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.

LIU WEI LI             S3-09             19/06/12

Packing

       Today is Wednesday and I started to pack my things today. I became more and more upset as I kept packing. I finished packing as soon as possible because doing this can only made me more upset. I did not know what to do to make myself a little bit happier. Today was quite boring because I did nothing but staying at home. I really wish I could have more fun during the last few days in Guangzhou, but I had to stay in my room and complete my homework or I will not be able to finish them before the new term starts.

       In the evening, my mother and I went to a Japanese restaurant to have dinner. After dinner, we went to the supermarket nearby to shop for things that I need to take to Singapore. We bought some snacks and some daily necessities that I am going to take to Singapore. Mr. Tan who is our physics teacher asked each of us to buy three laptops as cheap as possible from China so that we can use them to finish our physics TDP project. However, my mother said that it is impossible to bring so many laptops overseas so we did not go to buy laptops. I think I will have to buy it in Singapore but the laptops there will be much more expensive.

       After shopping in the supermarket, we went back home and I continued to pack my things. I put the things we just bought into my suitcase and then I went to do my homework. I hope there will be less homework the next holiday so that I can spend more time with my family. Anyway, I really hope that I can see my family again very soon.

LIU WEI LI            S3-09              18/06/12

The third last day

          Today is Monday and it is the third last day of staying in Guangzhou. I will go back to Singapore on Thursday and I still have a lot of homework which I have not finished. I really wished I had finished all my homework by now so that I could have fun with my family these few days. However, the truth is that I spent most of the time playing in the first ten days so now I had to spend a lot of time catching up with my homework.

          We went to have a big dinner in a French restaurant which was the same restaurant we went to the first night I went back to China. This is my favorite restaurant so my father decided to take me there one more time before I leave Guangzhou. I will not be able to come to this restaurant until November if we are allowed to come back at that time. However, we are already much luckier than the students in River Valley High School because they are not allowed to go back to China this June holiday. They had to stay in Singapore because of the English Bridging course they had to take. I felt very sorry for them. Although I am luckier than many other students in some schools, this did not make me feel any better. I hope November can come sooner than I think.

          We went to the restaurant at about six o’clock and my mother drove us there. I still think the food there was fantastic even after eating there for so many times. We finished our dinner and finally arrived home at about eight o’clock. After getting home, I switched on my laptop and again started to finish the rest of my homework.

LIU WEI LI            S3-09           17/06/12

An upset day

       Today is Sunday and it will be my one of last few days in Guangzhou. I was very upset these few days because I really want to stay here for a longer time. There are four more days before I went back to Singapore and seven more days before the new term started. I still have a lot of homework to do so I think I will just stay at home and finish my homework these few days.

       After going back to Singapore, I need to work a lot harder than last term because my exam results for the common test was very bad and my mother was not very happy about that. She said that if I do not get a better result next time, she is not going to come to Singapore and visit me during the next holiday around September. I was still worried about my biology because I really do not have any idea on how to improve my biology as it is extremely hard. Biology is the only subject that I never get a good result.

       I think there will not be any common test next term before my mother comes. Getting a good result in level test is much easier than getting a good result in common test. Each test is much longer than each test in level test. The questions is also much harder in common test so I think if I work harder next term, I am sure to get a much better result in the next level test. We are going to have a SPA assessment in term four and that is what I really worried about because I always get a bad result for my biology SPA tests. I think Mrs. Lim was so strict with giving points.

LIU WEI LI            S3-09            16/16/12

The Hunger Game

        Today is Saturday and I had a little headache when I got up this morning because I was extremely tired after yesterday’s journey. My mother and I planned to watch a movie at the cinema today. However, we had not decided which one to watch and we would decide when we reached the cinema.

        In the morning, my mother went to wash her car and I was asked to get my dog in the animals’ hospital. It seemed very exciting to see me. It kept barking at me until a stuff of the hospital released it from the cage. After that, I took it back to my apartment and waited for my mother to come back. After a short while, my mother called me and asked me to go down to the car park and she was waiting there.

        Then, we set off to the cinema which was not far away from here. We got there in about twenty minutes. We went straight to the cinema and decided that we were going to watch the Hunger game. The hunger game was a very new movie and it became very famous even though it hadn’t been on the cinema. The movie lasted about two hours. I think the movie was quite good but my mother thinks it was very stupid. The movie was very like the Japanese movie I was talking about before. The people that were chosen to play this game had to kill everybody else and only one people can stay alive at the end. The thirteen districts that used to rebel has to give the American government a young girl and a young boy as tributes every year. These tributes will attend the hunger game that was held every year. With the help of many people, the two main characters from district twelve stayed alive at the end.

