Chinese New Year

 Chinese New year also known as the spring festival in modern China, and one of the Lunar New Years in Asia, is an important Chinese festival celebrated at the turn of the traditional lunisolar Chinese calender. Celebrations traditionally run from the evening preceding the first day, to the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first calendar month. The first day of the New Year falls on the new moon between the 21st of January and 20th of February. This year the first day of the Lunar New Year was on Friday, 16 February, initiating the year of the dog.

 The New Year festival is centuries old and associated with several myths and customs. Traditionally, the festival was a time to honour deities as well as ancestors. Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the Lunar New Year vary widely. Often, the evening preceding Lunar New Year's Day is an occasion for Chinese families to gather for the annual reunion dinner. It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly clean the house, in order to sweep away any ill-fortune and to make way for incoming good luck. Windows and doors are decorated with red colour paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of good fortune, wealth, and longevity. Other activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red paper envelopes.

During Chinese New Year, kids and teenagers receives red paper envelopes called angpau from adults when visiting. Angpau is a monetary gift which is given to the kids or teenagers and only married couples are allowed to give. There will be money stuffed inside the angpau money when is given. The red color of the envelope symbolizes good luck and is a symbol to ward off evil spirits. The act of requesting red packets is normally called tao hongbao.

During Chinese New Year, mandarin oranges, tangerine, satsumas are considered traditional symbols of abundance and good fortune. During the two-week celebration, they are frequently displayed as decoration and presented as gifts to friends, relatives, and business associates.

LEAVING

LEAVING

To be honest, I'll group literally did an impromptu acting. We did not plan this before hand and I think we did quite well. We only started discussing about it during the first day when we had to act. During the process of preparing the act, I felt that we could have done better and I learned that we have to do things early and before hand
and do not procrastinate. My friends and I understands the story well. Since that we planned the sketch last minute, I felt that we did quite well. We can make it better by adding props.

This whole story takes place in Africa where Aloo is acted by Xin Yi and the mother who is acted by Ashikin when the had to move to a new place. Aloo wants to study overseas but his mother does not allow but in the end Aloo's mum finally realized that it is good for his education and therefore she allows him to study overseas. The main characters of this story is Aloo and Mother. One thing that I learns from this story is to love our parents because they took care of us.

Back To School

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WHAT IS LIFE TO ME???

Life is beautiful and yet life is not a bed of roses. Though it is full of ups and downs it has many aspects of blessings and successes.

To some people, life is hard, cruel and merciless. These set of people see life as punishment throughout their entire lives. They therefore resigned themselves to fate, believing all is finished. To them, nothing that they do can ever be good. They take delight in committing crimes and maiming others to avenge their ill-fortune. They lost every sense of direction and most times, some of them go as far as committing suicide, just to escape the injustice life has meted out to them.

But there are those who see life as a challenge, a channel of discovery and innovation, a prospect for success and a gateway to wealth. To them life is sweet, colourful and kind. No matter the situation these people find themselves, they keep pressing on, believing in a cause, a cause to succeed and get the most out of life. No wonder an adage says, “Where there is life, there is hope.”

The will to succeed or fail lies within an individual jurisdiction. You can live life to the fullest with utmost satisfaction and fulfillment if you determine with all your mind, body and soul to succeed. On the other hand, life can be miserable to you if you take everything for granted and wait on fate to play itself out.

Setting of goals and strategic plans that will strive no matter the odds which may move against you is one of the basic things needed to get the best out of life. These goals which must be result oriented, should be followed up consistently even if things seem blurred or unyielding at first.

Also, the mind is the centre of everything. It controls your thoughts and beliefs. A focused mind has never fail. A positive mind helps one to discover his talents and potentials. Great men and women, both living and dead, had their minds focused on something and nothing deterred them from achieving their dreams. Each of them had a belief, should I say faith, which they held onto, they nurture the belief, focused all their attention and live on it. And today, we have benefited in one way or the other from their inventions and great ideas.

Life is a challenge. And for anyone to succeed in life, he must be ready to show the stuff he is made of. He must be ready to sacrifice his time and build up his mind frame toward success. What is happening in our environment should not influence or affect us in our daily quest for success in life. Instead, we should control the happenings around us.

Life is so easy, yet many people rush and miss what they want to achieve in life. Don’t rush in life. Take one step at a time. Each step should be properly planned before being launched. Steady, balance, mark and shoot. And before you know it, the sky will become the beginning of your success.

All the great men of today, has one way or the other tasted the other side of life but they did not cower. Instead, they were renewed to redefine their goals; they ride on with faith, believing in their potentials, focusing their mind on something, knowing fully well that in every black cloud there is always a silver lining.

I take life to be very simple and do you know what? Life is to be enjoyed.

The Power of Information

      Information is power which we can say that it is almost everything because it has ability to make a physically weak person a most strong person of the world. It gives everything in the life like money, power, name, fame, success and position. Information gives a person ability to understand, analyze, make better decisions and evolve most intelligent thoughts. It gives us the feeling of well being and helps to improve the lives of us and people in our surroundings.

      A person who gains information in the society becomes more valuable and respected. A person that has information gets more fame very easily and people want to work with him. Information is the way to more doors and opportunities in the life. Information provides actual freedom in the life and opens all the doors of success. Information provides power to speak through our mind which really helps people to understand who you truly are.

      Information is very important tool to get positive changes in the society and country. Information helps us to absorb things from the genius people which have potential to improve the quality of life. Information is the only precious thing which nobody can take away from us, it remains with us forever and increases if we distribute it among the needy people. It gives new and revolutionary ideas which help to alter the way of viewing the world. So, we can say that information is pillar to the success and happiness.

First week of school

          The first thing that came into my mind is that my class was even higher than my old class. I felt like my leg was braking and it was very tiring. Moreover, I was also carrying my school bag which contains many textbooks and exercise books. I kept telling myself, “why can’t my class be on the lowest floor?” Ever since form 1 until now, I had to always climb up the stairs.

         

            When I was in my new class, basically everything changes. The students in there, the seating position, everything. I did not feel comfortable with the class I am in because I am used to my old class. I decided to sit in a place where there is no one beside me to not feel awkward.

            

              I felt better the next day. The environment feels more relaxed. I thought that the first week of school will not be as pressuring because there will be less homework and all I have to do is to listen to teacher and mix with new friends. However, it is the total opposite. The teachers gave tons of homework and when I am at home there is no difference than school.

             My physics teacher, Puan Winnie was the best teacher from what I see so far. She makes her class very fun and she has a great sense of humour. She separates us into groups of 5 and we did an introduction to physics class by playing some icebreakers. It was a great way to kick off a physics class.

             I was able to know more about my classmates even more as I talk to them. They were funny and some were also very hardworking on their work. I did not dare to even start a conversation with anyone of them during the first day of school but as I talked to them I got to know them better/

             Apart from being in class, at least I got to hang out with my old friends in the canteen. Everyone was very happy to see each other. We were all sharing about our holiday and I was sitting down, eating and just listening to them sharing. When they asked me what I did during my holidays, all I said was, “nothing special”.