Nik's Big Book of Quotes and cliches

Friendships are like peeing on yourself, others can see the stain but only you can feel the heat

Some women have Pre-Menstrual Syndrome,

Some women have Post-Menstrual Syndrome,

But some women have Permanent Menstrual Syndrome.

Objective is a very subjective word.

If the whole world is wrong,

and you are the only one that is right,

Think again.

Today is tomorrow's yesterday,

If you let yesterday disturb today,

Today will disturb tomorrow.

Good movies never stays at the chart,

They stay in your heart.

I hate hopes because it keeps me hoping.

Secretly I was hoping,

That I'll never have to hope again.

If you can't get to the answers.

Let the answers get to you.

Live life before life outlive you.

If you think your life sucks, it does.

Titles are very subjective.

The purpose of life is a life or purpose.

If a guy is treating you like he doesnt' give a shit,

He genuinely doesn't give a shit-No exceptions.

Big Book of Cliche Break-ups Consolation.

If a guy acts like a total jerk, that means he like you.

Here is the problem:

He like you too much.

I am sure he's just lost your number.

He's not asking you out because he's intimidated by you professional success.

He's not asking you out because he's scared of your emotional maturity.

Trust me it's just because he's just getting out of a serius ralationship.

Trust me its because he's never had a serious relationship.

Cliche Break Up Lines.

I don't wanna stand in your way.

You're perfect, its just I have to work on myself.

I'm just thinking of your happiness.

I don't deserve you.

I am so jealous of the guys who gets to marry you.

And the second you hear that(the above), run to the store, get yourself some ribs and ice cream because you have been dumped.

Next Chapter.

If a guy doesn't call me, I would like to reserve the right to call him at every 15 minute intevals until he picks up.

The rule is this:

If a guy doesn't call you, he doesn't wanna call you.

You get back to the office after Happy Hour? What's happy about that?

We're in love assholes; That's what people do when they are in love;

They get married.

Let me guess: He said the only thing happy about this happy hour is you.

If a guy gives your his contact number instead of taking yours,

He's not interested.

If a guy wants to see you, believe me, he will see you.

I once called 55 Lauren Bells until I get the right one.

Don't call him, he doesn't like you.

Oh, the spark thing is a bullshit;

Guys invented the spark,

so they could not call and treat you kind of badly and keep you guessing,

then convince you that the anxiety and fear that just developed naturally was actually just a spark-

And you guys all buy it. You eat it up and you love it.

One, two, three,

That's it, 3 seconds,

Or more its on.

Why do women do this?

Build this stuff in their minds,

take each little thing that a guy does

and then twist it into something else.

If a guy wants to date you, he will make it happen.

There are no rules anymore,

I mean why should you wait till he gets off his ass?

But the real master I have to say its me;

3 husbands, countless boyfriends, and I havent't been caught yet.

I am sorry I don't trust myself.

Compiled from "He's Just Not That Into You, Plato's Reincarnation a.k.a PlatoNik, and others.

pixel perfect

hey there people. look at the pics and how i narrate them. enjoy.


life is not all about equations. no matter la whether u're an engineering student or accounting ones. find the solutions in any possible creative way. if can't find one, create our own theorem to solve it. like CL's volleyball laws, jason's law of beauty, or dayah's stalking theorem or iswari's law of riddles or any law of guessing available. surely, we WILL find a way.

life is colourful. it's nice and ugly in its own way. *credits to my sister for taking this*

embrace these differences. you can be pointed, or blunt or just plain you. you're you. nothing wrong with being you. genius? excellent? pretty? nerd? you are what you are.

always aim for our own goals. yes, get there in any legal way we possibly can, as long as we know how to play and score our dreams.

if life is like a highway, ugh, it can be quite boring unless we take the MRR highway during the rush hour.

if life is always yummy like the pepperoni pizza, (my personal fave is classified chickens from domino's), we'll get obesity. means, we're gonna get sick. means we cannot enjoy life. main point? erm...enjoy when u can, endure when u must. (apa kaitan with the pic pun i x tau)

working together is long forgotten in this dog eat dog world. never forget, yes, we are competing but wouldn't it be more meaningful to cooperate as well? cooperation and competition are close relatives. share whenever we can.

wah..nowadays ah, even plastic bag can smile tau. so, why don't we? (^_^)

confused in certain parts in of our lives? never mind. we look cute when we are.

rubiks cube? imagine that our exams are like this object. if other people can solve it, so can we.

let's sing (if u don't have the talent, seriously, try miming) all the way in our lives. we have sad, happy, lovey dovey, mad and many kinds of emotions in these songs. our songs. feel them. we're humans anyway. lucky we're no robots.

if we were artists, we can paint our lives the way we want. make it dull, make it jubilant, make it dark, it's up to us.

the beauty of this place might be deceiving, but still, be strong. stay cool. we can do this.


yup, make sure everyone of us pass this signboard to check in for our flights next year. yes people, look forward to it. be positive. cheer up. WE CAN DO IT.

