DeeDee

I bought Dee Dee a dress! :D

Different Views

Different views

I’ve been wanting to write this post for quite some time, but It got delayed due to a LOT of stuff.

I was reading a C.S.Lewis book, ‘Out of the Silent Planet.’ It is really good, and his English is superb, however; the pages were filled with so many long tiny words and complicated descriptive sentences that I almost gave up before finishing the first few pages. But after awhile, I got used to it and managed to finish the whole book. Wow, it is amazing.

Anyway there was this part on page58 where he was describing an alien.

“Then it became abominable-a man seven feet high with a snaky body, covered, face and all, with thick black animal hair, and whiskered like a cat. But starting from the other end you had an animal with everything an animal ought to have-glassy coat, liquid eye, sweet breath, and whitest teeth- and added to all these, as though Paradise had never been lost and earliest dreams were true, the charm of speech and reason. Nothing could be more disgusting than the one impression; nothing more delightful than the other. It all depended on the point of view.”

This is what I’ve been trying to say since, a long long time ago! It just depends on your view of things. One of the common examples is whether the glass is half empty or half full. If a girl asks me whether her hair is messy, to me it probably wouldn’t look messy, and to another person it might look extremely messy.

Yeah, anyway, my L.A. made me do an essay on Connotative Differences. Basically I had to think of a situation, and make two reports, one good and one bad.

Here’s what I wrote:

John Smith is said to pick up and cook dogs, cats, or even racoons that have been run over by cars. Living next to a highway, John often finds his lunch right outside his house. There’s nothing wrong, as it is after all, free meat.

John Smith has been spotted scraping up animals that have become roadkill and eat it. This uncivilized act is horrible and sooner or later, bring disease. Eating roadkill is a barbarous action that stains the wonderful image of our country.

Yeah, there you see, the same situation, just viewed differently. Look how easily words can mislead someone, so be careful not to believe everything you read.

I just woke up from a dream where my mother gives me a jacket. :(

It looked really nice, too bad its not real.

I really like this jacket too.

The price is? $69.90

DOLLARS!!! X4

$280 ringgit

So. If anyone happens to see a jacket like this, that is super cheap. TELL ME!

Thankyou :)

Amazing Race.

Amazing Race.

Hahaha.

I will start off saying that, it has always been my dream to go on the Amazing Race. When I was just a little kid, probably only half of my current height, I begged(nagged) my brothers to take me to go on the Amazing Race. But they wouldn’t take me, saying that half way I’ll probably get them to carry me, which is true. They then said, “You go with your boyfriend lahhh.” So I made up my mind that I would. :D

A few weeks ago, my teacher reminded us that we had to do an essay, the tittle “How I Spent My Holiday.” The holiday was a long looooong time ago, and I couldn’t remember what I did, so teacher said that it could be fictional. I started by writing about a robbery in my house, but then I thought to myself, “How am I supposed to catch the thief within 2 weeks?” So I changed topic, it became, “I went to the Amazing Race with my brother.”(which I posted unto my blog. Btw, change the word brother to boyfriend)

When I found out that nst had organized an Amazing Race, obviously I signed up. But I couldn’t go with my boyfriend as my brothers have suggested. (cause I haven’t gotten one yet, hahahaha J, proud of myself) Anyway, for the Amazing Race, we were supposed to sign up in groups of 4 and one person was supposed to be non-Christian, or the other option was to tick a box that said “I don’t have a group.” Since I was a bit too lazy to form a group, ( I’m not sure why I don’t like forming groups. I don’t pick the person that I want to sit with in the bus the day before the field trip. I don’t deliberately pick who I want to sit with at lunch, that just became a habit after awhile.) and I don’t have any non-Christian friends, I ticked the little box.

On Sunday morning, I went to the church wondering who my race partners were. I soon found out, that two of them were siblings, Rebecca and Timothy. The first thing I heard Rebecca say to Timothy was, “There, she’s in our team, the one who complained very loud yesterday.” Which was true, hahaha oops. After that they kind of ignored me when I talked to them, so I don’t think they liked me.(I don’t blame them.) Soon, the committee realized that our 4^th member, a person with a Chinese name, wasn’t going to show up. So they transferred me to another group that had Hao Yen, Li Jin, and Clement. *relieved* It was kind of ironic, as the past few weeks, Hao Yen was asking me whose team I was going to be in, and I had to tell him again and again that I ticked the ‘no team’ box, but in the end I ended up in his team.

For the first clue, we got the J=2 thing but we couldn’t guess the word. The whole ride to the zoo we were trying to figure out which animal had _I_ _O_O_A_U_. Only at the entrance of the zoo, Hao Yen pointed out to the statues and said, “Look, turtles.” Then I said, “Look, hippopo--- ohhhh…” and that was how we managed to figure out our first clue, quite funny if you were actually there.

