I am not at all certain what it was, exactly, that brought about this particular epiphany, but I think I need to think more positively. Not only does this sound like a half-baked cliched New Year's Resolution of a problematic socially-awkward teen, but to make matters worse, its exactly the resolution I need.
How would one go about being a nicer, better, and more pleasant person to be around? Well, take a look at your current lifestyle, sez I to myself. Name the one thing about yourself that you find vaguely annoying and therefore most be largely more annoying to other people. Compare your attitude to that of someone much better off, socially, than you. I weighed everything out in my mind during the long journey up to the highlands. Appearance shouldn't cause any social boundaries, so that could be safely crossed out. I don't have any speech impediments, nor do I have trouble communicating. Therefore, since it wasn't something physical that you can see or hear, it had to be something else. Something not detectable by any kind of scientific analysis or implements. Something from the heart and mind. So that was it. Attitude. My attitude was all messed up.
Funny how things you say come back to bite you sometimes. I mean, just because its the internet, doesn't mean everything you mention will be taken for granted. Just look at my last post. How much negative attitude can be found in the first part of that post alone? Yikes. I frighten myself.
How would I even begin to think positive now? Fortunately, just a few days ago, I had read a recent edition of Reader's Digest Asia. The article was about marriage, which is relatively irrelevant to me, but it had an important paragraph on thinking positive. In a nutshell, it said that what is important is not what you remember, but how you remember it and express your feelings about it. In other words, instead of saying "I wish I could have spent my week of holidays bingeing out on video games, but all that homework from school ruined it," which is very much negative, I should have said "I was going to spend my whole holidays staring darkly at the TV with the video game controller in my numb hands, but thanks to the homework from school, I was able to spend my holidays productively." That is what positive thinking means.
***
Do you ever get a dull, bothering feeling in your chest when you realise you've been proudly doing something for all this time when it turns out you've been doing it exactly wrong from the start? Yeah, that feeling. I think I need to shorten my blogs. Tee hee.
Also, I'm going to stop being such a stick in the mud and I'm going to go ahead and put a picture of my face where my face should be. Besides, its not like I ever got Matthew Taranto's permission to use this picture on my website in the first place. However, to balance out, I'm going to have to diminish the presence of the About Me section. Wish me luck!
One person's initiative can have an indefinite effect on their surroundings, especially on the people around them.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
No Rest for the Weary
This is a very long post, quite likely the longest one yet, and that's saying something. However, this is because its the only post I'll be able to get in for a while, due to reasons that will be explained. I personally suggest that you read this extraordinarily lengthy post over the spread of several days, as per the asterisks.
***
It is always important, in life, for a person to have a moment of respite once in a while; a time to lay back one's head and rid one's mind of all problems and crowdedness of life, and just... reflect.
Not that I'll be getting a moment of that oppurtunity these Chinese New Year's Holidays, nope, most probably not one bit.
What is it in the minds of teachers that make them want to get everything done so quickly? I mean, yes, its good to finish the syllabus early in the year, so that more revision can be done before the exams. But does giving a tonne of homework to the students really help accelarate the learning proccess, or is it just a waste of time?
Unfortunately, I suspect the former. But sometimes, enough is enough, you know? Tell you what, I'm sitting with my back to my wordesk right now, and I'm turning around and geting my "homework file", the place where I keep my homework separate from the rest of the books. Let's open it up and see what we have in store for the Chinese New Year, shall we?
Here's a few strips of paper, from cutting and pasting notes in my exercise book. These go in the bin. And here's my Buku Miscellaneous (that's actually what I wrote on the cover), used for miscellaneous purposes. Not really homework.
And underneath, yes, here's our homework. An English directed essay, which shouldn't be a problem once I stop trying to avoid it and actually put my pen to the paper. Underneath are a bunch of other English papers, and near the end, there is a Summary Writing section. Ah, summary writing - summarising in writing is my weakest point. I'm often too long winded, as you can see right now. But English is easy, and shouldn't prose a challenge; we'll put that aside for now.
But what's this purple book? Aha this would be our History homework. Oh yes, my greatest enemies are the things that happened in the past - i.e., history. Technically, this book is supposed to be a reference book, a neat summary of the whole syllabus. However, it is severely incomplete. Every line is riddled with blank spaces, begging to be filled. What do we have to do? We have to open up our text books and complete the lines of phrases with the exact same wording used in the text book. And yet, for the past two weekends our History teacher has given us no rest, but rather homework, of copying out the contents of yet another reference book into our notebooks. Come on, History teacher of mine, how many times do you think we have to go through the same chapter before we know enough to pass a simple exam?
