LIU WEI LI        S3-09       08/08/12

National Day celebration

             Today is Wednesday and it is our school’s national day celebration. This is the first time I celebrated another country’s national day. Before I went to school this morning, I thought the celebration would just be some performances by the students and then I can go home. However, it was actually different, it was actually much funner than I thought it would be. 

              A lot of parents came to school to help out the national day celebration. We could go to different places to play different games. The first game I played was called Five stones. There were five stages for this game and you could get nine stamps if you completed all the nine stages. The first few stages was actually very simple and I finished them very soon. Then, when it came to stage six, it became a lot harder. There were more steps and the each step were much harder. Of course the last stage was the hardest, the time I used to complete the ninth stage was actually the same as the time I used to complete first eighth stage. 

              In the first stage of the game, I had to throw all the five stones onto the ground. Then I picked up one in my hand and threw it onto the air. While the stone was still on the air, I had to pick up one on the ground and caught the one I just threw. I need to repeat the step until all the five stones are in my hand. Stage two is almost the same as stage one. I threw one onto the air and this time, I caught two on the ground instead of one. The third stage was catching three stones at one time. Hence, the first four stage was actually quite similar. The fifth stage was now a lot different and a lot harder but now I could not remember clearly. But I remembered somewhere in the middle, I had picked up two in my hand first. Then, I threw one of the two stones in my hand to the air and then put the other one in my hand on the ground. Then, I had to pick up another stone and catch the one that is falling from the air. The last stage was putting all five stones together on your hand. Then, you need to turn your hand over and using the back of your hand to catch at least four stones. Then, you had to do the same thing again. But this time you only had to catch at least three stones. 

               I also played some other games which I could not remember the name, but I think this one was the most interesting one. Our national day celebration in China was never this fun.

LIU WEI LI        S3-09       17/07/12

Chinese LC exam

       Today is Tuesday and it is the day of our Chinese listening comprehension exam. It was the second national exam we took this year. I felt lucky that the first few national exams were Chinese so that I could get to practice with such easy subject. Then the next time when it comes to English, I will already know the skill and won’t be too nervous.

       In the morning, we had terrible PE lesson. Without any doubt, we went for a fourteen-minute run again today. Although today is a running period but I still prayed that there won’t be any running today before the lesson. Anyway, before we went outside the school and started the running, we did some upper body exercise. We did some push-ups and chin-ups before the running. After that, the most terrible time came, we started running after a short briefing by Mr. Dennis. I run as slow as possible and I still feel tired after coming back.

       After the PE lesson, we had two English lessons. We were still doing the same thing today and we are going to do same thing again tomorrow which is predict, question, clarify and summarize the paragraphs. However, we did it in a different way today. We finish the work in a group of four today instead of finishing it individually. Our homework tonight is still the same thing which is finishing another paragraph in a group of four.

       After school, we stayed back for the Chinese listening comprehension exam. The duration of the exam was about half an hour. We went into the examination classroom about forty minutes before the exam started. During that forty minutes, we were listening to some music. Then, the exam started, the test was quite easy and it ended very soon. After the test, everyone in my class started to discuss the answers to the questions. I hate to discuss this with my classmates because I don’t want to know if I got any question wrong. Therefore, I went back immediately after the test. 

LIU WEI LI         S3-09         16/07/12

Discussion bout RH Day

         Today is Monday and I had to go back to school again. I did not have enough rest during the weekend so I felt tired today. I got up as late as I could today but I still wanted to sleep. I could not open my eyes during the first several sections. However, I still kept my eyes open because there will be a level test next week and I have to do well in this level test.

         There will be also a Chinese listening comprehension exam tomorrow but I think it will be very easy for me. I had done a listening comprehension practice once and the speed the person spoke was extremely slow. That was definitely not the speed that a person talk in normal life. However, lower speed can make it clearer and easier to follow though I am afraid that I my be lost somewhere in the middle. We are not going to have lesson this Friday due to the RH Day but we still have to come to school for some activities. Each class of the secondary three will represent a different country and our class is going to represent China which is my hometown. We will do many different things to make the sec one and sec two students to know better about the Chinese culture. I am going to do the paper cut and calligraphy work with three other students that day. I can do a little bit calligraphy but that was a long time ago. I learnt calligraphy when I was about seven years which was eight years ago. I don’t know whether I still have the skill or not and we will see on that day.

           I was informed that I won’t need to go to the basketball training tomorrow due to the B boys’ basketball competition. The coach and the teacher in charge are going to watch their match tomorrow so there won’t be any teacher to train us. I was happy because I could go back to the hostel four hours earlier than usual. 

LIU WEI LI           S3-09         15/07/12

Went to the bookshop

          Today is Sunday and it is was a quite boring day as I had nothing much to do during the day. I was still tired after yesterday’s Chinese literal camp about the book Dream of the red chamber. Also, I still got some homework to do which were English and Geography. The homework was not much. I spent about two hours finishing all the homework.

          I wanted to go to a movie in the afternoon, but I did not think I had enough time to go because I had to go to the supermarket to buy some stuff and I also need to go to pay my phone bill. I did not pay for my bill last month on time so I better pay it on time this month. After that, I went to bookshop and wanted to buy a book to read. I spent about an hour in the bookshop to find the book I was interested in. I did not know why I could not find all the classic books which were recommended by Ms. Kaur. Most of the book there were written in recent years. Finally, I noticed that there were some book written by Stephen King who was the only name I knew there. I picked up some of his books to read for a while and I decided to purchase the book called Full Dark, No Stars. I did not know exactly what the book was about, but I knew that Stephen King’s books should not be boring as I had read a lot of his books such as The Shawshank Redemption. I also watched some of movies that was made based on his works.

