Holidays, and among other things more study!

Hello once again Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to another belated update in the world of Jessesjapan.
As I always say, wow! so much has been happening and still the HSC draws closer everyday. These holidays well, they haven't really been holidays, I'm not sure if studying 90% of the time equals a holiday, but that aside these last 3 weeks have been rather interesting! Let's see now:


Week 1: Monbukagakusho scholarship cramming and exams

The Monbukagakusho scholarship, for the un-informed, is a 5-year scholarship offered by the Japanese government to International students wishing to complete university study education in Japan. The scholarship is so far yet to be topped by any other scholarship I have come across (in terms of what it covers and entitles you to), therefore giving the reputation of one of the most fiercely competitive scholarships that I have come across.

On Friday 30th July, I had to attend the Japanese consulate to sit exams in Maths, World History, English, and 3 Japanese exams!!! Henceforth I spent many hours prior to the exams preparing and studying, especially the week of the exam. Much of my time was spent learning about World History- for those of you who do not know, World History is not one of my subjects at school....... I learnt to become an expert in World History real quick! I was even studying while I was sleeping!! ( I recorded the notes on to Mini Disc and listened while I slept).

The day of the exams finally arrived (with butterflies in the stomach), and so it was time to put pen to parchment, I was competing with some rather smart cookies from around Australia, meaning one false move and my dreams of studying law in Japan could fall through the floor.
I'm still waiting to hear back about the results, so if it is a positive outcome, you can be sure I will post!

Week 2: Study Camp (Oh joy!!)

Yes that is right....Study Camp! It was a fantastic time of making new friends, playing more guitar for sing alongs, but most importantly it was a fantastic time of 6am wake up calls (not that I really mind) and 7 hours study everyday!!!

While they are tough to stick to, I highly recommend the Crusader Study Camps to any future HSC students as they are unbelievably beneficial for your study over the semester breaks, I myself did 35 hours (I was in the top 4 studiers) and felt ready for a rest by the end of the week. The sessions are split up into manageable chunks so that you won't feel the need to hang yourself from the ceiling fan after having done 6 hours straight (instead you do 4 chunks of 1.5 hours and there is also an optional 1 hour session).

While we were there to study, the camp is just as much a social event as it is a study camp. I now have so many friends all over Sydney because of camp; the leaders also organise various events everyday- e.g. I did a ballroom dancing lesson. On the last night of camp when we had finished studying, a DJ came and we had a dance party until about 12am. All in all these camps are fantastic


I now take my leave of you as I feel the creative juices draining from my all night DVD marathoned brain. I also give my apologies if this post is not up to my usual level if wit and banter, I am intending to post these things closer to when they happened and right now I intend to go sleep.

Sweet dreams.

Jieshi