Thursday, August 20, 2009

After The Second Monthly Exam... ...

Exam started from 18th (Tuesday) and ended on 20th August.

Somehow, I'm not worried about the scores that I'll be getting after the holidays. But I have a feeling that this won't be one of my better results because I only started studying three days before this exam. I can't remember why I didn't have the urge to study, especially for an exam. Well, there is a secret reason... ...

Anyway, I'll be having my holidays and the schoolwork that were piled up before the exam. I was planning to go get a job or something but it can't be done, such a pity. I was hoping to go and have an experience of standing for maybe 5 hours or more. Besides, I do have a lot of work at home, the usual chores and another "job" specially available during the holidays. That is... ... looking after my two younger siblings. They are the best agents at doing secret missions and investigations. My job is to sabotage their missions and stop the house from being a target of a bomb from some headquarter.

I'm still thinking of doing something crazy for my holiday, hope I have some ideas before tomorrow... ...

Friday, August 14, 2009

Events For National Day

This month is the month we celebrate National Day. To spread the patriotism in the school, competitions and events were organised by the school.

In the morning, there was a choir competition and the theme is of course National Day. The form 4 and form 6 class must participate and I am guessing that it's because no one has the spirit to enter so the teachers took actions.

Our class started practicing 2 days earlier before the competition and the teacher felt that we weren't going to put our hearts in it. But somehow our class is like hidden in a mysterious box not knowing what will be popping out. On the day of the competition, our monitor had a small meeting with some of the classmates and we thought of many things to make the performance better and maybe even impress the form teacher.

The last decision of the meeting is that the three rows will be switched and the top row are girls that sway to the left and right. The first row are also girls but they will be standing and focusing on singing. And obviously, the boys will be in the middle, singing and waving the flags. We also made some background singing which the teacher suggested herself earlier but was cancelled because it had felt awkward. The song we sang was "Untukmu Malaysia". Here are the lyrics:

**********
Padamu Malaysia ku berjanji
Padamu ku akan berbakti
Seluruh jiwa raga kuserahkan
Demi kejayaan bangsa

#Aman makmur damai sejahtera
Akan kujunjung dan kujaga
Bersatu rela jujur setia
Membela bangsa tercinta

@Syukur ku selalu kepada Ilahi
Atas segala rahmatNya
Malaysiaku negara maju jaya
Baktiku anya untukmu

Repeat#@
*********

When the results were out, we were dumbfounded as we had won the third place. All the last seconds actually produced results.

In the afternoon, 8 students including me went to school again to participate in the banner painting competition. We drew on a white cloth with the theme for National Day. We only prepare the materials that day and we had a few problems. First, we had to buy the paint for the cloth, also known as colour dye. Second, we didn't plan a diagram, but we manage to make a draft before the competition. Third, we had limited time. Some of us have tuition and some need to get home early.

When we went to see the other teams, we found out that they didn't brought any colour and were planning to paint on Monday. We were struck and felt that we had panicked for nothing. But we still comfort ourselves that we will start earlier. The second truth was worst. We were going to finish the banner but the person in charge told us that the banner can be handed in after a week! We made another reason to calm ourselves, we finished the painting so that we can focus on our exam and enjoy the holidays later without needing to worry about the competition.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Twelve in the morning


This is the first time I actually finish this type of "drawing". It took me about 3 hours, I did this from 12 midnight until 3am in the morning. (Yikes, it really looks weird now)

Saturday, August 8, 2009

A chat with Dr.Devi Shetty, Narayana Hrudayalaya (Heart Specialist)

This is an e-mail I received, it's quite interesting. But, still personally I say, read this just as a guide as I cannot promise that this is 100% true.

##
A chat with Dr.Devi Shetty, Narayana Hrudayalaya (Heart Specialist) Bangalore was arranged by WIPRO for its employees.

The transcript of the chat is given below. Useful for everyone.

Qn: What are the thumb rules for a layman to take care of his heart?
Ans:

1. Diet - Less of carbohydrate, more of protein, less oil.
2. Exercise - Half an hour's walk, at least five days a week; avoids lifts and avoid sitting
3. Control weight.
4. Quit Smoking
5. Control blood pressure and sugar.