          I went back to hostel after leaving the bookshop and started reading the book when I reached the hostel. The book was kind of horror but the story seemed to be interesting. I could not give any comment until I finished the book.

LIU WEI LI           S3-09          14/07/12

Chinese camp

              Today is Saturday and I had to get up extremely early to attend the Chinese camp held in Raffles Girls’ School. It was quite far from our hostel so we had to leave early because the camp started at eight fifteen. 

              Jinming, Ruoyu and I got up a lot later than the planned time and Ziying and Carol left earlier than us because they think there weren’t enough time to reach the school if they waited for us. Hence we took a bus there when we all three of us were ready to leave. Actually we arrived there at then past eight which was five minutes earlier. After we got there, we found that the actual starting time was eight thirty. We could get up fifteen minutes later if we knew that. The camp started at eight thirty. The first part was the RGS’s Chinese music band presented us the music of the TV show A dream in red mansions which was also one of the most popular book in China. After that, two teachers came up to the stage and talked to us about the book. I started to have some interest in the book which I used to find extremely boring. 

               After breakfast time, we watched a show from the RGS students about the one story in the book The dream in red mansion. Then, we could choose two of the five speech to listen in different classroom. After lunch, we were asked to write an essay using the writing skills that the presenter of the presenters taught us. The last part of this camp is team game time. There were three games in total and our team won the third prize at last. We got some chocolate for that. 

               As soon as I reached my room, I went on my bed and had some sleep. I was too tired because of today’s activities. 

LIU WEI LI        S3-09        13/07/12

Second part of SST got talent

              Today is Friday and it is quite relaxing day because the PE lesson was completely not tired. This was the first time that the PE lesson was not tiring this term. I did not sweat at all in this PE lesson because the lesson was in the gym. There was air-conditioner in the gym so it was quite cool in there. We were doing the standing broad jump today and the others who were not doing the jump was doing other gym works. 

           There were two English lessons, a PE lesson and a Maths lesson. Ms. Kaur was not around during the two English lessons. I thought I could finally have time to finish my homework using this two English periods. However, Ms. Kaur still left some work for us to do. We had to continue doing the work which we hadn’t finished discussing for the last several days. I finished it in only one lessons so I started to do some other works in the second English lesson. 

              We need to leave the library a little bit earlier before the second English lesson ended because there was the second part of the SST got talent. There were about six shows in total today. The first show was supposed to be Davina’s ballet dance but it became the last because of some technical problems. There was another student playing the piano today and there were also some other students singing today. I think singing is the least creative idea. 

               We still did not have training today and I think it is because the C division boy had a competition today. The coach and the teacher in charge had to go to watch and coach their competition. Hence there was no teacher left to train us and we could go home as soon as the show ended. I was very happy about that. However, I was not happy about tomorrow because I am going to attend a Chinese camp and that means I have to get up at as early as six o’clock.

LIU WEI LI          S3-09          12/07/12

A sleepy day

            Today is Thursday and it was a very tiring day today because of the three-hour FOE lesson. Although I had had this lesson since half a year ago but I still could not get used to it. A three-hour lesson is still too hard for me. Today was also a very hard day for me because I was sleepy the whole day. I think it was mainly because I was very tiring because of yesterday’s basketball training and I did not have enough rest yesterday night to recover myself. 

                I could not open my eyes during the first few lessons especially physics because it was a lecture lesson. Mr. Tan was talking about temperature notes yesterday which was a little bit boring. The next lesson was social studies. In this lesson, Ms. Lim taught us how to write and social studies essay. We used Singapore healthcare system as the essay topic. We were asked to evaluate the three approaches of the healthcare system which are Encouraging self-reliance, working with organizations, adopting a healthy lifestyle. I did very bad in my essay writing in the last common test and I think I can get a very good result for Social studies if I improve my SEQ. I got quite high marks for the SBQ questions for the last three tests. In the English lesson, it was my turn to present my book report. The book that was presented by me was called The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. I forgot some part of the plot because I read this book a long time ago so I could not answer some of Ms. Kaur’s questions. 

            In the afternoon, it came the most tiring part which was the three-hour FOE lesson. We still have a lecture lesson today which was about the topic Light Emitting Semiconductors, Sensors and Output Devices. We did not finish this topic because the Tuesday class won’t have lesson next week. How lucky they are! I wish I would not have FOE lesson next week. The first few hours of the lesson was extremely tiring and sleepy. 

LIU WEI LI             S3-09            11/07/12

Helping C boys train

                Today is Wednesday and it was always not very fun because it was in the middle of the week. Nothing interesting happened except my bag was stuck in someone else’s locker and I could get it out. I put my bag on one of the lockers before I went to the toilet. Then, after I came back from the toilet, I found that my bag was stuck in Jinjie’s locker. I was sure he did that by accident. 

