The POWER OF WORDS

A group of frogs were travelling through the woods and 2 of them fell into a deep pit. When the other frogs saw how deep the pit was, they told the 2 frogs that they were as good as dead. The 2 frogs ignored the comments and they tried to jump out of the pit with all their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died.

The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him the whole time to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the other frogs said, "Did you not hear us?" The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.

There is power of life and death in the tongue. An encouraging word to someone who is down can lift them up and help them make it through the day.

A destructive word to someone who is down can be what it takes to kill them.

Be careful of what you say. Speak life to those who cross your path. The power of words...It is something of great importance, sometimes hard to understand that an encouraging word can go such a long way. Anyone can speak word that tend to rob another of the spirit to continue in difficult times. Special is the individual who will take the time to encourage another.

-Author unknown

Let the Battle Begin!

Today marks the first day of my 2nd biggest war I'll be battling in my A-Levels. Got 15 points for my trials (A for all 3 subjects Mathematics-93%, Physics-92%, Chemistry-87%). It was a good encouragement.

Note to self: I shall not be perished in this battle! 15 points all the way!

Sat for my first of 8 papers of the Advanced Subsidiary Examination, Pure Mathematics 1. It was surprisingly easy (praise the lord!) but nevertheless I'm bloody, sadly, heartbokenly disappointed that I've stupidly lost 2 marks for not using my brain! Well there goes the Top In The World Award. It was something to aim for and well...not my luck I suppose.

Note to self: Do not jump down building! (only kidding of course...no need to raise an alarm!)

Still have 7 papers left. Aim for nothing less than 100%! (might be fairly impossible...but like they say, "AIM HIGH!")

Road to success

On your road to success you will be faced with obstacles that will make your journey a hard one, full of challenges. Other people being one of your most irritating hindrance. They'll turn on you and out of spite do things to stop you from succeeding. They're envious of your achievements when they themselves have achieved so little. They want the world to progress with their sad slowness and only then when they come out first, not because they were the best but because there was no one better will they leave you alone.

Never let anyone put you down

Never let anyone cloud your judgement.

Never let anyone influence you to the dark side.

NEVER GIVE UP AND NEVER GIVE IN!

It won't be a journey, a road to success if everything was laid out on a silver plate for you to take. Success is sweetest when you (and only you) know what you did and all the things you've sacrificed to achieve it.

Do what you know and believe with all you're worth is right, even when you have the world against you.

Do what it takes to reach the top.

Do what it takes to reach the greatest heights.

The sky is NOT the limit...it only is for those who fail to see beyond the great possibilities of (among other things...) space exploration!

In case you didn't know...IT'S THE 21ST CENTURY!

Don't you just hate it when someone says something like, "Don't you think Engineering is for guys and it'll be difficult for girls? Is it wise that a girl (a.k.a me) takes up Engineering?"

Hell-o!

What century are you living in? It's the 21'st century! Who still says those kind of things? It's like saying all nurses are women and all car mechanics are men. How can you stereotype people like that? In that case, all we women might just as well stay in the kitchen and cook (and shall we say all chefs are women too? Ever heard of Jamie Oliver? Gorden Ramsey?)

Honestly! Sheesh...

Anyway, heard that line last night from a fellow junior (she's on the road to become a teacher, a job which I personally consider to be one of the noblest on God's green Earth but I do hope that's not how she'll educate her students. Be more open minded, please!) when we juniors had a meeting and when I went back to my room I just felt a tad irritated with the world. Mostly at her but still felt the irritation go around.

Funny really how narrow minded some people can be. It's just sad, ain't it that I know people like that?

SHEESH!!!

Sweet Victory!

O. M. G.

Let me savour this...

YAY!

End of AS Trials... AND...

I GOT AN OVERALL BAND 8 FOR IELTS!!!

This is GREAT!

The IELTS results came out today. A bunch of us checked it on the net and sweet peas! I positively SCREAMED when I saw the results. Couldn't believe my eyes really!

Listening: Band 8

Reading: Band 8

Writing: Band 7

Speaking Band 8

Overall Band: 8

End of trials. End of IELTS worries.

Next mission: CONQUER A.S. EXAMINATION!!!