Vocab for fart?

ALL of you have been memorizing vocabs so assiduously(duh, I know some SAT words too), so here's a simple test.

What is the exact word to describe the smell of someone's fart?

How many type of fart smells are they and what words are used to describe them?

What is the exact adjective for the sound of people farting?

How many type of sound can fart actually sound like and what are the words used to describe them?

Besides fart and flatulence, what are other words for farting?

What do you call people who farts oftenly?

What do you call people who doesn't fart that often?

Phobia of fart?

Obsess with fart?

Farting in public?

Geez, how many shells per day would you consider often or seldom?

Haha how did this come about? Somehow the word "infarction"-which by the way is in no way related to fart at all- crossed my mind and the word fart just popped up.

I am supposed to do my survey now but I think I am a little more inclined to find for the answers..... Sorry Iswari.. Don't worry, I promise I still will finish the survey tonight..

to my friend, MR. SAT.

*warning: this fictional letter may contain inexplicable liking towards certain sections in the test. please ensure that you have switched on your positive bubble before you read this.*

DEAR MR.SAT,

can't say that i really miss you ever since the first time i met you last june. it's not that i despise you, but, the awkward feeling of failing you the other day is still buried here deep down in my heart. in fact, i am indeed nervous to meet you this november although you would meet many of my friends this coming october. i hope that we are properly prepared and wish that you would provide equal justice for our hard work all this while. it would be very meaningful if you would help us, my dear friend.

so, how is everything going on for MATHS?? heard that she's doing fine. my friends find her an engaging and amicable persona, very intelligent yet tricky at times everytime we try to tackle her. i believe that most of us would certainly say that this daughter of yours is our favourite. did you know that some of my friends sometimes find it hard to keep pace with her time demands? i know that you have adviced us before to practice diligently as MATHS can allow us obtain 800 but still, there are a few of my fellow colleagues who struggle to keep up with the fast pace. no worries, i have already told them not to worry. MATHS is very helpful most of the time. just don't take her for granted. she hates it when people do that, isn't she?

oh yeah, lately, i heard CR (CRITICAL READING) is involved in soo many gossips. my friends couldn't help to avoid the acrimony of befriending him. i heard people talking about him behind his back or rather lashing out at him sometimes. whenever he starts talking about the old literature or comparing passages in that bombastic vocab of his, people either tend to turn away or become somnolent and leave him alone. sorry to know about that. must be difficult for him. i know that his intentions are good, he just wants to share beautiful fascinating facts with us, but i wish i can persuade my friends to appreciate this highly intelligible son of yours. he may be staid at times, his texts are sometimes highly convoluted yet if we are optimistic enough, he actually understand us better because he gives us so many significant clues in his writings. i also respect his perspicacity in sharing new vocabs with us. he loves to hint us with key words in the sentences. your son can be very charming when he portrays his shrewdness, my friend.

before i forget, pardon me for this sudden impertinence, do send my greatest gratitude to your daughter, WRITING. she is sagacious in rectifying mistakes in the sentences no matter how subtle it might be. thank her for highlighting that parallelism, SVA, and so many other grammar structures that we initially thought correct, can actually be very deceptive. she also values our acumen in answering her essay questions. although the examiners make it difficult for us to score high in her part, she certainly gives us the chance to express our thoughts in a very organized way. true, we had to study long tedious hours of perfecting our essays but then, i personally find her entertaining in a unique way. i may not enjoy her classes that much but i do find myself eager to write another essay if she wants me to. my friends and i realize that mind mapping and brainstorming help a lot to encourage us to produce brilliant ideas and examples for the essay. you should be proud to have a daughter like her.

wow, i haven't realised that i have written such a long letter for you. do not bother yourself to reply it if you find yourself extremely busy with work at the collegeboard. it is my utmost understanding that you perform well in your job. send my regards to our friend, TOEFL at the ETS, if you meet her. tell her to kiss READING, LISTENING, SPEAKING and WRITING for me. it's been a long time since i meet them. tell them to help my friends who would be sitting for her exams soon. thank you so much, MR. SAT.

looking forward to meet you once i finish my preparation for my big day. till then, take care.

yours sincerely,
NHH.