                We had three science lessons today as well as a maths lesson. I got very tired after the three science lessons. However, because the things that was taught in maths was very easy, I got to rest for a while during the maths lesson. The last lesson was Social Studies lesson. We were learning the Singapore healthcare system right now and we are going to write an essay about this tomorrow. I was still not very clear about these now so I better got a better understanding tonight or I will not be writing a good essay tomorrow. 

            After school, we could not go straight back to hostel because our basketball training started at three thirty and ended at five thirty. What we did today is helping the sec two students to learn how to defend. They are having a competition against Jurong sec basketball team tomorrow which is going to be a very strong team.We sec three students is not going to have any competitions so we just became the offender and help them to improve their defense. The C division boys were actually doing a very good job recently. They passed the first round by winning three games. It was almost impossible for us sec three students to win just a single game. I think the coach is also very satisfied with them right now. I hope we can make some improvement when we come to competition next year.

LIU WEI LI         S3-09         10/07/12

A terrible day

             Today is a terrible day for not only me, but the whole class. We had a running S&W lesson and an O’ level Chinese oral exam. I was very tired because of the PE lesson and I was very nervous because of the Chinese oral exam. Although speaking Chinese is very easy for me, commenting on a picture is actually very hard. Reading a passage part and conversation part is a lot easier than the commenting on a picture part.

                   Mr Dennis, our PE teacher, did not agree to let us have a relaxing S&W lesson though there was a Chinese oral test today. I felt very sad about that, I was hoping that running for sixteen minutes would not affect my performance during the exam. However, I figured out a way to not be too tired. Mr Dennis said that we could run at our won speed during the whole sixteen minutes.  We could run as slow as we wanted, we were just not allowed to walk. Therefore, I run at extremely low speed. I was almost the last one to arrive. Jonan and Eunice was the only two behind me. Although being so slow did not make me look good, I was successfully not very tired after the running. At least not as tired as the others. 

                I was very nervous during the last two lessons which were Chemistry and Maths. Our Math teacher ended the lesson because he knew that the lesson would not be efficient if we were that nervous. The exam started at about two thirty. The first two students were Grace and Jinming. I was the sixth one which was just in the middle. I think the test went quite well. I won’t say that it was very well because I felt certain part of my test were not as good as I expected. Before I left the examination room, the teacher asked whether I was from China and I told him yes. I think he probably made that estimation by listening to my Chinese accent. I am sure it was a lot different from a Singaporean.  

LIU WEI LI            S3-09            09/07/12

A trip to NTU

         Today is Monday and it is the first day of the this week. Instead of having lesson in the morning, we went to the NTU to attend the twenty-third International Biology Olympiad opening ceremony. We were required to arrive at school at eight fifteen and we left the school at about eight thirty. The ceremony started at about nine o’clock.

            The ceremony was very interesting. The host of the ceremony was very funny and he told us that he could only speak English though he looked like an Indian. The speech which the organizers gave us was actually boring. The most interesting part of the ceremony was the four shows. The first show was the Festive Drum Performance by the Singapore Long Tian Pugilistic Dragon and Lion Dance Troupe. This show was some very traditional Chinese show and that reminded me of my home. Then, the next show was the Chinese Dance by Singapore Chinese Girls School. According to the show, this show won the Gold with Honours award at the 2012 Singapore Youth Festival. The third show was a Malay Dance by Lianhua Primary School called Anak Desa. The last show was the performance by Compassvale Primary School Brass Band which won the Silver award at the 2012 Singapore Youth Festival. I like all the four perfomances. Then, it came to the introduction of the participating teams of each country. There were about fifty-nine countries took part in this competition. The funniest thing was that three of the four American students were Chinese. 

               I like the next part most because the next part was lunch part. The food served during lunch time was very nice. They were a lot better than the last time when we went to NUS High School. There were many kinds of food and the other one came before we could finish this one. The other interesting thing was that I could see the difference between people from all parts of the world. I could also hear all kinds of languages and experience all kinds of culture. 

              In conclusion, it was a very funny day. r

LIU WEI LI              S3-09              08/07/12

My recent performances

            It was already the end of the second week of the new school term and I need to think about my recent performances. I think I am doing quite well recently. The most obvious thing was that I could now finish and hand in all my work now. It was very hard for me to do that the last two terms. I even caught up with my daily journal now which was a surprise. I spent more time on studying now, sometimes I even got up earlier to study. That depends on whether I wanted to get up so early. 

              Another change was the subject FOE. I seldom listen to the FOE teacher in the last two terms and I always had difficulties doing the tutorials during the lesson. However, I started to listen to the teacher very carefully now and I had no problems finishing the tutorials all by myself now. I used to think that I do not need to listen to the math lesson. But after the last math common test, I listened to the teacher very carefully even the chapter was very easy and I spent a lot of effort on doing my math homework. I never handed in my biology homework in the last two terms but now I could finish them before the dead line. I think I was making a lot of changes. Of course, I hope my results for the next few tests will change as I change. 

              However, I think I still do not put enough effort in my studying because I still spend a lot of the time on my cell phone and my laptop. I am still unable to resist the temptation of these things. I think maybe that is the next thing I should work on.

           Tomorrow is Monday and we are going to the NTU to attend the twenty-third International Biology Olympiad Opening Ceremony. Although that means I will have to get up earlier, that also means less lesson tomorrow.

