Have not posted here on aaaaaaaaaaaaaaages but here an update for my new ranks after my year 12 HALF YEARLYS
English ADV - low 50's/22X
Math 2u - 40/14X
Chem - 19/1XX
Phys - 2X/7X
Eco - 22/4X
Maths 3u - 47/87
Suffice to say that I have improved a bit, but not as much as I would of liked. I would attribute this to my general laziness and lack of motivation to study.
(to be completed)
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Dear Diary 9/12/2010
Dear Diary
Well today is both a good and a bad day. Good in the sense that I have finished all my term one assessments - Bad in the sense that I have not done so well in some of them.
English ADV - 13/20 (Rank 8X/2XX)
Chemistry - ~25/30 (Rank 3X/8X)
Physics - Not returned
Math 2/3 - Not returned
Economics- Not returned
Although these results are a bit shoddy I still have the confidence to keep trying. To remain focused on my goal I have figured out the reason that most people stray off track. Heres some extremely valuable advice that I would like to share with some people - I kind of took this from an article so credits to David for writing this.
We have two basic motivators in life: beneficial desires that encourage us to take useful action and potential risks that discourage us from taking action in case we get a bad result and end up worse off.
We always seek to fulfill beneficial desires as they deliver good results and make us feel good. However, it's always difficult to maintain interest and attention in a beneficial desire that is years away from fulfillment. It's not that we don't want the end result but it's because we get distracted. We crave beneficial results and good feelings right now and so we look for things around us that will do that. Equally so, when something bad happens to us and feel negative emotions we first seek an escape from those bad feelings by avoiding the thing(s) that caused thme in the first place and then we seek to soothe the pain by doing something pleasurable instead. This all adds up to making it easy to lose sight of long term objectives no matter how beneficial they are.
So, what can you do about this? One thing is to lock yourself into a process that will deliver the end result more-or-less by default so long as you keep plugging away and that's what education does for you. The process is organised for you and you don't have to work it all out, or prepare it, or prove it. As long as you keep turning up and doing your assignments then you will get there.
The difficulty is if you don't like the process that you are going through. If every day you feel bad about what you have to go through then your instincts will continuously cause you to seek an escape from pain and methods to feel pleasure. So if your studies feel like a drag then it's important to identify what the real problem is. It's either that you don't enjoy the subject and you never will, that you don't have the basic intelligence or abilities necessary to 'make the grade' and you never will, or it's that you don't have good methods to make learning, studying, organising yourself and following through easy and consistent.
If it's the first reason then I recommend choosing something else to do otherwise you embark upon a path of learning and an eventual career that you pretty much hate and that's going to cause a lot of trouble unless you choose to accept the need and decide to find ways to like it. If it's the second reason then accept that your aspirations are beyond your physical or mental ability. It sucks to do that but attempting to do the impossible is only going to end up with failure. Think about the fundamental desires that you seek to achieve rather than getting fixated upon a specific end result. If you know what emotional or mental fulfillment you are looking for then you can find alternatives to get that satisfaction and in my opinion that's what truly counts at the end of the day - your satisfaction and not specific results to show off.
If it's the third reason then get on top of your own personal organisation and work methods. I have lots of ways to help you there but that's the stuff that you have to pay for. It took me a long time to devise methods that make it as easy and consistent for me to get things done as I do now, so I'm not giving it away.
What I can recommend that you do is to assemble a set of photos together of the things that you want in the long term. Put them onto a sheet of paper, print them out and put them in places where you will see them and notice them everyday, such as on your bedroom door, on your bathroom mirror or somewhere like that. This will keep reminding your subconscious of what it is that you truly seek in the long term and your subconscious responds better to pictures than to written words. Eventually your subconscious will keep guiding you to take actions that lead you to your long term result even when things get difficult.
This helps in the long term, but day-to-day you need robust, reliable and easy to use methods that make the day-to-day process of studying easy, relatively painfree and that give you a high-level of certainty that you will reach a successful conclusion so long as you keep plugging away.
Even though my exam marks are sh*t I have Summer holidays coming up an plan to utilize it effectively - keeping in mind that a healthy balance between work and fun is required.
I should be getting most of these assessments back within the following week so I'll keep you guys posted on how I go.
Well today is both a good and a bad day. Good in the sense that I have finished all my term one assessments - Bad in the sense that I have not done so well in some of them.