R.E.K.A.M.E.C.A.E.P

P: People who send out positive thoughts activate the world around them positively and draw back to themselves postive results. ( Norman Vincent Peale)

E: enthusiasm is magical. it spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment. (Norman Vincent Peale)

A: aim for what is best for us. aim correctly, act meticulously, reflect accurately.

C: cry out loud when CR is bothering you, but be careful. change your thoughts and you change the world.

E: Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that. (Norman Vincent Peale)

M: make time to learn our mistakes. make time to enjoy our lives.

A: assiduous attitude leads us somewhere but obsession with no outcomes is a waste.

K: know the right thing to do at the right time on the right place.

E: excessive stress is detrimental. chill.

R: Real winners are the ones who fight back. not the ones who easily gain something with nothing.


IVAN turgenev : IF WE WAIT FOR THE MOMENT WHEN EVERYTHING, ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING IS READY, WE SHALL NEVER BEGIN.

Green day- reading way

A green couple in front of me the whole time I was doing the test. Green must be my lucky color cause I did consistently well for all 3 Critical Reading exercises. I won't say its stellar but at least it is better than that of my real SAT.

On the petite issues first. First, I found out that computers actually lie. Yeah, they do. JL found out that they actually changed his answer choice; NNH said that hers was changed too last week. Weird huh. Secondly, my neck is still aching like ever when I was doing the test. Eyes strained too. Yu Jin commented on my questionnaire. I thought I did it right, but I guess I was wrong. Not really harsh though, with humors and all.
Jason when he found out that the com changed his answer.

Anyway I got 21/24, 21/24, 17/19 for the three tests but as Yu Jin says, the numbers don't matter. I feel that I am getting a better grasp of the text. Instead, my problem has shifted to the technical questions like vocabs(as usual) and sentence completion/correction.

Another thing that I found out during the exercises was that I feel much more comfortable reading and understanding texts which I already have prior knowledge of any kind. For example, when I was doing the art-related passage, I find it harder to digest than when I am reading the human mind passage. I also found out that if I were to read a passage with a preconception of the issue, it would make it easier to follow. Of course I must be careful not to mix my thoughts and the author's thoughts when answering questions. This is so because when I already have a stand on that issue, I read and skim for the author's point of view 1. Whether he agrees with what I say. 2. If he agree/disagree what are the points used to justify his opinion. 3. In what way are our thoughts similar and in what way does it differ.

This technique is very not applicable to 1. Issues where you have no prior knowledge/know nothing about. 2. The section where they give you 2 passage which describes the same issue from different perspective be it contrasting or from a different approach.
It doesn't apply to the formal-obviously- because you can't expect anything when you know nothing to begin with. It doesn't apply to the latter because you will end up having 1 issue, 2 approaches and 4 ideas with 2 totally clashing points. Because the 2 passage might not contrast one another, it is very likely that you will get your opinions all jumble up thus making it hard to differentiate between the two passages let alone analyze them.

There he goes again......

I stare out at the bared, naked, empty and poor sky of Uniten;
The flare in me is getting dimmer-less intense, lighten;
How many months has it been?5? No, perhaps ten;
What's my initial aspiration here? God, I have forgotten!

Was I searching for answers?
No, I already had those;
Was I thinking of Chicago? Las Vegas or Texas?
No, I already thought of those.

My soul is still searching;
For that something I know is missing-
My soul is still wandering;
Finding for that something.

I found possessions and materiality-
Brand new cell phone,
Set of a great laptop,
Electric gadgets and many cool stuff.
Yet, i lose my most precious part of reality-
Grandma, my pillar, my backbone,
I lost humility, dignity and all that should top,
Now, I am all alone, engulfed.

Temptations get the better of me;
All weekends in Mines or Mid Valley;
Fast foods, cinemas, all day spending money;
I can't resist, so I succumbed to luxury.

Sorry mom I failed my SAT,
Sorry dad I failed my AP,
Sorry ma I failed to bear in mind,
I know now that I'm that spoiled brat,
I promise you I won't be that cocky,
I will leave my old-me behind.