LIU WEI LI               S3-09            07/07/12

Go out to eat

             Today is Saturday and I did not wake up until almost ten o’clock in the morning. I knew that was too late but I was really too tired to wake up early. After getting up, I went downstairs to buy some breakfast. However, I found out the crews were not at the canteen to sell food. I was very surprised because they were usually there on weekends. I went back and asked Ruoyu what happened to the canteen and he told me that the system of the canteen was upgrading so we need to go out to eat breakfast and lunch today. 

               I was a little angry about that because that means I should go out today which is not my plan today. My plan is resting in my room the whole day and do some homework. Anyway, although I do not want to go out, I have to eat my lunch after I had skipped my breakfast. I left the hostel at about eleven thirty and went to the Jurong Point shopping mall. I did not need to struggle to figure out what to eat for my lunch because McDonalds was my plan before I went out of the hostel. Since I already went out, I better bought something I need form the Fair Price so that I will not need to go out again soon. I felt nice after having a nice meal in the McDonalds. It cost a little more but it made me fuller than eating in the hostel canteen. 

                 I went back to the hostel as soon as I finished shopping in the Fair Price. I hate to go out to the public just like Einstein and that means I will become another Einstein. Although I am not quite interested in science but maybe I can become an Einstein in some other areas. 

LIU WEI LI                 S3-09                 06/07/12

SST got talent show

             Today is Friday and I was very happy because it was a Friday. Friday means weekends and weekends means sleeping. Sleeping is the best thing in the world. I love Friday not only because the next day is weekends, it is also because we had only four lessons in Friday. Today is a very special Friday because we got a show in the afternoon. 

              In the morning, we had an S&W, a math and two English lessons. After these four lessons, all the students went to the Multi Purpose Hall and watch a show. The show was called SST got talent. It was also a competition. The judges were going to select a best show after the show ended. However, we were not going to know the results today because today was only the first part of the show. We got another part coming up next Friday. We will know the result at that time. I was very impressed by one show. A student sang while he was playing piano. The most impressive part was in the middle when he stopped singing and started to sing beatbox. I wish I was as talented as him but that was not ever going to happen. 

              The basketball captain told me that there was not going to be any basketball training today so I could go back to hostel immediately after the show ended. I was very glad to hear that because I could go back two hours earlier today because of that. I guess that was because the Chinese oral exam today and many of the basketball members had to go to take the exam. I started to worry about that after making the guess. I realized that I was still not well prepared for the exam and I better well prepare myself for the exam during the weekends.

LIU WEI LI          S3-09        05/07/12

A day filled with lessons

           Today is Thursday and I was not very happy at the beginning of the day because I knew there would be a three-hour FOE lesson in the afternoon. I was still reading the book Sophie’s World during the reading program and I learnt about another philosopher called Aristotle who was one of Plato’s students. 

            We had all three science lessons today as well as two math lessons. The things we learnt in Math right now was extremely easy for me. We were learning about the properties of a circle. That was what we learnt in China last year. We spent the whole semester talking and practicing about that and now it became very easy for me. I could know the answer immediately when I saw the question now while some of the students thinks that it is very hard. The only difficulties in this chapter was how to write the answer correctly and completely. That became no longer mathematics problem. I think it was kind of English language problem. Anyway, I am sure that it is very easy to solve. 

            In the afternoon, we had to take the three-hour FOE lesson. However, it was not as boring as I think. The thing we were learning in this lesson was actually quite interesting. We were learning P-N junction semiconductor right now. I know this is very hard for you to understand, Ms. Kaur. Hence I will not elaborate here. 

            Another thing that I hated to go back to my hostel so late was that there were little things left in the canteen. I had to eat something that I do not like to eat. I should buy some  bread or instant noodles from the shopping mall so that I can be full next time. 

LIU WEI LI             S3-09           04/07/12

Learning about Plato

          Today is Wednesday and it was also not a very good day for me. The basketball training in the afternoon is as tired as the PE lesson yesterday. The only good time is when I was reading Sophie’s World during the reading program in the morning. It was not only the philosophy knowledge that was introduced in the book that interested me. Philosophy knowledge really shocked me when I was reading, but what I was really interested in was the history the book was talking about. These history was the one I did not know before. I still could not believe that I picked Geography. 

           In today’s reading program, I was reading about the story about Plato who was one of Socrates’ students. However, he was even more successful than his master in some way. Plato had his own understanding of the world, he thought that the actual world was very different from the ideal world. He said that there is an ideal thing behind everything which exist only in the ideal world. For example, behind every actual human beings, there must be an ideal human. I think that makes sense because when we are talking about physics, we always talked about ideal situations which did not exist in the actual world. Maybe Plato was true but no on could find out whether this ideal world exists. 

           After school, the basketball training started at about three thirty. This was the first basketball training for me in the new term. I felt very terrible in today’s basketball training. The training began with eight laps around the basketball court. This almost killed me as I had said before that I was very poor at long run even I just run at a very low speed. After the running, we had some free throw practice and that was actually the only thing that we did today. I felt terrible and missed most of my shot. I went back to my hostel with a very bad mood. 

LIU WEI LI                 S3-09               03/07/12

two point four kilometers run

         The holidays had finally ended and it was time to go back to school. It is Tuesday today and I got very tired today. I was really looking forward to the reading program in the morning because I could continue reading Sophie’s World. I had this kind of feeling when I was reading Sherlock Holmes, Harry Porter and some other books before. I always wanted to finish reading a good book in one day. 

