Sunday 18 December 2011

A Story 一个故事

1,一个我自小学四年级就认识的一个同学。我们来自马来西亚的同一个城市—马六甲的同一所小学。自小学以来,她1就对自己的学业成绩要求很高,期望自己在每次考试中都能名列前茅。
            2,一个我透过她而认识的人。她2与她1就读于同一所学院,也寄宿在同一个家庭里。平时,我都是在面子书上关注她2。虽然我不曾与2见面,但是我透过1进一步了解她2。她2在香港出生,但是在上海求学。我隐约觉得她2应该也是个非常好强的人。
            我在去年十月首次踏上英国的土地上。英国是一个我一直以来都非常向往的一个国家,因为我的哥哥曾经在这个国家求学。除了伦敦以外,我来到英国后前往的第一个城镇就是举世闻名的牛津城。牛津城的历史悠久,充满了人文气息,而坐落在牛津城里的就是世界上赫赫有名的牛津大学。据说只要在牛津城里拐一个弯,就有可能看见牛津大学的其中一所学院。
            当我首次踏足牛津城时,就发现牛津城四处都是一片红色,一片石砖红。当时的我并没有对牛津这座城镇深深着迷,因为不耐烦,我希望自己能快点离开这座城市,只在这里逗留短短的几个小时。当我正式来到英国求学时,我竟然对牛津城深深着迷,冀望自己有朝一日能够在牛津大学求学,借此一览牛津城的风光,体会牛津城醇厚的人文风情。
            进入牛津大学求学可不是件简单的事。除了要有优异的成绩以外,个人履历也要非常突出。刚开始,我并不敢报读牛津大学,因为自己的成绩虽然不俗,但是我觉得自己并没有达到出类拔萃的地步。我只好把这份期盼埋藏在心坎里,冀望它有一天能开花结果。
            偶然的一个星期六下午,当我在宿舍的电脑里上网时,无意间浏览英国报名大学的网站—UCAS。在英国,我们必须透过这个网站申请大学,填妥报名表格后,填写五所自己想要申请的大学。无意间,我得知牛津大学设有一门我非常感兴趣的学科——经济与管理。经济学主要学习如何妥善地利用与分配有限的资源,而管理学则让我们学习如何在商界里管理一家公司。从此以后,我就立志要申请这门学科,因为经济与管理学的融合,正是我想在大学修读的学位。
            今年七月初到九月初,我回到马来西亚度过了长达两个月的暑假,也获得自己A水平考试的成绩。我对自己的成绩感到相当满意,让我感到懊恼的是,我的其中一门学科考了个E等,其他科目全部都是A等。这门学科就是宏观经济,也是我一直以来最为头痛的一门学科。虽然我对这门课目不是非常有信心,当我的写作能力向来不俗,我原来预计自己至少能考到B等或C等。我只好在来年1月重考这门课目。
            回到英国后,我知道自己接下来就要马不停蹄地办理申请大学的手续。我已经从马来西亚带来历年政府考试的成绩单以方便申请大学。原本学校老师并没有鼓励我申请牛津或剑桥大学(我们只能选择其中一所),因为我的成绩虽然不错,但是每一门科目的平均只达到了约86分,并没有突破90分的门槛。老师说申请那两所大学的学生每一科的平均分数必须达到90分。这时,我却步了,仿佛徘徊在十字街头,并不知道如何取舍。再加上自己有一门学科考得不理想,我担心排名高的大学不会录取我,也担心自己自不量力。
       经过一番深思熟虑,我决定报读牛津大学。我是这么想的,如果我不报读牛津大学,也许有一天我会懊悔;相反的如果我报读牛津大学但是不被录取的话,我还是会感到心满意足,因为至少我已经尝试过了。申请牛津或剑桥大学的学生必须在1015日之前交上报名表格。因此我立刻着手申请账户,开始填写UCAS网上的报名表格。
未完待续。。。

Wednesday 14 December 2011

New Post

It has been almost six months (half-a-year) since I last updated by blog. This six months have been both enjoyable and busy, but I am contented. Year 2011 will soon be coming to an end and Year 2012 will be a brand new start.