I don't know what I would do-
If I could turn back the time,
But I shall not think about that-
'Cause I know, that, I can't do,
Move ahead now that the clock has chimed,
Change everything that was once bad.

I have faith,
That grey skies will turn bright,
I have faith,
That soon I'll see light,
I have faith,
That my goal is still in sight,
I have faith,
That fire will reignite,
I have faith,
That I can still fight.

Because tonight, I am a new me,
Taiping might be 250 km away from here,
US might be 250000km away from here,
I know where I was, I am and where I will be.

Know that I carry hopes of not CL alone,
But the hopes of all that matters to CL,
Because tonight, CL is not alone,
On the first of Sept, CL has a new CL.

New determination, old inspiration.
More perspiration, less procrastination,
Higher ambition, lower condescension,
Louder proclamation, quieter action.

I closed my eye lids,
Saw a thousand stars of Maxwell Hill,
Opened my eyes and to the old-me I bid-
A thousand farewell and I am healed.

Another lame piece. I don't know what wrong tonight-my horoscope allignment all kelam kabut- emo giler giler... Is emo a contagious thingy?? If it is then I got a good idea where it penetrated me from.... No fact-fact, academic, intelligent piece tonight.... I am not going to be a hypocrite, so I will achieve what I said I will do... See a new me On Sept.2.... (for those who remembered... I still am going to be the nerd nerd thing I said last time... Look forward to it)

feedback to CL's poem

laughed till i almost cried.

stunned with the conciseness and preciseness of the whole poem.

felt proud 4 my freaking good brilliant class partner.

pondered on the stuff he mentioned.

wondered who was the person wearing Gucci being lil pussy.

snickered to the idea of the 10th rangkap.

digesting on the thought of following heart's commands.

thinking of whether i can control myself if i start playing all the time. (i'm no genius, u know)

forbidden from getting drunk. (^_^)

allowed to live life to the max.

took my time to indulge myself to such witty poem.

long live CL.

(^_^)

do not delete that post. u rock, CL!

coherence = co + herence

hehehe...spent 3 hours of my day in writing class today, mostly discussing in our small groups. jotting down three passages continuously with a considerable fast pace, then need to think about the suitable topic sentences based on the illustrated examples in the paragraph.

then, we got this hard equation to solve.

WHAT IS:
coherence = ? + ?

hahaha...many witty feedbacks were given. the coolest is the topic of my post today (as mentioned above, coming from jason's group member, yong beng).

another similarly hilarious one, i heard a group mentioning sumthing like coherence = ? + ?, therefore coherence = 2?.

basically, we were asked to discuss about this whole equation thingy and after 20 minutes or so, we came up with various solutions.

all in all (a big no-no connector to be used in essays), the real answers turn out to be unity + sentence cohesion.

personally, i think everyone did mention about this thing although not entirely in the right words, but still, it's normal for our answers to be manipulated. (^_^)

actually, there's nothing much for me to explain on this because i am clearly and indubitably aware that my essays also need to be improved. unless i'm like some freaking good writer out there, maybe i can start preaching about essay coherence in my blog post.

however, here are the things that i always do in my essay. i always think that conveying ideas from facts added with personal experiences creates an excellent essay. facts to show we are knowledgeable and if used correctly, we'll look smart, and personal experiences to create personal connection that the examiners can relate to.

if we know the right way to create a coherent essay (which i am still learning), combining these two significant elements, added with our acumen in exploiting the essay question (our maturity is seriously considered to get higher marks), i believe we can aim for high scores.

co + herence is not a bad answer indeed. (^_^)

If you can't get what I meant..... me neither

Think back of your intention,
Look at these questions,
Ponder and see if you have the solution,
By cracking your head or by intuition.

Gruesome hours of study,
Non-stop academic activity,
Not mere basics nor simplicity,
Now is hard cold facts and theory.

From 8 to 7 everyday,
Such long and tiring day,
You hope it is a Friday,
But sorry dear, today is Monday.

Do you have the audacity?
To go against the normality-
Build you day based on your creativity,
And creep out of this misery.

Life ain't about Physics and Mathematics,
Trust me your biological clock just tick,
With every moment spent on Newton's or arithmetic,
You are bound to get sick.

Trust me dear your life is cheap,
If you don't stop and dig deep,
And listen to that 1 verdict,
That of your heart weeps.

Now cry out loud you insolent fool,
Your life is a damn stool,
Stocked with shit you thought is cool,
Shut that big mouth when you drool.

