Instead of doing all that, I sat down with my computer put aside (shitballz that's a rare sight I'm telling you), and just wrote and read the revision guide. People study in many different ways and to be frankly honest, I really don't know how to study effectively. I always follow the, "rewrite your notes, read and revise concepts" but I never really found it effective. Meaning that there seems to be a process that's missing, and the reason why I can't perform as well in certain subjects, but most of the time, it's just my laziness kicking in at the crucial moments. For e.g.
"Ahhhh it's maths paper 2 tomorrow"
-revise through how to use gdc for 20 minutes-
"I'm sleepy"
-sits there and contemplates on the importance of sleep-
"Yeah I'm sleeping"
-Sleeps at 9pm-
I'm not sure if that's just pure laziness or right now my priorities have changed like everything is centered around my level of alertness. Back to the topic of studying. I use to not study at all in Taiwan, I'd just go to cram school and we'd revise through doing exam papers. I'm not sure if that's studying because it didn't feel like it LOL
Since we're on the topic of study, I might as well just tell you guys my battle to... uhm...today?
"Study" in Primary School
I had primary at Calvary and needless to say, I did not study one single bit. I was always on top for maths (because I studied year 1 and 2 in Taiwan and that was enough to carry me through to ..about grade 5.. crazy yeah), but I sucked at English, SOSE and science, which is pretty much everything other than maths. Then again, people decided to put words into Maths and so the grade 2 me was hella confused like "What is half past 2?" Now I think back, hmmm the days, the days. I'm really thankful for the teacher who taught me one on one for reading. Since I had so much trouble reading and comprehending things from a day to day basis, the school arranged a teacher to speed boost my reading level. Let's say the expected reading level was 22 at year 2 (it was), I started off at 1 and made my way to level 20 in 5 months. YEY-YEEE Proud or what! HAHHAHAH I couldn't even spell "grandparents" in grade 2 cram school so I was stuck in between the highest English level at that time for my grade, and the second highest level. Awks and I transferred from classes about 2 or 3 times HAHAHAHAHAHA Good on ya Maggie! I did all my homework but that doesn't count as studying.
Actually, I had a tutor and her name was Petra. She was a very sweet lady. Yeah I never really use those two words irl so when I say it, I mean it. She was my tutor from grade 2 to grade 7 and she'd come to my house once a week to teach me English. She was also a teacher at another school so she executed a lot of fun activities in the time we were together. She made me write journals each week and that was probably the reason why I started writing diaries from that time. Just a heads up I don't write them anymore and I'm thinking to start them again (lol what is this blog for then?). Not going to lie one single bit but I occasionally wrote about guys, but they're all in recount/monologue form since I don't write poems or other romantic shit in my spare time. Whoawhoawhoa drifting off topic once again, so those writing habits kind of improved my fluency in writing (??) but because of that, I tend to drift off in all directions when I write. AS YOU CAN SEE. So much troubles for qcs writing, I go off everywhere and quickly draw back and resolute to death. Psht it's the simplest ending. Anyway, then in grade 7 she told me that she couldn't tutor me with her abilities anymore because I was getting to a stage where what the year level standard requirements are surpassing her tutoring year level range. I was indeed very sad at that time, she was a friend to me, she was a teacher to me, she was like the beanstalk to the jack and I was not mentally prepared to fly solo. In the end, she gave me her email and she stopped coming to my house.
"Study" in Middle School
I moved schools (lol if you think about that literally... I'm strong as fu-) and started grade 6 at Redeemer. I saw so many Asians there and vomit gallons of rainbows. I was no longer in the environment where English was the only language that I could communicate with. Regardless, the Asians still spoke in English because Asian is not a language and we all speak different languages anyway. Waiit, except for Julie, she spoke to me in Mandarin most of the time. I blame you for my broken English!! Just joking, but due to my friend's cultural influences, they were really hard working and studied for exams. So naturally, I begin to explore the wonders of "studying". Watch and learn, watch and learn. They're writing notes, ok I'll write notes too. They're reading them and thinking about it, I'll read my notes and think about it. And so on.