And underneath that purple History book - oh! The sight of my next piece of homework is enough to put me off my entire holiday! And yet, on the front it appears to be such a simple piece of homework. A few sheets of writing, photocopied and stapled together, lie in the file before me. What do you suppose I've been told to do with it? Well, basically our homework with these pieces of paper can be divided into two parts. This thing in front of me, photocopied and stapled together, is a Malay essay written by a past student, which, while the essay was reputedly good to earn the writer a decent grade, still contained a number of grammatical errors. The first part of our homework was simple - detect, eradicate, and correct as many of those errors as we could find. That was reasonable enough - students sift through the essay, word by word, keeping their eyes peeled for the mistakes of their brethren scholars, and in the proccess, repair on their own usage of grammar while at the same time noting the writing style used in the essay, and gaining the wisdom that has been penned down on that paper. A perfectly reasonable way to educate students on the art of writing, to perfection. Then why do we also have to copy out the whole essay from beginning to end? What do we benefit from that? That's the second part of our homework. After eliminating all the mistakes, we have to copy out the perfect essay, just as it was written before, but without the errors. Does there not exist point, o revered Malay teacher of mine, where so an amount of a good thing becomes so great as to cease being useful and merely becomes a burden?
But the teachers reply, you've got a week of holidays in front of you, so why wouldn't you have enough time to do that much homework, which is relatively little when compared to the amount of work that could be done in that time? But think, teachers, of this: We students are humans too. As humans, we only have limited time on this world, and as much time as we have is precious to us. Every so often, during the trials and tribulations of a working life, we are given time to rest our bodies and minds of all the exhaust that has been laid upon it. So why is it, teachers, that during this time when we will be absent from your classes for a prolonged period, you choose to burden us with immense amounts of homework, so that we may bring school into our homes and learn during the holidays? Can such homework even be considered as learning? We have a week of holidays, and you want us to spend some of that time doing homework. Ask yourselves, would that time be time well spent? If any amount of knowledge is to be gained during that time, then all is well and good. But to expand a simple work into a difficult and time-consuming one simply because you are able to do so is not the right thing to do.
I am a secondary school student, and this has been my rant.
Oh, and there's also a bit of Mathematics homework in this file too, about Graphs of Functions, but Mathematics is always easy and I'll finish that in no time at all.
***
I remember reading a sort of parable once - not really a parable, in the normal sense, but something to that effect - about corns and potatoes. The corns scorned the potatoes for growing underground, and prided themselves on standing so tall. The potatoes, however, replied that they were growing nonetheless, even though it didn't show. Said the potatoes, they grew slowly in silence, while the corns held their heads high for all to see. However, when the delinquent passes the fence, he sees the ripe corn, and not the potatoes, so that is what he will steal.
It went something like that anyway. I never gave it any thought at the time, but it didn't seem like the parable made any sense, nor did it seem applicable in human life. Unless you were a farmer whose corn kept getting stolen. However, just a few days ago, something happened that somehow made me think of that parable.
I have often prided myself on my above-average Malaysian English. The one whose essays English teacher always complimented. The one who always gets the highest marks in the English exams. The one who took it into his head to create a blog. Oh yes, that was me, and my classmates knew it. So much so, in fact, that they unanimously named me the Head of English in the class committee. Well, not exactly unanimously. It was more like three or four certain students shouting candidates to the teacher for each respective post. But when it came to the AJK of the English subject, no other names were mentioned but mine. Aside from those three or four students, there were about twenty who didn't say a word, any one of which might have had some objection. But since they didn't speak up, well, looks like it was unanimous to me.
So I was now officially the Englishman of the class. How do you suppose it made me feel? It felt good! But then one day, something happened. It was just a few days ago. I was on prefect duty on the canteen, and prefect duty, especially in the canteen, basically means standing still in one spot and eyeing students warily, just daring them to do something wrong. Just then a fellow prefect came up to me and said that one of the teachers wanted to talk to me. I asked him why, and he replied that it was because he told the teacher that I was good at English. However, it she was in no hurry to meet me just this moment, and I could go whenever I was free. For the time being I had not an inkling of what was going to happen, but all would be revealed at reccess time.
