Speaking Competition - The Post Where I Get To Brag ;-P

You may have seen it in the papers, and maybe even on TV! And if you didn't, then you're missing out on a completely unrepeatable event (OK, well, maybe not, but it IS rare). I CAME SECOND PLACE IN A SPEAKING COMPETITION!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now, I know I'm bragging, but I'm allowed to do it every once in a while, aren't I? ;-P

Anyways, it was on Wednesday, at Yayasan Haji Hasanal Bolkiah Primary School (or something like that). The room was filled with strangers (to be honest it was a small room and only half filled). We suffered through long and informative *cough* speeches made by important people, and then, we spoke (technically, we made all our speeches BEFORE the guest of honor arrived to "officially open" the competition, but hey, what can I say?)

I spoke on the topic of "Learning through problem solving activities" (absolutely no choice in the matter!). Adlina was supposed to talk about "Student teacher relationships" (probably the least interesting topic in the whole competition, poor girl) but she got food poisoning the previous night and was in hospital all moring. :( She eventually DID show up, but too late to make her speech.

Anyways, I, surprisingly, came second (which they called "first runner up"...) and won a trophy, $100, a certificate, and a token of participation!

And that is all that I have to tell you ;-P

Spotlight On...Nurul!

Haha totally awsome pic, rul! ;-p Too cool for school, eh? haha =D Allow me to present, everyone, Nurul the Bomb! Tick tick tick KABOOM! Nurul, "you're my best friend!" ;-P

Name: Nurul Faezah Yunos

Birthday: 13th September 1993

Ambition: Lawyer. (but i'm having my doubts, so it is yet to be decided.) Maybe Engineer?

Fave Color: Turqoise/Aqua

Least Fave Food: Insects, AHAHA. well some people do eat 'em :P

Fondest Memory: Memories? Memories? Too much to mention. Hehe

Worst Nightmare: Worst nightmare eyy? The one where i got shot and i died. AHHA

Something You May Not Know: i'm cool :P AHHAA

Fave Song: atm: Usher Ft. Young Jeezy - Love In This Club. AHHA

Is Currently Reading: Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (for the upteenth time!) and Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon

Can Often Be Found: With my awesome peoplee ;P We'll be over at the Borat pole ;P AHHAHA

Random Quote: 'tick,tick, tick.KABOOM' or 'I wanna make love in this clubbb(8)'

Last Seen: Last seen? err, in front of the computer? AHHA. reading? well somewhere ;P

I GOT THE SONG!

FINALLY I MANAGED TO GET A FULLY LOADED SONG ONTO THE BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After many trials and tribulations, I finally managed to get a FULL SONG onto the blog. I

have absolutely no idea what was wrong before, but enjoy it now while it lasts ;-P

I was planning to change the song but then I had a problem uploading onto imeem...

Spotlight On...Alex!

This is what Alex has chosen to represent her. As you can see, she has lately had a strong obsession with the band "Greenday".

One quote I think perfectly suits Alex (courtesy of her brother) is "I have two rabbitos and a kitty!" ;-P

Name: Mrs. Cool (haha you wish, Alex ;-P)

Birthday: 15th May 1994

Ambition: an advertising art dirctor NO to have super powers like to fly or to save the world

Fave Color: pink and red

Least Fave Food: Peanut Butter

Fondest Memory: going to Australia and getting to see all her family together

Worst Nightmare: her and her brother got kidnapped by munchkins/elves

Something You May Not Know...: she can speak English, Greek, Spanish, Malay, Japanese, French, Kraken, and Pig Latin

Fave Song: any Greenday song

New! Is Currently Reading: Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse (among many others)

Can Often Be Found: hibernating whilst reading at the same time!

Random Quote: no man can eat 50 eggs - courtesy of Mr. Tre Cool

Last Seen: in Miri

Ship Visit

Last weekend (at least, I THINK it was only last weekend...) we went to visit two American ships harbored in Muara Port: The USS Patriot and the USS Momsen!

