Lucky

Good news today! I got the position of secretary for the executive team for the SWC Animal Awareness Club. That means I'll have to attend all meetings and do a lot of notes and organizing stuff, but it'll be so fun, especially since I'm such a neat freak. And I can make commitments, I haven't abandoned this blog! (Though I've left it for so long it's so neglected.) Anyways, today's post is short, but it's on how I've been feeling pretty lucky nowadays. I've never missed a bus this month, and I never had to wait very long for one. It's never rained super hard while I was walking home. I escaped handing in 7 journals and presenting a skit in French class. They are all little things, but they have made September so much better. I can't believe it's been a month already! No wonder all the tests are now creeping up on us.
Fingers crossed that October will be just as lucky,
Dapple Grey

Welcome Back

I know, I know, it's been a loooong time. Actually, it's closer to 3 months. I didn't mean to abandon this blog. I spent a lot of time enjoying my last summer, and I'm glad that it was as sunny and beautiful as it turned out to be. I started the school year feeling sad, I really didn't want to start doing a whole bunch of work again. But eventually, it was okay. It was good to see all my friend again, and having funny teachers helped! And with the start of school came the start of my extra-curricular activities. Horses were being ridden again, figure skating routines were being choreographed, and kitties were being cuddled with at the clinic! Without these things to occupy my mind with during the weekends, I think I might have started getting stress/panic attacks or something. I spent this weekend doing those things and feeling so happy, so I think I'm ready to take on this lots-of-homework week coming up. I'm going to keep writing this blog (hmmm...I wonder how long that'll last) but I'll put it on my checklist. And knowing me, I like to check things off checklists, so I'll make sure I get these blog posts done!

Photos and/or videos to come in later posts, I've missed you too and I'm sorry!
Dapple Grey

Summer Physics

Half a year has gone by, and I haven't even realized it. I can't stop thinking how next year I'll be Grade 11! All of the sudden, University seems so close and so much scarier. I really hope that in two years, at the end of all this suffering, I'll be able to enjoy a good, relaxing summer before things get so much more stressful. The IB Orientation made next year seem so much more realistic. We already have an IB project due at camp, and 6 books to read during the summer! It's not that I don't love to read, it's just that I have to add it to the long list of books and series that I need to catch up on! Also, all the books seem so dark and depressing, I'm glad that at least the weather is bright and cheerful!

I've also decided to take Physics 11 this summer. I'm super determined to get a good mark for this course, since I'm pretty sure I won't have a chance to re-do this course next year. Walking into my classroom, it made a smile to realize that almost the entire middle row (and a third of the first) consisted of Pre-IBs. At least I won't be going through this alone, I have all my friends for support! My teacher seemed pretty nice, though she made it pretty clear that we were going to have quizzes everyday, except for the days we have tests. I'm not sure what to think of the workload yet, but I've learned my lesson from Math 11 last year, and I'm definitely going to do my homework, so I can actually understand my quizzes. On the first day, we got our textbooks and had a Math lesson, or at least that was what it seemed like. And Today, we mostly reviewed what we knew from Science 10, though I'm understanding Velocity a lot more now. It's finally less confusing! I have a feeling that Physics is that course where I feel like I'm understanding everything, and then I'll get that one test, and I'll be so confused all over again.

Wish me luck!

Dapple Grey

P.S. Since it's the summer, I'll be posting more often, I promise! 

Fresh Start

So I survived my first day back to school! I had to admit, I could barely sleep last night. I was dreading the moment I wake up to my alarm clock ringing for the first time in two weeks, but I also couldn't help feeling a tiny bit excited to see all my friends again, as well as starting over for the New Year and trying to see if setting all those goals actually made me feel more motivated to work harder. Okay, I was a bit off in English because it was first thing in the morning, and to tell you the truth, it felt like I hadn't written English for the longest time. Heck, I probably wrote more Chinese during winter break than English. Anyways, planning was a lot better, because at least we could type, and my mind was warming up-while the rest of my body wasn't. In fact, I was freezing by the time I got to planning. Our school is so humongous that it takes hours for the heat to get to the whole school, and my English room was so cold! By the way, we're starting Shakespeare (Macbeth) soon, and to relate to that, our school probably felt like Macbeth's castle in the dead of winter. Anyways, my afternoon was a lot better, even though I was half-asleep through the last part of Science, but hey, Physics is a lot better than I thought it would be! Radioactivity is definitely more interesting than Electricity. So here I am, at the end of the day, and I'm not even that sleep deprived yet. But as for sleeping earlier, I'm working on it!
Dapple Grey

