Tick Tock - Birthday Blues

What: My birthday

When: 28th October

Where: Can YOU put a place on where time is? BirthDAY people. (Now that I think about it, space-time continuum? - Nah, too complex)

How: The passing of time

Who: Yours truly

Why: Because time never stops ticking.

As you gather from those key points, it's my birthday. Woopdeedoohdah. No idea where that came from. Anyway, birthdays.

A birthday is a time when you celebrate your existence for a certain period of time. So if I live till tomorrow, I can proudly say, I've survived 17 years of this terrible world.

There used to be a time when I used to be proud of the fact that I had lived that long.

e.g. "Mum, I'm 13 now, I'm a TEENAGER!!"

Yeah, well that isn't happening anymore. I feel old already.

"Aw man, I'm 17 now? That's like *counts in head* ONE year away from being an adult"

I'm a bit jealous of Peter Pan. He stays young and keeps his flawless skin. Even Olay Total Effects can't fake 'young boy' skin.

But what can I do to stop time? Don't answer that.

There's always been one thing I wanted to do when I grow up. Tell stories about my life to my grandkids. Stereotypical as it may sound, it SEEMS like a fun thing to do.

That means I need to have an interesting life. For that, I need to have done interesting things. E.g. I drove a car when I was 14. (That's illegal where I come from).

So if I told them that, my grandchildren might think I'm a rebel and I'll get a sick happiness out of it.

Oh, by the way, I drove that car before my 15th birthday just so I could say I did it when I was 14.

That same question came around this year. What can I do, so that I can say I did it when I was 16. Something interesting, something cool.

Answer: Nothing.

I realised then that this birthday wasn't going to be much fun.

1) I was growing older (than I would like)

2) I did nothing interesting in the past 364 days.

"C'est la vie!", as the French say. "That's life!".

Normally, I hate those kind of sayings, and I hate people who quote random things like that but I'll make an exception and say that this time.

Even as I'm writing this, I'm thinking about something interesting I can do. And I realised something so interesting that even the Dalai Lama wouldn't have thought of it.

I changed the font. From default to Trebuchet.

GC: "Hey Grandpa, what did you do when you were 16?"

Me: "I changed fonts"

The good thing about birthdays though, is that you know your true ("How's life?") friends from your "Sup!" acquaintances. True friends make an effort and actually remember my birthday for a start and some even go on to say "Happy Birthday!". "What about presents?", I hear you say. Well, let's just say a handshake is just fine. Refer here because this is what I'm referring to (the Valentine's Day bit)

Magical, ain't it?

Well, this is my last post as a 16 year old.

Hopefully you will see a more mature and attractive me in the next post.

Until the next post, loyal readers.

Twitter

There's all this new hype about Twitter.
How 140 characters to express yourself gives birth to creativity and blah blah blah.

So I joined Twitter recently. You can follow me on http://twitter.com/LiXworks
Its not that bad. I get to see what everyone is 'twittering' about by looking at the trending topics.
And I managed to get a follower who I don't know. So somehow my twitters are getting across the world.

I still haven't been on it enough to make up my mind on it completely.
Will do soon though.

Hopefully, I'll get my follower count higher with this post.

My First Proper Post in a Long Time

It's been a while since I've properly posted on my blog.
So here I am.

My vacation in India and Bangkok was awesome.
Got to meet my cousins after about 10 or so years.
My cousin got married. I went to an A. R. Rahman concert and got a suit and uniform tailormade.
Got a foot massage (1 hour) and a pedicure (30 minutes).

Contrary to popular belief, a pedicure is not that girly.
All they did was cut my nails and scrape off dead skin, leaving my foot clean and smooth.
This pedicure was not the kind where you get your nails painted or polished.
This was a cleansing pedicure.
I justify my moments of losing manliness with that thought. "It was cleansing".
Now that I write it down, it does seem pretty girly, oh well.

The foot massage was great though. 1 hour of relaxation. The masseuse also put in a bit of shoulder and neck massage.

And now I'm back home (my 2nd home) and it's been a week.
It took a while to get used to school and now I'm settled in.

Worst thing is, I got exams in 21 Days, 21 Hours, 21 Minutes.
Wow, talk about timing. It must mean something.

I should go study now. But I think I need to satisfy my hunger first. Chicken soup is on the menu.

StudyPass - Session 10

t's time to get serious about exam study. It's too important to put off any longer.

 

To make the most of the upcoming weeks you must have a study plan.

 

If you don't, you will find it all too easy to put off your study for another day, another week. The risk is that you won't have enough time to fully prepare.

 

Worse still, you will have a nagging sense of unease about your study which can lead to more stress. Most of the exam stress students feel comes from thinking about studying, not from actually doing it!

 

The lesson here is simple: Just take some action. You feel more confident and in a better state to take the next step. One step at a time is all you have to focus on.

 

 

Create your own study timetable ...

 

As soon as you create your study plan, you will actually experience less stress and feel more motivated. That's because your study plan steps out in the future what you need to do ... It gives you a sense of certainty about what is ahead.