Once the fifth period bell rang, signalling the start of reccess, I went with my fellow prefect to meet the teacher. He left me at her table and went to resume prefect duty. I had not identified the teacher by name when my friend told me she wanted to meet me, but now, standing in front of her, I recognised her as one of the teachers in charge of the school's drama team. Sure enough, the first thing she asked me was if I knew a lot about the school's drama team. I replied that, yes, I had indeed watched a number of their performances, and knew them to be award winners at district level. She smiled and went on talking about drama, and then she said that they needed someone to write the script for this years drama. I blinked, and everything from that point on was slightly blury and misty, as if it was a dream. She said that because my English was reputedly so good, she would like me to write the scipt for this years drama. Right now I can't remember a lot of what she said, but the one part of the conversation that I remember very clearly was the part where she told me about the prospects.
In drama competitions, aside from the grand prize and trophy for the best drama, there are also a few other small awards, kind of like the Grammys. The only two of these awards I remember are the Best Actor/Actress award, and - could you guess - the Best Script award. Of course, when a drama wins first title, the actors split the gold and the glory amongst themselves. But when a lucky fellow scores the Best Script award, all credit goes to him alone. As it so happens, from a sample drama script that she lent me, the writer's name at the end is practically part of the format. Whoever wrote the script that reached out to the judges the most and stood out among the rest, the writer of that script gets a certificate, and no small amount of pride.
Of course, as a teacher she put more emphasis on the certificate, and how good it would be for Co-curriclar and all that. However, I was not so concerned about the certificate. For me to get the award would be more than enough, even if it didn't come with anything to show for it. Being the young ambitious writer that I am, I felt that this would be a big step forward in my, well, hobby. Winning that award would assure me, on no uncertain terms, that I was a capable writer. Therefore, my mission was to write the best drama I could, and with hope, luck, and prayer, I might achieve that envied status of being the writer of the Best Script. The team might even go on to state level, or international level competitions, and if they do, it would be my script they used! That would be amazing beyond imagination!
It all depends, of course, on how much effort I put into my script.
It also means I've got one more major assignment to complete during the Chinese New Year's holidays. Wish me luck!
***
It's already past midnight, and I started typing one and one half hours ago. Tomorrow is Sunday, which means church as usual. But after church, what with having one week holiday, and sister having returned from Jeremiah School for a week, it's off to the cool Highlands for a vacation! This means that while I get to enjoy the cool atmosphere and relaxing vacation, I also have to put up with what it entails, namely, no internet! This time round I have no intention of pre-typing all my blog posts for a massive flood when I get back. Instead I'll be working on my drama script, and to be honest, I don't expect I'll be halfway done even by the time we get back. We return on Wednesday, so there's probably time for a post on Thursday.
Then again, maybe not. Following Saturday is the day I go for my Life-Saving Bronze Medallion test. What with my sister being gone for the past three weeks of school and all, and also school, I've had little more than zero practice. Now, with the Cameron Highlands trip ahead, we'll only have Thrusday, Friday, and possibly Wednesday if we get back early enough to get in the last of our training before the test on Saturday morning. How will we fare? Only time will tell. The examiner is a bit biased to our benefit though so it shouldn't be too hard.
Something unexplainable happened last Wednesday. There's some kind of volleyball competition going on between the schools, and our school's team is taking part, which accounts for more than one missing face in class. Even though our school had a volleyball court of its own, for this tournament our school team would be playing somewhere else. We all knew that much. So imagine our surprise on Wednesday morning when we looked out the window from class, and saw, in the volleyball court...
Meh, I'll tell the full story when I get back from the Highlands. Its much too late for so exciting a tale right now.
Wishing you a Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year! Gong Xi Fa Cai! Stop asking me for ang pow, its really getting old and it never was funny.
***
It is always important, in life, for a person to have a moment of respite once in a while; a time to lay back one's head and rid one's mind of all problems and crowdedness of life, and just... reflect.
Not that I'll be getting a moment of that oppurtunity these Chinese New Year's Holidays, nope, most probably not one bit.
What is it in the minds of teachers that make them want to get everything done so quickly? I mean, yes, its good to finish the syllabus early in the year, so that more revision can be done before the exams. But does giving a tonne of homework to the students really help accelarate the learning proccess, or is it just a waste of time?
Unfortunately, I suspect the former. But sometimes, enough is enough, you know? Tell you what, I'm sitting with my back to my wordesk right now, and I'm turning around and geting my "homework file", the place where I keep my homework separate from the rest of the books. Let's open it up and see what we have in store for the Chinese New Year, shall we?
