Tips for school (A-levels) #3: Do your homework! :)

Hello Muggles,

today it's time for the 3rd part of my tips for school. I hope you find it helpful!

3) Do your homework!


 -> Oh, I know how lame that sounds but seriously: Doing your homework is the best thing you can do. You can easily build a base by doing homework. 

Why? Actually your teacher's task is to give you homework so you can do some revision of what you already learned in the last lesson! I know that many teachers just let you do "new" things for homework but then it's your duty to talk to them. ;) (This is tip #5 actually)

By doing your homework you also have something to say during lessons. Talking in class is very important for your marks and reading out your homework always gives you some extra points. Teachers will appreciate your effort! ;)

Doing homework and reading them out or giving them to the teacher especially is helpful in classes / lessons / courses you're maybe not that good in. Let's take myself for example: I hated math! I really hated it and I didn't understand one single bit of what my teacher was telling me during lessons - so what I did (not often enough though -.-) was doing homework with the help of classmates or friends and giving them to the teacher after / before the lesson. The teacher then can see that you did something at home and that you are interested in getting better. ;)

That was it for tip #3. I hope you enjoyed it.

Leave a comment down below saying if you like my tips for school or if you maybe have some yourself! :)

#1: Choose the right courses (click here to read it)

#2: Be organized (click here to read it)

#4: Ask questions (14.09.12)
#5: Talk to your teachers (21.09.12)
#6: Take breaks (28.09.12)
#7: Form study-groups (05.10.12)
#8: Read the lectures (12.10.12)
#9: Repeat before exams (19.10.12)
#10: Eat / Drink enough ;) (26.10.12)

See you next time, 

Hermione

Tips for school (A-levels) #2 : Be organized!

Hello Muggles,

today it's time for my 2nd tip for school. I hope you enjoy it and find it helpful! ;)

2) Be organized!

 -> This must sound strange but my holy grail in school was my homeworkplanner! 

I had quite an easy system, which worked pretty well. Here in Germany we got some planners that have some space on each site where you can write down your subjects for each day - the important thing is to write down your homework and everything else you have to do into the space / day when you have to have them. I know my english is horrible right now but for example: You have to do your maths homework until August 24th then write them down on this particular day. So you can easily see what you have to do for every day. 

I'm sure many people do that anyway but a lot of my class mates just didn't own a planner at all or wrote everything down on one single sheet of paper, which starts to look messy and confusing very fast.

This makes me think of tip # 3, which will be up next week! :)

There will be eight more tips in the next eight weeks, so please keep your eyes open and leave me a comment, saying if this is helpful for you or you like / dislike the idea in general! :)

#1: Choose the right courses (click here to read it)

#3: Do your homework (07.09.12)

#4: Ask questions (14.09.12)

#5: Talk to your teachers (21.09.12)

#6: Take breaks (28.09.12)

#7: Form study-groups (05.10.12)

#8: Read the lectures (12.10.12)

#9: Repeat before exams (19.10.12)

#10: Eat / Drink enough ;) (26.10.12)

I hope you liked it!

See you next time,

Hermione

Tips for School (A-levels) #1 - Choose the right courses!

Hey everyone,

now that I finished school and will start going to University in October I would like to tell you how I managed school or A-levels quite well. :)

***

First I have to say that I didn't know anyone when I started A-levels because the year before I worked in a primary school and didn't go to school myself, so I did not start A-levels with my usual classmates.

I'm not 100 % sure about the school system in your country but in Germany it is quite simple:
- There are four years of primary school, after which you (and your marks) can decide which secondary school you will visit.
- Usually there are six years of secondary school. After those you can either start working or do your A-levels. 
- You can do your A-levels on grammar school or on a comprehensive school. It takes three years (lately there are schools, where you can do them in two years as well) and after one year you have to decide which two advanced courses you will choose. (In my school you could decide between German, English and Mathematics - you had to take one of them - plus Biologie, Art and Education. I chose English and Art but right now I would probably go for English + German or Education... but I will talk about that later. ;))

Well, as I said I didn't know anyone and found it quite hard to be surrounded by strangers all day long. I'm horribly shy and had some problems to connect with people but in the end it all worked out and I had some fun years. :)

I thought of doing a post including 10 tips at once but then I decided to separate them, so here is School-Tip #1 (if they don't conform to your opinion / experiences this is totally fine - I just want to be a little help to those, who have problems and maybe they can profit from what I say ;)):

#1) Choose the right courses! 