It wasn't too hard to get a grasp on how "studying" works but I still rarely did it anyway because I didn't see it necessary 24/7 as I was able to do decent/good with the amount of time I put into studying. When I were to study, I'd only do it for science and sose because the amount of work given in other classes are deemed enough to get people to a pass or better if they do more exercises in the amount of time. I still sucked at sose though, I get Cs in sose no matter how hard I try :( Whereas science at Redeemer, at that time, was straightforward, just study and you'll get there. I should of realised that I needed to study in a different way for SOSE, it's not like 1 method of studying works for every single subject. I was late to work that out, look at me now. I finally broke out of the C zone for SOSE in grade 9 :''''''D THAT IS TOTALLY WORTH A MENTION. Considering I'm not the straight A student and I have had many obstacles and that was the hurdle race that I thought I'd be tripping for the rest of my life. Aside from SOSE and science, the other subjects... christian studies, english, maths, japanese, visual art and PE weren't really subjects that I studied for, completing homework and listening in class was enough to get me to where I want to be.
I felt kind of bad for putting in less effort in studying than everyone else but still getting decent results. I still honestly think that the grades to get into Honours list at Redeemer are way to low. I think it was, 3 or 4 As to get into it? And because of that, I haven't been trying much harder in my studies - like be a straight A student. My objective was, "just get yourself into the list all the way until graduation" (yes I wanted to graduate at Redeemer I was sick of moving schools). The reason why I think it's way too low wasn't solely because it demotivated me and some people to get even better results, it was because other schools had way higher standards and hence actually looks much more "glorifying" to be in their academic ___ list. I believe state high's requirement is to get straight As? I guess this is also one of the reasons why I wanted to challenge myself and come to QA :D??D:
"Study" in High School
When dad got the phone call from the academy to tell us that I was successful in enrolling in the academy, I didn't jump around and scream and all that. I was just like, okay. I don't know why but I had a feeling that school life won't be as easy as before and I'm wasn't sure whether I should celebrate for getting in, or mourn over the fact that I won't be able to stay in my comfort zone. So I adopted a neutral response and just go along with the procedures in transitioning into smt. The school environment back then was so chilled, the year levels above us were chatting, gaming, and just having fun in general. I didn't see any signs of sleep deprived or stressed seniors back then. Yet they were able to achieve as well or even better than ...uhm... yeah. The admin and teachers actually treated them like university students and gave them the power to decide for themselves and that was the greatest gift a student could ever receive imo. I'm talking about the students that actually give damn about their school work and future, not students that just want to kill time and get school over and done with, giving absolutely no damn about anything. Given that kind of impression I had on the school, I was ready to try and find my way of studying and pick up my sht and improve my work ethics.
Plans always sound so nice....
I did study in grade 10 and did the standard, write, write, write studying method but I didn't really get the grades that I was hoping for. For set plan, the teacher looked at my scores and she told me that it was pretty good but I was like "nah it could be better". I had 4As and 4Bs and some Bs were cringe worthy because some were just a bit off an A. I tried hard for them and didn't really get the scores I wanted in return. I don't really know why I chose those subjects in SET plan (was it called set plan?), now I look back. For example, I chose anti business because people said it was the easiest anticipated subject. Ya know, experiences are valuable and all that. When actually, I've been doing way better in psychology and I enjoyed psychology classes with Ms Ali. Quick fact, I got a B in business and A in psychology. What the heck was I thinking? But then again, the work load was so much lighter in business than other anti subjects. Oh wait I think the reason why I didn't pick psychology was because it was essay based and I hated essays.