         After the movie, we went back home.

LIU WEI LI             S3-09            15/06/12

Going back to Guangzhou again

         Today is Friday and I was going to come back to Guangzhou today. Again, my mother will drive the two of us back to Guangzhou. It was again a very tiring journey which lasted for about six hours. My mother tried another way to go back to Guangzhou and that we were lost at the beginning of our journey. After asking several people nearby, we finally found the right way to go home. I am sure that my mother will know where to go next time because I did not remember.

         The whole journey was very tiring and boring. We became very tired and hungry when we arrived at our home in Guangzhou. After putting our things in the apartment, we went out to eat dinner. After dinner, it was raining hard outside so we went to the supermarket which was in the same building as the restaurant and went shopping. We bought some food and drinks but my mother said we did not need to buy an umbrella because she thought that the rain would stop before we finished shopping. A lot of homework was waiting for me at home and that was why I started to do my homework as soon as I reached my room. If I did not increase my speed of doing homework, I will not be able to finished before the new term started.

         My mother and I are going to watch a movie tomorrow and I am very excited about that because there are still a lot of movies that I want to watch in the cinema. There is a new movie called the hunger game in the cinema and I don’t know whether I will watch Man In Black 3 or the new movie tomorrow.

LIU WEI LI            S3-09           14/06/12

Last day in Hunan

       Today is Thursday and it is the last day in Hunan province. I am going to go back to Guangzhou tomorrow because my father will go back to Guangzhou the day after tomorrow. After going back to Guangzhou, I will have to finish the rest of my homework in a faster speed because I will not have much time. I really wish I could stay here for a longer time but the new school term will start soon and I will have to go back to Singapore soon.

       Today is the last day I stayed here and I will not be seeing them until November or December. I will really miss my aunts, uncles and cousins after I go back. I wish I could have more chance to go back to China. The days staying in China passed so fast that I hardly realized that it is almost time to say goodbye. Thinking about that, I became very upset today and I am sure as the day of flying back to Singapore comes closer, the more upset I will get. However, what made me even more upset was the homework that I hadn’t finished. I still had a lot of homework to do because some of the homework required internet and I could not go to the SST Google site here. Therefore, I will have to do it after I go back to Singapore and I am not sure whether I will have enough time to finish them. I am also worried because of the coming O’level Chinese oral exam. I had not started preparing yet. Hence, I need to finish my homework as soon as possible and start to revise for the Chinese oral exam.

       I will have to get up a little bit early tomorrow because we will be leaving for Guangzhou at about nine o’clock. I hope tomorrow will not come too fast.

LIU WEI LI               S3-09              13/06/12

A normal day in Hunan

       Today is Wednesday and it is a very normal day in Hunan. I stayed at home for the whole day instead of going out. I think I wasted this very precious day as I will only stay here for five days. Each day is very precious because if I wasted them, I will have to wait another five months. There will be some very important exams in term three and term four, so I guess this will be my last time to have fun.

       As usual, all my relatives came to my house and stayed with us today except my cousins because they had to go to school today. I chose the wrong time to come back to Hunan because this is the time that all of them had to go back to school. One day after we go back to Guangzhou on Friday, it will be their holiday time. However, this is the only suitable time for me to come back as it is not too early or too late. The next time I came back on November, the holiday will be much longer and I am sure I will have much more time to stay with them.

       In the afternoon, my uncles, aunts, my mother and I went together to one of my aunts’ house and played mahjong. Playing cards or mahjong are what they usually do when they get together. While they are playing mahjong, I sat near them and watched movies on my laptop. I was continuing to watch Prison Break online. Every time I wanted to stop watching the TV show and started to do the homework that I have not finished, I just could not leave my laptop as I could not come out from the story line of Prison Break.

LIU WEI LI            S3-09          12/06/12

A TV show

         Today is Tuesday and it is my second day in Hunan. My cousins had to go to school in another place so they could not come to my house and visit us. However, all of my uncles and aunts as well as my grandmother came this morning. They were here to have lunch with us, after lunch, they played mahjong together for fun.

