Thursday, April 2, 2009

#2 I'm Going to Have a LOT of reading to do...

Reasons for this:
  • A lot of people whose blogs I follow seem to be participating in BEDA. This is something to be excited about because I really enjoy reading them (not in a stalkerish way).
  • Today I bought 5 books for $30. The unfortunate part is that I probably won't get around to reading them as I have to re-read The Kite Runner (shudder) for English, re-read Forster's A Passage to India (Which is difficult to get through but a magnificent piece of Literature none-the-less, which I have to read for Lit), re-read The Persians by Aeschylus (though it's a short play, so that's no problem), finish re-reading The Catcher in the Rye (I love, love, love this novel. So much.), finish reading Wheel of Time book 8 (i think i'm up to 8) by Robert Jordan, finish reading Harry, A History, and Lolita by Nabokov;
  • Then I need to begin reading one of the following: Wheel of Time 9, [the following were purchased today] Dracula by Bram Stoker, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by E. L Stevenson, Hamlet (no need to list the playwright - though I'm studying this later in the year for Lit anyway so it can wait), The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I also have a list of 20 or so odd books which I am inclined to read sometime in my life.
You can see my problem. Although, that list was really for my own benefit of having a record of everything (sorry). I realise it's not really interesting unless you're someone who enjoys lists.

Here's a scary thought: I personally own approximately 200 books. I am only 17. I'm running out of book space. I need more bookcases. I am such a nerd. (Though thanks to the Vlogbrothers, that's a good thing so I don't actually care.)

Ahhh, and I haven't even arrived to the part in which I talk about my day!!!! Perhaps in Summery Form:

- Woke up stressed. Not a great thing. The feeling was slightly diminished as today was the last day of Term One, and I knew it would all be over in three or so hours. So I got dressed.

- Wrote my Literature SAC. Not too sure how I went, but I feel like I did better than my last, which wasn't horrible but I needed to improve.
I'm really proud of myself, though, I've manage to maintain an A average in all my subjects this year, I don't think I've gotten lower than a B+, and that was only one SAC (guess which.) This isn't me bragging or being egotistic at all, basically, I've worked hard, and I'm getting results that I want. I can't ask for more. I just hope that I can maintain this.


- Went and had ice-cream with my friend after we spent a good five minutes screaming incomprehensible sentences made up of words such as "free" and "holidays" and "hell-freaking-YES."

- Bought the aforementioned books =]

- Had parent-teacher interviews (which students are allowed to attend if they so wish), and had really, really, really good feedback which honestly just made me feel more pressured. I mean, there was no criticism. None. What?? So now I just feel like I have to continue like this, and it's hard, so early into the year (what the hell am I saying? I've completed a whole third of the school-year). So basically, I need this break.

- Went out to dinner with some girlfriends =]

Basically, I love my life right now. I've so far made it through year 12 without any [major] breakdowns. Yay.


See, when I said I would make up yesterday's blog post, you didn't think I'd actually make it up, did you? This is bloody long. AH.

So, if you've made it through to this last paragraph or so, I would love it if you scrolled down ever so slightly to where the little button saying "comments =]" is. No, no, I'm not telling you to leave a comment, (although that would be greatly appreciated). Below are three little boxes. Please tick one =]. And continue to do so, really, it helps me and my motivation etc. I wanted to include more options but it wouldn't let me =[.

I don't think all my BEDA posts will be this long. I'll probably run out of things to talk about.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Liv,

Seeing how you were talking about books, I thought I share with you a book video I did a few weeks back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC5_bFsshLE&fmt=18

To all the nerdfighters out there, Books FTW!

Richard said...

Hi Liv, Glad your sac went well,
Good effort today but thats nothing unusual for you :)
One question, why are you re-reading them? Surely as a great reader & writer you remember the salient points ?

Anonymous said...

Hi Liv,

When I was in year 12 I created some methods for myself which were aimed at maximising my results from a given amount of studying. I got an ENTER in the low 90’s using my methods, doing an average amount of work but working efficiently. So I am giving you the most important of my top secret techniques. Hope this helps.

This technique is about not over or understudying for assessment. But how much time should one put into particular assessments?

My formula as follows,

The percentage that a piece of assessment counts towards the ENTER X the total amount of time you are likely to put into homework for the year = the approximate amount of time you should spend studying on something from home.

For instance, say you think you will do 500 hours of homework total this year (about 2 hours per day average). If a SAC in a subject is worth 10% of your overall grade for that subject, then that it is worth approximately 2.5% of your overall ENTER (if it is one of your top 4 subjects) and hence it is logical for you to put approximately 2.5% X 500 hours of your yearly homework time into studying for that SAC (which comes to 12.5 hours).

This way you only put in an amount of effort which directly corresponds to the importance of the assessment you are working on. Remember, when you are studying on one thing you are sacrificing the opportunity to use that same time to study for other things so you only want to study for any particular thing insofar as the extent to which it is efficient to do so.

Another thing, do not put too much pressure on yourself in yr 12. Im sure you will do well but it doesn’t really matter if you don’t. Say you wanted to do commerce at Melbourne but only have an ENTER to get into Vic uni. You can simply goto Vic uni, try hard, average 70% and then transfer to Melbourne after 1 year with full credit for all your subjects and you lose no time at all. So ENTER doesn’t matter much. When you are in year 12, your whole environment, your parents, teachers and friends all speak in such a way as to suggest that ENTER is super important but that’s not true. When you finish uni, no employer will look at ENTER and it will have no relevance to any element of your life. Your most recent qualification supersedes your last.

Also Liv, keep up the good work on your blog, hope you go through with your BEDA commitment. This is only one of three blogs I read. Us, your fans, are hanging off your every word!

Cheers

lazyage said...

1. wow, i knew you wouldnt make it to blog everyday but even i didnt expect you to fail on the third day. lol

2. why do you hate 'The Kite Runner'. i thought it was pretty good and it's soo easy to write on for yr12 english.

3. i can't agree with the other dude's comment more about ENTER and all that(well the last bit i mean) but i think you can do without the statistics and im sure you'll do fine ^^

if you want advice mine is to do everything i didn't. ie study past 12 then sleep in class, cram the night before, give up sport, have no life...

yeah just take it easy, and study smart and you'll be fine. Good Luck!

Liv =] said...

HEY, I MAKE THE RULES AND I DIDN'T FAIL, I WASN'T HOME. OBVIOUSLY I HAVE A LIFE.

lazyage said...

calm down woman! i said it's okay lol =D

it's good you have a life. i need to get me one of those...

lazyage said...

oh and correction on that other post. i meant "DONT do everything i did" yeah, that's my advice. lol