English Extension 1

that was actually ok. is it weird to say it was easier than advanced? well at least the stimulus was easier to incorporate.
it was defs easier than the past year's where they had to do settings/quotes/pictures.

and for once, i actually had 10minutes left. hopefully they won't think my stuff is short. it really all depends on the marker's subjectivity...

no more English! (i can finally say that now, except i think i will miss english...)

i like how our school does different electives: after the bomb, navigating the global, sci-fi, crime fiction, life writing. maybe when the markers are going through it, they won't find our essays boring since there's a variety  to read.

i've actually been really efficient the past 2 days. my "miscellaneous time" adds up to 20 minutes, compared with 1.5hours+ from before...

5/7

Paper Cut

i actually heard i slicing sound this time, thus there was blood. and then i remembered Happy Apple's post about paper cuts, so i washed it, and as much as i hate using bandaids, i used one. oh, and the cut is on my right index finger where i need to grip the pen, so this sucks. hopefully it heals in three days. and my bro has been sick for a full two weeks already. i think he won't even get better until after my hsc. no joke. i'm 80% sure.

reading so many articles about apple ipad mini vs everything else. oh, and i watched apple's "launch video" for the iphone 5. they make everyone seem like superstars/highly valued customers. but i legit need a new phone. sometimes receiving messages 12 hours later than when the person sent it.

bomb used to scale better than the other electives since it was the "newer and harder" one, but now i don't think so anymore, since it's become quite popular (yet there's still hardly any resources around)

New Neighbours

it's been (i think) exactly two months since the next door's house was empty (which meant the owners lost two months profit)

so the new people are from brisbane, two guy twins who are approx same age as my bro, and an 8 year old girl. they had two trucks move stuff for about 2.5 hours and i think they moved from a big house to a small house since they have a lot of outdoor tables/chairs/patio heaters/big bbq's etc.

not stalking them, they just talk loud.

i think they're new zealanders. idk. they're not white/asian/curry/middle eastern/french/italian/spanish like my right door neighbours, and they still speak english even when the parents are talking with each other. ofc, there are many other nationalities out there...but the guy kids seem kind of "bogan" or like the "try to be cool" kids.

i was hoping no one would move in until after the hsc, i was enjoying the peacefulness. and they have surround sound speakers. oh, they also have foxtel cause i saw a foxtel guy come in to instal it for them. but their tv is small =/

so three kids=more noise. you can totes tell they aren't the study type. i mean, people who move interstate is usually because of the father's job, and not for three kids schooling education. i think they probs won't even enrol at a school until the end of the year...

yeah, i need to do a post about kids these days.

i think i may have cried in my sleep during the night. idk. maybe i dreamt about my e2 maths mark and how i bombed out on it. i just remember my contacts felt weird and so i just took them off in the middle of the night. or maybe it's because i didn't wash them properly so they made my eyes water.

argh. can't memorise my essay. for ext, they tell you 10x more not to memorise your essays. since you're supposed to have a conceptual understanding, but i have to memorise. thus, if they chuck in a specific specific thing, well i'm screwed. esp for creative writing if they specify a particular setting or character or first person, because i have to have my setting and write in third person for my story to work.

and my computer clock just moved back an hour, awks, first time that's ever happened....oh, did i mention, the new imac coming out later this year is so sexy, it's soooo thin for a desktop. but i think i've followed in my dad's footsteps and dislike desktops.

now i hear thumping from next door ):

i think i'm going to plan going to disneyland when the results come out, and stay at the hotel overnight when atars come out, then spend a second day there to cheer myself up. i've already been to the hk one twice, and this year will be the 3rd time we'll go to disneyland without my dad since he arrives later than we do...

damn, wasn't supposed to spend so long ranting...