         I was watching TV after lunch while they were playing mahjong. The TV show I was watching was a story about a very poor family. There are three members in total in this family which are mother and two sons. Their father left them several years ago and they had to live on their own. Their younger son could not walk and talk properly when he was born and the elder son had heart disease. The family was extremely poor so they had no money to see the doctor. After a while, the mother and the younger brother came to the city and began to beg for money while the elder brother was studying in a university. One day, the mother found that the two hundred Yuan she recently got was lost and she was very upset and anxious. She went out to find where the money was. However, after several hours, the reporters found that she was trying to commit suicide. The reporters stopped her form doing that and she told them that the elder brother’s heart had a problem again and his life was in danger. That was why she wanted to commit suicide.

 I was very moved by this story. They kept living though they were very poor. Look at some of the young people these days, they don’t need worry about their food and living problem. However, they still not satisfied with what they had right now and always want more.

LIU WEI LI           S3-09           11/06/12

My grandparents’ house

        Today is Monday and I am now in Hunan province. I got up very late this morning because I was very tired after yesterday’s sitting in my mother’s car for about six hours. Some of my relatives came from their home this morning and we are going to have a big lunch tomorrow. My mother and my aunts were preparing for lunch at a very early time.

        A bowl of noodles were waiting for me on the table as soon as I got up this morning. The bowl was really big, bigger than the bowls I had ever used. My relatives especially my grandmother always thinks that I am too thin and need to eat a lot more than I am. I never agreed with them. My youngest cousins came this morning. Although she had to go to a kindergarten, she used reason such as headache or stomachache to avoid going to school. I think that she just did not want to go to school. The reasons were all unreal.

        In the afternoon, my mother drove us to my grandparents’ old house which was built about twenty years ago. It was far from our apartment. The air there was very cool and nice. That was why the weather is cool there even though it was summer. I saw my other three cousins there. They were all in primary school and had to go to school every day. There is still a long time before dinner time, so I decided to ask my little cousins to play badminton in a field not far away. After a while, even my mother and some of my relatives came to play with us. This is impossible because my mother never plays sports. She came and played several rounds with one of my aunts. 

LIU WEI LI             S3-09              10/06/12

Going back to Hunan

       Today is Sunday and my mother and I are going back to Hunan which is our hometown. My mother drove us there. We had to wait for my father to leave for Henan first then we can set off. We left home at about eleven o’clock and left Guangzhou. Driving from Guangzhou to Hunan took a really long time and it was really tiring for both the people who was driving and the people who was sitting. We arrived at our home in Hunan at about six thirty in the afternoon.

       I took a shower as soon as I arrived home because my body was full of my mother’s car’ smell. I took a shower then I went downstairs to my aunt’s apartment to have dinner. We asked her to prepared our dinner on the phone about an hour ago so that we could have something to eat as soon as we arrived. I was very tired but not very hungry at that time. My mother was both very tired and very hungry. After dinner, we sat on the sofa and watched TV together. During this time, my aunt started to ask me about my life in Singapore. I was then tired of answering of these questions, but I still answered her questions patiently.

       At about ten o’clock, my mother and I went back to our own apartment and got ready to sleep. 

LIU WEI LI            S3-09            09/06/12

Madagascar 3

       Today is Saturday and I went to the cinema with three classmates from my former class in secondary school. I missed them very much and we were very excited to see each other. We have been planning this since last week, but we still haven’t decided which movie to watch. There were options for us to choose. For example, Man In Black 3, Madagascar 3 and so on. One of my classmates had watch most of the movie so it was very tough for us to choose.

       At the end, we chose the movie Madagascar 3. Madagascar 3 was a cartoon movie which was about several animals trying to go back to New York from Africa. We were very disappointed that we bought the ticket of this movie at first. But after the movie was on, it turned out to be very funny and worth watching. The zebra in the movie was extremely funny and so were the penguins. The penguins were very creative and they could invent all kinds of things. They were even very rich and they bought the circus to help them escape from the local police. They lied to the animals in the circus that they were also circus animals so that the animals in the circus would let them get on the train. However, later on, the animals in the circus found out that they were not circus animals. The animals in the circus think that they were betrayed and left. At the end, they regretted all this and together made the circus very successful.

       After watching movie, it was too early for us to go home. Therefore, we decided to go and play some games. We spent about fifty bucks to buy tickets and we finally get two pencils for each of us. Today was a really happy day.

