Another year has gone by!

Hello again (*insert sheepish look*). Yet again I've neglected this page; I'm afraid I have no real excuse, save for the fact that life just... got in the way, I guess. I've been REALLY busy and just couldn't find the energy to maintain this site. I guess you could say a lot has changed in the past year - it doesn't feel that way to me, I guess because I've been living it, but when I went trawling back through some of the older posts here I realised how much I've grown as a person.

I seem destined to periodically forget this blog; no worries, because at least I come back to it! The same could not be said of my previous sad attempts at blogging (I've discussed this in detail before, but let's just say I wasn't great at the whole process). I've written more on here than I've ever written about my personal interests in my life! Keeping a physical journal doesn't appear to work for me, despite numerous attempts at various styles of journalling. Also, if I fuck it up, you can't erase it the way you can online. Just a simple edit and it's like it never happened. (We could talk about how your digital footprint remains forever and nothing is ever really gone from the internet, but I doubt anyone really cares if there are spelling mistakes on a random blog site in the deep dark web.) I've definitely noticed a pattern in my updating; it is easier to keep on top of posting when I don't have to juggle my personal life, my work and university all at once - university is such a big time suck that I don't really have much space to breathe between studies and work, so I tend to leave this alone in favour of those 'more important' things. Perhaps I ought to set update reminders for this blog...

What has changed for me this past year? Well, a lot, I'd say. Work has gotten a lot more challenging and more rewarding, so I've been kept very busy by that. I'm still a support worker for the same little boy, and I absolutely love spending time with him; I never ended up doing PA work at his mum's office, which is totally fine because there's plenty of paperwork and organisation to keep on top of at home. Personally, I've been pretty much the same, though I have had a couple hair disasters that involved me going platinum for a while before trying (and failing) to return to a dark blonde colour. I'm close to my natural colour now, and plan on leaving it alone for a good while if I can (because I bleached the ever-loving shit out of it, the hair doesn't want to hold colour anymore, so it fades quite fast after being done at the salon). I'm doing really well at school - my grades were good enough to warrant an invite to the Golden Key International Honour Society, which I accepted as I would be stupid not to, and I have also been invited as a member of that group to attend an international diplomatic relations workshop later on this year. I'm pretty chuffed at this - it's nice to get a little recognition for hard work, though I have to admit I dislike talking about it in public (I think most people who aren't twits have the same hang-up about boasting though). I did my first professional teaching practice last year; not the glowing triumph I hoped for, but not the crash-and-burn catastrophe I was expecting. I passed with very good commentary and useful critiques, and I hope to do better this year. I was VERY nervous at the prospect of teaching kids who, in reality, aren't much younger than myself (they are also all taller than me, which intimidated me more than a little), and that affected me a little bit. Towards the end of the practical I started getting the hang of it though, and I was quite sad to leave, actually.

In terms of collecting, my tastes have changed pretty dramatically. Reading back on these posts made me cringe a little, actually, given how much I've contradicted myself in my purchasing habits over the past year. Reading back will tell you that I am die-hard against any Star Wars figure scale but 3.75" - well... I'm a 6" junkie now. I know, what a hypocrite. My dislike stemmed from the pretty poor likenesses Hasbro delivered for the line, particularly Rey (my favourite character, and I will fight you for her honour if necessary) - when they re-released Rey with the lightsaber in 6", the figure featured a MUCH better paint application. It went from uggo-man to somewhat-like-Daisy, and I caved. I bought it. And then I compared it to 3.75" scale. I really felt like I was getting the good shit with this new 6" figure, and wondered how the hell I had cheated myself of this revolutionary experience. What quickly followed was an acquisition of Kylo Ren (unmasked), Finn, Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor, followed by a HUUUUUUGE love of Marvel and Marvel Legends (I have too many MCU Legends figures for my tiny room, and I regret NOTHING), quickly followed by Leia and Luke from the 40th Anniversary line. More recently, I got Jedi Training Rey, Poe Dameron, Maz, Darth Vader (40th) and Ahsoka Tano.