Mathematics Extension

well, it definitely wasn't as hard as last year's and the year's before.
READING TIME IS SO DECEPTIVE. flipping through, the test looked do-able and ok without the horrible binomial proofs, but arghh, doing it is definitely a different story. exactly like paper 2.

ice cream is comfort food.

just saw the solutions.
lost at least 15 marks, going to get an e2 ))): since everyone said it was heaps "easy"
I NEED SYMPATHY/WORKING OUT MARKS! working for some of my questions was so messy, hope they don't deduct marks.
(plsdntlaughwhenidntgetthetopband, i've always been bad at maths) this test is/was just as disheartening feeling as chem, the want-to-cry-but-need-to-pick-yourself-up-and-remember-it's-not-the-end-of-the-world-feeling. and that feeling when you figure it what you did wrong after the exam but can't change it... ))):

i mean, i did study for this test, except there is a limit to how much my brain can work and solve maths problems...i think i've blogged about this before.

i only know (well my teacher said) that chemistry scales up since raw marks are 60-70 which end up as band 6. for other subjects, i just think it's raw marks they take into account, so for today, defs looking at e2. and then i think i'm going to pull the grade down since it's the lowest mark they care about or something like that.

now i don't think any of my units will count apart from last year's, which means i have no atar (well no atar above scholarship thresholds) which means, idk, figure what to do after hsc....

oh, i think it's stupid how they get school teachers to check calculators. wouldn't the teachers want the school to benefit and let students use "non-approved" calculators??
and i still think hsc markers are savage markers who try to take marks off you.

and at least i know i'm not smart, and so do my parents, so there's no pressure there, but it's just disappointing when you don't get it in the exam, but after.

watched the video about ipad mini, usually apple products make me happier, but ipad mini isn't actually that exciting, just cheaper and smaller-that's about it. but the new imac's are so thin, and now they have 13inch in retina display...if only i bought my laptop 2 years later (actually no, i'm still glad i got it beginning of yr 11 since i hate wasting time esp on slow laptops...) and they're now not that expensive, compared to two years ago.

(if you made sense of this post, then well done)

i actually must hardcore study for ext/phys/jap.

4/7

Mathematics

the more i think about it, the more marks i know i've lost.
shouldn't have spent 25mins on last questions since i didn't get it in the end...
should have checked for even more mistakes. i actually did find 6+ more marks worth of mistakes, but then i realised i did some stuff wrong after the exam.

hopehopehope i band 6 maths. if i don't...well...it's going to be really embarrassing. ):
dear hsc markers: please give me sympathy (working out) marks.

3/7

froyo

oh wow, i'm living in a whole.
apparently there's yogurberry at cherrybrook shops!!!
well...it's not an actually store, but a cafe bought one of those yogurberry machines w/ the cups, serviettes, plastic bags etc, and since it's new, they had a 50% off, and my mum bought me some (: except, it wasn't made properly, since it was runnier than usual and not as flavourful...probs because it was cheaper and heaps of people, so they ceebs waiting for the right amount of time to serve people, it's not self serve and they sell in sizes not by grams and only 4 basic flavours, but if i have a froyo craving, there is one close by!!!

i have to use my cheap kilometrico tomorrow, since i've been doing my maths with it for a month. it gives me the right amount of friction to think through my working. it seems to be a trend that the last question is a crazy differentiation, well just tedious.
must be ever so careful tomorrow!

exam cake

in the middle of exams encouragement cake: gingerbread and cinnamon moose cake

lol jks
it's my brother and dad's combined birthday cake, i just removed th plaque as you cn see from the line...
we were going to get it on thurs, but my dad was supposed to go on a business trip thurs and fri, so my mum changed the cake to today, and then he called in the arvo to say he wouldn't go and by then it was too awkward to change back, so cake today (:
sucks to be my dad, bday next week while on business trip.

i swear, there is actually a secret government thing going on, like in those spy movies. heard/ say at least 10 helicopters today and yesterday.

exerting a "10km radius" ie, brother only allowed home after 4pm. his coughing is more annoying than the dog barking.

i feeling like i don't know anything, even though i've been doing maths every single day for the past 4+ weeks.

happy birthday joel. (sucks to be sick on you bday)

for once, no cake, but long story...will explain later...

bought cirque de soleil tickets! ahh, so expensive, i feel bad for using so much money, i'll probs repay them a bit later...
i watched their documentary earlier in the year, and 1 costume cost at least $1000, so i can understand their prices.

and ahhh, i swear there is a secret military government mission going on. today i saw/heard at least 6 helicopters, and they're worse than planes as they're lower, and you can hear them from afar and their very loud. i'm pretty sure 2 of them were police helicopters. why can't you find another route away from my house!!!

day before paper 2 i couldn't sleep because:
1. helicopters going past my house at 11pm for over 30min
2. brother insanely coughing
3. dog barking
4. blankets too thick

literally not making eye contact/keeping a "10 metre radius" from my brother. i wonder how he will survive the hsc if he keeps on getting sick ever so easily...