          I actually did learn a lot of things in this book. For example, I knew about a famous philosopher called Socrates. He was a very wise man even if he is living in modern time. He said that the smartest person is the man who knows that he himself knows very little thing. I think this makes sense because the one who thinks himself a very smart man always fail. The one who always think he need to know more things always success. However, the reading program was only about fifteen minutes so that was what I could read during this short time. I won’t have read this much if it was an English book. 

          The most terrible thing that happened today is the sixteen minutes’ run in today’s PE lesson. I really wanted to kill myself during the last several minutes of running. I felt quite OK at the beginning, everyone run in two lines with Mr. Dennis for about eight minutes outside the school. Then, we turned back and that was the time we were allowed to run on our own. I did not want to be the last so I had to keep running and that was exactly what was killing me. I was not good at long run, my stamina was very poor. I could run very fast if I was had a two-hundred-meter run. But this was a two-thousand-and-four-hundred run. This seemed impossible when I was in China because the longest distance I ran in China was just about one thousand meters. 

LIU WEI LI               S3-09               02/07/12

Sophie’s World

          Today is Monday and it is the Youth day. I had never heard of this holiday before in China and I thought this is just a holiday in Singapore. However, after searching the internet, I found out that this is a world wide holiday which is also held in China and Taiwan. I was really surprised because why Singaporeans have Youth Day holiday but Chinese do not have and now I even hated the Chinese MOE more. 

           In China, Youth Day is celebrated on May 4 since 1949 which is the year that the new Chinese was born. However, this holiday actually means nothing to me though I am a youth myself. I do not sense any of the youth day atmosphere. Today is just a usual holiday day which I rest most of the time and I also finished my homework today. 

           As I still have a lot of time left and I had nothing else to do. I started to read a book. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was very hard for me so I did not want to read it right now. I suddenly realized that I had not read a Chinese book for a really long time and now I felt like reading one. The book is called Sophie’s World and it is in Chinese. Reading Chinese books is much easier for me and I can read it much faster. This book is very interesting and it is talking about philosophy from a little girl. I had not finished reading the book. What I knew right now was that the girl kept receiving a letter from a stranger and the letter was always about teaching her philosophy. The stranger even knows the little girl’s name and the girl soon fell in love with philosophy. She learnt a lot of things that she did not know before and even I was surprised about the philosophy lesson taught by the stranger. I will continue reading this book as soon as I have time. 

LIU WEI LI             S3-09           01/07/12

An enjoyable Sunday

            Today is Sunday and it is the second day of the holiday. I am always glad about holidays because holidays means sleeping. I really hated to get up at six everyday because I was really tired of getting up so early. That is why I had to keep sleeping until I really do not want to sleep on weekends. But I had also made my life very boring. I never went out of the hostel on weekends except I really need to buy some stuff from the shopping in Jurong Point.

             I started to do my homework after having lunch. Most of the students eat their lunch in the canteen, but I always buy my lunch back to my room so that I can have much more comfortable environment to enjoy the food. I always wanted to make my weekends or holidays enjoyable. Life is so short and that is why we need to learn to enjoy our short lives. After lunch, I started doing biology worksheets. I could not do the biology homework without the biology text book or the internet. If I do not have them by my side, I will not be able to answer most of the questions. I think I really need to find some time to memorize the things on my biology text books so that I can do well in my next biology test. 

              Since there is only a little homework to do, I did not do any homework in the evening. Instead, I decided to start to read a new book called The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. There are a lot of new words in this book so it is quite hard for me to understand. However, I can still understand them slowly by searching the dictionary while reading it. 

LIU WEI LI                   S3-09                   30/06/12

A day for rest

             Today is Saturday and it is first day of the weekends. I planned to go out and watch a movie in the cinema today but I was too lazy to go out. Hence I just spent the whole day in my room and relax. I had finished all my old works on Thursday so I did not want to start doing the new tasks yet. The new biology work will always come before you can finish the old one. 

             Except for biology and English, there was actually not much homework to do and I am sure that I can finish them on Sunday and Monday. I do not know what Singapore people will do for the Youth day but I am just going to stay in my room and rest more and finish my homework if I have not finished at that time. Sleeping is actually what I always do  during weekends because I think going out makes the weekends pass a lot faster than just staying in my room. I do not want my precious weekend to pass too quickly. Although staying in my room for the whole day is very boring but I like it. I like the feeling of doing nothing but resting. I could listen to music and had some snack while I was listening. I could also choose a movie from my laptop and watch it. I could also talk to my friends or parents. If I always go out, my life will be very intense and tired. Also, staying at home can avoid spending money, that is also a benefit. 

              In the evening, I went to one of my friends’ room and played with him. He asked to bring some movie here from China we watched a movie called Happy Feet 2 together and we had a very good time. After role call, I went back to my own room and went to bed. 

LIU WEI LI              S3-09           29/06/12

Youth day celebration

         Today is already Friday and tomorrow will be the start of the weekends and the holiday. This week passed so quickly as Wednesday was a holiday and I was very energetic in the first week of the term. My energy will decrease as the days pass. Therefore, when the End of Year holiday comes, I will already be a dead person because of the End of Year exam. I was not quite sure about what would happen during this two terms because so many things is going to happen these two terms. For example, our Chinese oral exam is in two weeks’s time and the Chinese Listening comprehension exam is happening just after the oral exam.