Here's a few strips of paper, from cutting and pasting notes in my exercise book. These go in the bin. And here's my Buku Miscellaneous (that's actually what I wrote on the cover), used for miscellaneous purposes. Not really homework.
And underneath, yes, here's our homework. An English directed essay, which shouldn't be a problem once I stop trying to avoid it and actually put my pen to the paper. Underneath are a bunch of other English papers, and near the end, there is a Summary Writing section. Ah, summary writing - summarising in writing is my weakest point. I'm often too long winded, as you can see right now. But English is easy, and shouldn't prose a challenge; we'll put that aside for now.
But what's this purple book? Aha this would be our History homework. Oh yes, my greatest enemies are the things that happened in the past - i.e., history. Technically, this book is supposed to be a reference book, a neat summary of the whole syllabus. However, it is severely incomplete. Every line is riddled with blank spaces, begging to be filled. What do we have to do? We have to open up our text books and complete the lines of phrases with the exact same wording used in the text book. And yet, for the past two weekends our History teacher has given us no rest, but rather homework, of copying out the contents of yet another reference book into our notebooks. Come on, History teacher of mine, how many times do you think we have to go through the same chapter before we know enough to pass a simple exam?
And underneath that purple History book - oh! The sight of my next piece of homework is enough to put me off my entire holiday! And yet, on the front it appears to be such a simple piece of homework. A few sheets of writing, photocopied and stapled together, lie in the file before me. What do you suppose I've been told to do with it? Well, basically our homework with these pieces of paper can be divided into two parts. This thing in front of me, photocopied and stapled together, is a Malay essay written by a past student, which, while the essay was reputedly good to earn the writer a decent grade, still contained a number of grammatical errors. The first part of our homework was simple - detect, eradicate, and correct as many of those errors as we could find. That was reasonable enough - students sift through the essay, word by word, keeping their eyes peeled for the mistakes of their brethren scholars, and in the proccess, repair on their own usage of grammar while at the same time noting the writing style used in the essay, and gaining the wisdom that has been penned down on that paper. A perfectly reasonable way to educate students on the art of writing, to perfection. Then why do we also have to copy out the whole essay from beginning to end? What do we benefit from that? That's the second part of our homework. After eliminating all the mistakes, we have to copy out the perfect essay, just as it was written before, but without the errors. Does there not exist point, o revered Malay teacher of mine, where so an amount of a good thing becomes so great as to cease being useful and merely becomes a burden?
But the teachers reply, you've got a week of holidays in front of you, so why wouldn't you have enough time to do that much homework, which is relatively little when compared to the amount of work that could be done in that time? But think, teachers, of this: We students are humans too. As humans, we only have limited time on this world, and as much time as we have is precious to us. Every so often, during the trials and tribulations of a working life, we are given time to rest our bodies and minds of all the exhaust that has been laid upon it. So why is it, teachers, that during this time when we will be absent from your classes for a prolonged period, you choose to burden us with immense amounts of homework, so that we may bring school into our homes and learn during the holidays? Can such homework even be considered as learning? We have a week of holidays, and you want us to spend some of that time doing homework. Ask yourselves, would that time be time well spent? If any amount of knowledge is to be gained during that time, then all is well and good. But to expand a simple work into a difficult and time-consuming one simply because you are able to do so is not the right thing to do.
I am a secondary school student, and this has been my rant.
Oh, and there's also a bit of Mathematics homework in this file too, about Graphs of Functions, but Mathematics is always easy and I'll finish that in no time at all.
***
I remember reading a sort of parable once - not really a parable, in the normal sense, but something to that effect - about corns and potatoes. The corns scorned the potatoes for growing underground, and prided themselves on standing so tall. The potatoes, however, replied that they were growing nonetheless, even though it didn't show. Said the potatoes, they grew slowly in silence, while the corns held their heads high for all to see. However, when the delinquent passes the fence, he sees the ripe corn, and not the potatoes, so that is what he will steal.
It went something like that anyway. I never gave it any thought at the time, but it didn't seem like the parable made any sense, nor did it seem applicable in human life. Unless you were a farmer whose corn kept getting stolen. However, just a few days ago, something happened that somehow made me think of that parable.