Paper 2

During reading time, i was actually slightly smiling to myself, because they didn't specify a scene/character/extract for mod b, and i thought, hey, this might be a do-able paper...

but then.

idk. when we could write, i just couldn't write, as in my hand wouldn't write fast. so then my time management was all over the place. and then as i delved in, rahhhh
WHY YOU SO LONG WINDED THIS YEAR?
the questions all take up at least two lines, so now i'm doubting myself that i've answered every single part...
and i don't think i made sense in my essays
and then i mental blanked on the year my mod b text was written, and i just checked, i was 17 years off, dayumm
it's kind of like chem again. do ok in school assessments, but then hsc mark is going to drag me down. i actually felt confident this time, but then under exam conditions, everything changes.

my writing speed was much slower today. must be all that practice yesterday....

i guess last year mod b would have been more of a shocker since that was the 1st time they did extracts, but this year, ahhh, so many parts in the question...and then English is soooo subjective, as in the markers maybe looking for something you don't have, then your marks go down, so you never really can tell the quality of your essay, unless you always get full marks.

and the tallest girl in our grade kept writing was 3minutes, AND THE SUPERVISOR WAS WRITE NEXT TO HER AND SHE KEPT ON WIRITING AND THEY DIDN'T NOTICE HER. yeah, even though i forgot some parts of mod c, you don't see me writing after pens down....

despite all this, i think i'm going to miss English.

eng ext is completely different to adv. i haven't touched that for 3 weeks now, i'll touch on that after maths.

yay (2U) maths!

2/7

day between English

i've thought/read at least 50 questions for each module, but i bet that none of the questions i read will be similar to tmr, because it's BOS.

AND ADRIANO ZUMBO HAS HIS OWN MACARON/CAKE MIS COLLECTION AT WOOLIES! that made my lunch time while flipping through the catalogue.

if you haven't realised already, our mod c speech was the 05 question. for mod c H and M (and then i think about H&M in hk which everyone says it's really good), they used two related since 01-06, maybe this year they might start the trend again. and from 01-04, they were not essays but "write a speech, conversation etc"

and reading more news articles to help me with expression for tmr, and how head teachers were saying "Yday paper was a hard paper." but that was from comprehensive high schools, but apparently this year's paper would be a better differentiator compared to the other years. i don't know if that's meant to be a comfort for me or not.

i think 6 essays is enough practice-don't want to kill my hand before tmr =/

but paper 2!!!
i can't fully memorise my essays, it's good in a way so when i can't think of what's next, I'LL WILL ANSWER THE FRICKEN QUESTION.

excited to see what weird and unique questions they're going to hurl at us.

HSC

time.
it's not even in the rubric. but i guess the bos had to do something different. i mean we are the 4th year to talk about BELONGING.

yeah, wasn't that stressed until i came to school and everyone was full panicking etc.

rahhh, guy behind me kept on continuously coughing. hope i don't get sick....

oh, was reading the news about how people teach people to cheat on bored of studies. so i thought really? people putting notes in their underwear and going to the toilet to read them?
and then at the end of the exam, i turned around, and i won't use any names, but the tallest girl in our grade kept on writing and writing and writing for about 8 minutes after it was pens down. i just thought-what should i do? should i tell on her? she was sitting near her friends who also knew she was writing, except they didn't tell...i just kept silent because a) she and other people would hate me for life (not that i talk to her) and b) maybe she might get a state rank/ pull the grade up.
but really? cheating is not the answer.

hopefully i answered the question =/ and it said use it as a central element, i wonder if they can pick it from the subtlety =/

so many cars at the back today. same with ctech, heaps and heaps of parents waiting to pick up their children. there were hardly any parents picking up kids during trials.

tbh, i was kind of excited about the bleonging paper, see what they could chuck at us. i'm also excited about mod b to see how specific they would get this year (even though i don't like how mod b essays are written)

my brain hurts, not my hand.

