I'll just do it later - a procrastinator’s Y12 GYG 2020/21

Title inspired by @macy_m (well she made it and I added some words :lol:

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Hiii

I'm Ryan and this is my GYG for Year 12 where I will be going to a new sixth form to study my A Levels!
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Some of you may know that I said a few days ago I wouldn't be making this however, I decided to give a GYG another go as I need to stay motivated this year especially and stop procrastinating (you may have gathered by now that I am a very very good procrastinator and this will be a common theme throughout the GYG as I never seem to be able to stop 😂).. I've also decided not to commit to any kind of update schedule as I often stress and feel guilty if I don't meet it and updating on TSR should not take over my studies lol.. There probably will be times where I don't post for months and am like "oops looks like I neglected this didn't I lol" and there will be times where I update daily.. I don't really know what I'm gonna do tbh :lol:

I also have a blog which is where I just complain about everything :giggle:

I don't do official posts or tags on there, just random stuff :smile:

. Now onto the rest of this post!:

MY GCSE GRADES

Spoiler

MY A LEVELS
Edexcel Maths
Edexcel Economics
Edexcel Business
AQA Geography

MY GOALS FOR THE YEAR

ACADEMIC

Mainly just to achieve the best grades I possibly can and to hopefully get grades of AAAA by the end of the year. I am unsure if I will/which subject I’ll drop for Y13 but if I do I hope to take an AS in that subject and get an A. (I don’t think I do AS for them all now? Its really weird and I don’t understand this new system tbh lol). By the end of Y13, I do want to achieve at least AAB but I will push for AAA :smile:

.. To do that I need to finally find an effective note taking and revision strategy (my GCSE one was good for my mocks but I highly highly doubt it will work well for A Level!.. it was cramming the day/night before btw with little notes/revision from the beginning sooooo yeahhh oops :/). I also need to procrastinate less and try to do my HW when I get it (ideally in my frees)

PERSONAL

Personally, I want to become more confident, which I have already started doing and it’s going well so far :biggrin:

. I also want to get lots of work experience done and hopefully find a job, although this might have to wait till Y13 when I should’ve finally passed my driving test as my mum can’t take me to work all the time (I’m a Taurus so everyone will be passed by the time I can even start :s-smilie:

). I also want to procrastinate less (I procrastinate literally everything, not just HW) and try to stop putting loads of pressure on myself to do really well. I’m also trying to prepare myself so I don't stress about not doing the best at the beginning of the year which will be hard because I am a perfectionist! :colondollar:

FUTURE PLANS
At the moment, I want to become a Chartered Accountant with ICAEW (ACA qualification) through a Level 7 degree apprenticeship with a (hopefully) Big 4 company such as EY. The main reasons for wanting to do an apprenticeship are obviously getting paid instead of getting into debt but also the fact that I will gain a huge amount of work experience which is one of the most important things for an accountant to have. Also, I would like to finally jump into the world of work instead of just studying 24/7 for another 4 years lol (the apprenticeship is about 4.5years long but can be up to 5 so I will gain plenty of experience).

However, I will most likely apply to universities as a back up and if I do, I will do an Accountancy course that includes some kind of work placement so I am still able to gain work experience - so far I have looked at York and Newcastle although I haven’t put much effort into this yet as it isn’t my preferred choice :smile:

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HOW IM FEELING ABOUT Y12
At the moment, I'm very excited as I will be starting a new school and get to meet new people. I'm also excited to finally be doing subjects that I want to do instead of having to do English every day 🤮. I'm sure in a few days I'll start to feel nervous as my first day gets closer but atm I'm fine :biggrin:

Not looking forward to the huge workload though lol :s-smilie:

TAGS
Let me know if you would like to be added/removed and I'll do so :biggrin:

Spoiler

(edited 4 years ago)

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Reply 80

RyanC_

Original post by josie71202

it's quite stressful but hang in there and talk to your teacher if it gets too much

I hope it gets better cos at the moment im very very stressed :frown:

I think I might have to drop economics tbh because I'm already behind and I'm 5 days in..