          Besides the these two Chinese exams, the three science SPA tests will take place on after one. Then, we will have two level tests and a big End of Year exam.After the EOY exam, we are going to have another very important exams which was the Chinese writing exam. That was all what I knew for now and there might be more things that will happen. These things are very important as they will affect my O’ level results. I was very worried about these tests because these are the tests I could not let myself fail. However, after all these things have done, I can go back to China for approximately two months. That will be a lot longer than the last holiday which was less than a month. My mom will also come to Singapore to visit me during September holiday and I am extremely looking forward to that. These two terms are actually much more relaxing than next year because it will be our last year in secondary school. Most of the O’level tests will take place next year and I better get ready for them.

           Today was quite fun because we had a celebration for the youth day. Everybody came to school with their own clothes except those who had PE lesson today. Some of them even wear an costumes of a cartoon character or movie character. Ms. Ng wore a robe of a witch. I was a lot of fun today. 

LIU WEI LI              S3-09            28/06/12

A shorter FOE lesson

            Yesterday was a very nice holiday and I was very happy about the surprising holiday. Today is Thursday and we could not go back to hostel early because of the three-hour FOE lesson in the afternoon. 

            Our English teacher was not in the school today so we had the English lesson by ourselves. We continued talking about the annotation we did during the holiday. Ms. Kaur had already seen Carol’s and my annotation before the holiday yesterday so we did not need to show ours any more. Ruoyu talked about his annotation first and we helped him to correct some of his mistakes. Then, it was Jinming’s turn. However, it seemed like that he had not finished this homework yet. Therefore, we stopped here and it was already recess time so I wish good luck to Jinming and I hope he can finish his homework before the next lesson. 

             After school, we had to stay back and take the three-hour FOE lesson which was very sad. However, the lesson actually ended a lot earlier and I was very happy about that.    Just before the lesson started, the teacher told us that Mr. Lim who is the lesson’s lecturer was too busy to come today so we were just going to have a simple experiment today. The experiment was about Thevenin’s theory which we had learnt last term. It was really quite simple and we could go home at about four o’clock. That was one and a half hour earlier than the usual Thursday dismiss time. This makes me really happy today so I finished all the homework in the evening. I could always work very efficiently if I was in a very good mood. New works kept coming after the school started especially biology. We had already received a lot of worksheets from Mrs. Lim just the fourth day of school. 

             I wish myself a good term ahead and was able to go home sooner than I think.

LIU WEI LI               S3-09            27/06/12

Holiday due to parents’ conference day

            I was very happy today because today is a holiday because of the parents’ conference day. The teacher in our school need to talk to the students’ parents about the last common test so we did not have to go to school the whole day. I was extremely happy about this because it felt very good to see others woke up early and went to school while I could still stay in bed and had a nice sleep. I remembered that I could see this the whole week during the last e-learning week in March. Everyday I watched my roommate left at about six forty and I did not need to get up until eight o’clock to finish the e-learning works. 

            Today, I was lucky to have that feeling again. I know I should not be so happy about this but I could not control my joy. However, this holiday is a very good opportunity for me to prepare for the Chinese oral exam. But before I started preparing, I still have to finish the new biology and Social Studies homework. It only took me the whole morning to finish the two homework. I could not have lunch at usual time because the door to go out of the hostel was lock until twelve twenty-five which also make me could not go downstairs to have breakfast. I was already very hungry when I finally bought my lunch at about twelve thirty. 

             I spent about an hour reading the Chinese oral revising materials then I could not focus on it any more. There are not many things to do to prepare for the Chinese oral exams. It depends on our daily use of Chinese, the students who is not good at speaking Chinese could not become a good Chinese speaker just in several days. It has to take a long time to learn a language. 

LIU WEI LI                 S3-09                26/06/12

Second day of the new term

       Today is Tuesday and it is quite a busy day today. The school started at seven thirty as usual today. Our timetable for lessons has changed since yesterday and the new one is very different from the previous one.

       In the morning, we had biology, math and English lessons. Biology lesson was a little bit boring because it was a theory lesson about transport in plants. The thing we learnt in our math lesson was graphs in practical situations. The lesson was more like a physics lesson because what we learnt in this topic were speed-time graph, distance-time graph and acceleration-time graph. These three types of graphs were the things we always talked about in physics. We continued to do some comprehension practice in the English lesson today. We were talking about words about emotions today. We were asked by Ms. Kaur to find out all the emotion words in the first four paragraphs.

       After recess time, we came back and had our physics lesson. This is the first time we met Mr. Tan this term and he gave a surprise which was giving us lesson with a tilted table. We had a very good time during the lesson. After this lesson is our PE lesson, PE lesson is supposed to be very fun but not for this term because we will be having a test this term. Therefore, we will have to practice running and excising our body in the gym during the rest of the term. Practicing running is the last thing I want to do for the PE lesson. I like excising in the gym because that will strengthen my muscles but running practice is extremely tiring. I had been doing running practice for two years before I came to Singapore.

       This was already the second day of the new term and I think I fit in quite well. 

LIU WEI LI                   S3-09              25/06/12

The new term starts

            Today is finally Monday and the new term finally starts. I went to the school with a very good mood today because I had enough rest yesterday. Just as I entered the canteen, I heard someone shouted out my name. I looked around, it was Marcus who is a member of the basketball team. I came to him and he asked me when did I come back from China. 