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the USS Patriot. It is a relatively small ship, mostly constructed of wood, and was commisioned soley for the purpose of demining.
"There are three different types of mines, none of which can blow us up as far as we have experienced, and all work to our will to blow up only when we tell them to. We have many cool machines onboard this ship, such as a probe..."

Full speed ahead!

Captain Lily says, "Land ho!"

Approaching the USS Momsen, a *slightly* larger ship than the Patriot, and is armed with many large guns...

...such as this one we can see upon entry.

Or this one, which can turn almost 360 degrees, and has a barrel with a diameter of 5 inches! (Sorry to all you gun fans out there; I wasn't really attempting to remember figures to give you an accurate picture of the gun...)

Taking a look at the gun this way...

The view from the top of the ship (I am really poor with my terminology)

The cool logo on the side of the helicopters!

Posing with the helicopter

As well as the current American flag, all ships in the US Navy display the "Don't Tread On Me" flag, first used during the Revolutionary War in the United States. The stripes represent the 13 colonies, and the snake is a sign of deadly drawback.


There were many other cool things onboard the ships, but, unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures :(

BLACKOUT!

You all probably saw it in the papers, and it happened to about half of you probably. Blackout. The first one I ever saw in Brunei. Everything totally dark, except for the odd pockets of places that were on back-up generators or a different power station. It was strange, driving into town last evening to eat because we couldn't cook. Every street (well, most streets) had no lights on, and we were fretting as to whether downtown would be exemted. (which it was, but that's beside the point). Driving home, we could actually see the *stars*, and identify constellations that we didn't think we could see from down here. I tried taking pictures of those stars, but my camera wasn't powerful enough. The above picture, I have no idea what it's of, but it gives you an idea of how dark it was...

This is our house, and I had to take the picture with flash or nothing would show up...

This, I believe, is a picture of the road, or somewhere along the road, taken with flash.

This was the entry hall, taken without flash. Little good our backup light did...

This is the staircase, taken without flash.

We all decided to sleep in the living room, as it was the coolest room in the house, but then the electricity came back on at around 10:00 so everyone decided to go back to their rooms and leave me (already asleep) alone in the living room.

This is how we planned to sleep. ^^^


How many of you had power cuts? And what did you do to compensate?

Highlights from the MUN Conference!

I am so proud of myself: I finally got around to making this post! I've just been so busy lately...hope you enjoy it!

As most of you know, I recently went to KL for and MUN conference. I'll just briefly touch upon some of the high points.

The boys having to wear business clothes
Posing for pics (hehe kidding I hate posing!)

Writing resos and meeting new people

Above is Egg (delegate of Belgium)

and below is Ben (delegate of Peru)

Egg strangely insisted on wearing his aviators throughout the conference
And Ben gained the nickname of "Boss" as he seemed to think he was somehow incharge of the group...

Of course, one of the best things was the debate itself! Getting to argue with people, pass notes, ask questions to make people look silly, pass resolutions...
And getting to say OBJECTION!

Jack's crazy emo outfits

Ted's awsome ties

Karoke!
Above is Alysa dancing to the music (clearly)
And below are the admin staff who decided to join in ;-P
I got a video of everyone dancing to the YMCA but decided not to post it =D

"It's fun to stay at the YMCA!"

Singing "Happy Birthday" to Namruta in front of the whole conference

The boys and their...erm...water bottle wars?
Evidence of child abuse!
And then they HAD to tell everyone which school we were from....

Oh well haha

Then back at the hotel waiting for Namruta's birthday cake...
We ordered it that morning and asked it to be in the room BEFORE we got there, but they forgot...

The cake finally arriving ...

And then eating the cake!


Now, you'll all agree that one of the best parts of trips is taking candids, right?

"It's modern art!"

"E=mc2"

"I'll just pretend to be listening and hope nobody notices the zit on my nose...ooo and can I have some, Julian?"

"Don't fall down...don't fall down..."

Now, this isn't really a highlight, as nobody wanted to go to this cave but I might as well put it in....we climbed up all 300 of these stairs. It wasn't very interesting...

...except of course for the occasional rain dancing moron!