I have often prided myself on my above-average Malaysian English. The one whose essays English teacher always complimented. The one who always gets the highest marks in the English exams. The one who took it into his head to create a blog. Oh yes, that was me, and my classmates knew it. So much so, in fact, that they unanimously named me the Head of English in the class committee. Well, not exactly unanimously. It was more like three or four certain students shouting candidates to the teacher for each respective post. But when it came to the AJK of the English subject, no other names were mentioned but mine. Aside from those three or four students, there were about twenty who didn't say a word, any one of which might have had some objection. But since they didn't speak up, well, looks like it was unanimous to me.
So I was now officially the Englishman of the class. How do you suppose it made me feel? It felt good! But then one day, something happened. It was just a few days ago. I was on prefect duty on the canteen, and prefect duty, especially in the canteen, basically means standing still in one spot and eyeing students warily, just daring them to do something wrong. Just then a fellow prefect came up to me and said that one of the teachers wanted to talk to me. I asked him why, and he replied that it was because he told the teacher that I was good at English. However, it she was in no hurry to meet me just this moment, and I could go whenever I was free. For the time being I had not an inkling of what was going to happen, but all would be revealed at reccess time.
Once the fifth period bell rang, signalling the start of reccess, I went with my fellow prefect to meet the teacher. He left me at her table and went to resume prefect duty. I had not identified the teacher by name when my friend told me she wanted to meet me, but now, standing in front of her, I recognised her as one of the teachers in charge of the school's drama team. Sure enough, the first thing she asked me was if I knew a lot about the school's drama team. I replied that, yes, I had indeed watched a number of their performances, and knew them to be award winners at district level. She smiled and went on talking about drama, and then she said that they needed someone to write the script for this years drama. I blinked, and everything from that point on was slightly blury and misty, as if it was a dream. She said that because my English was reputedly so good, she would like me to write the scipt for this years drama. Right now I can't remember a lot of what she said, but the one part of the conversation that I remember very clearly was the part where she told me about the prospects.
In drama competitions, aside from the grand prize and trophy for the best drama, there are also a few other small awards, kind of like the Grammys. The only two of these awards I remember are the Best Actor/Actress award, and - could you guess - the Best Script award. Of course, when a drama wins first title, the actors split the gold and the glory amongst themselves. But when a lucky fellow scores the Best Script award, all credit goes to him alone. As it so happens, from a sample drama script that she lent me, the writer's name at the end is practically part of the format. Whoever wrote the script that reached out to the judges the most and stood out among the rest, the writer of that script gets a certificate, and no small amount of pride.
Of course, as a teacher she put more emphasis on the certificate, and how good it would be for Co-curriclar and all that. However, I was not so concerned about the certificate. For me to get the award would be more than enough, even if it didn't come with anything to show for it. Being the young ambitious writer that I am, I felt that this would be a big step forward in my, well, hobby. Winning that award would assure me, on no uncertain terms, that I was a capable writer. Therefore, my mission was to write the best drama I could, and with hope, luck, and prayer, I might achieve that envied status of being the writer of the Best Script. The team might even go on to state level, or international level competitions, and if they do, it would be my script they used! That would be amazing beyond imagination!
It all depends, of course, on how much effort I put into my script.
It also means I've got one more major assignment to complete during the Chinese New Year's holidays. Wish me luck!
***
It's already past midnight, and I started typing one and one half hours ago. Tomorrow is Sunday, which means church as usual. But after church, what with having one week holiday, and sister having returned from Jeremiah School for a week, it's off to the cool Highlands for a vacation! This means that while I get to enjoy the cool atmosphere and relaxing vacation, I also have to put up with what it entails, namely, no internet! This time round I have no intention of pre-typing all my blog posts for a massive flood when I get back. Instead I'll be working on my drama script, and to be honest, I don't expect I'll be halfway done even by the time we get back. We return on Wednesday, so there's probably time for a post on Thursday.
Then again, maybe not. Following Saturday is the day I go for my Life-Saving Bronze Medallion test. What with my sister being gone for the past three weeks of school and all, and also school, I've had little more than zero practice. Now, with the Cameron Highlands trip ahead, we'll only have Thrusday, Friday, and possibly Wednesday if we get back early enough to get in the last of our training before the test on Saturday morning. How will we fare? Only time will tell. The examiner is a bit biased to our benefit though so it shouldn't be too hard.
Something unexplainable happened last Wednesday. There's some kind of volleyball competition going on between the schools, and our school's team is taking part, which accounts for more than one missing face in class. Even though our school had a volleyball court of its own, for this tournament our school team would be playing somewhere else. We all knew that much. So imagine our surprise on Wednesday morning when we looked out the window from class, and saw, in the volleyball court...