Qn: Is eating non-vege food (fish) good for the heart?
Ans: No

Qn: It's still a grave shock to hear that some apparently healthy person gets a cardiac arrest. How do we understand it in perspective?
Ans: This is called silent attack; that is why we recommend everyone past the age of 30 to undergo routine health checkups.

Qn: Are heart diseases hereditary?
Ans: Yes

Qn: What are the ways in which the heart is stressed? What practices do you suggest to de-stress?
Ans: Change your attitude towards life. Do not look for perfection in everything in life.

Qn: Is walking better than jogging or is more intensive exercise required to keep a healthy heart?
Ans: Walking is better than jogging since jogging leads to early fatigue and injury to joints.

Qn: You have done so much for the poor and needy. What has inspired you to do so?
Ans: Mother Theresa , who was my patient.

Qn: Can people with low blood pressure suffer heart diseases?
Ans: Extremely rare

Qn: Does cholesterol accumulates right from an early age (I'm currently only 22) or do you have to worry about it only after you are above 30 years of age?
Ans: Cholesterol accumulates from childhood.

Qn: How do irregular eating habits affect the heart?
Ans: You tend to eat junk food when the habits are irregular and your body's enzyme release for digestion gets confused.

Qn: How can I control cholesterol content without using medicines?
Ans: Control diet, walk and eat walnut.

Qn: Can yoga prevent heart ailments?
Ans: Yoga helps.

Qn: Which is the best and worst food for the heart?
Ans: Fruits and vegetables are the best and the worst is oil.

Qn: Which oil is better - groundnut, sunflower, olive?
Ans: All oils are bad.

Qn: What is the routine checkup one should go through? Is there any specific test?
Ans: Routine blood test to ensure sugar, cholesterol is ok. Check BP, Treadmill test after an echo.

Qn: What are the first aid steps to be taken on a heart attack?
Ans: Help the person into a sleeping position, place an aspirin tablet under the tongue with a sorbitrate tablet if available, and rush him to a coronary care unit since the maximum

Qn: How do you differentiate between pain caused by a heart attack and that caused due to gastric trouble?
Ans: Extremely difficult without ECG..

Qn: What is the main cause of a steep increase in heart problems amongst youngsters? I see people of about 30-40 yrs of age having heart attacks and serious heart problems.
Ans: Increased awareness has increased incidents. Also, sedentary lifestyles, smoking, junk food, lack of exercise in a country where people are genetically three times more vulnerable for heart attacks than Europeans and Americans.

Qn: Is it possible for a person to have BP outside the normal range of 120/80 and yet be perfectly healthy?
Ans: Yes.

Qn: Marriages within close relatives can lead to heart problems for the child. Is it true?
Ans: Yes, co-sanguinity leads to congenital abnormalities and you may not have a software engineer as a child

Qn: Many of us have an irregular daily routine and many a times we have to stay late nights in office. Does this affect our heart? What precautions would you recommend?
Ans: When you are young, nature protects you against all these irregularities. However, as you grow older, respect the biological clock.

Qn: Will taking anti-hypertensive drugs cause some other complications (short / long term)?
Ans: Yes, most drugs have some side effects. However, modern anti-hypertensive drugs are extremely safe.

Qn: Will consuming more coffee/tea lead to heart attacks?
Ans: No.

Qn: Are asthma patients more prone to heart disease?
Ans: No.

Qn: How would you define junk food?
Ans: Fried food like Kentucky , McDonalds, samosas, and even masala dosas.

Qn: You mentioned that Indians are three times more vulnerable. What is the reason for this, as Europeans and Americans also eat a lot of junk food?
Ans: Every race is vulnerable to some disease and unfortunately, Indians are vulnerable for the most expensive disease.

Qn: Does consuming bananas help reduce hypertension?
Ans: No.

Qn: Can a person help himself during a heart attack (Because we see a lot of forwarded emails on this)?
Ans: Yes. Lie down comfortably and put an aspirin tablet of any description under the tongue and ask someone to take you to the nearest coronary care unit without any delay and do not wait for the ambulance since most of the time, the ambulance does not turn up.

