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So....I haven’t posted since the 13.03...sorry. Just with everything going on, life has been - for lack of a better word - stressful. I’ve also decided to not us the “c” word but instead take inspiration - and idea - from the game grumps and call it the backstreet boys reunion tour. 

As most school I know have done, we have moved to online classes. They are okay. At first teachers weren’t looking for evidence, but recently they have, which is sort of annoying. Also the online classes themselves are okay, we only have two: chemistry and biology, and the teacher who does the biology one is so boring, so it’s always annoying have to sit through them. But the chemistry one are great, one lesson our teacher even showed us his bees and he also put videos on our google classroom of his bees. And for where we are in each course; for maths: they wanted the resultant forces booklet done (so a start on mechanics); biology: we have mostly finished the course, it’s just about making notes; physics: I’m going to be real, I have no clue. I haven’t really been keeping up with physics; and finally chemistry: we have started energetics, which are okay, some of the concepts are a bit weird but it’s mostly GCSE content. If I’m going to be real, this entire time I’ve been in self-isolation, I have had no motivation to do any work whatsoever, which is not good. Teachers are not sure whether we will get predicted grades or not, some of them are banking on predicted grades while others are still teaching the course because knowing CCEA they could just make us do all of our exams next year - both AS exams as well as A2 - so hopefully, it will be predicted grades.

I also participated in this challenge called the C**** challenge (i refuse to even say it at this point) but it is basically a challenge where young people (in A-level or university) who are interested/doing STEM subjects can work together to help fight the backstreet boys reunion tour (by fight, I mean they asked us to come up with an idea that can help people). It was stressful. We literally got put into teams and given ideas on what we can base our project around 5 days before the presentation had to be submitted. 5 DAYS! So yeah, it was stressful, but we got it done. Our idea was a necklace that basically tracks how close you are to other necklaces and if a person was recently diagnosed or showed symptoms (has tickets) to the backstreet boys reunion tour, then if you came in close enough proximity to them, you would get an update telling you to self-isolate. I personally didn’t really like the idea because of the feasibility but when you only  have 5 days to make an entire presentation, you just got to go with it. Also I didn’t mind because I got to make SIR models and they were fun - yet very annoying because I had to plug in over 300 values for it to work.

I have also started to relearn the violin. It just sort of dawned upon me that I wanted to learn an instrument and I already had a violin so why not? So, I went on a face time with my friend who does music A-level and has grades in violin - I don’t know what grade she on is now - but she helped me tune and then I started learning. I can already play dawning of the day, as the deer and kerry polka, and even though I should learn to perfect those first, I’ve already started to try and learn Zelda’s lullaby and song of storms. But it’s fun and hopefully, if I do a couple of grades in it, it will give me something to put on my CV.

I know I say this every time, but, this week has been rough. I’m not going to get into why - because it’s personal and other reasons - but yeah, this week has been a major negative vibe.

I haven’t been able to get a lot of work done this week, which annoys me because my exams are in less than 2 months and I can’t be acting like this, but here I am, not doing any work. But on some good news: I’m off today and the following Monday and Tuesday, so hopefully, I’ll be able to get a lot of work done.

This week has also been stressful with the whole “school may be closing” due to the pandemic. So every teacher has just been dishing out the work in case we are told to close. This is not fun. I already don’t have that much motivation, so if we are made to stay home, I don’t think I’ll get anything done. It also doesn't help that we are apparently moving on to - what is described as - the hardest topic in AS chemistry: thermodynamic. But - during chemistry class - we joked that our teacher should do a live stream and he genuinely thought it was a good idea. In maths, my teacher just gave us the rest of the booklets for mechanics and posted all the other booklets on google classroom. In biology we only have 2 topics left and they are apparently just learning ones, so hopefully all should be good. Physics is a different story. We are now on electricity, which should be fine since I did it at GCSE; but there is a slight problem: I don’t know how to do electricity. So this isn’t fun. I also don’t want to be off because seeing my friends has made everything easier, so if I can’t see them, well, it won’t be fun.

I’m also part of a drama group and we have a performance tomorrow and if I’m going to be honest, I’m surprised they haven’t cancelled it yet.

This week...was rough.

It was results week this week, and that means one thing! A whole lot of unneeded stress! I am just going to get all the results over first; also - because my education system is weird, we have two forms of grades: your raw mark and then your UMS. Your raw mark is just how many marks you got out of the paper normally. However, if - hypothetically - everyone did really shit in the exam, the exam board would still want people to pass, so they shift the grade boundaries. In short; Raw: actual mark; UMS: scaled mark.

In chemistry, I only got my UMS and that was 76%. In physics, I got 72% raw and 71% UMS. Maths, I got 84% raw and 82% UMS and finally, in biology, 64% raw and 80% UMS. I have mixed feelings about these grades, and I know I’m going to sound like “That Guy” but...they could’ve been higher. I am proud of my physics and my chemistry, since in DT1 of chemistry I got a U and throughout physics this year I just haven’t been doing well; so it’s nice to know that I can do well. And I am proud of maths because I genuinely came out of that paper ready to rethink my entire life and not to do maths anymore. But, that biology, like, it’s still a very high C, but key word “C” - granted, I am very thankful for the insanely lucky UMS scaling - but, I don’t know, I just think it could’ve/should’ve been higher.

I have also been very unmotivated this week, which is not good. I have less than 2 months till  my exams start and I am just feeling dead, like, in class, I enjoy my subjects but when it comes to revising, I just don’t have any motivation. I also really need to go over shapes of molecules but I just can’t seem to find a nice way to do a cute mind map on it. I’m also just feeling burnt out, which is also very not good. But, I am going to head to bed, binge some Eve Cornwell and Unjaded Jade and hopefully in the morning, I’ll have motivation.