Despite my clear love of the line, I was kinda let down by the likenesses of the Hasbro Black Series figures. Some of the characters didn't matter so much to me, but my one need was a definitive action figure of Rey that ACTUALLY looked like Daisy Ridley. The Hasbro Jakku version was only okay; when they stepped up the paint apps with Jedi Training Rey the figure was pretty, but not Daisy-pretty. My obsession with Rey led me to purchasing the S.H. Figuarts 6" scale action figure of her in December last year. Holy fuck. The figure was UNREAL, with brilliant articulation, a creepy-good likeness and a really solid quality feel. Now, I'm really into the Figuarts line. My poor, poor wallet. I just couldn't help myself. They ARE expensive, especially when you're shipping them internationally (and especially when you're in Australia), but the quality is so worth it. The great thing is that they don't look awful standing next to the Black Series figures; they're all more-or-less in scale with one another (the Figuarts tend to run a little shorter than their Black Series equivalents, but only by like a millimetre or so). Obviously, the Black Series does look a little cheap in comparison, but they can be utilised together. Figuarts has a more balanced range of figures compared to the Black Series (barely any prequel love there), though the Black Series is the only one who has attempted to represent the various alien races that are a part of the Star Wars universe. Figuarts only have Chewbacca. Nonetheless, I do ultimately prefer the Figuarts line to the Black Series line, though I will be jumping between both as I feel like it.

Ah! Bewwwdiful :)

Now that the Black Series has begun phasing in photo-realistic face printing, the gap between Figuarts and Black Series has become much smaller. That being said, the tech used by Hasbro leaves their faces looking waxy and blurred, whereas the Figuarts line appears much sharper and much more realistic. Also, the Figuarts joint system appears to be more advanced, and the plastic is an overall better quality. Not to mention that each figure comes with at least three extra pairs of hands, and usually at least two other accessories (such as alternate portraits or weaponry), whereas Hasbro only has two or three accessories at the most. I do feel you are getting your money's worth more so with Figuarts than with Hasbro, but that is just a matter of personal preference; Hasbro figures are plentiful, cheap and readily available internationally. The introduction of new technology for Hasbro is a great thing for lovers of both lines, as it will allow for easier integration of figures in display. I do not yet have any of the new Black Series figures with this printing (I have no desire for the Rey as I feel I've got the ONE with Figuarts' Rey), I've got my eye on a couple that have recently been previewed at NYTF and am hoping these go into production soon.

I hope to update more frequently from now on; that is, I hope that the gap between updates is less extreme than the gap between this and the previous post. I will continue to post the content I've always done, such as reviews, personal commentary, discussions and anything random I can think of. This blog is a great way for me to get thoughts from my head out into the universe - I hope you can find something interesting on this page while you are here. Thanks for reading!

Achieving my personal goals

Sorry for the incredible amount of time that has passed between updates! I want to say that I've been super busy (which I guess I have been), but truthfully I think I just forgot this blog even existed. Fail! So, I thought I'd take this opportunity to reintroduce my life to you all, seeing as heaps has changed from the last post to now. Here we go.

For the past couple of years I've been struggling with depression. It sucks, wanting to do things but having no energy to do it; wanting to get out and socialise but not wanting to make the effort; to go out and have fun but wanting to curl up in the dark and sleep. Feeling anxious and yet not caring at the same time. Feeling everything and nothing all at once. I had quite a struggle last year, when I finally acknowledged that there was a problem that I didn't want to address. Lately, though, I've been doing much better. I'm on a pretty high dose of anti-depressants, and while it is a little scary to think about how much I depend on them to get me through each day, I'm relieved to know that my brain is finally working the way it should. 

I've been seeing a psychologist ever since my little breakdown a couple years ago, and she's been helping me figure out who I am and how I'm going to get through each day. She set me a number of goals at the beginning of 2016; I would make the effort to be more assertive, I'd do study and exercise, I'd get a job and I'd try to overcome my anxiety and get my licence. I've been good at some of these; I skipped the back-chatting stage of puberty, so I'm more than making up for it now (kinda bad, I know, but keep in mind I never used to say what I was really thinking when someone treated me unfairly). I'm able to communicate normally with people on a daily basis without needing to rehearse the conversation, without my heart literally pounding with the anxiety of what I was about to do. I'm confident and happy in my own skin (I used to be addicted to makeup 24/7 because I hated my body and how I looked), and I'm slowly making the effort to socialise more with my friends and other people. 