The workload has shocked me more than I thought, I have "study" which is like hw that I have to do every week, plus homework, plus making notes from class and then lessons on top obviously.. My school also isnt very helpful either.. we got no intro into our subjects it was just 0-100 from day one :frown:

. I'm not sure why I feel so rubbish about it all.. a shock to the system maybe?.. ughhghghghhhhhh

(sorry for ranting to you, just very stressed atm :s-smilie:

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Reply 81

josie71202

Original post by RyanC_

I hope it gets better cos at the moment im very very stressed :frown:

. I'm not sure why I feel so rubbish about it all.. a shock to the system maybe?.. ughhghghghhhhhh

(sorry for ranting to you, just very stressed atm :s-smilie:

)

it's ok they're probably teaching it quick so if we have another lockdown you know the basics.
do 5 hours of revision per subject per week and try not to work too much.

I'm always here if you need to rant or ask anything.

you've got this and remember to look after yourself

Reply 82

username5378250

Original post by RyanC_

"i will update tomorrow" lol nope you didn't ryan :angry:

Basically I haven't updated because the past week has been very hectic and I am very very stressed.. :frown:

A Levels are much harder than I thought and as soon as I complete some homework I just get more - I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to cope with the workload tbh :frown:

and the teachers aren't that helpful either (Especially for econ, they're just throwing new stuff and hw at us and it's so ****ing hard to keep up :/ )

and to make it all worse I'm now stuck at home as my dad has covid symptoms and I might be stuck for 2 weeks if he has it ughhghhhhhhh

sixth form is not going well to say the least

this all makes no sense.. to put it simply - I'm feeling like s***

Gosh how did I not read this.
I'm sorry this is happening to you, that does sound really harsh. I don't know what to say to make you feel better, because I have no experience of A levels and I don't want to sound condescending.

Try your best, and if things get too much then perhaps drop one A level? Best of luck!

(Btw if you have time to rant and need to, I am here whenever you like).

Reply 83

RyanC_

Original post by josie71202

Sorry I didnt see this sooner :s-smilie:

Thank you, this has made me feel much better :smile:

Original post by Roses & Dreams

It's okay, don't worry :smile:

I'm feeling better now.. (ill pm you!)
Thank you 😊

Reply 84

RyanC_

Hiii

it's been a while since my last update, life really has got in the way! :s-smilie:

I'm gonna set this one out in weeks for the past 3 weeks of my life :smile:

It will be long, I'll be surprised if any of you last till the end lol (and yes this was written at like 2am but shhhhh just pretend it wasn't!)

WEEK 1 (the first week of school)
Right so Wednesday was my first day at school, and it was not great :s-smilie:

they managed to forget to sort out emails for the new people meaning that we had no timetables (until they got us paper copies 10 mins before lesson) and no way to access all of the resources that everyone else had.. putting us instantly behind :angry:

which really annoyed me. Oh, and we had no maps so I got lost straight away lol.. Also, (this is a running theme) school seems to be like 90% old people and 10% new when we were told it was 50/50 and all of the teachers seem to forget that there are people who haven't been there for 5 years + don't understand everything yet and that we have had a 6 month break so aren't used to doing work yet (especially A level work too!).. The old people also seem to refuse to talk to new people too which means that making friends is basically impossible.. :frown:

Thursday and Friday were better, but not by much.. I felt hopelessly behind and even though our emails got sorted out, I could feel myself sinking under the workload already.. The jump is a lot bigger and hits you a LOT harder than you expect (at least in my case rip).

For example, in Economics I had no idea what was going on which was just made worse by the fact that everyone else seemed to know :s-smilie:

so I felt like the stupid one out of everyone. The teachers also aren't great for econ, like they're nice but they rush through things and set a ton of work on stuff as if we know it all instantly... :/ On the other hand, my geography and maths teachers are amazinggg, can't fault them at all.. business are a bit eh, I can't work out if I like them or not 😂 . My fave subjects at this point were (in order of fave to hated) Geography, Maths, Business and then Economics....