This is Jane, desperately trying to get back into our room after a tiring 3 hours of shopping...

...which included getting false tatoos ;-P

Fiddeling around with the safe and taking other random pics in the room (which I chose not to include)



Next day we went on a tour of KL, which included a stop at a chocolate factory! With free samples! Silly of me, I forgot to take pictures! The chocolates were soooo good.....as some of you had the fortune of being allowed to have from my bag of almonds covered in dark chocolate =D

Jack's super-awsome bag

And the view from the airplane. We were flying almost exactly due east! It was so cool...the map showed the route to be a straight line, and you can see the sun right behind us!


Really, the whole conference was really a great experience. I highly recommend it!

Happy Birthday...XING!

Happy Birthday, Bulldoggie!

Sorry for being late (his b-day was actually on Friday) but I was SOOO busy!

Actually, I should be doing homework now.....

Anyways, best of wishes! And good luck being 14 ! ;-P

And also, couldn't find another pic ;-P

Coming Soon....(hopefully)

To Look Forward To:

• A FULLY DOWNLOADED song
• MUN Conference Bullets
• The Midwich Cuckoos-Success or Otherwise?
• Spotlight On...Nurul!
• Happy Birthday...XING!
• More About....Illegal Downloading (My Ever-Persisting Appeal)

AND MUCH MUCH MORE!

Stay tuned, folks!

Note From the Blogger

The blogger would like to inform readers that there will be no further posts until (most likely) Friday, April 18, 2008. This is due to the fact that she will be away at an MUN (Model United Nations) conference in KL and then performing in a play (The Midwich Cukoos). However, there are many other wonderful blogs you can view to entertain yourself in the time space (see the link list)

Thank you for your patience.

Spotlight On...Xing!

I was on a role! So I interview Xing as well ;-P I've known Xing for nearly two years, and he hasn't changed a bit! This pic was from my halloween party!

Name: Xing

Birthday: April 18, 1994

Ambition: bio-chemist

Fave Color: red

Least Fave Food: peas

Fondest Memory: getting his comp

Worst Nightmare: trapped in a box of nothingness

Something You May Not Know...: deadly with pudge

Fave Song: "i think it will be "Joyride" by DJ Henry but i might change my mind next time"

Can Often Be Found: Gaming

Random Quote: Are you Ready? For the ride of your life! JOYRIDE!

Last Seen: in your dreams!

Spotlight On...Kevin!

Nurul, I hate to break it to you, so I did other people's spotlights before I did yours! I was feeling creative, so I added some new categories (happy Shaun?) and decided to interview Kevin, as he was the first person I saw online. Enjoy! (you know, I don't really know Kevin...haha ;-P)

Name: Synyster Gates

New Birthday: March 24th

Ambition: not sure

Fave Color: red

Least Fave Food: vegetarian cookies

New Fondest Memory: getting his first girlfriend

Worst Nightmare: that he thought he was the last person on Earth, like in "I Am Legend"

New Something You May Not Know...: he gets first class all the time on Singapore Airlines! *jealous....*

New Fave Song: "Critical Acclaim" by Avenged Sevenfold

Can Often Be Found: hanging with friends

Random Quote: "Why does bad weather turn people into complete idiots?" cannedcream

Last Seen: Sicily, Italy

E-mail Courtesy and Safety

Ok, I am getting SICK and TIRED of recieving forwarded letters where you need to scroll through 52billion pages just to get to the letter part! It's time people learned some email courtesy:

1. When sending warnings about emails containing viruses going around, make sure your facts are correct first! To check if a virus warning is true, a good site to use is http://www.snopes.com
2. Always always ALWAYS copy and paste emails so you don't have to open 52billion attachments to get the message!
3. Erase email addresses of previous senders or you might end up getting emails from people you don't know! Most of you don't really care about this part, what with Myspace and stuff these days, but it is seriously important! You don't realise how many hackers and stalkers there are out there.....outside of Brunei, that is.
4. Check with anti-virus software before opening emails.
   
   Thank you for listening, and hopefully you will actually use these tips before you send someone another email....