Making Mr Love Proud: Chasing A* (23-24)

The elusive A* - an object of the imagination for many, a dream for some, and a challenge for me. Tomorrow I start year 13 and with it a new adventure: having to make life choices I never expected to be alive to make, feeling old because apparently some people don't know what a phone book is, and above all demolishing those exams and proving that my struggles in life do not define me.

Who even are you?
I'm Zeasea, a soon-to-be year 13 student studying maths, physics, chemistry, and attempting to teach myself AS further maths. I study at a UTC, a STEM-specialist school that also happens to have about 40 people in sixth form. To say it's a small school is an understatement.

How did you do in your GCSEs?

Spoiler

What about university?

Spoiler

Who is Mr Love?

Spoiler

Reply 1

zeasea

OP

17

Wait a minute, didn't you have a blog last year!
Yes I did!
- zeasea's year 12 blog -

Reply 2

enhaluvr

12

AHHH~ I was a silent reader of your blog last year~ :h:

I'm so excited for this one. GOOD LUCK WITH YEAR 13!!!

Reply 3

zeasea

OP

17

Original post by enhaluvr

AHHH~ I was a silent reader of your blog last year~ :h:

I'm so excited for this one. GOOD LUCK WITH YEAR 13!!!

Thank you!! Good luck to you too, whatever you're doing this year! Gonna make the exam boards wish they had another grade above A* to give me :cool:

Reply 4

zeasea

OP

17

Things I've done over the holidays: a summary

•

Sustained Cornish-road-related PTSD. You cannot pay me enough money to live in Cornwall. I value my cardiac health.

•

Got on a plane all by myself and went to Germany. Then did the same thing to get back to England. Yay independence. Only mildly traumatised by security.

•

Took a train almost by myself (with a friend who actually knows how trains work), went to another city for the day. Had fun at the museum.

•

Failed my first theory test by 1 mark. WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME-

•

Survived my first driving lesson. Everyone else on the roads survived too. Also my arms hurt after holding the steering wheel for so long why are my arms so weak tf

•

Watched all of the Star Wars films, including the sequels as painful as that was. Also watched all of Obi-Wan Kenobi like 3 times.

•

Received an ominous notification at 10pm just saying 'You are ready.' It was actually from my friend at Oxford reassuring me I'm ready for year 13.

•

Got an UpLearn scholarship.

Things I haven't done over the holidays

•

ACTUALLY REVISE PROPERLY LOL

Reply 5

BigJ123

10

Wish i could start today lol, we start on the 6th.

Reply 6

zeasea

OP

17

✨I survived the first day!✨
We made it with only a bit of chaos.

•

We got our timetables this morning (2-week timetable this year, ew) and it just sort of... got worse the longer we looked. Random subjects we don't take, subjects we do take missing, wrong number of lessons, and so on. It was so bad we were asked to annotate all the mistakes and return them to be corrected. Hopefully we'll get a correct version tomorrow. The year 12 timetables weren't so bad but still very wrong.

•

Met my new physics teacher. He's nice. He's also my form tutor. How many physicists does it take to experimentally determine the value of g? Our entire physics class, apparently. No idea how we managed to screw it up that much.

•

We officially moved to the year 13 side of the sixth form area. It's not an official distinction, but if you know you know. Feels weird.

•

The new year 12s are... not promising. All very obnoxious. We'll see if they'll stop acting like year 9s once courses start.

•

Turns out a freezer full of meat broke over the holidays and nobody did anything about it until today, so the whole place stank of rotting flesh for like half of the day 🙃

•

Ever since that post of someone discovering the existence of phone books, I just feel old. Not really relevant to my first day of year 13, but goddamn.

Reply 7

hyacinth77

16

please tag me! I loved reading your blog last yr

Reply 8

zeasea

OP

17

Original post by hyacinth77

please tag me! I loved reading your blog last yr

I'll make sure to tag you in future posts!

