school, my marks haven't been that great. For X1 maths, I got 54.5/70 (78%) with my final mark being 41/50. It was top mark, and if I had committed those silly mistakes I would definitely have gotten high nineties! Any suggestions for this?
For English, my final mark was 83/100 which is pretty decent. However, I do have to say that the marking felt kind of dodgy. My opinion, but it was kind of dodgy. Regardless, I am not too happy with this mark, and I need to work harder in order to increase it to a band 6.
Now I have officially started timed practice for the UCAT! I've been practicing for quite some time, but all my sections are close or below the average. I think from now one, im doing to dedicate one section perday, and to keep doing questions until I get good at them. Like for instance what is the point of doing timed quantitative section if you cant even complete it? My plan is to become comfortable with the questions and get used to it, and then doing it over and over again to get used to them. Otherwise I see no point in continuing timed practice if I am not good at them. My school has this program where yr11/12 for to Canberra as a study camp sort of thing straight after holidays. My UCAT is 2 days after this, and I won't have access to medify, which leaves me very worried. So I think I'll just do as many questions in each section as possible, and then only doing timed responses when I have become good at them.
I also have two assessment tasks next week! One for maths X1 (a practical investigation) and English (detective fiction story) which I have gotten started on. I need to get these done, so I hope I finish it in this weekend.
As well as that, I as well as another person were chosen to represent our school to go-to government house, which is pretty cool! I really don't understand why I was chosen, since there are so many people that are more involved with the school then I am, but yeah. I'm happy about that, and I'm going this Thursday!
I feel more and more stressed right now, probably because of those two assessment tasks. However, I need to calm myself down, and just work gradually everyday until I finish it.
Here's something I realised this week:
SpoilerI have been getting really anxious over the past few days. Yesterday for instance I only completed 8-9 questions out of 30 for timed quantitative reasoning for UCAT practice!
This lead to some deep self hate such as:
"Your not smart, why do you bother trying?"
"Your an utter disappointment, just stop.”
“You will never improve.”
Very negative thoughts. I almost started to cry to be honest and jus breakdown, it just overwhelmed me fully at that moment.
“Stop trying."
"Your parents are doctors, look at you."
I woke up, and another surge of anxiety hit me once again. But this time I just stayed calm and just breathed deeply in and out.
I realised I need to go back to the days where I enjoyed being alone. So for the next few weeks, I am going to practice 10 minutes of meditation. I need to go back being calm and collected, having full confidence in my self despite under the pressure. I need to top his negative thinking to be honest. Sometimes, to be honest, I really hate myself. I suppose this is promoted by sokeof my classmates. Being called cringe,it's seems small, and I know its small, but man... I don't know, it just kind of fucking hurts. I can kind of imagine them now, reading this journal post (which they have done) and just calling it cringe and dismissing it.
They can be good friends by the way. They have provided some support and plenty of funny memories. But it is also them who have kind of caused me to be self conscious and deeply critical of myself and my potential. I feel like I have to act like someone else, this sort of fake cringe guy. I frankly don't know how to act around them.
It was today I realised I am in control ofmy life, and while I can't control who I am and my emotions, I can let it be as it is. I can be calm and just smile. Only a few more months, and I will have to endure this kind of thing.
But at the same time, I do think I will miss them. It so weird. I've come to the realisation that life really is all about balance. Sometimes you will have good days and bad days, but they are all equal. It is us who emphasise the days. We can choose to focus on the good days or bad days. And I think I, and others, choose to focus on the bad in order to feel better about ourselves. And that's alright. But I think a better way is to take a deep breath and just let it be. To focus on the now, to be fully immersed in the present, letting the rain fall and not trying to avoid it is the best way to experience life. Because the only way to see the sun is to live through the night.
I like that metaphor. I feel it's sums up the HSC experience, and everything in general. We must experience the night in order to see the sun rise.
And while we might seem like we are forever in the dark, the best thing to do is to keep wading into the unknown, and just fully immerse ourself in the present. Choosing to let go of anxiety, negativity... That's when I we experience happiness, or experience fulfillment.
But it can be hard to let go of anxiety, depression, all those shitty things. I think that's where meditation comes in. Practicing meditation, to be in silence without thinking, is to remind ourself that we will be fine.
To whomever is reading this, especially those in the midst of chaos, know that it will pass. Don't attempt to block the emotions. Take a deep breath. Cry your heart out. You will feel much better in the future. You will be fine, and you will be alright. Whatever comes your way, anxiety, death, whatever, just keep the knowledge that it will pass.
Know that it will pass.
Know that it will pass.
We must experience the night in order to feel the sunshine.
That's my week so far, will update on Friday. Have a great week ;D ;D ;D.
Peace,
R1ckworthy.
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