             As usual, we went to the Multi Purpose Hall to attend the morning assembly. There is no reading program today because it is the first day of school. Mr. Chua came and talked to us. He talked about his aim for the new term. After that, we went back to classroom and began our first lesson which was CE. Ms. Lim talked about a lot of things during this period. She talked about the things that happened last term as well as the future. She also talked about the Chinese oral exam because it is coming really soon. I know everybody is worrying about that right now. However, the exam is still in three weeks’ time and we should not be so worried about that right now. We should worry about this two weeks’ study first. 

             The first school day passed very quickly because we did not have anything else to do after school. I went straight back to my hostel after school. I am very excited about this Wednesday because it will be a holiday again due to the parents’ conference day. I felt so lucky because the students in other schools still need to go back to school while I can rest on my comfortable bed. We never had holidays because of parents’ conference day when I was in China so this was a little bit surprise for me. We are going to have another holiday on next Monday because of the Youth Day. These are the holidays I did not know until I came to Singapore. I am very happy there are a lot of holidays in Singapore and I wish there were even more. 

LIU WEI LI               S3-09            24/06/12

Preparing Chinese Oral 

           Today is the last day of the holiday and the contradictions are still in my mind. However, I was still a little excited about the new term because it will be a new start for me after the bad work of last term. I hope to see my improvements this term. 

           I finished all my homework before lunch time today and I decided to study after lunch because I need to prepare for the coming Chinese oral exam. Although speaking Chinese is quite easy for me, I am not good at public speaking. I am afraid that I will be very nervous and do not know what to say during the exam. The part which we are required to read a passage is very easy and the other part of answering the examiner’s questions is easy as well. The part which I was worrying about is the picture commenting. We are required to talk about the details in the picture and comment on the social phenomenon shown in the picture. What I was worrying about was that I am afraid that I will be too nervous to comment on the picture properly. Jinming told me that this was what he was worrying about as well. It seems like a common problem of the students. I am sure that this will be even much harder for my classmates as speaking Chinese is already quite hard for some of them. 

            After a while, I found that there was nothing much to prepare but I still felt that I was not well prepared. Anyway, I decided to continue to prepare another day because I still have about three weeks before the exam. I am sure that I will be well prepared at that time. What I need to worry about is tomorrow because the new term is going to start tomorrow. I am sure there will be a lot of new work coming since tomorrow.

LIU WEI LI                                  S3-09                           23/06/12

Contradiction in my mind

            Today is already the second day after I came back to Singapore and I am now feeling a little better than yesterday. I got up early today which is unusual during holiday because I still had not finished my homework. There was only two days left including today so I really need to hurry up or Ms. Kaur will be angry at me. The homework that was left were the annotation of the passage Sound of Thunder. It was a very long story which were about ten pages. Besides this, I still had not finished my physics homework and my biology remedial homework. 

            The annotation homework was very hard to start because I was still not very familiar with that kind of questions. I did these kinds of questions in Chinese when I was studying in China but this time was very different. It was a completely different language and the way to do this was very different. After spending about an hour and a half on the annotation, I decided to stop for a while or my head would explode.

            After having a little nap, I woke up and started to do the biology worksheet. This was even harder to do because I was very bad at this subject. However, with the help of my biology text book, I finally finished it before dinner time. I could not do the homework for the whole day so I stopped doing after dinner. I know my mom and my teacher will not like this but this were the very precious several relaxing day before the new term starts. After the day after tomorrow starts, I will not be as relaxing as I am now. There are a lot of contradictions in my head now because I wanted the new term to start soon so that the next holiday will come sooner but I also did not want it to come because this holiday will end. In order to avoid these strange emotions, I went to bed.

LIU WEI LI                        S3-09                        22/06/12

First day back in Singapore

        Today is the first day back in Singapore and I am now a little bit happier than yesterday. I still finished some of my homework, so basically I was just doing my homework today. The homework that I had not finished were the daily journals, a physics worksheet, a chemistry worksheet and a biology worksheet. These are the homework that I could not do in China. 

             I started the day with doing the chemistry worksheet. The chemistry worksheet was very easy to do and I finished it within an hour. I always think that chemistry was very easy, but I never get an A1 for my chemistry. I always get an A1 for my physics which I think it is a very hard subject. These things confused me all the time. I think it is mainly because of my English problem. The subject physics seldom requires the English language, but chemistry always requires us to explain a problem with English language. Mr Slatter, our chemistry teacher, once told me that I would get a better result if I improve my English language. 

                  The new term is coming in two more days and I am really looking forward to it. I had recovered from the frustration of the last common test which I did very badly and I am ready for the new term. I really hope I will get a much better result in the next few examinations so that my mother will not have to be worried about me all the time. My mother also said she would not come to Singapore and visit me if I did not get a good result for my next test and therefore I need to work harder in term three. 

                  In the evening, I stopped doing homework and started to watch a movie called Wrath of the Titans 2. This moving is about the fall of the ancient Greek mythology. In the movie, Zeus, Poseidon as well as the god of the war died and Hades lost all of his powers. I was attracted by the Ancient Greek and Egypt mythology but I never spend time knowing more about them. 

