My extended essay and my IAs + How I'm feeling about entering year 13 - Lifestyle Monday

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, 

As I'm sure many of you already know, over the summer I have been working on my extended essay, as well as my IAs. I did my extended essay on how the mainstream media (Strictly Come Dancing + Dancing with the Stars) has influenced the younger generation of dancers and this was a 4,000 word essay. As well as this, I was also working on my history and nature of science IAs over the summer and I'm here to give you an update. So far, although they are far from perfect (believe me😂🤦‍♀️), I have still managed to complete all of my essays for the summer. This just sounds crazy to me because, as I'd mentioned before the holidays, I really did feel intimidated by all of the work that I had in front of me and I did not want to do it at all. I thought that although I write often and although I'm fairly organised, this essay writing would be an impossible task for me that I would struggle to complete. I'm not denying that there were times when I just hated what I wrote and did not even want to write, but through pacing myself, spreading out the work load, and remembering to relax in-between, somehow I was able to complete the task at hand. This past week, I've been going back over my work to iron out any creases because I saw that there were lot of them! My drafts are still not perfect but for a set of first goes, they weren't exactly that bad either. In some ways, I feel that I could have perhaps written my extended essay and my history IA a little better because although I completed everything that I needed to, I felt like I had a certain expectation for both of those essays and I didn't end up writing exactly what I was planning to. Nevertheless, I'm proud that I was able to finish because not finishing and missing deadlines, was what I was most worried about. I also have that perfectionist mindset inhibited into my brain where I have to nitpick everything to the fine details and get it right the first time. Instead, I should probably do as my mum says and leave my essays, now that I've finished them, so that I can come back to them and refine them with a clearer head. That's what I want to do and what I'll definitely try to do but I know that I'm also overly conscious of time and might just find myself editing straight away. Honestly, at this point, who knows?

On the day that you're reading this, it will be the last day of the summer holidays which I'm so depressed about. 😂💜 This summer has been great and I'm very thankful to have gone on holiday to Somerset because I am also aware that not everyone was able to do that this year because of Covid implications. However, with the climate going mad and there not being a lot of sunshine during the holidays, in some ways it still didn't feel like a proper summer. Then to go back to school to a mountain of work, which I know will be inevitable for year 13 IB students, does not sound like a lot of fun to me. Especially since apparently, according to Google Weather, the sun is going to finally come out when I can't enjoy that much of it at school. I always find that I'm a little bit anxious going back to school after the summer holidays but this year, with the coursework and the exams that I'm going to be undertaking, I do still feel a little intimidated. However, one can also say that I felt intimidated by my summer work and yet, I was still able to complete it. The truth is, I know that although I will whinge and moan, I am going to walk out of sixth form at the end of this academic year with a set of IB Diploma results that I'm proud of because that's the person I am. When I start something, I have to complete it. There are also lots of other things that I can look forward to this year like starting up my online dance classes again, seeing my international friends who I haven't seen in person over the summer, and going to a Lindy Hop class which will hopefully be a lot of fun. This is my last year of school and so I've got to make the most of it because I know that whatever I do next, it won't be like this again. Yes I'm a bit anxious but I'm not going to let that stop me from enjoying myself and inevitably doing well.

Let me know in the comments below and I'll be sure to reply to them. I ♡ hearing from you!

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Bye,

XOX, Juliette 

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