The Penelopiad is a modern representation of Penelope from the Odyssey, and a hypothetical situation of her after death. Atwood seems to represent Penelope as a resentful and bitter figure, who seems to be in conflict with both Odysseus and herself as to the fact that she wasted her life or it was eclipsed by Odysseus’s. Penelope is presented to believe her life was spent for the reason alone being for Odysseus. For example when she arrives in hell she describes her “sack” of memories being predominantly “words concerning her eminent husband”. Furthermore, she mentions how she “waited and waited for him” and had been faithful for him for such a large portion of her life. Yet still all of the fame and glory went to Odysseus. Atwood demonstrates Penelope to seem to be consumed by the new realisation that now Odysseus’s events have passed and have “become less legendary” she nows sees how she wasted her life. Moreover, Atwood emphasises the fact that is now she is “bonless, lipness and breastless” and she could perhaps be considered less of a woman, she now appears to be more able to think clearly. Interestingly, Atwood’s blatantly portrays Penelope in a modern manner, using modern vocabulary such as “scandalous gossip” and more, perhaps illustrating the prominence of the issue in the current day, whilst now detracting from the character of Penelope in the Odysseus, an epic, which she may not have the right to represent. I believe that this allows Atwood to create a more convincing version of Penelope to the audience, allowing her to better get across the repression of woman during the period of the Odyssey and today.

I think the fact that I was already doing a lot of the components of CAS has limited the amount that it has changed me. So in that sense, I don’t believe that CAS has really changed me much. However, I think the fact that CAS forces you to reflect and set goals for each of the projects and activities that I am doing, is a positive thing which has allowed be to do better and be more focused in each of my aspects of CAS.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1e0FUjVa8wA12idVkjspkIOnWWokE-M7O6yLSYZgxdM0/edit#gid=0

I feel alright with my science paper, after getting it back. I am satisfied with my improvement from the last grade 9 internals, which mostly occurred due to an increase in study time, however still believe I need to aim for a higher score.

Due to the fact these were mocks, I learnt a lot about exam technique. The first being how to analyse the different types of papers, and how studying just for the content may not be enough. In the future, I will very likely revise a lot more for paper 6 questions, which I scored very poorly in. Another reason for this was I studied a lot using past papers, however not so much looking at the specific tests and experiments that actually popped up in the paper 6.

Instead of 5 key words, I would just like to remind myself to make sure that I read the question properly for any word that may dictate my answer. For example, “properties” of an electron/proton, means intrinsic qualities. Or something like how plants “loose” water, needs to be taken from that point of view rather than from a more holistic view about plant transport.

One of the large mistakes I made was in all of the B4 sections. This was a unit that I had not revised much, and so I struggled on many of the questions regarding the carbon cycle and levels of consumers. Another thing was the equations. I forgot many of the formulas in units like waves, stoichometry  and more. My last mistake was just not revising everything enough and forgetting content such as lumen and aspects from the contact process.

A few key things that I will need to revise/practise are probably spending more time doing active revision, such as writing papers and specific questions such as from paper 6, as it may stick better and be more applicable than just revising, reading and rewriting facts from textbooks.

My first year of high school has been a stark contrast to all my other years of education. I began the year in high hopes, after building momentum academically the prior year. However, I was oblivious as to the stress that would arise further on in the year as a result of the importance of the 2 year course as a whole. I had to develop sophisticated strategies in order to both maintain improvement in my academics, as well as progress in all of my other extra-curricular activities. This balance and task proved rather challenging, but with advanced planning and goal setting, I managed to find out the optimal way in which I could do my extracurriculars as frequently as possible, whilst doing all that was required for the course and more. This plan helped greatly and led me to increase my skills academically and in my extracurriculars, however it did come at the detriment of my sleep. Sleep time is something that I am likely going to strive towards raising in upcoming years, as not only is it important for my sports but it is also scientifically proven to be beneficial to memorisation, learning and focus.

 

Aside from academics, my highest prioritised activity is swimming. The past two years, I have dedicated myself to the swimming programme here at East, and have managed to improve exponentially as well as learn a lot from the experience. I am currently swimming 8 sessions a week which is about 19 hours of training. One thing I have learnt from this is just to be disciplined. Often beforehand, I would consider many things “optional” even if they had to be done, such as homework and would find a way to escape those chores. Swimming training has made me much more focused and determined when it comes to everything I do. Simply having to get out of bed at 5 in the morning, 3 times a week to go to training before school makes you understand that sometimes things have to be done to improve, even if they may not be satisfactory in the short run. We live in a competitive world, and to do better than others, you have to be able to make sacrifices that most people would not be willing to make. Swimming has also taught me the importance of honing specific skills and making conscious actions and decision when undertaking any task. I swimming, you may take 20 strokes in a lap, and we may swim 400 laps in a session. When you multiply that by 8 sessions a week, you receive a very large number. Yet, it is very easy to let those strokes go to waste. In swimming, every single repetition and stroke needs to be an attempt to improve from the one before. Small things such as trying to keep your elbow high, breathing low and doing underwater kick after each turn are the things that make the largest difference when it comes to a race. Having the concentration to be able to utilise all the strokes you take, as opposed to half of them causes such a large difference. This is not as easy as it may sound, due to the fatigue and competitiveness that surrounds training but is a skill I have gained, and aim to improve in the future. I would also like to translate this skill into other areas, such as my academics as I believe it would further my learning hugely.

 

Another characteristic that I have attempted to engage and improve is leadership. I have taken on roles in MUN and Surfaid (GC) in order to gain understanding as to what it takes to lead. MUN has enhanced my delegation skills exponentially. The need to be able to take lead, and win the right to lead over people was the first thing I learnt in MUN. The main way in which this had to be done was by earning people’s respect, which could be done in no way other than having work done, and exerting yourself in the conference. In Surfaid GC this year, I took on the role of chair. This was my first experience having to have the responsibility of an organisation and activity that large on my shoulders. It taught me the importance of organisation, as I never realised the amount of preparation each individual session and action took in order to be effective.

 

I think the experience that shaped my most this year was the exam week. The exam week made me have to bring all of the skills that I mentioned above together. I had to be critical in my learning, and had to make sure every single minute that I spent learning was effective. This is as I still had to continue my swimming. However I still had to drop some swimming session in order to focus on my academics so I had to ensure that every single stroke that I took in training was optimal to my improvement. This was also a great experience in terms of goal setting and the planning that is involved in order to reach my goals.