LIU WEI LI            S3-09          21/06/12

Going back to Singapore

         Today is the day that I flied back to Singapore. This day had finally come though I really did not want it to come. I was glad that I could still get up at eight though I had a flight today. That means I would not be too tired when I was on the plane. The last time I came to Singapore, the flight was so early that I need to get up at about five o’clock and I almost felt like dying when I arrived at Singapore.

         I had a little bread as my breakfast and left my home at about nine thirty. It took my mother more than an hour to drive me and my father to the airport. Then, I met Jinming at the airport after a while. He was going to go back to Singapore with me today who was also very upset about going back. Both of us thought that the holiday was too short and time passed too quickly. My mother kept talking to me until it was latest time to go inside. It did not feel good to say goodbye to my family though I had done it so many times.

         We went inside at about eleven o’clock and waited for the time to get on the plane. However, after a while, we were announced that our flight was going to be delayed. Therefore, we got on the plane about forty minutes later and it was very late when we arrived in Singapore. There was not going to be any food in the hostel canteen so we went to the Jurong Point shopping mall and bought some McDonalds for our dinner. After that, we went back to the hostel and had a good rest because we were really tired.

LIU WEI LI           S3-09         20/06/12

The last day in China

        Today is my last day in China and I felt very sad about that. I felt that twenty days in China had passed so fast that I did not even noticed that I will be in Singapore tomorrow. As it is my last day in China, I should not stay in my room the whole day and do my homework. Hence, I went out with my mother today.

        In the morning, I still got up at about eight o’clock as usual and waited for my mother to be ready and then we went out. My mother needed to buy something in the shopping mall so that we went to the shopping mall at first. My mother was asked to buy some medicine by my father because my father was not very healthy recently. After buying the medicine which my father asked, we went to a restaurant in the shopping mall and had lunch. It was a very nice noodles restaurant, my family likes to go here and eat.

       After lunch, we went back home and I took a little nap before I went to had my hair cut. If I had my hair cut here in China, then I will not have to go to the salon for a long time after I go back to Singapore.

       In the evening, my mother and I went to a Chinese restaurant to have my last meal in China near our home. My father did not come because he had to work when the time we were eating. Therefore, there were just my mother and me.

       After going back home, I turned on the TV and started to enjoy my last several hours at home before I went to bed. I was watching football at that time and the two teams playing against each other were England and Ukraine.

second reflection

LIU WEI LI             S3-09            05/06/12

Living large in a tiny house

             The main issue of this article is that a family who used to live in a 1500 square foot  

home has to give up their house because of their financial problems. The father of the family built a house of 168 square foot house on his home and saved the family a lot of money. They planned to build a larger house in the future. 

             I think this is an article in financial magazine. The purpose of this article is to show the story of this family to people as an example. The writer wrote this article to tell people that it is not extremely necessary to live in such big houses. If you have any financial problems right now, try smaller the size of your house. That will save you a lot of money. Basically, this article is to tell those people who are in a financial problem a way of saving money. 

            The point of view that is presented in the article is from the writer. He agrees that anyone who has financial problems should try this measure to save money and overcome the financial problems. The writer represents his financially fits team which tries to help people solve their financial problems. 

              The tone of this article is supportive. It is easy to tell from the writer’s tone that he support this kind of measure to save money. This is supported by the example he gives us. 

He keeps talking about the advantage of the family downsizing their house.He also talks about the how good the family’s future will be if they keep using this measure.

             In my opinion, this article is very helpful for people to learn how to downsizing their life. The financial problem is becoming more and more serious this year especially in some particular country such as America and some countries in Europe. People living there have to give up their old lifestyle and start to change. However, it is not very easy for them to give up their old lifestyle because that was more comfortable. The writer of this article introduced a very good way for them to start-making their house smaller. The writer even gives a real example of living in a much smaller house and how that benefits and solve the family’s problem. This example makes the way that the writer is talking about more reliable.

               

first reflection

Dream Mysteries Decoded

         The main issue of this article is controlling our dreams can help us regulate our mood and potentially wake up happier.

         I think this an article from a magazine about healthcare. The purpose of this article is to tell people about their dreams. Why do they have dreams when they are sleeping, why don’t they remember their dreams when they wake up, how to control their dreams and what are the benefits of controlling our dreams. The writer wrote this article to help people recognize the importance of their dreams and to correct people’s misunderstanding that dreams are just something that happen without any meaning.

         The writer’s own point of view is presented in the article. He thinks that learn to control our dreams can benefit us a lot. He also thinks that people who play video games are easier to control their dreams than those people who do not play. He also states that gamers have fewer violent or frightening dreams than non-gamers.

         The writer quotes some sources from some scientists’ investigation. “Scientists estimate that we forget 95 percent—or more—of our dreams, mainly because they fade fast after we wake up. Up to 90 percent of their content is lost within 10 minutes.” The quotes this sources to state the reason why we always forget our dreams. This source makes the whole article more reliable because it is result made by scientists who most people believe.

          In my opinion, dreams are very important to us just as the writer said. I think most of us ignore the importance of a dream which is not right. Some of us think dream is something what happens occasionally after we go to sleep. There is not any use and meanings of our dreams. However, this understanding of dreams is not right. According to the writer, if we learn how to control our dreams, we are able to control our mood of the moment of getting up. If we get up happy this morning, I am sure we will have a happier mood and be able to finish our job in a higher efficient. Hence, we need to care more about our dreams.