Then Basically, the rest of the Amazing race went like this,

-Rush to Amphibian and Reptile House

-Find Sasha

-Show her picture of us with the animals in the clues

-Get our next clue

-Figure out the riddles

-Try to find the animals

-Walk

-Laugh as we get lost and have to backtrack

-Take picture with all the animal plates

-Walk, walk, walk

-Laugh at the international school accents, go wrong way, backtrack

-Walkwalkwalkwalkwalk

-Rush around looking for groups to do the intersection

-WALK

-Find Sasha

-Get our next clue.

X5

And so on… We walked (running was against the rules) for 3 hours only stopping to drink water for a little while, ate lunch for half an hour, then walked again, hardly stopping, for 1 ½ hours. We walked a lot, laughed a lot, and backtracked a lot. Since we didn’t win, I so so regret not taking pictures of the animals and my team.

My legs hurt, good job committee. (: haha

Facebook and meat!!! :D

Propaganda

Imagine, if your company sold toothpaste, what methods would you use to convince the consumers to buy your toothpaste brand instead of the others? The methods you would use to advertise your product is called propaganda. Propaganda is a way of communicating opinions or beliefs through using many methods or tricks of advertising. It is very interesting and there are so many techniques that it could fill a book. A few of them are:

1. To belong

2. Black or white fallacy

“Look! Everybody has a Smart watch, join them, visit ‘toys r us’ today!” This is an example of the method, to belong. It is a simple and yet very effective method. Most people want to belong to something, a group, or just to fit in with the crowd. “To belong” simply tells the consumer that “everyone is having it; therefore if you want to belong, buy it”. Many times the quality of a less advertised brand is equally as good, yet people will pay dollars more for the name brand because it implies they belong.

Transfer, the reader is urged to accept something because a famous or well-known person’s name is associated with it. In other words, sometimes a company pays a famous person to say something on their commercial so that the fans would feel an urge to buy that product. Sometimes it can be really dumb, I think there was one where a famous guy was asked to advertise pads, and what’s worse is some girls really did buy it. -.-‘’

Cita-cita saya

Let me ask you a question. If a teenager friend said that he really loved computer games, what would be his ambition?

A game maker?

WRONG.

It would probably be a game TESTER! Definition? A computer game tester is a person whose profession consists of testing video and computer games in order to find bugs, errors and possible conflicts as a quality control process. It’s easy, you get money, plus you get to enjoy it, waayyyyy before anybody else. Thus, this is a dream job for many teenage guys. (Was for my brother as well. haha)

Do I want to become a game tester? Definitely not. I cannot even make it through an RPG game without the help of cheats and a complete and thorough walkthrough. Most of the time even with those helps, I get stuck and give up.

My ambition is, *drumrolls*... to be a BOOK tester! ( I’m not sure whether there’s such a term as I made it up.) My definition: A book tester is a person who reads unpublished books, reject them if they’re not good enough, and get paid. Basically getting paid to read books. Why Books? Like the guys love computer games, I love books. Fiction, mystery, adventure, romance, comics, inspiring books, and, of course, the Bible, almost all have been read for at least 3 times. Most of them dumped into 2 large cardboard boxes, as I have used all my cupboard space to keep the more precious and important ones.

No, this is not mine, just a random picture found on Google.

Reasons why I want to be a book tester?

1. Not enough money to buy the books for myself.

2. Stop other people from paying money and then becoming unsatisfied with some books. (like I was)

3. I can “work” at home with 3 large dogs to keep me company. (:

I want to be a book tester! :D

Poems

I have been practicing my rhyming skills. (:

I made one to Jamie Ke.

Jamie is a friend,

Who stays until the end,

Of a movie, or a game

It is very much the same.

She hurries to call

Others for paintball.

Always she is sighing

When I cant go rock climbing

She wants to be a chef,

And no, you're not deaf,

Magically she makes,

Wonderful, wonderful cakes.

Jamie-aah~!

Make cupcakes for me lah!

Make that two,

Already made a poem for you.

I also made one for Michael for his birthday :)

Dear Michael,

Blessed birthday!

You're worth more,

Than I could ever say.

Twenty-four already!?

How fast can you grow?

Lets go travel,

too bad you hate snow.

What kind of present,

Would you like?

An iguana?

Or maybe a bike?

Anyway, blessed birthday!

May God bless you!

Don't ever forget,

We all love you!!! :)

Fictional essay on Amazing Race

This is a fictional essay on how I spent my holidays.

I spent my holiday going on the famous television show, the “Amazing Race” with my brother. Before the race, we met the other contestants and found out that we were competing against 7 other couples. My brother was so enthusiastic that when our host said we could start, he was the first to reach and tear open the clue.

London

Our clue ordered us to take the first flight to London and head towards the London Bridge. After a little trouble with our taxi driver, we reached the London Bridge and found that we were supposed to bungee jump off the London Bridge together. Scared but excited, we counted to three and jumped off together, screaming the whole way down. Our next clue told us to go to Big Ben, and count all the steps. We counted the 334 steps and got it right the first time. We hurried to the pit stop which was at the Buckingham Palace and arrived in third place.