LIU WEI LI             S3-09            08/06/12

Watching NBA

         Today is Friday and I have to get up at seven o’clock to have breakfast with our visitor at a restaurant. My mother drove us to a restaurant which was not very far away from my home. Guangzhou people likes to drink tea while they are eating breakfast and so as Hong Kong people. That was why my mother took my friends’ mom to this restaurant to eat breakfast.

         After eating breakfast, my mother drove my friends’ mom to a bank and did their business. While they were doing that, I went back home myself and started watching movies and playing some computer games. A friend came to talk to me online while I was doing these. He asked me to watch an NBA match on television and I agreed. I went out of my room and turned on the television. The two teams that were playing were Boston Celtics which is my favorite team and Miami Heat. These were the two top teams in the NBA and they both have very good players. Boston Celtics has Raja Rondo, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. Miami Heat has Lebron James and Devin Wade. They are all top players in the league and of course the game was very excited. The scores were very close all the time and that is the game the fans want to watch. I wish I could play basketball like them so that I could win something when our team goes to match. The players in NBA were not only skillful but also very physically strong. Some of them can even play more than one hour without even feeling tired. Some of them can shoot very accurately from very far from the basket and some of them can run from this side of the court to that side of the court with the basketball in just a few seconds and score. That made me want to train hard after I the training started.

          I am going to the cinema tomorrow with my classmates and I am now very excited.

LIU WEI LI            S3-09          07/06/12

A visitor

         Today is Thursday and a visitor came to my home and visited us. She is the mother of my two very good friends. The two friends are twins and we had known each other since we were very young. However, they moved to Hong Kong several years ago and we barely saw each other. We sometimes go to Hong Kong and visited them and they sometimes come back to Guangzhou and visited us. This time, her mother had some business to do in Guangzhou so she came to our apartment and stayed with us.

         I had not seen her for a very long time. I think the last time I saw her was a year ago. Her two sons’ studies were not very good so she was very worried about them. She worked as a nurse in a hospital and the pay was quite good. He arrived at our apartment at about six o’clock and she had dinner together with us. My dog kept barking at her when it saw her coming in our apartment. Then, my mother started to talk to her while they were watching TV together. I stayed in my room and did my homework while they were talking. Tomorrow will be a very busy day for my mother and her because my mother will have to take her to do her business. We will also have breakfast and lunch in restaurants with her tomorrow.

         I had to sleep in another room because my friends’ mom will sleep in my room and this made me uncomfortable. Another thing that made me unhappy was that my mother told me that we are going to eat breakfast in a restaurant tomorrow so I will have to get up very early. Getting up early is one of the worst things for me in the world.

LIU WEI LI               S3-09               06/06/12

Staying at friend’s apartment

         Today is Wednesday and I went to one of my friends’ apartment and visited him. He lived here alone without his parents. The reason why he lived here is because his parents’ apartment is too far away from the school so he was always late for school at the beginning. Now he moved to an apartment near his school and he was still always late for school. He told me that both living too far way and too near is easy to be late.

         I went to his apartment after having dinner at home. Then, I walked to his apartment as it is not far from my home. He just came back from school when I arrived at his apartment. He told me that He seldom did his homework because he did not want to do them. His apartment was like a room in a hotel. It was not big but big enough for one person to live in. He has a TV and a air-conditioner. He also has a refrigerator which he barely used. We talked about my life in Singapore and his life in here. He told me that his school is so bad that he score was the highest when he first came to the school.

         Another friend of ours came later and we decided to watch a movie on his laptop together. It was a Japanese movie and I did not know its English name. The movie was very old and it was about a kind of cruel game. The students that were chosen by the government had to kill everybody else and only one student can survive at last. The two main characters won with the help of another person. They not only won this game together and they even killed their teacher who host this game.

LIU WEI LI          S3-09        05/06/12

Friends

         Today is Tuesday and I still did not go anywhere, I had to do my homework now because I am going to go back to Hunan province to visit my family this Saturday and stay there for about a week. I am sure I won’t be doing any homework at that time because I will play with my cousins and doing something else. Therefore, I had to do as much homework as I can before I go back to Hunan.

