Holy moly. It’s the end of the school year already. It feels like each year passes by faster and faster. (There is a scientific reason behind this phenomenon and physiological factors at play that influence our perception of time. It’s quite interesting. Would recommend checking it out if you’re interested). When grade 10 first started, time was going by pretty slow for me, and when I dont think about it much, it seems like the year went fast. However when I do really think about all the things that happened throughout the year, it feels slower and dragged out.
Anyways, enough about the perception of time. In this Tpol, I’ll mainly just talk about how the year went for me and what I learned from all the projects that we did. I just want to say that this year was like no other, and to put it simply, it sucked.
In the last week or so of summer, I was fully prepared for the school year, thinking it would be just like any other year. All the previous years have gone by good. It was easy, and I didn’t have many struggles. This year was where things went downhill.
In the first PGP project, alongside the first Humanities project, was to start our year off. I hated both of them, but more so the PGP one. The PGP project was called New Year, New Me. In this project, we learned all about ways to become a happier and more productive person, watching videos and doing many things that’s said to help. Thats what I took away from it at least. It was a mess. My memories of it is a blur, but I do remember it being an overall bad experience. Even though it was the start of the year, things piled up, and I wanted it to be over already.
At the end of this project, we were supposed to have a pre-pol. It was meant to be this presentation of our learning from this project, but instead of it being set up like a normal presentation of learning, it was going to be done in a unique way. Say, a puppet show, sang or dance, and the idea I had, a game. Using my previous experience with coding, I knew how I could turn everything I’ve learned in this project into elements in a game on scratch.
I was dreading this thing though. I was really hoping it would be cancelled, and to my surprise, it did end up being cancelled. It was a huge relieve, as I didn’t want anymore work piled up on my hand and mind. As I said before, this project was my most hated one this year. Take a look at just how bad I did and how much of a mess it looks.
Ironic considering this project was meant to do the opposite. Everything here just felt like another tedious task that needed to be completed. The directions for all the assignments were also just very confusing for me, and made it very hard for me to follow along in class.
This whole year just felt really rushed to me. I feel like all the projects went by so fast and I really struggled getting all my work done in time. One assignment was the cleared backlog. I spend a lot of time working on it, making it look good. The problem was, I put it off for too long, and it didn’t even get marked. Everyone was unprepared. A lot of things got cancelled or changed last minute.
I’ve also became closer to my friends I feel like. I want to spend more time with them and that’s became a problem because I really do not have a lot of free time. Most of the time, I go hang out with people when I still have homework to do, like what I did for my math in the first semester. That is another reason why this year has been harder.
Also, I finally got headphones at the start of the year, meaning I could listen to music. I’ve heard that some people work better listening to music, so I tried that, but it just did the opposite. Since listening to music with headphones on was a new thing to me, I wanted to utilize this new feature. I would listen to music in class, when the teacher was talking. This made it increasingly difficult to learn and subsequently, made it harder to do any assignments because I didn’t know what the hell was going on.
In the most recent PGP project, we got the change to learn more about ourselves. It was through this project that I was able to realize everything that has been making this year hell. The Dragon’s Den experience also helped me. They gave me some good feedbacks (see the post about it here. Go check it out. I recommend it).
Now, I’ve gotten a lot better at having agency over my own learning. I’ve started to set goals and plan out what my week is going to look like. I know what I need to get done, and I commit to it. I’ve let go of the old way of thinking about work, which is one of the reason why I get stressed. Instead of just thinking “oh I have to do this homework tomorrow or sometime this weekend” then not actually doing it, I will make a mental plan for me to follow. That way, I am more productive.
I have also set up a work system. This was one that I learned about last year, but haven’t implemented it into my working habits until recently. I find this to be really helpful and it takes a lot less mental strain on myself. When implementing this technique, I can think more clearly and it is easier for me to take in information, thus making me more productive. This is very similar to the pomodoro technique, but instead of a short 5 minute break, I take a longer 15 min break and get rid of the fifth step.
Another thing I learned to do is to find balance between doing schoolwork and hanging out. In the past, I would go hang out with people when I really do need to be doing work. So instead of just hanging out whenever I could, I started to tell myself to not to and send a text that I’m not hanging out with them so that the decision is set.
There was also this one time where my iPad didn’t charge. I literally plugged it in before going to be, and the cord was still plugged in in the morning. Still, somehow, the iPad didn’t charge. So now, I have learned to check to see if any of my devices are charging before leaving them.
After implementing all the things I’ve learned this year, my productivity has gone up and I’ve been doing better in school. Looking at my Showbie now, almost all of the assignments are being handed in on time. There are only a few late and missing ones there because of the Whistler trip.
This year has been a lot, and I’ve faced many challenges, but I also learned many things. I am taking better care of myself and I am doing things that I previously wouldn’t have and gotten a lot better at balancing out my life. Not doing any or doing very less of these things are what has made this year very stressful for me. However, now that I’m implementing these techniques to my life, things have gotten better. I plan on doing these things consistently and all through grade 11, and hopefully, next year wouldn’t be as hard.