The biggest issue I've had was finding a job - I've been looking since I finished school last year, but no one wanted to hire me. Seeing as I've never had a job before, I was an entry-level employee that - at 18 -  couldn't be paid a 16-year-old's entry-level pay, so no one wanted to hire me when they could hire another person for less pay. I'm also not experienced enough for the more professional jobs that my particular age group calls for; that is, they assumed I would have experience as an 18 year old.  That and the driving thing. It took me seven goes to pass my Practical Driving Assessment because I got so anxious in the car with a stiff stranger who would be assessing how well I drove. But I finally passed it, and then had to do another 25 hours of driving before I went and sat my Hazard Perception Test. I finished this and went to sit my HPT; more below.

I'm pleased to be able to say that I found a job!!!! I was on all these job search sites, trying and failing to secure a job. One of my uni friends recommended placing an ad on Gumtree, basically saying I was looking for work. I got a couple dodgy replies (I didn't know there were sugar daddies on this side of Australia), but I also got one from a lovely woman who lives in my suburb. We texted and called back-and-forth, I went for an interview in October last year, right before my 19th birthday, and I got the job! She's a single mother with two children, one of whom I'm a priary carer for. He's a little boy with a profound disability (I won't say anything to protect the family's anonymity) that physically and mentally impairs him; he's a teenager, but looks around 6, and acts around 2. He's non-verbal, legally blind, and has several other difficulties that that regularly pose a threat to his safety. But, he's absolutely beautiful, and I've really enjoyed spending the time I have with him so far. He pretends he's more disabled than he is to get what he wants; he's brilliant at bribery and manipulation. He's so, so cute, and loves giving hugs. Am I attached? Yes, yes I am.

Basically, I help him, his mum and other carers (there are none besies me at the moment) build skills that he can use to improve his quality of life. We're trying to establish the basic skills people need in order to live at least a little self-sufficiently, like feeding himself, bathing himself and recognising the signs of needing to go to the toilet (and subsequently actually going to the bathroom when necessary). His mum is wicked cool and totally my heroine (her life story is epic), her office is great and the system is pretty chill. I'll also eventually be her PA at her migration office.

I also got my licence a couple days after I got my first job! I went and took my Hazard Perception Test, seeing as I had finished my hours. I was convinced I'd failed the test as I'd kept clicking too fast. I was about to adopt the "graceful defeat" face so the lady at the desk wouldn't feel like she'd ruined my day, so imagine my surprise when she was all like "congratulations, you passed!" I went and filled out a couple forms, had my photo taken for my new licence, and was handed my Ps! I was so excited!

Those are more or less the highlights of the past couple months. Suffice to say, these things have made a world of difference in improving my self-esteem and confidence. I'm adulting now, and it's super exciting! Now, all I have to do is wait for university to start up again in March. Le sigh. Uni breaks are far too long, in my opinion.

Hopefully I'll be updating really soon. Thanks for reading!

Some randomness today.

We did this thing in uni a couple days ago called free-writing. Basically, we were told to just let the pen keep running over the paper and not stop until the time was up. I did pretty shit, because I've spent so long writing to write essays that I've sorta forgotten how to write like a normal human being in any kind of academic environment. So yeah - I'm doing my best to give it a go. I'm most definitely probably going to go back and fix my mistakes when I'm done, which is technically not allowed, but, eh - whatever. So, uni's pretty good. Got most of my assignments handed in, all that were due at least. I was supposed to get an essay result back Monday, which was moved to today, which I discovered was moved to next Monday, so I'm pretty pissed. I'm a little nervous because apparently a lot of people failed it. Really hoping I haven't because I want to maintain my distinctions across the board. I'm really proud of myself this year; it is kinda ironic how this year's all self-guided study and the fact that if I really didn't want to do it there'd be nothing stopping me makes me want to do it. Last year, we had to do study and I just felt so disinclined to do so. Pretty weird.