Meh, I'll tell the full story when I get back from the Highlands. Its much too late for so exciting a tale right now.
Wishing you a Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year! Gong Xi Fa Cai! Stop asking me for ang pow, its really getting old and it never was funny.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
We Apologise for the Inconvenience
So its been a week since I last updated. And I thought the four-day lapse was bad? Ha. My eyes roll at my own ignorance. What's worse is, I wish I could say that it was school that has been holding me back, but thats not the truth. The truth is, I've gotten addicted to video games all over again. Its just like those kinds of love songs all over the radio, where the girl says "I can't believe I want you back after all you've done to me!" Bleughhh...
***
I've struck upon something to think about. How beneficial exactly is Facebook? I've been avoiding creating a Facebook account for various reasons, but now I'm starting to wonder, are these fears founded on solid rock or sinking sand? Does the reward outweigh the risk? Recently our class received a piece of folded green paper each, which is supposed to be a newsletter apparently, and for half a page or so it alights upon the subject of the bad effects of Facebook, which is what I've been avoiding Facebook for all this time. But it also mentions some dozen good uses of Facebook. This and other recent events make me consider if having Facebook would be useful. I'll have to present the topic in English inside the month or so, so I'll find out once I actually get down to reading that green thing.
For those of you who have Facebook, here's an idea. People use Facebook to find people they know, right? Well, if you want to avoid having anyone recognising you, what you can do is, use for your display picture a photo of you and one or more of your friends. That way, when people look up your name on Facebook, then out of the hundreds of names that are bound to appear, they won't be able to find you for certain, especially if you use a group photo. After all, if a photo contained two or more people named John Smith in it, and all of them used that picture for their Facebook account... Well, you get the picture. <-(Hee hee hee, see what I did there)
***
Up to this point in this year, we have had to write two (2) essays at school. Two different essays for two different languages (Melayu and English). For some reason I expected plenty more essays than this. I had been bracing myself for a whole year of one-essay-per-week, but now, I'm dissapointed. We handed in our essays ages ago, and we haven't gotten them back yet? Do our teachers like to delay reading our essays as much as we students like to delay writing them? Sometime I just don't know. Its a funny old world, that's for sure.
***
Regular classes and tuition every week are finally getting into full swing, and students are finally picking up their rhythm after all that end-year holiday, when all of a sudden, BAM! we get what I've heard my mom refer to as a "brick wall". I don't deny that in exercising you need to have something called "momentum", which you pick up by doing an exercise for a prolonged time at a constant pace, and if you stop suddenly without slowing down you momentum first, then you get what my mom calls the "brick wall". Its kind of funny when I imagine someone jogging and then decides to stop suddenly when BAM! he runs into a brick wall. I'm positive that's where the term come from.
As I was saying, we've only been back to school for 14 days and we're just getting used to it all over again, when out of the blue comes this one-week holiday getting closer and closer, like a massive looming White Whale suddenly approaching from the horizon, charging the ship at full steam, head first and mouth open. Did I mention I've been reading Moby Dick? Anyway, I've just started enjoying school, so what do we need another holiday for? Well, for Chinese New Year of course. Chinese New Year is an important time for the Chinese, and as a multicultural community Malaysia has to look out for everyone's interest. No, I'm not being sarcastic, I'm just facing the truth. I didn't write this much to complain at the government's holiday system, nor am I complaining about the conflict of holiday seasons. I'm just yelling at the unavoidable forces of the universe. Its just something I do occasionally.
***
Looking at the way things are going, I might have to shift and reduce blogging to every Thrusday. We'll see how things go after Chinese New Year. Cross your fingers and hope! And pray too, but not in the Justin Beiber sense. That modern-day Pharisee-hypocrite gets under my skin.
***
I've struck upon something to think about. How beneficial exactly is Facebook? I've been avoiding creating a Facebook account for various reasons, but now I'm starting to wonder, are these fears founded on solid rock or sinking sand? Does the reward outweigh the risk? Recently our class received a piece of folded green paper each, which is supposed to be a newsletter apparently, and for half a page or so it alights upon the subject of the bad effects of Facebook, which is what I've been avoiding Facebook for all this time. But it also mentions some dozen good uses of Facebook. This and other recent events make me consider if having Facebook would be useful. I'll have to present the topic in English inside the month or so, so I'll find out once I actually get down to reading that green thing.
