Éclectique

Yesterday, we had cleaned the fishpond -- that was exhausting. Today, we planned to visit my grandfather -- or as my brother, my cousins and I call him, Atuk -- in Banting. Worrying that there wouldn't be any food, we swung by KFC at D'Pangkin to buy a bucket -- this is a rarity. We bought the one that can feed 5-6 people. Bloody expensive. RM75++. So we officially hit the road around 11:45 or so. An hour's journey coupled with bad drivers -- there seem to be a lot of those in Malaysia -- and we were at Atuk's doorstep around 1:50-ish. Amazingly, no one was home. His car wasn't in the driveway. We swung by my cousin's house which was in the area and they too weren't home. We figured there must've been some kenduri somewhere and Atuk sort of forgot about us. Huhu. Well, he doesn't get guests too often. So for the heck of it, we swung by Pantai Morib. My first time. Hehe! Before that, my dad said that if followed the sign to Pantai Kelana...

Right off the bat I'm sure you guys are wondering either; (A) What on Earth do those acronyms mean? (B) Aqil mentioned them before... But I can't remember... Either way, I'll let you know. SAT stands for Scholastic Assessment Test -- formerly Scholastic Aptitude Test. TOEFL stands for Test Of English as A Foreign Language. Right now, these two are my top priority. Preparing for and taking the tests. For the TOEFL, I'll be taking TOEFL iBT which means internet-based test. I recently bought a couple of books to help with preparations. The titles are; Cracking the SAT 2011 Edition and Cracking the TOEFL iBT 2011 Edition . Both are published by The Princeton Review. Cracking the SAT 2011 Edition by The Princeton Review Cracking the TOEFL iBT 2011 Edition by The Princeton Review Insyaallah I'll be able to do it. SAT so far seems quite doable. Hehe! That's all for now. Au revoir!

There's so many questions! What do I want to do? where do I want to go? how am I going to afford it? Let's start with the first question; what. What do I want to do? I feel like taking engineering but I'm not sure I can carry it -- thanks to poor grades in Add Math so far. I really REALLY hope I did way better this time. Insyaallah. If I do go for engineering, what type of engineering? Not civil. You're not supposed to take that right away, I think. Mechanical? I like to tinker with stuff but I'm not too sure about job opportunities. -Sigh-. Second question; where. This is very much depended on what course/field I'll be taking. But I really really want to go to the US. Maybe Canada. Ivy League colleges are too expensive. The US and Canada have a lot of good colleges. I'm looking for a QUALITY education. Any good college should provide that. I'll just have to keep scouring. Right now, I'm just looking at application deadlines, ent...

Here it comes, The most important, Most challenging 4 weeks, Of our illustrious high school lives. It may only be 10 days, But the days are placed, Over a span of time, 22 days to be exact. 3 days, Then 4 days, Followed by 1 day, Again and Again. These 22 days are represented, By the most feared 3-letter acronym, Known to Malaysian high schoolers, It is SPM. It is our final set of hurdles, That last stretch, Witching hour, Zero hour. This is the leap, We took our breaths during the trials, Now we jump, But we are yet to begin falling. AQ 24th November 2010 Note: I wrote this on the second day of SPM, I think.

Just got back. We woke up early and after getting everything ready, headed to Putrajaya Challenge Park. However, mom didn't come with us. She had other plans. We missed the exit and had to sort of double back a bit after the toll. We arrived at PCP around 11 and unloaded the bikes, geared up, etc. When we got arrived, there were A LOT of people! We were both happy and cautious. It was nice to see the trails being used rather than falling into disarray but we were worried about the number of riders that would be on the trails. However, we realized pretty much everyone was leaving, at his/her own pace. Yes, there were a number of female riders too which was nice to see. Mountain biking is far too nice a sport not to be enjoyed by everyone. Anyway, we headed up to the trail and started. 1st leg; Starts with a rapid but short descent leading straight into a set up ascending switchbacks. Get ready to drop gears quickly and pedal to the top. Stop, and you won't be able t...

Tomorrow I'm going to Putrajaya Challenge Park!!! Woohoo!! It's been like 3 or months or so since I went there. There's a number of things I want to achieve/do there. But before day, an account of today's events. If you don't want to read through that, my fellow readers, scroll down until you start to see numberings. That should be the list of things I want to do at the Putrajaya Challenge Park. Everyone woke up earlier than usual -- considering that it IS a Saturday -- and got ready to go to Mid Valley. After a quick breakfast of cereals and bananas. Yummy. Hehe! Anyway, we left the house around 9:45 and arrived at the Gardens at around 10. We made a beeline to the dentist for our regular check up and scaling. We had to take turns since we were all assigned to the same dentist. After I had finished -- I was the first in -- I brought my VAIO to the Sony Store because I was having trouble uninstalling the trial version of Microsoft Office. Unfortunately, ...

I've finally finished the heaviest of 9 of the 10 subjects. Like I've written in my previous post(s), I'm taking 10 subjects totaling about 23 papers. O_O". So I've done 21/23 papers! YEAAH!! The heaviest are over! Today was Biology. Next week is English for Science and Technology (EST). I'm not panicking too much because all I need to do is read through my National Geographic magazines. I have around 2 years worth of them. Hehe! Great pictures AND great articles. I guess you could say that National Geographic is what got me into amateur photography and writing. To top it off, I've always loved animals and the environment and issues that matter so it was a really natural fit. When I mean issues that matter, politics doesn't fall under it. Unless it's something really major and/or will affect me. Speaking of which; in Malaysian newspapers and/or news networks there's too many of these things: 'Politics'. It's rarely abo...

So I've made it through 7 subjects totalling 15 papers. Phew. 3 more subjects to go. That means another 8 more papers. O_O'. I have 3 days to brush up my Chemistry then one day to memorize Biology then 1 week to pour over my NatGeo magazines for EST. At least after Biology, I can hit PCP!! YEEAAH!!! So far, SPM wasn't too bad. Insyaallah I will be OK. I hope so. P/S I've managed to keep my promise of staying off Facebook for 3 weeks. I'll stay off until AFTER I sit for my EST papers. Why? Because I know I can do it.