I'm a little annoyed right now. I'm trying to figure out how the hell I'm supposed to get PayPal to work, because I'm trying to lin my bank account and the site is being a jerk to me. Oh well, I'll get there in the end. I had to get PayPal because - and I'm really excited about this - I managed to sell a couple of my old essays online! It was through a company who buys them and publishes them as guides or references, not an essay-trafficking/generating/homework-doing site or anything. That's hell illegal and I don't want anything to do with that. I'm basically going through all my old Aussie stuff, because the site is American, and I'm re-editing some of the essays on these subjects because they're always on the lookout for new titles to stock essays with. Yay! So I'll hopefully be a little richer than broke in about 5-10 weeks, provided PayPal stops being a dick to me.

I've been doing pretty well with the whole anxiety and depression thing until recently. My supposed friend is being a total bitch - and I can't believe I had to say that now that I'm an adult and everything. So I've been having a few panic attacks over her and I'm trying to work up the courage and give-a-fuck to tell her to get the hell out of my life. She's been my friend for seven years now, but I don't need that kind of bullshit anymore. I'm just terrified she and her mum are going to break into my house and slash my car tyres or something. Apparently her mum's threatened violence against me if she sees me in public (totally unfair, because I wasn't the one at fault). She has a really warped recounting of events, and always paints herself as the victim even if she's the one to blame. Unfortunately I'm on the other end of it this time. I'm really quite sick of her, so that's done, I think.

Going through a major Harry Potter kick right now! I've been running out of winter clothing (seeing as it's heading into that kinda weather in Perth), and I keep seeing these way cool Ravenclaw Quidditch jumpers that look so pretty and snuggly and I just want one. So, providing PayPal goes through and the site actually gives my my money, I'll be able to pay for stuff like that.

Does anyone think it is weird that I have a metaphorical hard-on for Kylo Ren right now? Like, I don't know what it is, but Adam Driver plays him so sexy. Ugh. He's such a fucked-up guy. I have such problems. Hoping there's some kind of development between him and Rey, because I find Finn a little irritating. It won't happen, but I just hope he doesn't end up dead like Darth Vader - that's too much parallelling with the original trilogy, guys. Redeem him. Plez. I need it.

Okay, this was an interesting experience. I'm pretty sure I only took ten minutes to write all that out. I'm going to go edit it and then publish it. Thanks for reading this!

Exams.

University life

I was on the fence last year about whether or not I wanted to do medicine. On the one hand, it'd be a rewarding job and I'd likely get the validation I'd always wanted; on the other, was it really what I wanted to do? No. My favourite class was always English or Literature, and I enjoyed the classroom environment. More than that, I enjoyed the ambience of the English office; I'd spend some time in there for school papers and the like, nothing bad. Just watching the teachers all sitting around laughing, marking and cross-marking essays, offering opinions on each other's students' essays - I wanted that. To be in that kind of environment. I know not every school is the same, but still - all the books and the research and the writing. I love that kind of stuff.

Choosing to do English teaching was a last-minute decision. Literally. For university offers here, we are only offered our first course preference from a single university (the first one we make the grades for at least). We can either choose to accept the first round offer or wait for second round offers; when we get our second round offers our first round ones are cancelled. For my first round I was offered my second preference - I'm not ashamed to say I didn't get my first preference into medicine. Still, I wanted to keep my options open. But a couple hours before my second round was supposed to come in, I decided I wanted to do teaching after all.

I enrolled in the Bachelor of Education aimed at secondary students at Edith Cowan University. It's strange. When I was little I never wanted to be a princess or a fairy or a ballerina; I wanted to be a teacher. A primary school teacher, granted, but a teacher nonetheless. My brother said something the other day - this was surprising not only for its astuteness, but because it wasn't carried by an unpleasant tone. He remarked that it was funny how life turned out for me exactly how I had planned it as a child. Everything had come sort of... full circle. And it makes me happy to know that the decisions I had made as a child were the ones I would follow through with as an adult.