 

To help you create your plan I have included this special study timetable link

 

where you can download and print your own study timetable.

 

It's fast, easy and painless. Click here

 

to open the pdf file and then print it and complete it.

 

 

If you haven't yet started a study programme then the only thing that matters right now is that you take a first step ... that's all .... just take some action, see how it makes you feel ... then take another step.

 

 

Your future study coaching emails ...

 

The emails will increase in frequency over the coming weeks as we get to the serious end of the year.

 

If you are a recent subscriber then you will receive emails closer together as you are receiving both the existing sequence of emails and the more recent emails that will be focusing on exam preparation.

 

 

Until our next communication ...

 

All the best with your studies.

 

 

Kind regards

 

Geoff Peterson

StudyPass

StudyPass - Session 9

This email is about what to do if you feel overwhelmed with school work ... when there's too much to do and not enough time to do it.

 

I don't think you should be trying to find ways to squeeze more things into your day. Working harder isn't always the best solution. Sometimes you have to do less, in order to achieve more.

 

If you find yourself too busy with school work then it's possible that you haven't made the distinction between being busy and being effective.

 

Being Busy vs Being Effective

 

You can be busy doing lots of things with little or no attention on whether those things are actually important.

 

Being effective is about doing the things that are most important. These are the few critical actions that produce the biggest results.

 

If you find yourself with little time to do any study then the chances are you are being busy without being effective.

 

Being busy is often a way to avoid doing the most important, and sometimes uncomfortable things.

 

So what do you do? Stop trying to manage your time .... instead start prioritising.

 

Let's revisit the 80/20 rule

 

You may remember in a previous email I introduced you to the 80/20 rule. It states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the time and effort.

 

So 80% of your results will come from 20% of the time and effort you spent chasing those results.

 

Or put another way 80% of the time and effort you spent studying will make no difference to your results!

 

The trick is to identify the 20% that makes the difference. Then to focus exclusively on that and eliminate the 80% of actions that make little or no difference.

 

You need to ruthlessly apply a strict set of criteria to your actions to ensure that your time and effort will produce the results you desire.

 

Parkinson's Law

 

Here's a very important principle you should know about any type of work ... It's called Parkinson's principle:

 

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

 

 

What this means is that whatever time you give to a task, the task will expand to take up that time.

 

If you give yourself 10 hours over 4 nights to complete an assignment ... then you will find a way to fill those 10 hours with assignment work.

 

The task will magically expand to consume that time ... you'll spend more time researching ... more time editing etc.

 

But remember, 80% of your time and effort is not producing significant results, so this extra time does not necessarily produce a better result.

 

If however you set yourself a very tight and clearly defined deadline, for example, to complete the assignment in the next 3 hours, then immediately your level of focus changes. Now the heat is on. You must now work smarter not harder.

 

So the trick then is to simultaneously apply both the 80/20 rule and Parkinson's Law to your study ... Always focus on the tasks that are most important and then set tight deadlines for their completion.

 

Here's how ...

 

1. Write a list of the 2 or 3 most important school related tasks that need to be completed in the next week.
   
   e.g. complete the English assignment
   e.g. study for the Science test
   
   To make sure you only write the most important tasks ask yourself questions like:
   
   If these are the only 2 things I get accomplished this week will I feel satisfied?
   Will each of these tasks directly affect my results?
   Which subject(s) are most important for me to improve in?
   
   
2. Now, set a very tight time deadline for each task. Remember a tight deadline helps you to work more efficiently because it forces you to focus on essential action.
   
   e.g. 4 hours to complete the English assignment
   e.g. 3 hours studying for the Science test
   
   
3. Take out your diary and schedule 1 hour study sessions over the next week to devote to each of these tasks. Do not devote any time to any other homework or study until these tasks are completed.
   
   
4. At the start of each session write a specific objective for what you what to achieve in the hour.

 

 

A word of encouragement ...

If after applying this technique for the first time you find you don't meet your tight deadlines, then don't beat yourself up. Just realise that you are developing your study habits here.

 

You will get better at focusing your efforts each time you apply this strategy. You will make more distinctions and find out what works for you.

 

Even if you don't meet your deadlines on your first attempt, you will be a lot further ahead than if you had no deadline.

 

Just refocus and recommit. You are building mental muscle with every attempt you make.

Until our next communication ...

 

 

All the best

Geoff Peteson

StudyPass 

 

 

 

© 2009 Growing Minds Ltd

 

Growing Minds, PO Box 633, Christchurch, Canterbury 8140, NEW ZEALAND

Vacation...

My vacation..
Right now I'm on a vacation in India.

It's been awesome.
Met my cousins and had a lot of fun.
A nice wedding and even better food.
I've probably put on a few kilos by now.

Missing my friends back in NZ though.
I got a suit stitched. And my uniform.
My dad got a 5800 which has wi-fi. So I steal my neighbour's internet.

Go Tua!! He owned that tattooed know-it-all.

Anyway, I'll miss the first week of school.
and I'll see you later.

God, the internet here is so slow - 256kbps..