  -> There always is a huge offer of courses you can choose but I think it is the best to choose those you're really interested in! Most people take courses only because their friends take them and they can't identify with it at all and get problems. Every bad course mark will be visible on your certificate and we in Germany have to collect poins while doing A-levels and the points will turn into your grade point average on your last certificate, which won't look that good if you weren't successful. ;)
Combined with that it is even more important to choose the right advanced courses. You have to spend loads and loads of time dealing with it that it has to be something you enjoy or even love. I made the mistake to chose Art although I can't draw... my marks in Art always were good though but this is not enough for taking an advanced course in it. I'm very interested in history of art but it's just not everything you do. :/  In the end I think the best choice for me would have been German because I'm good at languages in general, I love to read & write and it's more theoratical (which I am good at).
Just think about your choices and I recommend to talk to your teachers. ;)

There will be nine more tips in the next nine weeks, so please keep your eyes open and leave me a comment, saying if this is helpful for you or you like / dislike the idea in general! :)

#2: Be organized (02.09.12)
#3: Do your homework (07.09.12)
#4: Ask questions (14.09.12)
#5: Talk to your teachers (21.09.12)
#6: Take breaks (28.09.12)
#7: Form study-groups (05.10.12)
#8: Read the lectures (12.10.12)
#9: Repeat before exams (19.10.12)
#10: Eat / Drink enough ;) (26.10.12)

I hoped you had fun!

See you next time,
Hermione

Cologne (GamesCom + Dome)

Hello Muggles,

as I said before I went to this years GamesCom, which is a huge (video-)game fair, on Thursday.

Unfortunately this year it was quite boring. There haven't been any super interesting new games and the fact that Nintendo didn't show up this time made me a little upset. Actually there is not much to say except that there were a lot more people than the last couple of times I went there... and it was hot and often a little stinky. :D

I will just show you some pictures - enjoy! :)

Look, who we met. :)

I love Yoshi! He's the cutest and I actually bought a little
one for my key, which you can see down below. :)

The shoes!! o.o She was exhausted, I can tell!

This is my key 2.0 :) With little Lego-Hermione and Yoshi on it. *.*

Of course, my boyfriend HAD to take a picture with these beauties!


***


So after GamesCom being a little disappointing, we (my boyfriend, nephew and another friend of ours) decided to visit Colognes city centre to get something to eat and enjoy the sun. :)

This is what you can see of the Dome of Cologne when being at the fair.

And this is what it looks like when you leave the central station. There are always many interesting people in front of it, so if you're in Cologne you obviously have to visit the dome but also watch the many, many freaky people around it! :D

Here's another one... it just looks so creepy because the Dome is massively huge and you always look up to it, which makes the whole thing veeery frightening! ;)

This is a part from the inside - very pretty and impressive!

Impressive, as I just said. You can't believe how big and detailed and gold this "picture" is... and it's in 3D, too! Trendsetting artists, hu? xD

This is probably the strangest thing ever... The remains of the three Magi are supposed to be in there if I got this correctly. I'm not religious at all, so please don't see it as an offense if I'm not that convinced.

***

 Sooo, that was it from my exciting day in Cologne! I think there will be more posts about this pretty city, as I am going to be a student there very soon. :)

I hope you liked this post and found it interesting - leave a comment, if you'd like to, please! :)

See you next time,
Hermione

Sunday Favourite(s) #5

Hello Muggles,

time runs fast and I can't believe that it's Sunday again, which means I have to pick another Sunday Favourite. 

It was quite simple this time - my 5th Sunday Favourite will simply be the weather right now. :) I really hoped that summer would show up, after all it's already August. Everyone of you, who lives in Europe should know that the last few days have been super hot and sunny and I personally enjoy this a lot! 
I remember when I was a child we had those hot and sunny days every single summer holiday but this last summer just sucked. I mean, last week I wore my winter parka because the weather was lousy!

I'm a horrible Blogger and didn't take any pictures today, so this post will be rather empty. :( Hope you liked it anyways. ;)

Leave me a comment saying if you like hot summer days or not if you'd like to! :)

See you next time,
Hermione

Sunday Favourite #4

Hello Muggles,

this time my Sunday Favourite will be relaxing bubble baths. :)

Before I moved out of my parents house I didn't really like taking a bath, I preferred taking a quick shower. Now that I only have a bathtub I started to enjoy it and see what other people find so relaxing about it.

Yesterday I made myself a nice evening because my boyfriend had to work ( :( ). I took a bath using a lovela new bath foam (which you can see on the picture down below), lit some scented candles and put a face mask on. I didn't take a picture although it looked nice but it's a little too private for me so I took a picture from pinterest up there, which looks even prettier. ;)

Since I am into audiobooks I always listen to one when I'm taking a bath, which is even more relaxing I think because I hate silence and being in a very quiet room freaks me out.

What do you think about my new Sunday Favourite? Do you also enjoy a nice bubble bath? And what is your favourite bath foam product?

See you next time,
Hermione