1/7

Day before HSC

O: (: /= ): )': D= ((:
i feel much calmer this time round. less "ahhhh" compared to trials.
when i get sick of english, i just do maths.
i guess you can never fully prepare for english. you just have to think quick and write fast.

WHAT IS THE PROBABILITY THAT YOU'RE CREATIVE IS THE SAME PLOT AS THE READING TASKS!?
i'm just most worried by that.

lots of people are saying it's identity, i think it's going to be identity too, except i hope it won't be =/

i actually wouldn't mind writing a speech or conversation instead of an essay.
i'm actually kind of excited to see what they're going to chuck at us. i have a feeling they're going to specify two related texts.

and i can't believe people would do this, taking drugs so instead of writing 2000 words, they write 9000 words...

hsc, here i come!
good luck everyone! let's own this thing (:

Therapeutic Blogging

i've been telling myself not to blog because of hsc, but i just can't!
i feel the need to tell people about my thoughts or else i'll just focus on them and won't be able to focus on studying.

it's the same with food. if i'm craving/feel like a piece of junk food etc, then i have to eat it, or else i'll just keep thinking about that piece of food and not focusing on studying. (then i worry about being fat and all that stuff later, but i would much rather have my food-cravings satisfied. anyways, i have a week to starve myself before formal...)

my parents are like "i've heard gangnam style so many times on the radio that i could sing with it" facepalm.
out of all the songs, they remember this one. well, i guess it's easier to remember since it only has six english words. but my mum and i still don't get what's so great about it.

i was reading the news to "relax" and saw a pic of ian thorpe and part of his home. ahhhh, his swimming pool is part of a lake in switzerland- how cool! and their lakes over their are actually picturesque clean lakes, unlike our green/brown lakes...

and look: (so. much, competition. state rankers are truly amazing )

monday wednesday
monday wednesday
tuesday friday
monday

i don't remember the dates apart from starting on 15th and ending on 5th. i just remember the days.
i HAVE to get 9 hours of sleep. studying is draining...well i've been getting 9 hours for the past 3 weeks. i'm just scared that i will turn up late for the exam =/

Mod B

i think i have actually developed an appreciation of my text, which is part of the point for the module.
i actually love my mod b text, well, it's the best text i've read in English.

so, it didn't take me long to re-memorise the essay, since most of it just came flowing through.

my text dates back to 2000 HSC papers, and the 2004 question was such a troll: "Use two extracts" WHAT, ONLY TWO EXTRACTS! THAT DEFECTS THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF TEXTUAL INTEGRITY WHERE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DEAL WITH THE TEXT AS A WHOLE.

they've asked about the main protagonist two times in 2000, and 2006, so the pattern is every six years, which seems like this year they'll be focusing on Patrick again, but i only have one para on him =/ so i guess i'll have to tweak it like i did with trials as trials also asked about patrick w/ a passage that we had to use. mod b turned out better than my other essays in trials, so maybe making stuff up under pressure helped...except i can't afford to do that in the hsc....

please don't ask about: random dodgy characters, "intense" relationships (which is like a major thematic concern, but i avoided it since i think it's too common, but ahhh if they asked it like in 2007), don't ask about the middle of the novel ie section 2.

i super duper hate one of my mod a text. i read the first two chapters then it got so boring that i skimmed through the rest. thus, i still can't fully memorise my mod a essay ))))))):

i just hate the idea of they can ask you literally anything from your text. ANYTHING.
D=

fb

so my grandma phoned my mum and she was like "did you see on facebook a photo of us eating shanghainese crab which are only available this period"

glad my grandma actually knows about all the "in" stuff.

not going to deactivate fb, but exerting self control by logging out and not going on it for a month. (it's already been about a week since i last went on already....)

neither my grandma/mum have fb, but they look over other people's shoulders.