The courses at ECU in my major are brilliant; I was still on the fence about what I was going to choose when I researched it. They had classics courses, fiction to film, poetry, children's fantasy, graphic novels, just so much on offer. I think my mind was pretty much made up then; I enrolled not long after. I encountered some difficulties with choosing my minor as a) I didn't know what the hell a minor was, and b) I didn't know whereabouts I was meant to choose from. I ended up enrolling in Social Sciences, so that I might be a teacher of history, economics, geography and politics to years 7 to 10. I might go back someday and major in it; being a history teacher was a close second to my first English preference. I was on the fence about choosing science, but then I'd have to do science and I didn't really feel like returning to that. I was also considering choosing religion, because I had always been pretty good at that, but apparently you have to be a recognised Catholic to do that.

University is hard - harder than high school, though I would say it is definitely less stressful. Even if you have assessments for all classes due in the same week you've still got around five days to work through them all, unlike high school, where you'd probably have to stay up until the early hours of the morning to get everything done. There's no high-stakes testing pressures, either - we're all done with it now, thank God. The strange thing about my uni is that it is multi-campus; I know there are quite a few unis that have rural campuses, but ECU has two separate campuses within a half-hour's travel for me. There's one at Joondalup - the main one - and at Mount Lawley, which I go to as it has all my classes there this year. Apparently if you're a student there you usually end up having lectures and tutorials at both campuses by the time you've graduated. I reckon that's pretty cool - I haven't been to the Joondalup campus yet, but my friend has as she says it's around twice the size of ML. ML's pretty easy to get lost in though, so I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to it or not.

Assessments are weird here. I suppose they're weird at all universities, though. In high-school, you had free reign over what your assessment looked like, or it was handwritten so presentation wasn't even really a factor. But in uni you have to have your margins a certain way, Times New Roman double-spaced and a formatted header and footer. Luckily formatting is to me what cleaning is to Monica, so I'm pretty much set - to the point where I've actually almost finished an entire semester's worth of work in one class and I'm only half-way through. So I'll be catching up with the other classes soon, especially since next week is the mid-semester break. Essays galore for me!

So that's life for me at uni at the moment. I'll be keeping you all updated, hopefully some of my scores come in soon.

Thanks for reading!

I know where I'm headed...

After a lot of self-reflection, I've realised that I'm not totally incapable of making decisions for myself. I've always believed my main drive was to please others, and that I built my entire life around doing so. Turns out it isn't necessarily the case. An earlier post shows me as being uncertain about what my motivations behind choosing a career in medicine really were; now I feel I can confidently state that I am doing this for myself.

The more I think about it, the more I envision myself working in the medical environment and enjoying it, despite what I'm sure is a chaotic and stressful environment. I enjoy challenges, so it'll keep my mind going, which is good because I thrive on constant learning; I get bored when situations go stale. Anyway, I realised throughout my whole study period the past few years, not once was the picture in my head, driving me down the path I was going, my parents or my friends or anyone else but me. I wasn't looking for glory or praise or approval. It was just me. Quite happily working in an environment where I'd regularly get to explore the fascinatingly unpredictable nature of the human body.

I've been so caught up in self-doubt about my own desires that I never really considered that I was doing something for myself all along. I guess I finally figured it out.

I'm now absolutely sure I'm not choosing this path for anyone but me. I think a job where I get to help others will help me get a bit of perspective. Sort it out, I guess. If it doesn't happen for me, I have options. But still. I'm back - and I'm ready to tackle the challenge of a career in medicine if it'll have me.

Changed my mind again...

Just as soon as I write to say I'm into historical fiction, I felt myself slipping out of it. After Margaret George's novel I couldn't bring myself to continue with Philippa Gregory's Cousin's War series, the next on my list. I waited a couple days for the urge to hit me; nope. I moved onto another genre instead.