WEEK 2 (where everything went wrong.. again)
So Monday.. I went into school with low expectations but was thankfully pleasantly surprised! :biggrin:

My day was great and I actually started to feel like I belonged there! still didn't make any friends though lol.. However, it didn't last - when I got home I found out that my dad started feeling really really ill with covid-19 symptoms (shaking, sweating, dodgy breathing) after dropping me off at the bus and had to miss work and get a test.. meaning I had to self isolate :s-smilie:

. I was pretty annoyed cos I was already stressed with school + felt behind and having to stay off felt like the worst thing ever but also obviously worried for my dad (he was in a shocking state on Monday, it was scary.. I think he very narrowly missed having to go to hospital tbh). He got his test result on Thursday which was positive, meaning that I have to self isolate until the 28th... Luckily he is feeling better and has gone back to work (the one with corona only has to do 10 days isolation as long as their symptoms go but their household has to do 14 idk why) :smile:

.

Anyway, this meant that I had to do work online and try to catch up as best as possible, which was honestly really s*** at first and I felt really sad that I was missing school :frown:

. In hindsight, it wasn't so bad and I've managed to keep up with Maths and Geography pretty well (I kinda left business behind other than doing the HW since luckily I have covered most of the first topics already at BTEC) and I honestly just stopped doing Economics altogether as it stressed me out so much lol. I'm now pretty ahead on my HW, I do have 5 pieces but I need to see the teachers about 2 and 2 are like 2 week long tasks that I have to do bit-by-bit so it's not so bad :biggrin:

. I'm also ahead on study (like extra hw but we have it timetabled in and have to get it done each week for each subject) which I felt like would never happen so actually I'm in a really good position. (I'm also well-rested and have been sleeping better than I was during school (better = less restless not earlier lol, it's 2:00am rn)

WEEK 3 (this week)
This week, I finally made the decision to drop Economics due to the stress it was causing me (and how far behind I was) and do an EPQ instead so I emailed yesterday and I'm going through the process of changing over (although I can get ahead on the EPQ this weekend, my friend sent me everything they have already done + what they're gonna do on Monday in case my timetable doesn't update in time). I'm unsure what I will base my EPQ on atm but it will probably be finance-related or for some reason, something to do with housing keeps coming into my mind so I might do that :dontknow:

time will tell I suppose... I am really looking forward to it though which I didn't expect! :lol:

(my dad wants me to do about corona since he now has first-hand experience 😂 but I think the research would be a bit too hard for that tbh!)

We only have 1 lesson a week for EPQ (on Mondays) which I think is just like a progress check and for now, we just have to do an 8-week course to help us learn how to research and write it and then I think we have to get some writing in by the holidays (idk for definite, I think the documents my friend sent will tell me!).. So my subjects are now Maths, Business, Geography and an EPQ :biggrin:

which I'm much happier about.. I did feel a little sad that I couldn't do 4 and did feel a tiny bit as if I'd failed myself by not being able to do it but I'm feeling great now which is good and should never have expected to be able to do 4 tbh but we learn from our mistakes I suppose!.. :lol:

(the things I learnt: I don't adapt to change as well as I think I do and if I have any doubts, I should deal with them straight away instead of waiting 2 weeks until I'm so stressed I feel like my life is falling apart! :facepalm:

so embarrassing lolll).

I'm looking forward to finally going back to school on Monday although I am very nervous about it :s-smilie:

but it shouldn't be too bad, I've kept up relatively well and am finally feeling happy and organised again! :biggrin:

This probably won't last but at least I can start off feeling good lol 😂 and finally have some good plans/organisation in place that will actually work for me! .. The 2 weeks off has probably benefitted me tbh, it has let me finally get organised how I want to without the stress of school all day and let me get properly relaxed :lol:

I have no idea when my next update will be tbh, there might not be another one :dontknow:

, guess I'll just have to see how my life goes :smile:

Byeeeeee

TAGS (let me know if you would like to be added/removed :smile:

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Spoiler

My Timetable (for those who care):

Spoiler

Quick question:
For those of you in Y12/13/+ , how did you organise your ring binders for each subject? I'm unsure whether to like include classwork in its own section or to split it up into the topic it corresponds with.. especially for maths (should I split into just pure/mechanics/stats or into like proof/algebra/trig/vectors) <-- lol that makes no sense does it?

