These Crazy Weeks

Hey, guys! Sorry for not updating lately! Been quite busy...all of a sudden...

Anyways, so this week, it snowed. Snowed! Like, 4 inches!!! So we had Monday off. (and I do have photos, but I'm just too lazy to download them. But those ARE coming soon!!) :)

Then, we went in 2 hours late on Tuesday.

Wednesday, I had an unexpected audition, which I completley bombed, so failed to make it into the school play :( oh well, maybe I'll work tech for it instead :)

Also on Wednesday, I found out that I COULD go to the MUN conference this weekend, which I previously couldn't for reasons I won't bother explaining....

So, MUN was on Friday and Saturday, and it was without a doubt the best MUN conference I've been to so far!!!!! I mean, even though my partner and I weren't really prepared for debate, it was still really fun! We met lots of amazing people, and had a ridiculously fun sudden crisis debate at the end! In addition, we had a dance off, threw paper into various other committee rooms, and bought souvenir boxers!!! Yes, that's right, they were selling boxers instead of t-shirts ;-P And I must say they make incredibly comfortable shorts...=D The only thing(s) I regret about the conference is that I didn't prepare better, and that I didn't bring my camera. :( Because I could have photos to post....but still, I think we debated very well despite not being very prepared :) And our school still got a trophy in the end!!! =D

So yea, that was my week. How was yours? ;-P

Good Luck!

GOOD LUCK ON THE EXAMS, EVERYBODY!

#74

Apparently, I'm going to the 74th best school in the country!

WOOT!

Note: Sophie was trick-or-treating for two hours. Sophie got a lot of candy....

Beware....beware.....

My Typical Red Day

Wake up in the morning, dreading the thought of going to school again.

It's 5:30.

I want to go back to sleep.

Jump in the shower, freeze for 10 minutes or so until the water warms up.

Freeze when I get out of the shower.

Eat breakfast.

Freeze when I go outside.

Freeze while waiting for our group to assemble so we can walk to the bus stop.

Freeze at the bus stop.

Wish I was still in bed.

The bus comes, and we overheat and get dehydrated.

Get to school.

Go upstairs to my locker.

Say "hi" to my friends.

Today is a red day.

French first period.

Freeze while walking to the trailers.

Sleep for five minutes before class starts.

It's 7:20.

The bell rings, and we say the pledge to the flag.

Minute of silence.

Class starts.

Keep looking at the clock.

Can the second hand go any slower?

Class is over.

It's 9:55.

Walk my friend to her next class.

Stand outside the room chatting for 10 minutes.

The warning bell rings.

I go to class.

It's 9:20.

Drama starts.

We do our warm-ups and talk loudly.

Will we play games today or work on our radio play?

We sing.

Before I know it, class is over.

It's 10:45.

Go to World Civ.

We do some English.

Bell rings.

Lunchtime!

We wait forever in line, then go to our table and throw Chex Mix at eachother.

11:50.

Back to class.

More English, then some history.

It's 1:00.

Run to my locker, get my Bio stuff.

Go downstairs.

Biology class.

1:15.

In our places with bright shining faces.

We draw all over the table.

Our teacher talks for a while.

We get loud.

2:00.

No more work for today.

Thank goodness.

2:05 the bell rings.

Class dismissed!

Mad scramble to find the bus on the other side of the building.

Get on the bus.

It's practically empty.

2:15 we leave for Frost Middle.

The bus becomes over-crowded.

Ride home.

I'm the last stop.

Walk home.

2:50 and a free afternoon.

Procrastinate for a couple hours.

Do homework.

Eat dinner.

Do more homework.

Wish I hadn't procrastinated so much so I would have less homework to do now.

10:30.

Bedtime.

Set alarm.

Get mad at myself for staying up so late.

Snuggle under warm covers.

My room is cold.

Freezing....

Homecoming =D

Only one word to say about the dance: FUN!!!!!

Unfortunately, everyone kept running away from me, and then I had too much fun dancing, so I didn't get any good photos. :( =D

Tips for a successful social:

• Play at least one song that involves formation dancing/has specific dance moves


• Play songs that you can actually dance to


• Play songs that most people know


• Don't allow too many bands to play, if any at all!

• ssssssssllllllllllllluuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrr the music so it never stops!


• Flashing Lights


• Kick off your shoes


• Most Importantly - Don't feel self concious: just move to the music and enjoy yourself!

And that's pretty much what made the dance so great.

In fact, I was really sad to have to leave early! The evening would have been perfect, minus the minor incident that happened afterwards, but we'll not mention that now....

Spirit Week!

It's Homecoming Week, People! Show some Woodson Spirit, y'all!

Monday: Wacky Tacky

Lovin' them leggings ;-P

Tuesday: Salad Dressing

As the Freshmen (us) were "House" salad dressing, we got to wear our Woodson gear. Fun...