Brain Food

food which i have ate in the past 3 weeks. the healthier type of junk food/food to help you remember stuff (highly doubt it...)

walnuts, almonds, pistachios, lindt dark chocolate (finished a whole thin block by myself already), blueberries, avocados, apples, grapes, oranges, milk, cream cheese (not the cooking type, the actual cheese on biscuits type), beetroot crackers, yogurt, dried and crunchy oats, fish oils, breadsticks, green tea buns w/ red bean paste, sesame ice cream

consistently eat at least four of the above each day.

my hsc care package is enough to make me super fat. so i have kind of avoided it until hopefully after hsc/after formal. then there is all this other junk food...

got my formal invite today (:

also, i was thinking when the "good luck" for hsc video was going to come out, and it came out today. it's exactly the same as last year's apart from the dates...

i hope i don't end up like the guy in my chem class last year. i remember i was driving to school, and in my rear view mirror i saw the guy holding up his belonging essay/creative to read whislt waiting for the traffic lights. i don't know if having paper 1 in the arvo is a good thing or not...but at least we have a day between the two papers unlike last year.

just did the 2U ruse paper. oh wow, it's actually easy, easier than our trial (well that's cos i did bad in it), and defs easier than hsc. i've avoided ruse trials since they're usually harder than hsc and i was going to "save them up" until closer to the date...the mc that paper was surprisingly easier than what i thought they would have.

you know, the 2u 2011 paper was relatively easy, which meant that the 3u 2011 paper was relatively hard (twas super hard for me when i did it two months ago...)

my phone is going weird these past two days. i'm receiving messages a few hours later after the person has sent it, and when i'm sending texts, sometimes it fails, and i have to try again. i think i finally understand how people say the insides are getting old, even though the outside is perfectly fine.

another reason i need a new phone. also, it's lagging more now. luckily it's hsc period, so i actually don't need my phone much, apart from asking people questions.
there still aren't many "lightning" products for the new iphone yet, nor have they fixed the maps issue =/

ahh, can't get it into my head.

life lesson learnt!

I FINALLY FINISHED THE PAST PAPER BOOKS FOR MATHS! 40 papers. thought i would never finish. now i can start doing 2012 trial papers, but i have to go back and re-do all the hard questions since i didn't do them properly.

yay, wedding after schoolies!

goodbye any hope for medicine. even jcu. forgot to do something in the application process which was ever so critical. gg. all that effort is wasted ))): all that time... no point getting disheartened for it now. need to have a positive attitude for exams so i can hopefully do them with confidence, unlike the other exams i have done.

i guess the only positive thing is that i can focus on having fun overseas. post-grad med is the only way to go for me if i still really want to do med 3/4 years time...

time to study

edit: i feel the need to say more...
now that i think about it, i think all the other forms i sent through post got lost in the mail.
LIFE LESSON LEARNT. use registered mail for important things. i guess taking an "optimistic approach", at least i came across this experience now so in the future when i'm dealing with "high class stuff" i'll know what to do. (or tell my children what to do, since no one at home can remind/help me with such things)

also, thanks tess for going through creative! criticism is very good for creatives. and Happy Apple-wow!!! so diligent with doing all the english past papers and sciences + maths. i remember my chem tutor last year saying how she did 60 past papers for chem alone. oh wow, how do people find all this time??? i guess some people are just too smart/good/hard working.

will do a post about past papers sometime...

One of my favourite verses are:
"Be warned, my son of anything in addition to them. of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body."
Ecclesiastes 12:12

it's so relevant, especially during this time. my breaks always involve food...and also i've swam more in the past 2 weeks than in the past 6 months. so yeah, take breaks guys! you don't want to end up like those people who see counsellors because they have too much stress etcetc, and then waste even more of your study time.

and i had rabbit yday, felt the need to tell you guys that. my mum didn't cook it the way masterchef cooks it (ie with butter), but i think it's necessary to use butter since it's game meat ie tough, so butter will make it less tough and not as easy to overcook.

and dad watched gangnam style after talking about it and watching it at family friend's house, so he rewatched it at home. i can't believe it. it's so stupid. i've never watched the whole 5mins, the most i've watched is up to 3...

my writing speed has gone considerably slower )))))): which is super bad. even if i use a $4 ink joy, it will give a few more precious seconds, but not a couple of extra minutes. it's like those $800 speedo laser suits, where they can reduce friction of the water by a 1 or 2 seconds (which is critical in swimming) but not a few minutes.