For those of you who have Facebook, here's an idea. People use Facebook to find people they know, right? Well, if you want to avoid having anyone recognising you, what you can do is, use for your display picture a photo of you and one or more of your friends. That way, when people look up your name on Facebook, then out of the hundreds of names that are bound to appear, they won't be able to find you for certain, especially if you use a group photo. After all, if a photo contained two or more people named John Smith in it, and all of them used that picture for their Facebook account... Well, you get the picture. <-(Hee hee hee, see what I did there)
***
Up to this point in this year, we have had to write two (2) essays at school. Two different essays for two different languages (Melayu and English). For some reason I expected plenty more essays than this. I had been bracing myself for a whole year of one-essay-per-week, but now, I'm dissapointed. We handed in our essays ages ago, and we haven't gotten them back yet? Do our teachers like to delay reading our essays as much as we students like to delay writing them? Sometime I just don't know. Its a funny old world, that's for sure.
***
Regular classes and tuition every week are finally getting into full swing, and students are finally picking up their rhythm after all that end-year holiday, when all of a sudden, BAM! we get what I've heard my mom refer to as a "brick wall". I don't deny that in exercising you need to have something called "momentum", which you pick up by doing an exercise for a prolonged time at a constant pace, and if you stop suddenly without slowing down you momentum first, then you get what my mom calls the "brick wall". Its kind of funny when I imagine someone jogging and then decides to stop suddenly when BAM! he runs into a brick wall. I'm positive that's where the term come from.
As I was saying, we've only been back to school for 14 days and we're just getting used to it all over again, when out of the blue comes this one-week holiday getting closer and closer, like a massive looming White Whale suddenly approaching from the horizon, charging the ship at full steam, head first and mouth open. Did I mention I've been reading Moby Dick? Anyway, I've just started enjoying school, so what do we need another holiday for? Well, for Chinese New Year of course. Chinese New Year is an important time for the Chinese, and as a multicultural community Malaysia has to look out for everyone's interest. No, I'm not being sarcastic, I'm just facing the truth. I didn't write this much to complain at the government's holiday system, nor am I complaining about the conflict of holiday seasons. I'm just yelling at the unavoidable forces of the universe. Its just something I do occasionally.
***
Looking at the way things are going, I might have to shift and reduce blogging to every Thrusday. We'll see how things go after Chinese New Year. Cross your fingers and hope! And pray too, but not in the Justin Beiber sense. That modern-day Pharisee-hypocrite gets under my skin.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Days 6 and 7 - Concerning the Year Ahead and what it Entails
Ahh, and so we reach the end of the first 7 days of school in the new year. I wish I could have said that on a Friday or a Sunday, because that would be more... symbollic, or whatever, but because of New Year's Day falling on a Sunday, and the teachers not wanting to miss any holidays either, the first day of school was on a Wednesday. Becaue of this, my mind will for about another week or so be wired to think of Wednesday as the first school day of the week.
All things considered, I quite like how this year's school cycle started out. I have reason to believe that the year ahead is going to be exciting. From my constantly introspective view of life, it seems to me that each year, since I started taking count at about the age of 13, has been better than the last. I intend to keep up the streak, because I've heard I'm concientious too. However, even this early in the year, I'm starting to notice a few obstacles that might lead me to a decline in my personality.
Peer pressure seems to be peering up at me everywhere I go.
Okay, that's the best I can put it. Perhaps I'm not all that introspective after all. But, with any luck, this post and those preceding will remind me, when things are getting glum, that I promised myself I wouldn't let the vile influences of this world consume me, and stuff.
All things considered, I quite like how this year's school cycle started out. I have reason to believe that the year ahead is going to be exciting. From my constantly introspective view of life, it seems to me that each year, since I started taking count at about the age of 13, has been better than the last. I intend to keep up the streak, because I've heard I'm concientious too. However, even this early in the year, I'm starting to notice a few obstacles that might lead me to a decline in my personality.
Peer pressure seems to be peering up at me everywhere I go.
Okay, that's the best I can put it. Perhaps I'm not all that introspective after all. But, with any luck, this post and those preceding will remind me, when things are getting glum, that I promised myself I wouldn't let the vile influences of this world consume me, and stuff.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Days 3 through 5 - Concerning Blog
So I haven't updated for 3 days. Did you think I was dead?
After my mom read the little conversation extract I wrote in the last post, she won't accept "Fine" for an answer when she asks me "How was school today?" Looks like my big mouth finally got me in trouble.