         However, I was not doing homework the whole day. After eating dinner, I started to watch another television series called Friends. It was a very funny TV show about six people. These six people are Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe and Joey. Ross is an archaeologist and he will be very happy if someone called him doctor. Rachel used to be a daughter of a very rich father but after he ran off from a wedding, she became independent and worked in a fashion company. Monica is Ross’s little sister and he is a chef in a restaurant, she wanted everything to be clean and tidy. Phoebe used to be Monica’s roommate, but she moved out several years ago and they were still friends. Phoebe is a masseur and she is a little bit weird and she plays very bad music. Chandler thinks himself a very funny guy but others don’t and people think he is a gay man. Joey is an actor but he seldom get the part because he is kind of lack of education. Hence, he always does some very funny and stupid things. The TV show is very funny because of these six very personality people.

         Tomorrow is Wednesday and I am going to one of my friends’ apartment and visited him.

LIU WEI LI        S3-09        04/06/12

Writing Journals

         Today is Monday and I had to stay at home because my mother said that I had to start studying after playing for so many days. Therefore, I stayed at home the whole day and not going anywhere. There was much homework for me to do so I used this time to do my homework.

         First, I started with my math homework. It was not much but some of them really took me a long time to finish. I did them very slowly and carefully because I had very long time to finish them so I did not have to rush. After finishing doing my math homework, I started reading the novel Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I could never stop loving the Harry Potter fantasy series. I used to spend just one day to finish several of them. However, they were in Chinese that time so I could read them faster. This time, I read the book in English so it became a lot harder and it took me a lot more time to finish. I really hope that J.K.Rowling can write more books about Harry Potter or even his sons’ stories. I just wanted to read more of them. I did not start reading Harry Potter until I was in secondary one. I could not stop reading them as soon as I started the first book. I thought it would be boring for but it did not. It turned out to be very interesting. Besides reading all seven Harry Potter books, I also finished watching the whole eight Harry Potter movies. They were all very fantastic.

         Sherlock Holmes is also one of my favorite books and I also have read them in Chinese. I like detective books very much. The two Sherlock Holmes movies were also very good.

LIU WEI LI           S3-09           03/06/12

Staying at home

        Today is Sunday and I stayed at home the whole day instead of going out. Actually, I became tired because of the activities the last several days and I need to take a rest today. Hence, I decided to stay at home and do some homework.

        I haven’t been writing my journals since the holiday started so I had to finish writing them today. After eating my breakfast, I switched on my laptop and started writing. I thought writing more than ten journals would take me more than one day to finish, but I was wrong. I finished writing them before dinner time.

        After dinner, I started watching a movie called Anonymous. It was a story about Shakespeare. Nobody knows who Shakespeare really was and there were several guesses. This movie told us the story of one of the guesses. In the movie, Shakespeare’s real name was Edward and he was an earl of Oxford. He lived in a family which against writing poems. However, even though he lived in such a family, he never stopped writing poems. He wrote many fantastic dramas but he had to hide them from their families. Hence, he gave all his scripts to another writer living outside the palace and asked him to play them in his theatre. He used the name Shakespeare when he was writing all this scripts. People turned out to love his shows but they think the writer was another person who pretended to be Shakespeare. However, years later, Earl of Oxford died tragically and gave all his scripts to this writer and asked him to wait for several years and then published them all. At the end, Edward’s rival found this writer and asked to give all Edward’s scripts to him. However, the writer did not say a word about the scripts and Edward’s rival had to let him go at last. After several years, this writer published the scripts that was left after a big fire .

LIU WEI LI        S3-09        02/06/12

Meeting a friend

      Today is Saturday and I went to see a friend. He was one of my classmates when I was in secondary school in China. However, he was a little bit different from the others because he did not go to a normal high school as the others. Instead, he went to a conservatory of music.

      When we were in secondary two, one of my friends started to play guitar as interest and he also became very interested in it. Then, he also started to learn guitar on his own. Later on, he became very good at playing guitar while the other one gave up. When we came to secondary three and had to decide where to go after we left secondary school. He decided to go to an academy of music. At that time, our form teacher was very worried and angry about this because he thought going to an academy of music has no future.

      Anyway, we met at a shopping mall after he finished his French lesson. Then, he took me to a restaurant he went every day. Even the waitress there knew him very well. We talked while we were eating. He asked me a lot of things about Singapore and told me about his life in Guangzhou. He told me that he just took a big exam and had a six-month holiday. I hope I can have such a long holiday like him.