mailbox tea

free tea from the mail! and my mum also got the neighbour's one, since they moved out 1.5 months ago, and the new people who bought the house have only repainted it. what a waste of money- buying a house and then trying to rent it out, but then it was unsuccessful, and now it's just an empty house. oh, and the packet had five individual packets, so in total we have ten free packets which costs about $3

my favourite tea is from qvb high tea. yummm. shall go try t2 after hsc.

dear brain, please memorise essays! argh ):

eye is not infected! so glad i wouldn't have to undergo eye surgery etc,  right before HSC. just as i predicted, it was an eyelash...
need to get my own medicare card after hsc when i have time...

ahhhhh
i can't study. nothing seems to be going into my head. maybe it's the english essays freaking me out and how they have a new panel of markers, which would most likely mean super weird questions and then i would mine blank in the test and then get a "bogan" mark and thus atar won't get me anywhere since english counts. phys doesn't seem to be sticking into my head ):

everyone seems to be talking about dreams so yesterday night i had a belonging-related dream =/ that feeling of alienation and disconnection from place. it was actually quite sad. ok, i'm kind of laughing while typing this...

argh, boost challenge was totally do-able today, except my hula hoop is from kindy, and even in yr 6 it was small for me, and thus now ofc it's un hula hoopable since it's so small.

why aren't the essays/physics going into my head? i don't know if i can work in study groups, since i'll be asking people for help, and then it's selfish if i can't help them and i waste their time...

fingers crossed the hsc marker who reads my story likes it. i actually want someone to read it, except not a soft copy since there's always the risk of "people copying" etcetc

my hardest english task apart from mod b, is adapting my creative for ext. if you think they try to throw people off in adv by putting in a super weird question, then in ext they will blast you. hopehopehope i can adapt easily and they don't ask for a character/setting from set text...

my bro should go to sleepovers more often. actually, he should go for the next month. 

the main reason i decided to help out with invites for 2 hours is because with the place cards, i put my name down to help, but didn't end up helping. personally, i hate people who say they will do something but don't end up doing it/helping you. thus, i decided to tie cut and glue ribbons and filigree.

first time going to castle hill library since school ended. all the seats were taken so i ended up sitting on a high seat ):

not a fan of studying at libraries.

ahhh, i have an inward growing eyelash and it's making me seem like i'm crying.

I AM HAVING "MINI-HEART ATTACKS" (as in that "bad" adrenaline feeling). already.
panicpanicpanic. not enough time D=
the thought that everyone is studying eversohard, and i don't have anything in my brain leads to be being anxious.

and i was sooooo chill last week, wayyy to chill.

less than 14

my "hsc survival pack/shoe box" is kind of like those tents in harry potter when they go to the quidditch world cup (hp4 was on last saturday night)
the content inside seems bigger than the size of the box, similar to how inside those tents are really big...

fingers crossed they don't specify 1st/3rd person.
it would be troll for them to make us do 2 related, since it has happened before. but i don't mind 2 related texts, i mind 1 since i have to memorise 1 more new paragraph which i wrote after trials.

went out to eat today. 2 hours of "relaxing"/ "time wasted" but i finally had my iced pearl milk tea satisfied...apparently they have "hot" pearl milk tea there... =/

had a late night snack yday of mooncake. hey, it's not as bad as i remembered. my uncle posted a picture on fb, of cold durian mooncakes, which were $50 aussies dollars. 50!? apparently my mum called to get them to keep her one since we're going there in two months, and apparently the durians in the cold/ice moon cakes are from malaysia where they have special monkeys who pick durians from trees rather than handpicked by humans, so they "smell" and taste better...i didn't mind durian when i was younger, now i hate it...

really should sleep/wake up earlier.

even my adv teacher has different opinions on my creative. before trials she liked it, after trials she was like "why you have no conflict!? blandblandbland" if you show your creative to 10 people, i bet half will love and half will hate, then a month later their opinions will change...it's kind of a matter of luck in the hsc marking centre. like, i've said before, i made my ext teacher cry and say "oh, i finally found someone who can write well," while my adv teacher says "more techniques plox."

this time in two weeks, no more belonging...

i am not prepared.

(this post was originally meant to be only 3 sentences)