English ADV - 13/20 (Rank 8X/2XX)
Chemistry - ~25/30 (Rank 3X/8X)
Physics - Not returned
Math 2/3 - Not returned
Economics- Not returned
Although these results are a bit shoddy I still have the confidence to keep trying. To remain focused on my goal I have figured out the reason that most people stray off track. Heres some extremely valuable advice that I would like to share with some people - I kind of took this from an article so credits to David for writing this.
We have two basic motivators in life: beneficial desires that encourage us to take useful action and potential risks that discourage us from taking action in case we get a bad result and end up worse off.
We always seek to fulfill beneficial desires as they deliver good results and make us feel good. However, it's always difficult to maintain interest and attention in a beneficial desire that is years away from fulfillment. It's not that we don't want the end result but it's because we get distracted. We crave beneficial results and good feelings right now and so we look for things around us that will do that. Equally so, when something bad happens to us and feel negative emotions we first seek an escape from those bad feelings by avoiding the thing(s) that caused thme in the first place and then we seek to soothe the pain by doing something pleasurable instead. This all adds up to making it easy to lose sight of long term objectives no matter how beneficial they are.
So, what can you do about this? One thing is to lock yourself into a process that will deliver the end result more-or-less by default so long as you keep plugging away and that's what education does for you. The process is organised for you and you don't have to work it all out, or prepare it, or prove it. As long as you keep turning up and doing your assignments then you will get there.
The difficulty is if you don't like the process that you are going through. If every day you feel bad about what you have to go through then your instincts will continuously cause you to seek an escape from pain and methods to feel pleasure. So if your studies feel like a drag then it's important to identify what the real problem is. It's either that you don't enjoy the subject and you never will, that you don't have the basic intelligence or abilities necessary to 'make the grade' and you never will, or it's that you don't have good methods to make learning, studying, organising yourself and following through easy and consistent.
If it's the first reason then I recommend choosing something else to do otherwise you embark upon a path of learning and an eventual career that you pretty much hate and that's going to cause a lot of trouble unless you choose to accept the need and decide to find ways to like it. If it's the second reason then accept that your aspirations are beyond your physical or mental ability. It sucks to do that but attempting to do the impossible is only going to end up with failure. Think about the fundamental desires that you seek to achieve rather than getting fixated upon a specific end result. If you know what emotional or mental fulfillment you are looking for then you can find alternatives to get that satisfaction and in my opinion that's what truly counts at the end of the day - your satisfaction and not specific results to show off.
If it's the third reason then get on top of your own personal organisation and work methods. I have lots of ways to help you there but that's the stuff that you have to pay for. It took me a long time to devise methods that make it as easy and consistent for me to get things done as I do now, so I'm not giving it away.
What I can recommend that you do is to assemble a set of photos together of the things that you want in the long term. Put them onto a sheet of paper, print them out and put them in places where you will see them and notice them everyday, such as on your bedroom door, on your bathroom mirror or somewhere like that. This will keep reminding your subconscious of what it is that you truly seek in the long term and your subconscious responds better to pictures than to written words. Eventually your subconscious will keep guiding you to take actions that lead you to your long term result even when things get difficult.
This helps in the long term, but day-to-day you need robust, reliable and easy to use methods that make the day-to-day process of studying easy, relatively painfree and that give you a high-level of certainty that you will reach a successful conclusion so long as you keep plugging away.
Even though my exam marks are sh*t I have Summer holidays coming up an plan to utilize it effectively - keeping in mind that a healthy balance between work and fun is required.
I should be getting most of these assessments back within the following week so I'll keep you guys posted on how I go.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Dear Diary 3/11/2010
Now heres an intersting article,
Kid’s are easily put off by poor results and they are highly motivated when they come out on, or near the top. Things that they are good at they repeat and become better at and things that they are bad at they tend to avoid, because they are painful. A virtuous, or vicious, cycle is then created, but only up until a point.
Natural talent is largely intuitive, which means that you don’t have an understanding of what causes the effects that you create. As you seek to do bigger, or better, things there comes a point when your natural ability proves insufficient. It’s at this point that natural talent often becomes a curse.
If you have never had to study and understand something thoroughly, then when the obligation comes to do it in order to progress you will feel enormous frustration. It’s almost like having to learn to walk all over again and this time to do it consciously. It totally undermines your prior confidence and if you’ve never struggled or persisted to get results previously and now have to do so then that’s a big smack in the face. In these circumstances, most people will give up.