Qn: Do, in any way, low white blood cells and low hemoglobin count lead to heart problems?
Ans: No. But it is ideal to have normal hemoglobin level to increase your exercise capacity.

Qn: Sometimes, due to the hectic schedule we are not able to exercise. So, does walking while doing daily chores at home or climbing the stairs in the house, work as a substitute for exercise?
Ans: Certainly. Avoid sitting continuously for more than half an hour and even the act of getting out of the chair and going to another chair and sitting helps a lot.

Qn: Is there a relation between heart problems and blood sugar?
Ans: Yes. A strong relationship since diabetics are more vulnerable to
heart attacks than non-diabetics.

Qn: What are the things one needs to take care of after a heart operation?
Ans: Diet, exercise, drugs on time, Control cholesterol, BP, weight.

Qn: Are people working on night shifts more vulnerable to heart disease when compared to day shift workers?
Ans: No.

Qn: What are the modern anti-hypertensive drugs?
Ans: There are hundreds of drugs and your doctor will chose the right combination for your problem, but my suggestion is to avoid the drugs and go for natural ways of controlling blood pressure by walk, diet to reduce weight and changing attitudes towards lifestyles.

Qn: Does aspirin or similar headache pills increase the risk of heart attacks?
Ans: No.

Qn: Why is the rate of heart attacks more in men than in women?
Ans: Nature protects women till the age of 45.

Qn: How can one keep the heart in a good condition?
Ans: Eat a healthy diet, avoid junk food, exercise everyday, do not smoke and, go for health checkups if you are past the age of 30
##

(:^>)

Friday, August 7, 2009

English Oral Test

English Oral Test is a test for every student to stand in front of an audience and make a speech or maybe say anything that pops into your mind at that moment. But for our class, we usually remember a passage before we went for the test. The reason is because we are not use to standing in front of a crowd, even more, talking in front of them. Before we went for the test, we were given a period of a few weeks to get ready. We need to find a material and I went with what I would actually be interested in. I had written "Rome" as a title in the name list, so I went for the search for an essay. A few weeks ago, I had kept an article from the newspaper, they were introducing the places in Rome. What's special about it is, they were introducing places that were also the settings in the book written by Dan Brown, Angels and Demons. There was a small problem though, the article was in Chinese, it took me at least 3 hours to translate the summary of it, there were 6 places, but I only took 4 or else it would be too long. Below is the material I had for the oral test.

##
Good morning everyone, my topic for today is masterpieces in Rome. Rome is one of the most interesting cities in the world due to the presence of historic monuments and ancient buildings. The origins of this Italian city date from more than 2,700 years ago. Rome contains some of the most interesting ancient buildings and monuments of the entire world.

One of them is the Pantheon, built by Marcus Agrippa as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome. However, the structure of the building today we see might belong to Trajan’s architect Apollodorus of Damascus as it was rebuilt after 100 years. The Pantheon has been in continuous use throughout its history. Since the 7th century, it has been used as a Roman Catholic Church dedicated to “St. Mary and the Martyrs”.

Santa Maria del Popolo is a notable Augustinian church. It stands between Piazza del Popolo and the ancient Porta Flaminia. This church has a vast collection of artworks. Arts from famous artist such as Michelangelo, Raphael and Bernini are found in this church. The detailed mosaic dome created by Raphael was for his friend, Agostino Chigi as a private chapel.

The Saint Peter’s Basilica is located within the Vatican City. St. Peter’s has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world, holding 60,000 people. This ancient building was built by Emperor Constantine, taking about 120 years to be completed. Many known architects had participated in this great construction.

Finally, the Fountain of the Four Rivers, a masterpiece by Bernini is located in the Piazza Navona. The Four Rivers represent the four great rivers, they are the Nile in Africa, Ganges in Asia, Danube in Europe and Rio de la Plata in America. Each carving on the fountain carries a certain number of allegories and metaphors. Even if it has been standing for 358 years, it still has not lost its soul and charm.
##

After 2 weeks of remembering the script, I finally went for the test. I gotta say, this was the first time I didn't make a fool out of myself. This is because for every oral test from primary school to secondary school, I would make a very big mistake or forget what I was going to say.
(:P)