I'm once more back into YA novels. OMG. I never thought I'd be able to read them again, 'cause I went through a long period where I couldn't tolerate the cliches found in pretty much every YA book; you know, the love triangle, the ridiculously perfect (or ridiculously flawed) hot guy, the Mary-Sue girl, etc. But I picked up An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir; I read it in three days, after being highly skeptical for the first 50-odd pages. I honestly really really really enjoyed it, and I'm super bummed that the sequel isn't out yet, because I really want to know what happens to everyone. Elias was my favourite character to read about, which was strange because I usually prefer the female character in multi-persona books. But he was so fun to read about, and Laia was really good to read for character development. Elias, though - his chapters were what made me stick around, and I would be flipping pages through Laia's chapters sometimes to see what happened next. Laia got really interesting towards the end though, so hopefully she'll be more of a proactive character for the rest of the series. I really loved the world in this book; at first, all the made-up places and culture baffled me and my brain went into information overload mode, but I got the hang of it. I'm so used to reading stuff about countries and cultures I already know (*hides in shame*). I'm sorta glad it didn't appear to be set in our future; I've read so many good novels, but not great novels, that have sorta tried to emulate the Hunger Games and it just got a bit boring after a while. The historical aspect, the Roman cultural references, were really cool, and a nice way to wean myself off the heavy historical stuff. I'm pretty much done with heavy reading for now, I think. That last book gave me a bit of a headache. But yeah, this book was a really good introduction to this world and the characters, and the ending answered just enough questions to make me somewhat satisfied that I can wait until the next one, without spoiling it all (which shits me because I really wanted to know who Cook was and who the Lioness was betrayed by!!!). Totally recommended.

One of my all time favourite YA series is the Throne of Glass series - for anyone who loves this series, it might shock you to know I haven't read Queen of Shadows yet. The book came out in September, and around that time I was gung-ho classic girl - I had no inclination to read YA novels. I really regret not getting it as soon as it came out, because now I'm stuck waiting for my order from Book Depository to arrive. I'm really antsy to know what happens, and the rating on Goodreads just blows my mind; 4.7 stars! The book is, by all accounts, so good and I don't have it! Damn. 

But what I love about this series is that it only gets better, not worse. I've had a couple bad experiences with series that started good but turned to shit (we all know which one I'm talking about). The first book was pretty good - nothing incredibly special, but still interesting enough to get me to read the next one. And boy, am I glad I did. Celaena is the most bad-ass heroine ever, and I totally love her character! She sorta pissed me off in the first one with her sparkly-dress fetish, but you get over that once you've embraced the pure awesomeness that is Celaena. But the second book - that was the clincher for me. That was what got me really into it. That ending fucked me up big time, like nothing else. I was in a total book-coma after finishing that, and I immediately moved onto the next one (I waited a while before reading the second one because I knew from the reviews that the ending was fucked - lucky). The third one was the best by far. I really enjoyed all the new characters, like Rowan and Manon (yes Manon!!) and I really loved there was no romance in it. It was nice to have a break from that, and it was definitely nice to see Celaena decide there were more important things than mooning over her lover. I'm super excited to see what is in store for the next book. but first I have to wait. Urghhh. I hate waiting. And I love that cover - I want it on my shelf so bad!!! It's so beautiful. 

I haven't really got anything else to say - I've really only just got back into the swing of YA. My next update should have more. After all, I still have the Falling Kingdoms series by Morgan Rhodes and the Remnant Chronicles by Mary E. Pearson to get through. Or maybe I'll decide I like non-fiction. I don't know.

Thanks for reading!

Writing essays...

There's absolutely no way I'll claim I know the perfect formula for writing essays. No. But my efforts are passable, certainly, and I do very well in testing situations. I know some of you doing English or Literature as a subject are facing the prospect of upcoming end of year exams. I really don't know if any of this will help, it's just a thought I had - my something good for the day, you know? So I thought I'd write out a couple tips I found useful, or that I've been told over the years.

1. Answer the question.

This sounds incredibly patronising, but we've been exposed to a few feedback sheets in Lit class and the markers make it very evident that people lose marks for failing to read the essay question properly. This means that part of the question is not answered in the response, or you just lose your head completely and don't answer the question at all. The key to solving this is having the question in front of you; think of the text you intend to use to respond to the question; highlight key words and ideas in the question, i.e. the concepts such as ideas, and the terms such as assess or evaluate or comment; create a mindmap of sorts whereby you annotate those highlighted parts with brief summaries of each, thereby ensuring you've summarised the intent of your essay. This should only be quick and rushed, nothing fancy at all.