It’s at this point that a battler gets the edge. Someone who remains involved in an activity, despite not having natural talent and through interest and enjoyment alone will almost always do better in the long-term. Such a person must study and persist to advance. Through studying the fundamentals of theory and cause and effect, a person can develop understanding of the whole process.
It is understanding that really creates competence and hence confidence. It is understanding that allows a person to conceive of advances and developments that have not yet been achieved, but that might be possible. It is understanding that allows a person to experiment and take risks confidently, because the effort is based upon sound principles and not upon lucky flukes.
I am person with very little intuitive ability. I mean, really, everything has to be explained to me, or I have to carry out experiments to understand cause and effect. That can feel frustrating and even tedious in the beginning when you just want instant gratification, but in the end it has allowed me to persist with things long after those with natural talent gave up. In drawing, painting, playing guitar, playing pool, dancing and so many other hobbies and interests, past and present, I compensated for a lack of natural talent by focusing on understanding the fundamentals involved.
Since I didn't really have any significant events to blog about I thought I would share this interesting blog article with you guys.
I do not take any credit for this post (all credit to this guy http://www.nickpagan.com/blog/135/natural-talent/)
Signing off
Kid’s are easily put off by poor results and they are highly motivated when they come out on, or near the top. Things that they are good at they repeat and become better at and things that they are bad at they tend to avoid, because they are painful. A virtuous, or vicious, cycle is then created, but only up until a point.
Natural talent is largely intuitive, which means that you don’t have an understanding of what causes the effects that you create. As you seek to do bigger, or better, things there comes a point when your natural ability proves insufficient. It’s at this point that natural talent often becomes a curse.
If you have never had to study and understand something thoroughly, then when the obligation comes to do it in order to progress you will feel enormous frustration. It’s almost like having to learn to walk all over again and this time to do it consciously. It totally undermines your prior confidence and if you’ve never struggled or persisted to get results previously and now have to do so then that’s a big smack in the face. In these circumstances, most people will give up.
It’s at this point that a battler gets the edge. Someone who remains involved in an activity, despite not having natural talent and through interest and enjoyment alone will almost always do better in the long-term. Such a person must study and persist to advance. Through studying the fundamentals of theory and cause and effect, a person can develop understanding of the whole process.
It is understanding that really creates competence and hence confidence. It is understanding that allows a person to conceive of advances and developments that have not yet been achieved, but that might be possible. It is understanding that allows a person to experiment and take risks confidently, because the effort is based upon sound principles and not upon lucky flukes.
I am person with very little intuitive ability. I mean, really, everything has to be explained to me, or I have to carry out experiments to understand cause and effect. That can feel frustrating and even tedious in the beginning when you just want instant gratification, but in the end it has allowed me to persist with things long after those with natural talent gave up. In drawing, painting, playing guitar, playing pool, dancing and so many other hobbies and interests, past and present, I compensated for a lack of natural talent by focusing on understanding the fundamentals involved.
Since I didn't really have any significant events to blog about I thought I would share this interesting blog article with you guys.
I do not take any credit for this post (all credit to this guy http://www.nickpagan.com/blog/135/natural-talent/)
Signing off
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Dear Diary 2/11/2010
Wow today one of my friends just finished their HSC and man they were happy. I can't even imagine myself finishing the HSC at this stage as things have barely started to heat up. The prospect of finishing my HSC got myself thinking about plans for University etc. For those of you in Uni was it what you guys thought it would be? From what I hear people say that university is way better than highschool. By that I mean you are entitled to much more freedom - but as they say with power comes responsibility. What are your thoughts overall on how University life compares to HSC in regards to workload, study time, social life, being an adult etc.
I've asked several people who did well in the HSC and most of them said that the HSC was so easy in hindsight - that they could of studied so much harder and done so much better (keeping in mind that these people got 99.XX). I also asked many adults who had completed their HSC several years ago and they said that the HSC was a walk in the park compared to UNI exams - getting a job and what not.
Looking back on my previous schooling years I also came to the same conclusion but this time I am going to try and enjoy my last year of senior schooling all the while achieving a result that I am not ashamed of as then I can leave high-school knowing I made the most of it and not beat myself up for the rest of my life. I also suppose that I shouldn't let the goal of a decent ATAR consume me as the ATAR is just one tiny thing in your life that will seem so insignificant as you go on to discover that there is more to life than academic achievements, thus I will try and enjoy my HSC year all the while maintaining fair results.