Reply 9

hyacinth77

16

Original post by zeasea

I'll make sure to tag you in future posts!

yussssssssssss

Reply 10

zeasea

OP

17

✨I'm melting✨
I feel like I'm gonna die oh my god someone help
Survived the first week despite the weather. It's great going to school in a heatwave when the place is all windows and none of said windows actually open.
The year 12s are starting to become scared. There have been tears. I'm getting flashbacks.
My friends have converted me to The Tablet Side tm, and now I really want a tablet. However, I cannot buy a tablet. Really wish I had one, then I wouldn't have to drag 5 giant binders of papers with me everywhere I go. But oh well, daily arm day continues.
I've been appointed as chairman of the sixth form Meme Society. First rule of meme society: there is no meme society. Because they refuse to list it on our club list, for some reason. No idea why.
Not enjoying how close October is. Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.
Survived second driving lesson today. Went around roundabouts, reversed out of a driveway, and got to drive home at the end.
Three straight hours of chemistry is kind of a pain even if you like chemistry. Why do our timetables have to be so weird.
And also I'm sick again. AAAAAA-
Tag List:
@hyacinth77

Reply 11

enhaluvr

12

I HOPE YOU FEEL BETTER SOON~!! Keep going!

Reply 12

TypicalNerd

18

Original post by zeasea

✨I'm melting✨
I feel like I'm gonna die oh my god someone help
Survived the first week despite the weather. It's great going to school in a heatwave when the place is all windows and none of said windows actually open.
The year 12s are starting to become scared. There have been tears. I'm getting flashbacks.
My friends have converted me to The Tablet Side tm, and now I really want a tablet. However, I cannot buy a tablet. Really wish I had one, then I wouldn't have to drag 5 giant binders of papers with me everywhere I go. But oh well, daily arm day continues.
I've been appointed as chairman of the sixth form Meme Society. First rule of meme society: there is no meme society. Because they refuse to list it on our club list, for some reason. No idea why.
Not enjoying how close October is. Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.
Survived second driving lesson today. Went around roundabouts, reversed out of a driveway, and got to drive home at the end.
Three straight hours of chemistry is kind of a pain even if you like chemistry. Why do our timetables have to be so weird.
And also I'm sick again. AAAAAA-
Tag List:
@hyacinth77

Well done for surviving the first week. The weather has been rather ghastly imo, but I do believe that in some areas, the weather forecasts suggest that temperatures should be dropping a bit later in the week.

Three straight hours of chemistry sounds fun ngl (totally not biased lmao - I may or may not be soon to be studying chemistry at uni where in a typical week I have two “afternoons” in the lab, each lasting circa 6 hours). But yes, that is a rather weird timetable. It could be worse, though - I do recall having one day on my year 13 timetable where I had three physics lessons and one maths lesson (usually used to cover the mechanics side of the course).

I do wish you a speedy recovery.

(edited 7 months ago)

Reply 13

BigJ123

10

Original post by zeasea

✨I'm melting✨
I feel like I'm gonna die oh my god someone help
Survived the first week despite the weather. It's great going to school in a heatwave when the place is all windows and none of said windows actually open.
The year 12s are starting to become scared. There have been tears. I'm getting flashbacks.
My friends have converted me to The Tablet Side tm, and now I really want a tablet. However, I cannot buy a tablet. Really wish I had one, then I wouldn't have to drag 5 giant binders of papers with me everywhere I go. But oh well, daily arm day continues.
I've been appointed as chairman of the sixth form Meme Society. First rule of meme society: there is no meme society. Because they refuse to list it on our club list, for some reason. No idea why.
Not enjoying how close October is. Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.
Survived second driving lesson today. Went around roundabouts, reversed out of a driveway, and got to drive home at the end.
Three straight hours of chemistry is kind of a pain even if you like chemistry. Why do our timetables have to be so weird.
And also I'm sick again. AAAAAA-
Tag List:
@hyacinth77

facts bro, 3 hours of chem is deadly. Hate that ****.

Reply 14

zeasea

OP

17

Original post by TypicalNerd

Well done for surviving the first week. The weather has been rather ghastly imo, but I do believe that in some areas, the weather forecasts suggest that temperatures should be dropping a bit later in the week.