Wednesday: 80s Day (oops! I forgot to take a picture before I changed!)

Thursday: Circus!

Somebody had some fun with my camera...

Friday: Woodson Spirit!
This is a picture of the back of the school, and some of the students walking to the field for the Pep Rally, which is supposed to be a show of school groups (eg. cheerleaders, marching band) to help boost our morale and feel good about our school. As I said, SUPPOSED to.

Friday night was our Homecoming Game. Homecoming is where the school's football team (American football, naturally) plays a game in their home stadium after a long string of games away. I had fun stuffing myself at the Pre-Game Pigout, and then screaming my head off at our boys. ;-P We barely beat Madison 20-17 in the end 0.0

Science Fair?

For Biology this year, we are required to do a project for the International Science Fair, or we fail the course this quarter.

Unfortunately, I am completely blanking out on ideas!

Any suggestions? (Before Thursday?)

Projects not allowed to involve vertebrates, mircorbiology, fungi, radioactive envergy, hazardous chemicals, or human surverys.

Grading...

So I finally found out the grading system at this school:

A+ = 100%

A = 94-99%

B+ = 90-93%

B = 84-89%

C+ = 80-83%

C = 74-79%

D+ = 70-73%

D = 64-69%

F (for fail) = under 63%

Harder to get good grades? We shall see....

Crawl Like a Cougar

My brother and sister's school is Canterbury Woods Elementary School.

Their mascot is Cody the Cougar.

Every year, the school holds a "Cougar Crawl" which is a mile (about 1.6 km) walk families can participate in. Afterwards there is food and games.

Ready to walk, everybody?

The crowd takes off!

A police cruiser helps control people and car traffic.

Follow the blue arrows!

Woodson (my school) cheerleaders encouraging the walkers!

Eating

Playing frisbee

It was fun enough, especially with all the silly old dance music that was playing (eg the chicken dance), but I wish more people I knew from school had been there (as in, more than 1) ;-P

Schedules, Schedules, Schedules!

School here is so different than JIS!

First of all, I am in Grade 9, and school ends in Grade 12. (This is because what we call Kindergarten the Brits call Year 1, so that causes the difference.) Grades K-6 go to school together, grades 7&8 go to a different school together, and grades 9-12 go to school together. Since we are the youngest year group at our school, and new to the school, we're called freshmen. Grade 10s are Sophomores, Grade 11s are Juniors, and Grade 12s are Seniors.

Some subject differences between the schools are we only take one science, one specific math, and only get one elective! I was seriously upset when I found out about the limited elective part =.= Fortunately history is required so that helped narrow it down for me =D My subjects are as follows:

1. Health and PE - we do PE for three quarters of the year, and then Health for one


2. French 1 - why'd they put me in the beginners class! I've studied French for 3 years already!


3. Geometry Honors (honors is just the top class) - the thing with this class is that you need to have completed Algebra 1 first, which some stuff we never did last year! However, we've already done trig, which puts me ahead of the other students somehow...


4. Drama - I was torn as to which elective to take! There were so many on offer!


5. PreAP World History/Geography1 (PreAP is just the advanced class) - there are 60 kids in my class! And then there's a second one, too!


6. PreAP English 9 (PreAP English and History are combined into one class called World Civilizations) - we are going to be studying Romeo and Juliet and Of Mice and Men later on in the year =.=


7. Biology Honors - my teacher is exactly like Mr. Bartlett!

Our typical school day lasts from 7:20 am till 2:05 pm, which means I have to wake up at quarter to 6 if i want to catch my big, yellow, overcrowded school bus on time at quarter to 7. It is unpleasant waking up at that time, as it is often still dark outside and the morning is cold! After school it becomes Brunei-hot, as we run around all over the place looking for our bus. Then we have to wait at the middle school to get those kids. (btw the buses aren't air-conditioned)

We don't have ever-changing schedules every day. We follow a system called block scheduling, and we have odd and even days (blue and red). On a blue (odd) day, we would have lessons 1, 3, 5, and 7. On a red (even) day, we would have lessons 2, 4, 6, and 7. Each lesson is about 90 mins long.

Our lunch changes depending on the day. I always have B lunch (11:20 - 11:55), which happens in the middle of World Civ. The advantage of having 4 different lunches is that the cafeteria is just full, but not overcrowded. The Seniors (12th graders) have a seperate cafeteria, which also helps to reduce lunch lines. Plus, the lunch lines are the sort of thing where you slide your tray along, take what you want, and pay at the end. However the food is worse than JIS food =.=

We have no tutor time first thing in the morning: we just have to go straight to our first class and the teacher takes attendance there. We have no designated time for assemblies, so if we have any we miss class. I think we have a snack break, but nobody bothered to tell us so I'm not entirely sure.