      After lunch, he took me to his little apartment. He lived in a little apartment in Guangzhou together with his sister. His sister barely goes home, so basically he lives there alone. He told there is another classmate of ours started to live alone nearby. I think living alone is very good for them because it can help them become independent. At about three o’clock, he said that he wanted to take a nap so I went home. 

LIU WEI LI          S3-09          01/06/12

Going back to my former school

        Today is Friday and it is the first day of going back to China. I got up at about eight o’clock and became very excited. I missed my family, my dog and even my rooms. Another reason why I was so excited was because I was going to my former school to visit my friends who I hadn’t seen for more than half a year. They told me that they had already arranged a welcome party for me and asked me to arrive at school at twelve thirty.

        My mom and I went to a Japanese restaurant to have lunch today and drive a car to send me back to school right after lunch. Two of my Friends were waiting outside the school gate when I arrived at the school. The school is called Guangdong experimental school and it is the school I was going to if I wasn’t going to Singapore. It is the second best school in Guangzhou and even in Guangdong province. We talked in the school canteen for the whole lunch break. Some of them went back to their room because they were too sleepy to stay, but some of them did not need to sleep so they stayed and talked to me. My former form teacher also came, he asked me a lot of questions about living and studying in Singapore. I spent the whole lunch break answering his questions and some of them are really unnecessary.

        In the afternoon, my friends had to go back to classroom and had their last three lessons of the week. Therefore, I stayed in the teachers’ office on my own and waited for them. After several hours of patiently waiting, one of my friends came and asked me to play basketball with them. I agreed and played with them for about one hour. After that, I went back home with them. 

LIU WEI LI       S3-09         31/05/12

One of the most exciting days

        Today is Thursday and it is one of the most exciting day in my life because it is the day of going back to my hometown. I had been looking forward to this moment since several months ago. I could not stop thinking about this moment for the whole month.

        My flight was about one thirty in the afternoon so we had to leave the hostel at about nine fifteen according to my mother. I started to become impatient from about eight forty-five and asked Jinming whether he agreed to leave the hostel a little bit earlier. However, he seemed to be very patient as he rejected my idea. He said that it was too early to leave at eight thirty and we would have to wait for a long time in the airport if we left at that time. I thought that he was right so I tried my best to calm myself down. At about nine, Jinming began to become impatient as well. He suggested that we left at nine and I agreed at once.

        We left the hostel for MRT station. We spent about more than an hour on the MRT train today. The distance between my hostel and Changi Airport is extremely long. There was no seat for me to sit during the whole journey and it was very tired to stand with my suitcase for about an hour. We found that we arrived a little bit too early when we reached the airport and it took us a while to find the right place to get our ticket.

        We arrived at Guangzhou at about the Five o’clock in the evening. I met both my parents at the airport and they took me to my favorite French restaurant to have a big dinner. After that, we went back to our home and I went straight to bed.

LIU WEI LI           S3-09            30/05/12

Watching Prison Break

      Today is Wednesday and it is the last day before I can go back to China. Today is a suffering day because of my over excitement of going back to China. I am too excited to do any homework today so I still had not started doing any of my homework yet. I think I will have to increase my speed of doing homework after I go back to China. I finished packing my things at about lunch time and now time is the only thing that stops me from going back. Carol had already gone back to her home and I am sure that she was having a lot of fun right now. I hope I am the same but I am not.

      The next thing I have to do after packing is to calm myself down. In order to do this, I switched on my computer and began to watch a television show called Prison Break. I had already watched this TV show about a year ago, but it is so good that I wanted to watch it again. This television is about a person called Lincoln Burrows being set up by a company called the Company which ruled USA government. Lincoln’s little brother, Michael Scoffield, went to the same prison as Lincoln and helped Lincoln break out of the prison. After that, they have to run from the policeman and avoid being caught. At the end, Michael used his smart brain to fight against the Company and finally destroy it.

       This tremendous TV show really calmed me down as the story line of the show was so excited. I was totally into the story and hardly had time to think about the whole going back to China thing. Prison Break is a very long TV series and I will continue to watch it after I go back to China.

LIU WEI LI         S3-09          29/05/12

Math Olympiad competition

       Today is Tuesday and it is finally the day of Math Olympiad competition. I have to wake up at six thirty in the morning to get ready to go back to school. The math competition will start at nine o’clock, which means I should arrive at SST at about eight thirty. After washing up, I went downstairs to the canteen and bought something to eat. I should eat something before the competition so that I will have enough energy to think during the competition.