New Year's Resolutions: 2013

2013 is the year that everything will change (I hope), especially all my bad habits. By bad habits, I mean: Never posting on my blog, staying up late, procrastination, doing things waaay too slowly...and a whole lot of bad stuff that haven't come to my mind yet. But this year is the year that I will learn to work harder, before its too late! I've been very, very disappointed with how I'm doing so far in Pre-IB, and even though my marks are average, the truth is that I've barely managed to scrape an Honour Roll, and I know I can do waaay better if I put more effort into my work. It's just not like me at all, and I've really slacked off. So here are some of my New Year's Resolutions, in an effort to inspire myself to do a whole LOT better:

1. Sleep Earlier-I admit, sometimes I don't get anywhere close to the golden 8 hours of sleep. This year, I plan to get to bed by 12 AM every night, and then hopefully get to 11PM by the end of this year. I really hate being an owl, this is the year when I will turn into an Earlybird!

2. Don't Procrastinate-This is the main cause of my not getting enough sleep. I plan to create an after-school schedule that will prevent me from wandering to the computer and getting distracted. Yes, I need a better plan to start homework right after school instead of starting it at...9PM. I also hope that I can work on homework, and hopefully finish it on the day that it's assigned, so I don't have to worry about spending much time late at night the night before the assignment's due.

3. Study Smarter-One of the things I'm more disappointed about this school year is my tests. I hate seeing all those red marks all over my test paper, and pink lines on my scantron, because I haven't studied enough, or I was panicking and running out of time during my tests. I plan to start studying waay before my test/quiz instead of the night before.

4. Write on my blog-Technically, I don't have to do blogposts anymore, but I really like it, and I think it's pretty neat to keep an online journal-thingy (even though other people might read it), but it's fun to go back and read older blogposts, especially the ones written in Grade 8...But yeah, I'll try to remember to update it more often, and add pictures/videos sometimes to make it a "Superblog". 

5. Be more ACTIVE-I'm really not an exercising person, I've never visited the gym, and I don't play any intense sports. This is the year when I'll try to get more involved in the activities I like. I'll continue horse-back riding (it's getting waaay better now that I can come back for consecutive sessions), ballet, hopefully figure skating again, swimming in the summer, as well as jogging/biking around the park near my house. I guess that's pretty good for now, since I don't even have enough time to do all these at the same time. I'll see what I can do!

So these are my 5 main resolutions for the New Year, but among the other ones I have: getting into IB, finishing Piano ARCT, finding a proper job, taking that driving test thingy, cleaning my room more often, spending more time with my hamster, eating healthier, and you get the point...Sigh, after writing this my brain and heart both feel a little lighter. Maybe I should check myself on these resolutions from time to time to see if I'm actually making progress! I'm already doing bad on trying to get to sleep earlier, but maybe I'll just start to tomorrow...(see, that's procrastination right there!) Grrr...I really have to work on these goals!

Good luck with your resolutions, and hopefully you'll accomplish them this year!

Dapple Grey

A Whole Week of Dread

Argh, this whole week is plain awful, there's so much work to be done, but I guess not as bad as it will be at the end of the year. IRPs need to be finished, though I'll probably reread the book again after at a more relaxed pace, so I can actually enjoy it. And the Odyssey mini-book, it is so deceptively simple, but so time-consuming at the same time! I have to complete it at as soon as possible, and time is already slipping away. This is the worst possible timing for a science test, which I will have to speed-study, even though we've learned most of it last year, there is a lot of new information to take in! And then comes my first PE test on First Aid! It's hard to believe I've never had a PE written test before, so I actually need to study for it!
At least writing this blog relieved most of the stress, but I feel like I'm always at the verge of a panic attack. 3 more days, 3 more sleepless nights. On a lighter note, I changed my blog a little again, because November is just so gloomy, and I need something to cheer up this blog. I also should try to post more, since I barely post my blogs anymore. My main goal for this week? Survive. And then try to break this chain of procrastination, if that's even possible. Back to work!
Dapple Grey

Memories of Grade 8

So we were cleaning up our messy attic, and I found a group project all the way from Grade 8! I looked at it, and at first I thought that it looked strange, and then it became familiar, very familiar. Turns out that it was that school invasion project that Mr. Sale made us do. I still remember working with Cynthia and Kathy C, coming up with the crazy Harry Potter Slytherin theme, and how they invaded our school. It brought back so many happy memories of our first days in Synergy, and it also felt like time travelled way too fast! It seemed like it was only yesterday that we were watching the Twilight zone in Sale's class, eating popcorn and watching Troy in Ms. Greskiw's class, listening to Ms. Smedley rap about the KMT, or even first discovering that we could spend all day talking at Olson's class. I hope that there will be tons of good times this year to look back onto and laugh!
Dapple Grey