I also stopped doing Kumon maths. I started it in grade 8 at Level D and stopped at L (just 2-3 levels from finishing fml). Kumon encourages students to excel and finish the course asap but I didn't think that'll work out for me because I was doing definite/indefinite integrals, inequalities and crap like that in Level J and L and I knew that I won't be anywhere near those until I'm in grade 12 AND by that time I would of forgotten everything to do with it -> What's the point? So I got my kumon ashr+2 and quit it for good. This time, I was back flying solo for school work again.
Then in grade 11 came Bring it on. I thought that I would be able to improve on school work as well as pushing the group forward in B.I.O. but of course, I was wrong. My grades kind of slid down a bit but not very much. The worst drop I had was in physics, I basically just went nah can't do, and failed a subject first time in my life. Excusing myself with the responsibilities of BIO was not the right thing to do so I just blamed myself for not being able to hold it together. Thankfully, the responsibilities were delegated to another person after heats and so a portion of the load was kind of lifted off my back and I could focus more on school work without thinking about BIO the whole time. I decided to just have fun and work hard for anti for the rest of the year. I would still cram for most assignments, I studied, but only around a week or 2 days before exams because I have siq time managements like that. For Practice IOP that we had to record, I started the assignment the night before and recorded it at 6am in the morning and scored well in it. I never start my assignment the day I get it. One of the worst habit I'd like to get rid of but heehee there are no more assignments left for me now :DDDD ... until uni. I just need to get into the zone of doing whatever I'm doing, because if I sit there and my brain is filled with random junk, then the truth is, I will not be able to produce a decent ANYTHING until I wake up and switch out of that zone. Now that's something I learned about myself throughout the years of attempting to do anything related to life.
Oh did I mention, my friends started getting into League of legends and so I installed the game. Ahhh studies... Lol jokes I actually don't think it effected my grades that much because I didn't dive into the game. It was more like, yeah testing the waters with my toes, temperature alright? ok calves in water only, calves in water ONLY. Yep I had league of legends by my side for anti and ehhhh, it comforted me.
"It's ok maggie, without a 7, you still have me" -pats-
It started to hit me, holy smizzle I'm in Year 12! Time sure goes fast. I can spell "grandparents", I can comprehend things reasonably, I am actually not good at maths, I can do well in English and Science is actually not straightforward!!111!!!11! At least I've finally realised that I just need to learn to switch gears, if you know what I mean. Just simply copying down notes and definitions aren't my thing. I need to switch gears and get into a new frame of mind to actually let things sink in. EUREKA! I've always been using my normal mode when studying and that's why things are always trapped in and out of my head and so only some sifts through HAHAHAHAH Now I hope I'm able to perform better with knowledge that I have a manual mind fml why u no automatic. I have to tell myself "It's time to get down on English ;)))" every time I'm preparing or writing an English paper. Similarly "It's time to get down on meeetthsss lol jks MATHS" for Maths obviously. Switching gears in English worked last term and hopefully this mocks result will give me a clear indication of whether or not I've really picked out the problem in why I'm so slow at getting things sometimes. I finished shatting myself for mocks because I only have DT left and it's just content based with minimal calculation and conceptual things. -Insert magical beats- Hmm that's about it for my "studying" journey. There's so much other co-curriculum things but I was kind of really involved with those things back in the days so that's enough for another full post huehuehue. Right now, I'm still flying solo for school work and I'm not sure if I should fly tight with other birds cause ya know the physics behind birds flying in V shape.
soz for dunkey's subscribers for having to deal with the phrase "zone" ;)
DON'T LET ME INTO MY ZONE DON'T LET ME INTO MY ZONE SEE THIS CIRCLE HERE, THAT'S MY ZONE
omg I'm so much more alive when I'm in my room, alone
lol
Missing out on a day out with grandparents and parents to the mount. something (can't remember) and surfers paradise. Things I do to get into my zone....
HAHAHAHHA AND I JUST SPENT 2.5 HOURS ON WRITING THIS POST
OK IM POSTING WITHOUT PROOFREADING
edit: omg no I started Redeemer in Grade 6 oh silly me >___>
edit: omg no I started Redeemer in Grade 6 oh silly me >___>