The first of many TRIALS

I'm right in the middle of my AS (Advanced Subsidary) Trial Examination.
Start: 20 April 09 (Mon)
End: 30 April 09 (Thu)
Time Table:
20/4 (Mon): Pure Mathematics 1 (8.30-10.15 am)
21/4 (Tue): Physics Paper 3 (Lab) (11 am-1 pm)
22/4 (Wed): Physics Paper 2 (8.30-9.30 am)
24/4 (Fri): Statistics 1 (8.30-9.45 am)
28/4 (Tue): Chemisty Paper 3 (Lab) (11 am-1 pm)
29/4 (Wed): Chemistry Paper 2 (8.30-9.45 am)
30/4 (Thu): Physics Paper 1 (8.30-9.30 am)
Chemistry Paper 1 (10.30-11.30 am)
Wish me luck! :)

Our exam hall

My table's the one with the green bottle...at the very end of the hall (can't feel the fan from my seat:( it's HOT!)

Some last minute recall and recap before our paper starts...a friend of mine took this

IELTS Battle

IELTS EXAMINATION!!!
Venue: College Hall
Time: 9 am
I remember that I and some of my friends had a bit of confusion on the starting time. Funnily enough I don’t know what prompted me to think that it starts at 8 am but my teacher did say it starts at 8.30 am. Now, this wouldn’t be much of a problem if the candidates weren’t required to come 45 MINUTES EARLY! Oh my! See my problem? If it starts at 8, I’ll have to go at 7.15 but if it starts at 8.30, I could happily go at 7.45. In the end, went at 7.25 and boy was it a LONG wait.

 The British Council people came around 8 am. It was interesting seeing them come…one of them was rolling a ‘treasure case?’ It certainly looked like it. It was a BIG silver-metallic box thingy. Until the end I’m not quite sure what was stored in it. Perhaps our exam papers. That would make sense.
Registration started at 8.15 am.
Number of candidates to register: 170
Definitely not going to start at 8.30.
During registration we were required to show our IC, our little white slip that has our picture and candidate number on it, and we have to put down our signatures. I made it a point to mention this coz they cross referenced everything with our original registration form. Phew! Boy! Must’ve been a case of candidates asking someone else to sit for their paper or something! But man! For an English Test?? Tsk tsk!
Finally registration was over and everyone was seated (assigned seats according to our candidate number) and our exams begin!
First up: LISTENING

Time: 9 – 9.40 am
The CD is half an hour long. After that we’re given 10 minutes to transfer our answers to the answer sheet.
I’ve never really had any problems with my listening during my classes but hmm…might’ve missed a couple of words this time around. SIGH!
Second up: READING
Time: 9.56 – 10.56 am
Your typical ‘read the passage and answer the questions’ type of thing but don’t underestimate the paper though. It could be pretty tricky (and that’s coming from me!)
Third and lastly: WRITING
Time: 11.05 – 12.05 noon
Two parts in writing: Task 1 and Task 2.
Task 1 is based on a chart/diagram/graph/etc. where we’ll have to describe all the trends and what not. Analyze and report! Write about 150 words.
Task 2 is a normal 250 words essay (could always go more, of course but never less!). The topic (I can’t remember PRECISELY since they took away our question papers at the end of every component! Why I wonder..): If products are good and meets the consumer’s needs, people will buy it. Therefore there is not a need for advertisements and they are nothing more than a form of entertainment. How far do you agree of disagree? (I’m pretty sure it was phrased out better though but well…you get the idea.)
And that’s the end!
Point to note: We weren’t allowed to bring in ANYTHING into the examination hall and I mean NOTHING! Just bring yourself. And your IC. And your little white slip. And that’s it. Everything else we had to surrender (even my student tag!) But not too worry. They had little zip-lock bags where we could store our belongings (wallets and handphones).
Also, we all used the British Council pencil (No, it wasn’t mechanical. A normal ‘soft’ pencil. Hardly the type kids like us use these days. You should’ve have heard how people went on and on about these pencils!) and an eraser. I do think they have a policy of only letting 2 pencils on the table at a time. Funny though. Halfway trough my writing tasks both my pencil were blunt so I asked for a new one. He took the one on my table, brought 2 new sharp ones and before leaving, took the one I had in my hand. Lolx.
Yeah…that’s about it. They said we’ll be able to check our results on the 30th of April (2 weeks from now). Can’t wait! We could either wait for our college announce our results or check it ourselves online at http://ielts-results.britishcouncil.org/.