       After finishing my breakfast, I went out of the hostel and on my way to the school. I hope the competition will be over soon because I will suffer if I spend too much time on a paper that is too hard for me. I am very jealous that Carol could fly back to China right after the competition today but I will have to wait for another two days. The questions on the question paper of today’s competition were extremely hard. I only did several of them. I had absolutely no confidence in this competition. But anyway, this was the result that I expected. I never get anything in any Math Olympiad competition before so this time was not a surprise.

       After going back to hostel from school, I continued packing all my stuffs. I need to put all my things in my cabinets before I leave Singapore. I don’t why I need to do that but it is a rule made by the hostel office which I must obey. I put some of my books which in my opinion will be useful and some presents for my family and friends into my luggage. After going back to China, I will stay in Guangzhou for a week first. Then I will go back to Hunan province to visit my relatives. After that, I will go back and stay in Guangzhou for another week and then, I will fly back to Singapore on twenty first of June.

LIU WEI LI         S3-09          28/05/12

Preparing for Math competition

        Today is Monday and the Math Olympiad competition will be held tomorrow. After the Math competition, I can prepare to go back to China. My flight is at one thirty on Thursday. I think I won’t be able to fall asleep on Wednesday night due to my over excitement.

        The competition will be held tomorrow at the school’s auditorium room. I am not looking forward to this competition because I am sure that I will not pass this competition. I won’t be able to get to the next round. I am very poor at Math Olympiad though I seem to be better than many of my classmates. I am very bad at this comparing to many students coming from China. They can solve some very complicated questions in several seconds but I will not be able to solve the questions even though I spend my whole life for it.

        After having lunch, I decided to do something to prepare for the competition so that I won’t get very low score. I spent about fifteen minutes to think about what I should do to prepare for it. Soon, I found out that I could revise the worksheets given by the Math Olympiad teacher. The worksheets that the teacher gave us were quite simple for me and I was very sure that the questions on tomorrow’s paper won’t be this easy. Therefore, I think that revising these worksheets was useless. At the end, I found out that I got nothing to revise for tomorrow’s competition. Because of this, I started to pack my things and be ready to go back to China on Thursday. I could go back a lot earlier if I do not need take part in the Singapore Math Olympiad competition. I was not very happy about this competition which I definitely won’t pass.

LIU WEI LI          S3-09           27/05/12

A Sunday

        Today is Sunday and it is already the second day of the holiday. I had no started doing any homework yet because I still want to rest for a while. I decided that I won’t be doing any homework until the Math competition is over. We have a lot of homework to do during the holiday, especially English. We were asked to write one journal each day and two newspaper or magazines reflections in total. Then, we were also asked to read two books during the holiday and prepare two presentations for the two books we read. The two books I am going to read are Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Sherlock Holmes. I had already read these two books in Chinese so I think that will make it easier to read in English.

        The math competition will be held in the auditorium room in school the day after tomorrow, so I will do a little preparation tomorrow though there is no hope that I will go to the second round. I can do very well in the usual math exam but math Olympiad is still too hard for me especially competition.

        I will go to the cinema to watch a movie called the Avenger on Wednesday as I have nothing to do at that day. There are many good movies in the cinema recently. Jinming had already watch Avenger last week so I had to go to the cinema alone. The Avenger is about several American heroes such as Captain America and Iron Man getting together and fighting against the bad guys. There is another movie called Man In Black 3 which I had no idea what is about as I had not watched the first two. I heard that Man In Black 3 is a very funny action movie. I will watch them all after I went back to China with my friends or with my family.

LIU WEI LI          S3-09              26/05/12

First day of holiday

         Today is Saturday and it is the first day of June holiday. There is one more week before I can go back to China. The reason why I have to wait such a long time is because of the Singapore Math Olympiad. I cannot go back to China until the Math competition is over.

         I decided to get up very late today as it is holiday. I got up at the time which was almost time for lunch. I was very tired after the second term. The second term was full of examinations. The common test was right after the second level test. This gave me no time to take a breath from the tests. I think I will need a very good rest during the holiday and get ready for the third term and the next few coming tests. My body was also very tired because of the sports games two days ago. I decided that I would do nothing but rest today. I did not touch any of my text books and homework today.