This schedule will take some getting used to, and I'm just telling you about it cause I thought some of you might be interested =D

Final Days...

Today, Friday, the last day of school....

Mr. Airdrie was very pleased about the red house win!

Mr. Chalmers singing something emo ;-P

Badi and Farabi examining the photos at the end of the day


And as with the happy memories of the last day of school, there are always the many goodbyes that must be said...

Goodbye and good luck to Julia, who is off to Holland this year!

Good luck to Kapilan, who is moving to England

Goodbye Hyun Jin, who is moving to either Boston or Chicago (which is it?!)

Goodbye to Anup, who is moving to England

Goodbye Callum, who is also off to England

And also goodbye to TJ, who is ALSO moving to England!

along with the rest of the Nepalese. Goodbye and goodluck to Neelam, Sanju, Smriti
And to all the others who have left already/are also leaving: Glen, Kevin (to Texas), Hend, Sara, Rhubab, Neha, Belen, Nasser, Parris, and Ashiq

And so concludes a great school year~the year that was year 9!

I will greatly miss all of the friends I have made here~ you've all made my time in Brunei a really special one! I'll always remember the trips we went on together, the bizzare asortment of teachers we've endured, the completely pointless arguments, our performances, competing for merits and recognition, birthday parties, our constant complaints....man, I could just sit here for hours reminiscing....so for now I will just say

"ALOHA!"
which is Hawaiin for "hello" and "until we meet again".
All the best
Sophie

P.S. I will keep updating this summer so you all know what I'm up to!

History Party!

On Thursday, our history class had a costume party!
Meet (L to R) Owen Cambell, fresh out of the jungle; a local villager; and a little match girl!

Hugo the....?

Ho Chi Minh's coming to town!

The Ghost of Christmas past!!!

Give me that cheesy American gring, President Roosevelt!

We divided into groups and competed in various silly activities such as pass-the-balloon-without-using-your-hands and history rap.

Our team (Team Sushi) got the most points and one the box of chocolate! =D

Celebration of Achievement - Years 3 till 8

So after a day in the sun, I was dragged to yet ANOTHER celebration evening! Oh well, at least there were fewer speeches =D

Behold the Year 9s who shouldn't be performing! (and I thought the pic was better than this...)

Jonny Lim (and others) dancing to "Low"

My brother's class and I CAN'T BELIEVE HE ACTUALLY WENT UP!!!!!!!!!! =D

And guess who came to join me from the drum line? =D

And look who else I found! (well, actually, she forced me to come...)

Thus concludes the celebrations this year! Well done everyone!

Activities Day!

And so we proceeded to Wednesday, where we had our Year 9 Activities Day at the Empire!

The Camera War Begins!

Pose!

Cute pic ;-p

Anyways, we split up into 10 groups (well initially 20 but then boys and girls groups joined).

We had to compete in various activities. These included:

1. Puzzle Hunt- where we had to find the puzzle pieces to make the face of a teacher
2. Bouncer- where we had to successfully cross the obstacle filled bouncer without falling off
3. Volleyball- well that much was obvious! But, our team aced! and we got candy in assembly Thursday =D
4. Kayaking- which not only involved kayaking around a course, it also involved diving for colored bricks!
5. Raft building- where we were given materials and we had to use all to build a raft, carry all of us to a buoy and back again

It was a great group of activities and I thoroughly enjoyed myself!
This was followed by a buffet lunch at the Pantai Restaurant

Lovely Ladies

Group Photo!

This was followed by a quiz which we pretty much failed! ;-P Except the match the picture to the person!!!! =D
After this there were certificates and leavers presents and speeches to be made and everyone got all choked up and emotional so I won't mention or I will do the same...

Isn't that gorgeous? You can't really see it in the pic but that circle around the sun is a rainbow! Amazing, innit? ;-P

Celebration of Achievement - Upper School

cCome Tuesday was the Upper School Celebration of Achievement Evening. Some of us missed most of school for our rehearsal in preparation for it.

Even though they told us the busses leave at 10:15 they actually left at 10:50! rrrr

Jonny Lim enjoying a cheese-filled sausage while waiting for our departure
Hyun Jin being emo while waiting for our departure

And then we finally left and suffered through 2 hours of lighting and sound rehearsals until our lunch break.

During break..

Ultimate pat-a-cake!

Just chillin'

Back onstage again! Hyun Jin's solo performance

On the bus ride back to school

Afterwards I went to Ummi's house for a couple hours before our time to shine!

Ummi's handsome cat, Thomas

And then we performed and I was really bad *no saying that's impossible, I have witnesses* and people got awards and we listened to speeches and everyone was happy and we went home!!! =D

My personal porter! hehe

Congrats to everyone who performed or received awards!