Amsterdam

The next day we were ordered by the our clue to fly to Amsterdam, and collect our the next clue at Poezenboot. Poezenboot is an unusual flea market and is home to an incredibly large number of homeless cats. Our clue told us to clean at least 10 cat cages. Wow, did they stink, my brother and me were utterly disgusted after just 2 cages. But we finished it and headed to where the next clue told us to go. We were instructed to row our own boat down the Brouwersgracht, one of the beautiful canals in Amsterdam. Finallly, we headed to the Old Center for the pitstop. We reached there in first place! We earned free tickets to New Zealand for free!

Antananarivo

Waking up early in the morning we headed for Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar. Reaching there, we visited the Tsimbazaza Zoo, where we were given the tasks to spot a fossa and feed a group of lemurs. Spotting the fossa was easy, but while we were trying to feed the lemurs, they became aggressive and started attacking us. My brother and I ran but I stumbled and broke my ankle. The zoo keeper reached us in time to drive away the lemurs, but I could not walk. The Amazing Race host sent us back home with extra free holiday tickets and a lot of cash. Probably hoping we won’t sue them for sending us into a dangerous environment.

A fossa :)

Too bad I can't put pictures into my real essay.

Big Ben

Big Ben.

I was searching for information on it online, (to write my Amazing Race story), and I stumbled on this great article. It’s interesting and contains facts, (everything I find missing in the STAR). I would gladly be a journalist if I could write like this. But anyway, if I cant write like this, I’ll just be a book tester. :D

For 13 years Brian Davis was the official clock-tower guide for the Palace of Westminster. Recently retired, in his working life he took more than 7,000 tours up the 315ft Gothic tower that is home to the bell called Big Ben, climbing the 334 spiralling stone stepsfive times a day. In the process he took more than 5 million steps up and down, clocking up the equivalent of 76 ascents of Everest.

"I was smoking 80 cigarettes a day at the time, too," he says. "But when I had a medical the doctor said I had the blood pressure of an 18-year-old. Once I got all the way up to the belfry and dropped the keys, which meant going all the way back down and up again. My best time was one minute 26 seconds."

Mr Davis never ceases to be amazed that most people seem to know so little about Big Ben and its tower and the fact that they can apply for a tour through their local MP. (Parties are restricted to 16 and children must be over 11.)

He has escorted the blind and deaf, a man paralysed from the waist down who crawled the entire way for charity, and a man who had just had open-heart surgery. One person had a turn at the top. He soon recovered but the ambulance man who had to climb the steps after him was in a terrible state by the time he reached the top. And, of course, it's not just a physical feat. Vertigo can strike at any time. From the top, the bottom of the stairwell looks like a postage stamp. The most terrified man he ever encountered, Mr Davis says, turned out to be a jumbo jet pilot.

When asked about any famous visitors, he says: "I once took Prince William and his school class up, and the former prime minister James Callaghan came up with his grandchildren in crash helmets and a hoist."

He was always surprised to see people walk past Big Ben every day and check their watches by it, without a thought for its history. "Beyond telling the time, people don't know much about London's most famous landmark."

Which is not something anybody who spends an hour or so in Mr Davis's company could ever be accused of. He has a head for facts and figures, as well as heights. Big Ben, he tells me, reeling off the numbers, weighs 13.5 tonnes, is 8.8ft in diameter and 7.2ft high. Designed by Edmund Denison, MP QC, and the Astronomer Royal Sir George Airey, and made for £1,800 by EJ Dent, the first bell was even bigger, but was scrapped after it cracked during tests. The second, cast at Whitechapel Foundry where America's Liberty Bell was cast, first sounded on 11 July 1859. It was first heard on radio on New Year's Eve in 1923 (the microphone was inside a football bladder) and made its first television appearance in 1949.

The tower is made from Cornish granite, Caen stone and Yorkshire Anstone stone, and each 23ft-diameter clock face contains 312 pieces of pot opal glass. The copper-sheet minute hands are 13.7ft long and their tips travel 118 miles in a year. Until 1913 the clock was wound by hand, which took 30 hours a week, but this is now done by an electric motor. Until 1900 the dials of the four faces were illuminated by gas burners.

Mr Davis's enthusiasm for his subject is infectious, and he found his true calling as Big Ben's guide. Born near the Tower of London, the son of a policeman, he had a variety of jobs before finding his niche. He started his working life as a newspaper copy boy, moving on to become a soup deliveryman before taking the post of warden at the Science Museum. In 1968 he became a general dogsbody at the Houses of Parliament.

As he outlines the history of Big Ben, his anecdotes add colour. It turns out it was named after either a famous heavyweight Victorian boxer, Benjamin Caunt, or the Commissioner of Works, Sir Benjamin Hall. The bell, which arrived by river after very nearly sinking the boat, was dragged to the site by 16 white horses.