         I did not do well in my common test in the second term. Many of my subjects did not get the results I expected. I felt very sad because of my bad results. I need to work hard during the holiday and after I came back to Singapore in order to catch up with the others. I really missed my family and my friends in China. I hope I can go back to China soon but the Math competition will be held on Tuesday and my flight will be on Thursday. That means I cannot see my parents until Thursday next week. I have stayed in Singapore for about seven months and now I can finally fly back to China to visit my family and my friends. That made me really excited. 

LIUWEILI     S3-09        25/05/12

Last day of school

       Today is the last day of school, we did not have any lessons. Instead of having lessons, we listened to several presentations from the sec one students in the Multi-purpose Hall and cleaned our classrooms. School started at normal time today though it was the last day before the holiday. We had reading period as usual today.

       After the reading program, we went straight to the classrooms and got ready to clean the classrooms. However, we had already cleaned our classroom last week, so we did some other activities instead of cleaning the classroom. First, Ms. Lim gave everyone a little card and we were asked to write our name on our card. Then, we submitted it to Ms. Lim again. After that, she split the cards to us and we need to write something good about the owner of the card we were holding. After we had finished, we need to give the card to another person and received another card and did the same thing.

       After we finished writing the card, we decided to play the game Taboo. Taboo was a kind of word game which I had never heard of when I was in China. I first played this game in the bridging course we took before the school started. The game was very interesting as well as very hard because of my poor vocabulary. It will be easier for me if I knew more words than I am.

       At about ten thirty, all of us went to the Multi-purpose Hall and ready to listen to the several presentation and the skits. The presentations were extremely boring but some of the skits were very interesting especially the one from black house. Before this section ended, a teacher announced the first three places of the sports games, skit challenge and the Sudoku challenge. Black house got most of them. 

LIU WEI LI       S3-09          24/05/12

Inter-house games

        Today is finally Thursday and this is the day I had been waiting for the whole week. What we did today was just inter-house games but they were really exciting. There were three types of sports games in total today which are basketball, football and captain’s ball. I have no idea what captain’s ball is as I had never heard of it.

        The sport I took part was basketball and I represented black house. Our house was sure to win because our team was a little bit over powerful. The games started at about nine o’clock, right after the reading period ended. The basketball match was held in Indoor Sports Hall, the football match was held in the field and the captain’s ball was held in Multi-purpose Hall. Before the games started, Mr. Tan who was the teacher in charge of the basketball match introduced us the rules and another judge who was our basketball coach. The rules of this match were very different from the rules of a formal basketball match. It was just a half-court match and many rules from the normal basketball match were absent.

        The first match was our house against blue house. As soon as the game started, our house started to lead the game and we won the game at last as expected. After that, we won the whole rest four games before the final match. We were just a little bit away from the championship. We were against yellow house in the final match, yellow house was another very strong house which was a threat for us. Before the final match started, we thought that it would be a very tough game. However, not long after the match started, yellow house began to lose hope. In the end, our house became the championship.

        After the match, I went back to my hostel and had a rest.

LIU WEI LI                    S3-09                      23/05/12

House activities

          Today is the third day of the last week and there weren’t any lessons. The school started at normal time which was seven forty and it also began with the reading section as usual. After the reading section, it was the OBS survey which supposed to last an hour according to the schedule. Then, it was our inter-house sudoku competition followed by the inter-house skit challenge preparation. 

          The OBS survey began later than it supposed to be. The person who held the survey paper was stuck in some place and could not come to our school in time. Therefore, the OBS had to be put off. During this time, Mr.Tan decided to entertain us by singing to us. It was really funny when he was singing some old Chinese songs. About half an hour later, the person finally came and with a bunch of paper. The survey was just several questions which could be finish in about fifteen minutes. What made me happy was that I did not need to do the survey because I did not go to the OBS. 

          After that, we went to the Auditorium for the inter-house sudoku competition. There were three parts in this competition which were easy, normal and hard part. There was an extra part that was called insane part which was only available if there was enough time. However, the truth was that we were so slow that we did not even have time for the hard part. We had to ended when we finished the normal part as there was not enough time. 

          Then, each house were asked to go to different places for the inter-house skit challenge preparation. The whole preparation was not my business because the students who will take part in the sports competition do not need to take part in the skit challenge. I was in the black house sec three basketball team so the preparation was not my duty. At about one thirty, we were dismissed. 

          I am very excited about tomorrow because the inter-house game will start tomorrow. I cannot wait to see my team win.