Hi! I'm Yona and I'm currently a year 11 student, beginning a dreadful journey of VCE. I don't really know why I'm starting this post but I was inspired by others VCE journals that indirectly helped me. I wish that by the end of this journey, I'll be able to succeed too.

(To everyone who has a VCE journal, please keep writing it. I need that motivation 😭 and I wish you luck )

As the title shows I'm one of those academic victims not an academic weapon 🤡 But as funny as it sounds not much people know that even my closest friends.

I think the act of trying to be seen the best, despite in reality struggling to scrape as good grades and getting pessimistic every time I get a bad grade. Has really impacted my mental health.
I was never the 1st ranker in my school's academic award ceremonies (for each year level). I was also never a 2nd or 3rd ranker either.
The highest rank I ever reached was being 4th but that was only one time, aka in year 9 💀
So my point is I crave academic validation. If I didn't get above 90% then I deemed myself unworthy and stupid. (To those feeling that way too, you are not alone, lets get through this.)
I want to write about my journey so that in the future I can look back and realise how much I've grown and improved. I also want to inspire others to break out of their negative mindset of not ever being good enough.

I will warn you that this is probably a very messy journey because wow do I not know what I'm doing. 😭 Let alone how to get out of this academic validation I strive off of.

The current subjects I'm undertaking are:
Unit 3 & 4 Biology 💀
Unit 1 & 2: English, Math methods, Psychology, Art making and exhibition (is what my school calls it, I'm assuming its studio arts...? Idk), and Japanese second language

How I feel about each subject.
Bio = 🤡 (Love-hate relationship)
Eng = 😭😭😭 (Probably one of my weakest subjects)
Math methods = 😭🙂 (Please send help... Also a subject I'm not that confident in)
Psychology = 😄 (Its great I love the content, but its also content heavy, like another English subject)
Art =😃😅 (Its a nice relaxing subject so far...but idk if I'm that good in it to do well, considering it scales down by a lot)
Japanese SL = 👍️ 😅 (I love it but at the same time Idk what I'm doing)

Heres to the beginning of my growth, one that I hope I can achieve. Pray and wish me luck that it goes well!

    13/03 Wednesday

    So yesterday I actually received my score for the first ever sac that will contribute to my ATAR. It was for biology and I'm so glad thats over.

    I actually am disappointed with my score (91%), and I honestly thought I did better 😭 Its okay... like its not that bad but after hearing the scores from other classes now I don't feel that okay about my score (Ik 2 people got 100% 😭 like how??)
    But yk what, I just have to learn how to let go and move on.
    I think I scored around the top area in my class (an average of around 80%? and the highest ik in my class is 92% I think...) but ik in other classes many got pretty high scores, as in 95%+)
    idk how much this will effect my ATAR (ik not a lot but still worries me a bit)
    ITS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD, I need to keep remembering that.
    Luckily after a month of grinding for sacs, I am somewhat free (for maybe a few days) with term one ending soon.

    Tasks to do include:

    • Doing my psychology summary book for todays chapter I went through
    • Finish off math hw 🫡
    • Biology reviewing and stuff 😭

      Yona hi! welcome to the long list of atarnotes journals. as a year 12, i completely feel the same as you did last year. all the stress was phenomenal, and it doesn’t help as you do an accelerated subject. you should always take time for yourself (easier said than done), but i have slowly started to take care of myself and it is really helping with my whole bodily function (in the least biological/ psychological preach possible). and also, a 91% is amazing you shouldn’t be worrying!!

      if you need help for english/psychology, i did both in year 11 and performed quite well, so the offer always stands 🙂 feel free to check out my journal too if you want (no pressure lol)

          FH
          thank you for the support, I'm so glad I'm not the only one feeling this way. Any tips for taking care of yourself (as much as that sounds weird but yeah)😭 I'll also take up your offer in the future and yes I will check out your journal

          • FH replied to this.

              17/03 Sunday

              A bit of a miracle but I actually managed to get one mark back for my biology sac because of an error my teacher did 😭 So now its a 93%. I know my teacher is trying to mark as harshly as she can which is good in some way, but I rlly want to complain about how the other biology teachers aren't doing that and instead are giving students rlly high. Making the average high too. Well ig I just have to do extra good, which hopefully that goes well.
              I'm surprised because for my first Japanese oral sac (unit 1/2) I was the only one to get a 100%, idk how but I'm so happy about that.

              Upcoming I have a English sac on the book, Born a crime. And then some chapter test for biology ON THE SAME DAY AS ENGLISH (send help)
              I hope I don't have my math sac near those days too...ugh such a pain really 😭
              I've been trying to study biology and all those bacterial transformation and insulin production processes. I'm literally going brain dead and running out of time to study all this stuff. Please just let me understand Bio and let it stay in my brainnnn 😭
              Once again procrastination ain't helping me today, along with my piled up sleep debt. But let's try stay positive and hope I can manage well.

              • Tas likes this.

              Yona HAHAHA YES IT DOES SOUND WEIRD but it really pays off.

              if you know an instrument, or have an available instrument, learning that is always fun. i picked up the guitar in year 10 and i play it for like 5 hours every weekend when i am breaking from my studies.

              just try doing something productive, other than scrolling online. go for a walk, meet up with a friend at a park, go for a picnic. just. don’t. go. on. your. phone. like for 20 minutes is fine, but it gets so distracting and it would be really hard to go back to work.

              • Yona replied to this.