Three straight hours of chemistry sounds fun ngl (totally not biased lmao - I may or may not be soon to be studying chemistry at uni where in a typical week I have two “afternoons” in the lab, each lasting circa 6 hours). But yes, that is a rather weird timetable. It could be worse, though - I do recall having one day on my year 13 timetable where I had three physics lessons and one maths lesson (usually used to cover the mechanics side of the course).

I do wish you a speedy recovery.

Yeah my timetable is weird, for the first half of the week I have 2-3 hours of maths a day, then on Wednesday I have my 3 hours of chemsitry, then the rest of the week is rammed with chemistry. My week B, meanwhile, is nearly totally empty because they just shoved everything into my week A.

Triple chemistry is exactly why I'm not doing chemistry undergrad 🙃

Reply 15

TypicalNerd

18

Original post by zeasea

Yeah my timetable is weird, for the first half of the week I have 2-3 hours of maths a day, then on Wednesday I have my 3 hours of chemsitry, then the rest of the week is rammed with chemistry. My week B, meanwhile, is nearly totally empty because they just shoved everything into my week A.

Triple chemistry is exactly why I'm not doing chemistry undergrad 🙃

That is a very weird timetable… I hope your sixth form doesn’t expect you to come in for free periods, since that would make week B utter **** to sit through.

Fair enough. Chemistry undergrad isn’t for everyone and I’m sure you’ll excel in whichever degree course or equivalent you go on to pick.

Reply 16

subbhy

18

Original post by zeasea

✨I survived the first day!✨
We made it with only a bit of chaos.

•

We got our timetables this morning (2-week timetable this year, ew) and it just sort of... got worse the longer we looked. Random subjects we don't take, subjects we do take missing, wrong number of lessons, and so on. It was so bad we were asked to annotate all the mistakes and return them to be corrected. Hopefully we'll get a correct version tomorrow. The year 12 timetables weren't so bad but still very wrong.

•

Met my new physics teacher. He's nice. He's also my form tutor. How many physicists does it take to experimentally determine the value of g? Our entire physics class, apparently. No idea how we managed to screw it up that much.

•

We officially moved to the year 13 side of the sixth form area. It's not an official distinction, but if you know you know. Feels weird.

•

The new year 12s are... not promising. All very obnoxious. We'll see if they'll stop acting like year 9s once courses start.

•

Turns out a freezer full of meat broke over the holidays and nobody did anything about it until today, so the whole place stank of rotting flesh for like half of the day 🙃

•

Ever since that post of someone discovering the existence of phone books, I just feel old. Not really relevant to my first day of year 13, but goddamn.

Hi, just come across this blog and can’t help but having a whinge! I started year 12 and got my timetable

3 hours of maths on Thursday + an extra hour for UKMT 😢

To top it off, the teacher I was meant to have is sick and I’ll be having both deputy principals teach the maths 🥳🥳 (oozing sarcasm)

Good luck with yr13 and I’m glad I came across your journey!

Reply 17

zeasea

OP

17

Original post by TypicalNerd

That is a very weird timetable… I hope your sixth form doesn’t expect you to come in for free periods, since that would make week B utter **** to sit through.

Fair enough. Chemistry undergrad isn’t for everyone and I’m sure you’ll excel in whichever degree course or equivalent you go on to pick.

I do have to come to school at the usual time and stay until the usual leaving time due to my transport, but I am allowed to leave the building (unlike the new year 12s lol) during free periods so worst case scenario I can go out and do something if I can't find any work to do. But realistically, with October (TMUA, UCAS, November mocks, etc) so close I probably have enough work to be doing to fill at least 90% of those free periods. I'm quite excited for week B actually, I love just sitting down and getting in the zone for a few hours without being disturbed by having to get up to go to lessons etc.

I'm applying for a mixture of Computer Science and Computer Science/Mathematics courses, but I'm also trying to get a degree apprenticeship and then deciding which option to take.

Reply 18

zeasea

OP

17

Original post by subbhy

Hi, just come across this blog and can’t help but having a whinge! I started year 12 and got my timetable

3 hours of maths on Thursday + an extra hour for UKMT 😢

To top it off, the teacher I was meant to have is sick and I’ll be having both deputy principals teach the maths 🥳🥳 (oozing sarcasm)

Good luck with yr13 and I’m glad I came across your journey!