Signing off
I've asked several people who did well in the HSC and most of them said that the HSC was so easy in hindsight - that they could of studied so much harder and done so much better (keeping in mind that these people got 99.XX). I also asked many adults who had completed their HSC several years ago and they said that the HSC was a walk in the park compared to UNI exams - getting a job and what not.
Looking back on my previous schooling years I also came to the same conclusion but this time I am going to try and enjoy my last year of senior schooling all the while achieving a result that I am not ashamed of as then I can leave high-school knowing I made the most of it and not beat myself up for the rest of my life. I also suppose that I shouldn't let the goal of a decent ATAR consume me as the ATAR is just one tiny thing in your life that will seem so insignificant as you go on to discover that there is more to life than academic achievements, thus I will try and enjoy my HSC year all the while maintaining fair results.
Signing off
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Dear Diary 1/11/2010
This is my first blog ever and I intend to keep it running throughout my HSC year. I will try to keep this blog updated as frequently as possible. Before I start my blog I wish to tell you a bit about myself. I have the ultimate goal of becoming a doctor, thus the first stepping stone is getting a decent ATAR and UMAT score. I hope to study medicine at Monash, Adelaide or UNSW. Having just finished year 11, I am not the least bit happy with my marks, However year 12 is a clean slate. I will keep you guys posted on every aspect relating to my school life such as marks, ranks, exam thoughts, constructive criticism. Here are my current ranks after year 11 (these ranks have reset in year 12)
English ADV - 6X/10X
Mathematics - 5X/19X
Mathematics Extension 1 - 6X/10X
Chemistry - 7X/13X
Physics - 5X/10X
Now for those of you who wish to read a blog about a student who excels in every subject and aces every single exam, this is not the blog for you. This blog will hopefully show a student overcoming all odds and obstacles and achieve his dreams. If you don't like it then don't read it. Over the next 12 months I will post frequently and keep you guys updated on how my path into medicine is going.
Now without further ado.
1/11/2010
Today is already week 3 of school and we have assessments in weeks 7-8, I am quite stressed as these are the first exams that will count for something towards the HSC which is why I have the ultimate goal of ranking single digits in at least 3/5 subjects. For the past three weeks I have changed my study habits alot, rather than being a lazy and finding excuses (like I was in year 11) I have genuinely tried to work harder. Here is my current daily routine
Weekdays
Come home and get relax until 4:30
Start work and try to finsih all my homework before 6:00 (which is dinner time)
After dinner (7:00) I write notes or revise what I do not understand from the days work until about 9:30.
Weekends
Wake up at about 9 and shower, eat breakfast etc etc until 10
Work for 3 hours (1 hour sessions with 10 minute breaks)
Take 1 hour lunch break until 2:00
Work for another 3 hours (1 hour sessions with 10 minute breaks) until 5
Depending on proximity to exams I will either take the rest of the day off to relax or study for 1 more hour (if it is within 4 weeks of exams)
Must get off now and study
signing off
English ADV - 6X/10X
Mathematics - 5X/19X
Mathematics Extension 1 - 6X/10X
Chemistry - 7X/13X
Physics - 5X/10X
Now for those of you who wish to read a blog about a student who excels in every subject and aces every single exam, this is not the blog for you. This blog will hopefully show a student overcoming all odds and obstacles and achieve his dreams. If you don't like it then don't read it. Over the next 12 months I will post frequently and keep you guys updated on how my path into medicine is going.
Now without further ado.
1/11/2010
Today is already week 3 of school and we have assessments in weeks 7-8, I am quite stressed as these are the first exams that will count for something towards the HSC which is why I have the ultimate goal of ranking single digits in at least 3/5 subjects. For the past three weeks I have changed my study habits alot, rather than being a lazy and finding excuses (like I was in year 11) I have genuinely tried to work harder. Here is my current daily routine
Weekdays
Come home and get relax until 4:30
Start work and try to finsih all my homework before 6:00 (which is dinner time)
After dinner (7:00) I write notes or revise what I do not understand from the days work until about 9:30.
Weekends
Wake up at about 9 and shower, eat breakfast etc etc until 10
Work for 3 hours (1 hour sessions with 10 minute breaks)
Take 1 hour lunch break until 2:00
Work for another 3 hours (1 hour sessions with 10 minute breaks) until 5
Depending on proximity to exams I will either take the rest of the day off to relax or study for 1 more hour (if it is within 4 weeks of exams)
Must get off now and study
signing off
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