                  FH
                  Yeah, I think it seems easy to just take care of yourself but actually doing so in a healthy way is questionable 😭
                  Thats so true about the phone bit HAHAH and thanks for the tips

                  • FH likes this.

                    Yona
                    Yo Yona!
                    Welcome to the VCE journey. Seems like you have a great selection of subjects, and from what I can tell, a good start to Year 11. It's never clean, and no one ever goes through it with 100% certainty, but you seem like a well-informed and confident student.
                    My "academic validation" benchmark was around 65%, and it still is in university. If I do better than 65, I congratulate myself and use my good feedback. If not, I use all the feedback I can, and apply it to the next subject. But, you seem to have very high hopes, and that's a great thing to work towards.
                    The only subject we share is Biology 3/4, which I did in Year 12. My study score was 27, but I gave up towards the end of the year, because I burnt out. It's a competitive subject, and I understand the love-hate relationship towards it. Just try to keep up with the work, and don't fall behind, because you will stay behind.
                    As for Art, I did Drama all the way to Year 12. I know they might seem like less important subjects, but I really loved Drama, and on those really bad days where you feel a bit blah, it really boosts you along. The dux from a few year levels before me got a perfect 50 in Drama, and he mentioned that he got a good score because he did the subjects he liked. It did scale down, but it was different to everything else, and I loved it

                    TL;DR, I wish you the best of luck for VCE, and I'm sure you'll do well. Scores that are 70% and above are still pretty good, remember. Sometimes, the fun subjects are the ones that you do best in, and could be considered for your Year 12 ATAR subjects

                        FinFin-3rdYearUni Thank youuuu for the luck and I'll take in consideration of what you said. I hate regretting stuff and I'm not at all confident in my abilities but I want to understand more about myself so I don't burn out. I hope I can achieve that.

                        • Tas likes this.
                          a month later

                          25/04 Thursday

                          Its been quite a while since I've updated this. Not much has happened yet anyway.

                          Currently its almost the end of the 2nd week back from holidays. Why do teachers set so much homework for the holidays, I mean I understand but still 😭. On the 1st week back I had my unit 3 AOS 2 Biology sac. Which I can say was quite stressful, but I made it and its over for now. It wasn't a very hard sac but it was still easy to make small mistakes, which I did 💀I will get my score back by the end of this week or early next week, I think. I'm praying that all isn't as bad. But its just a sac, the exam is more important! And I did what I could at the moment.

                          I also had my methods sac which was painful because wow was it quite challenging. Results were okay in what I expected, I'm not going to obsess over what could of been done better.
                          I've been trying to take more breaks, such as sleeping... because I have a huge sleep debt. But I'm kind of lacking the energy and motivation to do what I usually planned for the day. So I'm going to set a simple goal. Try to sleep early and wake up early. Preferably to sleep around 11pm and wake up at 6am for now (Its definitely not past that time right now). Recently in Psychology I learnt about breakfast and the impact of food on the brain. I felt extremely targeted (as always) as my teacher talked about the negative consequences for not eating breakfast in the morning 💀 Now I'm trying to eat yogurt and berries. Which makes a HUGE difference in my energy levels. I also feel more refreshed too. If you haven't tried this, run to the supermarkets now.

                          Well, this week was pretty peaceful. Next week is going to get a bit busy but hopefully I can come back with good news.

                          5 days later

                          Yes to having breakfast!!

                          Great work getting through those SACs 😀

                          8 days later

                          7/05 Tuesday

                          IM SO HAPPY I THINK? I got my Bio sac score and idk how but I aced it 96%. Unless I was hallucinating because in short, some other Bio classes got to know their scores when the teachers had a mutual agreement that they would release the scores when everyone has done the Bio sac (2 people haven't done it). Sooo... my Bio teacher as the head of science, got mad and released my class' scores for 5 minutes. With these words, "I'm going to release the Bio scores because I'm petty and its unfair to you guys" (shes so nice).
                          I think i scored top in my Bio cohort, which is unbelievable when i literally remember coming back home from that terrible sac and wondering if life will be okay but IT WAS. I was expecting much lower because now i have this pressure to continue doing well. Regardless I'm thankful so I should still try my best and not get all cocky.

                          I'm totally not procrastinating my English rn. (don't know why but my English scores never change despite asking for feedback like all the time.)
                          Does anyone have any tips to writing well for english essays or creative pieces etc?
                          I also did my psychology sac recently and that went fine. It was pretty fun, I love learning about the brain.
                          Methods is kind of killing me though. Like currently we're learning about Transformations and graphs but its so weird and a bit confusing. (I haven't had the time to revise it yet) well lets hope ill be alive by the end of it.
                          GAT coming up too 😭 pain because its right after my year 11 exams.
                          I hope its not bad 💀 if its like naplan I'm going to cry. (I hate naplan)

                          Tasks to do:

                          • memorise my English opinion piece as much as possible (for tomorrow)
                          • study biology content so far (because i haven't studied any of it)
                          • do my pending math hw

                            Yona Congrats on your bio score! Your teacher sounds hilarious, by the way.

                            For English, it's hard to give advice without knowing exactly what you're struggling with. But in general, we find that where most students could do better is in the planning stage - making sure you've considered all aspects of the prompt or stimulus, and making sure in your actual plan that you've given yourself the space and time in the essay to address those aspects. We have heaps of videos on our YT channel if you'd like to have a look.

                            The GAT is unfortunately a lot like NAPLAN (on steroids)... sorry! But the thing with the GAT is that you don't need to study for it - don't feel like you need to prep or anything. Just answer the questions as best as you can and then you can forget all about it 🙂

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