But you mustn't listen to me complain. I would like to say that I have a perfectly reasonable excuse for not updating for 3 days when I was planning to do so every day for the first week of school. But the truth is, I have no excuses. I had perfectly enough time to update every day of the weekend, but I didn't. It was the first weekend of the school year, man! You've got to relax and appreciate it! So I played video games all day and barely got my homework done.
Anyway, during the weekend, I did a bit of snooping around the internet, and found rather a number of cool blogs to read. This is the first time, since I became a blogger, I have ever intentionally looked for blogs to read. Unfortunately, since I knew of no other blogs at the time, finding some was a bit of a difficulty. So I used the Next Blog button at the top of my own blog, and it took me around and showed me a number of interesting blogs. Mind you, the system has its flaws - at one point, by pressing the Next Blog button I was introduced to some dozen blogs that talked about nothing but knitting, quilts, and craft, all in a row. The Next Blog button on each of those blogs just lead to another blog about the same thing.
Eventually, I did find one or two actually good blogs with the Next Blog button, but after a while I switched over to Google to find me blogs. I couldn't risk another knitting marathon again. Anyway, it was a productive weekend, in a way, and I was able to pick up a lot about blogs.
But you know something? What do you think would be your idea for an ideal blog? Everyone has their own opinions, but apparently Blogger has something to say about good blogs too. Here is an extract from the Blogger helpfiles, found under Promoting Your Blog:
Keep your posts and paragraphs short. Strive for succinct posts that pump pertinent new information into the blogosphere and move on. Keep it short and sweet so visitors can pop in, read up, and click on.
I read this, and thought to myself "Oh... really? Is that how its supposed to be? Whoops." Because while I enjoy writing, the only part about my English exam that I truly fear is Summary Writing. In other words, I enjoy being long-winded about things I talk about. Some of my posts have been really, really looong. Apparently Blogger says that's not the right way to go about things. No wonder I only have 7 followers.
*****************************
Due to school-related nonsense, I feel I should add at this point that lapses in blog updates will begin happening more often. However, I'll try to last out this first week of school with frequent blog updates. I wonder why?
After my mom read the little conversation extract I wrote in the last post, she won't accept "Fine" for an answer when she asks me "How was school today?" Looks like my big mouth finally got me in trouble.
But you mustn't listen to me complain. I would like to say that I have a perfectly reasonable excuse for not updating for 3 days when I was planning to do so every day for the first week of school. But the truth is, I have no excuses. I had perfectly enough time to update every day of the weekend, but I didn't. It was the first weekend of the school year, man! You've got to relax and appreciate it! So I played video games all day and barely got my homework done.
Anyway, during the weekend, I did a bit of snooping around the internet, and found rather a number of cool blogs to read. This is the first time, since I became a blogger, I have ever intentionally looked for blogs to read. Unfortunately, since I knew of no other blogs at the time, finding some was a bit of a difficulty. So I used the Next Blog button at the top of my own blog, and it took me around and showed me a number of interesting blogs. Mind you, the system has its flaws - at one point, by pressing the Next Blog button I was introduced to some dozen blogs that talked about nothing but knitting, quilts, and craft, all in a row. The Next Blog button on each of those blogs just lead to another blog about the same thing.
Eventually, I did find one or two actually good blogs with the Next Blog button, but after a while I switched over to Google to find me blogs. I couldn't risk another knitting marathon again. Anyway, it was a productive weekend, in a way, and I was able to pick up a lot about blogs.
But you know something? What do you think would be your idea for an ideal blog? Everyone has their own opinions, but apparently Blogger has something to say about good blogs too. Here is an extract from the Blogger helpfiles, found under Promoting Your Blog:
Keep your posts and paragraphs short. Strive for succinct posts that pump pertinent new information into the blogosphere and move on. Keep it short and sweet so visitors can pop in, read up, and click on.
I read this, and thought to myself "Oh... really? Is that how its supposed to be? Whoops." Because while I enjoy writing, the only part about my English exam that I truly fear is Summary Writing. In other words, I enjoy being long-winded about things I talk about. Some of my posts have been really, really looong. Apparently Blogger says that's not the right way to go about things. No wonder I only have 7 followers.
*****************************
Due to school-related nonsense, I feel I should add at this point that lapses in blog updates will begin happening more often. However, I'll try to last out this first week of school with frequent blog updates. I wonder why?
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