 

For example, a practice question taken from a past WACE exam. This process has been carried out using the text Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

2. Make a plan.

Because you're probably given an hour at most on each individual essay in an exam, this does not need to be fancy either. Just sort the above into usable paragraph planning, just as a little nudge when you get stuck on what to write (ideally, this should just help you get unstuck). There is no need for detail, or to write down quotations - just a short sentence summary to remind you of what your aim is to convey in that paragraph. All in all, both steps should only take about 5 minutes. Instead of writing heaps of essays, just practice this; it really helps you think, and begin to sort out your quotes and ideas mentally in your head, thus becoming faster.

3. Don't write essays when practicing writing essays.

This sounds stupid, but I promise it isn't. You spend a lot of time writing an essay; you devote a lot of time to finding good quotes to prepare for answering the question, and the essay you write, because you have the time, is near perfect in your eyes. You memorise it, and go in the exam and write it. You feel good about it; then you get your paper back, only to find big fat crosses or question marks everywhere. Because in practicing so hard, in spending so much tie preparing for any number of responses you DIDN'T PREPARE FOR THE QUESTION. Instead of writing essays, write plans on individual questions including quotes. Make a really general plan with three or four quotes per point, encapsulating all the reading strategies possible for the text studied; this way you learn a bunch of quotes under headings that are workable for exam time (since basically all questions discuss reading practices in some way, shape or form).

4. Research outside the text.

You get so caught up in preparing for the text itself, that when you come to the most suitable exam question and you find that it contains information on context, or devices, or conventions that you don't understand. Bummer. So, when preparing for your text, compile some information about the time period in which it was written or published. What were the values of the time period? What social movements occurred? Political, economic unrest? Power balance? This helps you provide a more nuanced, thoughtful essay when it comes to dealing with context and prevents you from making generalised statements about the context of the text's production, thus setting you apart from the rest. Having a good understanding of literary terminology will stop you from tripping up in an exam when asked for something like the correlation between structure and the presentation of ideas and values.

5. Look to your betters.

Sometimes, all the preparation in the world isn't enough to boost your mark up. You wonder why you try so hard and still fall down, when your classmate barely puts in the effort and soars. Why? It comes down to expression, essentially. It isn't enough to have good ideas anymore - you have to be able to know how to express them. If you're having trouble with that, ask someone to help you. Ask a proficient classmate if they have any saved practice essays lying around that you might be able to read over, to get a feel for the language. Ask a teacher to read over some of your practice essays with you, to correct some mistakes, and maybe even ask them to rewrite a paragraph to show you where you aren't meeting the standard. Ask a good mate that does well in English to read an essay, or part of an essay, and offer critiques; or, take your ideas and rewrite them, so that you might compare them and see the areas you need to improve. This is not cheating; it is the absorption of alternate ways of expressing ideas, because that is usually where the majority of people fall down.

6. Swallow a dictionary.

No, jokes. But become familiar with alternate ways of expressing things. Come to think about it, this isn't all that different from the previous advice. What I mean is, instead of stating 'she believes that old ideas are bad', you could instead state 'the character in question believes outdated ideologies negatively impact society'. Use a thesaurus to find 'smarter' words if you have to. But please, don't do a Joey from Friends and replace every word with a synonym because it just won't make sense. If it sounds too simplistic, find a better word. Expand your vocabulary. Read more books - classics are really great for expanding your word bank (hint hint). Just read in general; there is a definitive correlation between good marks and those who read more, across all subjects requiring language and communication.

7. Read the text more than once.

Pretty self explanatory. If you read the text multiple times, you gain an understanding of things you may not have picked up before, and its also great to refresh your memory.

8. Finally, don't panic in the exam room.

If you know all the stuff, you've learned the quotes, you know your text inside out, what are you panicking for? It only screws with your head, messes your concentration and leads to bad marks. Don't listen to how worried other people are. It is okay to be confident. Nail it.

That's all from me. Happy studying. Thanks for reading!