Basically TLDR: school was rubbish at first and I felt like s***, then my dad got corona and I had to self isolate but I am going back on Monday and feel much more prepared and caught up than I did, and finally happy again :smile:

. I also just dropped econ for an EPQ because it was gonna be wayyyy too much work.

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 85

RyanC_

Omg that update is huge oops, anyone who reads it all is crazyyyyy :giggle:

.. seriously though, thank you if you do read it all, it means a lot :biggrin:

TBH, even if no one does, it feels great to finally lets all my feelings out at once lol, just what I needed!

I'm now tired so I'm finally gonna sleep (it's 3am) Nightttt! :h:

Reply 86

josie71202

Well done for getting through the first 3 weeks are the hardest

that friends thing is really hard but you're a nice guy you'll find someone

my school had a broken lift for the first three days so I had to take the stairs. You'll learn schools are always disorganised.

Work comes thick and fast. I schedule it all in a revision calender so I know exactly when to do it. My best advice is to go through it logically and don't do work right before the lesson incase you need help.

You have to isolate 14 days as the virus could linger and infect you after your dad so it gets rid of any trace.

I do EPQ it's great if you're self motivated.

Not doing 4 is ok most unis offer on 3 and you'll get a grade reduction if your EPQ is relevant to your uni course

I think getting back will be ok you obviously work hard so it should be fine

my teachers gave me a list of subtopics in sociology. In media I had dividers by product but you can probably ask your teacher. That's what they're there for.

I landed on a bin trying to go to the toilet earlier so there goes my lie-in

Reply 87

ymca_m

Well done on getting through the first few weeks, I can tell it’s been hard :frown:

. Hope you’re feeling okay at home and that the stress doesn’t take over you :hugs:

I did the same as you, dropped econ for an EPQ- im sure you’ll do great !! Don’t think you’re a failure, I did it bc they messed up the timetable and I thought to myself that I should give myself less work, just like you thought. Plus in lots of cases EPQ is valued higher than a fourth subject :biggrin:

For the folders bit, divide it into pure and mechanics (the two main, unless you have three main ones :s-smilie:

) and then gets dividers for subtopics/chapters.
I get handouts in most classes so I put those into the folders,along with spec sheets and homework, then I take notes (main notes) on a notebook which I just stick in there and after that I male consolidation notes on separate pieces of paper which I file in my folders :yes:

If it helps I haven’t updated my gyg in 2 weeks :giggle:

Did you colour code the timetable ?? It’s so pretty 😁

Reply 88

Becca216

It sounds like you have had a crazy 3 weeks - Well done on getting through them :hugs:

Dropping Economics for and EPQ sounds like a good idea - and some unis prefer an EPQ over a 4th alevel so hopefully that will help you next year :smile:

You will probably have a while to narrow down what you want to do as your final epq topic - don't worry too much, just make it is something you are interested in :yep:

In terms of folders I use dividers, I have all AS topics in one ringbinder and all A2 topics in my second. Within each folder I have all my pure work, then all my stats work, then all my mechanics work.
For geography, I have all my notes for one topic, followed by all the exam questions/examples I have done for that topic - hope that makes sense :redface:

Hope you have a good weekend and hopefully the next few weeks are better :hugs:

Reply 89

flaurie

Volunteer Team

Hope you enjoyed your first day back yesterday! :yep:

Glad that you’re happy with 3 subjects, 4 did seem like quite a lot :hugs:

Reply 90

RyanC_

Wowww it sure is nostalgic (+ slightly awkward) reading over my old threads after not being on TSR for ages :lol:

. I bet many people on this thread don't use TSR now either lol, also can't believe I never updated this since starting sixth form and now here I am impatiently waiting for results day :redface:

(edited 2 years ago)