I will summarise this six months briefly. During July and August, I was back in Malaysia and visited Thailand and Bali. Both trips were wonderful. From September and October, I was quite busy with my university application through UCAS. I have received three offers so far. Although I only applied to three prestigious universities, overall I am quite satisfied with the choices that I have made. During this two months, I am busy catching up with my studies because I have been lagging behind lately for Mathematics. I hope I can catch up soon. Last Thursday, I hurt both my hands severely at school because I broke a glass window. Now, my hands are recovering and I'll be removing the bandages by the end of this week. And tomorrow, I'll be flying back to Malaysia for my Christmas holiday. I'll be coming back in early January. This term, I have been longing to go home due to home sick.

This is all that I want to share. Hopefully I'll be updating my blog more often.

Tuesday 31 May 2011

Holidays

Time flies. In a blink eye, this is the fourth day of my half-term break. This time, I stayed with the same English host family as last half-term break. My daily routine seems to be monotonous. As I have finished all my exams, I do not need to do any study. Sometimes, I do feel a little bored staying at home.

- Everyday, I'll wake up at about 9 in the morning.
- Then, I'll take my breakfast at about 10 a.m.
- Later, I'll have my lunch at about 1 noon.
- After that, I'll take my dinner at about 7.30 p.m.
- Lastly, I'll go to bed at about 11 p.m.

Other than that, I'll stay in my room to surf the internet. Occasionally, I'll take a bus down to the town to have a walk and do some shopping to grasp some fresh air. I do go to the supermarket to stock up some snacks and drinks too. When I feel like having some Chinese food, there are two shops selling Chinese takeaways just opposite the house. This is all about my simple daily life staying with my host family.

Tomorrow, I'll be going to London again to meet up with one of my friends and do some shopping. Yeah! This will definitely be a respite from my monotonous daily life during half-term break. By the way, I'll be back to Malaysia in one and a half month time. I am longing for my summer holiday.

Sunday 29 May 2011

Second week and final week of exam

Finally, last week, I had finished all my exam papers for AS level. I did three papers as well. They were Mathematics Core 2, Business Studies 2 and Economics Unit 2.

Compared to the papers that I had done on last week, these papers were more challenging. This is because the duration of the exam papers was short but we need to attempt on many long questions. Therefore, time allocation is crucial in completing these papers on time. I had sufficient time for two papers. However, I struggled to complete my Business Studies Unit 2 paper. Luckily, I managed to figure out some ideas to answer my last essay question in ten minutes. It was really challenging to me because I was a bit nervous at the end of the paper. I was less confident of my last paper-Economics 2 because I felt that my answers were not so good. Actually, I did not study much for this paper because I focused more on other papers. Maybe this was my fault!

Overall, the last three papers were fine. The last exam day was the half-term break of summer term, so I'll have a good rest after two weeks of tiring exams.


Monday 23 May 2011

A brief trip to London - A memorable experience to me

About 12 days ago, my mother and my other family members went for a holiday in Europe. Europe has always been my dream land as I have not been to there before. Anyway, I am quite happy that the trip was quite enjoyable to them.

Yesterday, I went up to London with my cousin to meet up with my mother and my aunt. Early in the morning, we walked to the train station to get a train to London. During our way to the train station, my cousin found out that there will be a train shortly. To catch up for the train, I ran like a mad person to the train station. It was extremely tiring to me as I hardly do sports, Luckily, I managed to get two train tickets for my cousin and I one minute before the train departed. Just imagine how lucky we were! Just after we went up to the train and got a seat, the train departed. However, this experience was quite exiciting for both us.

To be continued....

The first week of exam

Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I have already taken my three papers in this three alternate days. I am cosidered quite lucky because I had one day to study after each paper. Besides Business Studies Unit 1, my other papers were Economics Unit 1 and Mathematics Core 1. Overall, this three exam papers went quite well. However, I am not very confident of my performance for this three papers. In UK, I have got 20 percent extra time as our first language is not English. I also had access to a dictionary but I did not use it at all. The exam atmosphere here differs from Malaysia because my exams took place in a Sports Hall. Some of my friends here were taking different papers from me during the same time. We only sat at different rows. It seems quite cool! Well, that's all about my first exam week.

Sunday 15 May 2011

Exams are just round the corner

This is the fourth month since I first came to UK to study. Tomorrow, I'll be facing my first paper, AS Business Studies Unit 1. Business Studies is a brand new subject to me as I previously studied science subjects in Malaysia. Business Studies is not an easy subject to me because it requires analysis and evaluation skills. After we have studied the theories in the text book, we will need to apply to the case study. Therefore, it is a subject that train me to be flexible and creative. Lastly, I do hope that I'll do well in my coming papers.