Now listen to my advice,
You spoiled little novice,
Grab all your electrical device,
Get a life and be wise.

Read as much as your soul demands,
Play as hard as your heart commands,
Get drunk, get caught, get remand,
Let them be contend just for this month.

Fuck you shitty pretenders,
Acting showy, acting classy,
Fuck you shitty little actors,
Wearing Gucci you still a lil' pussy.

Coward and timid little rat,
You impudent little brat,
All you think about is SAT,
And that makes you really sad.

Sorry Dayah for this lame post,
I'll delete it if you want me to,
I ran out of idea to post,
5 min then I'll be back too.

what it means

check this out. these are called word roots. if u wanna guess your vocabs, try memorising these.
since there are many words in the SAT test that play around this kind of word roots, i insist that we try our best to remember them. hope u guys find it helpful.

1. ante : before (antebellum, antediluvian)

2. anti : against (antithesis, antipathy, antiseptic)

3. auto : self (autocratic)

4. bene : good, well (benefactor, benevolent)

5. chron : time (anachronism, asynchronous)

6. circum: around ( circumnavigate, circumference, circumlocution)

7. con, com: with, together (convene, confluence, conjoin)

8. contra, counter : against (contradict, counteract)

9. cred : to believe (credible, credulity, incredulous)

10. dict: to speak (verdict, malediction)

11. dis: not (disperse, dissuade)

12. equi: equal (equidistant, equanimity)

13. ex, e : out, away (emit, enervate)

14. flu, flux : flow (fluctuate, effluvium)

15. hyper : above, over (hyperbolic, hyperactive)

16. in, im : not (inviolate, innocuous, intractable)

17. inter: between (intermittent, introvert)

18. mal : bad (malfunction, maladjusted)

19. multi: many (multivalent, multitude)

20. neo : new (neophyte)

21. omni : all (omnipotent, omnivorous)

22. per : through (persuade, impervious)

23. sanct : holy (sanctify, sanctuary)

24. scrib, script : to write ( prescribe, inscription)

25. spect : to look (circumspect, aspect, prospect)

26. tract : to drag, to draw (protract, detract, intractable)

27. trans : across (transigent)

28. vert : to turn (extrovert, introvert)


so, see what i mean that we can guess smartly during the exam?

of cold itms lab, and blurry eyes of reading texts from the monitor

CL: my shoulders n neck really ache weyh.

dpeacemaker: my eyes danced with stars after 2 hours in front of the monitor. aiyo.

see how painful concentration can be?? i know, it's the harsh reality of studying anyway. but then, these two painful symptoms clearly signified that we both did our very best to finish mr yu jin's assessment tests on the screen. no pain, no gain right??

warning: it might be a little too boring but trust me, do read. i would love to know that i have helped my friends out there.

VOCABS; HOW TO STORE THEM IN OUR MINDS? WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SOO INSIPID TO MEMORISE THEM?

A very common question. i just got two friends who asked me the similar question just now. personally, i think that when it comes to this part, IT REALLY NEEDS OUR OWN HARD WORK. memorising can be very ARDUOUS, but it is one of the best ways to help us add on to our scarce amount of vocabs in ourselves. there is no easy way unless you are a walking dictionary or thesaurus. how to memorise? well, my style is to question among my friends which mostly i do with jason. since, he got this little blue book full of wonderful words, we share and learn new words together. you can certainly help each other replenish our vocabs by listing them down and create sentences with them, not only it helps for the sentence completion, it helps me to write in madam ong's essays. if any of you who wants to try this out, i can guarantee it'll be fun. not only we benefit ourselves but we help others in a way too. after all, sharing is caring. so, why not?

another good idea is to have flash cards. zera, my friend, she has this really colourful flash cards which she made herself (and i sometimes borrow). since i really love colourful stuff, (especially when i write my notes), i find it easy to remember the words because i tend to remember the color of the cards. this way is highly recommended to those who despise the monotony of black and white prints. i can also suggest that we photocopy the 250 most difficult SAT words which i copied from irwan, who also downloaded them from the internet. these words are commonly found in most SAT practice books and i can assure you that the more we see these words routinely, we can eventually grasp them and fill them in our memory box.

finally, use intuition. a very risky way but CL loves to remember his words by separating the words into positive or negative ones other than guessing the meanings of the words from other words that he knows. like when there's a word containing ambi, it might mean two things or dual i.e, ambiguous, ambivalent. also, mal means something bad, i.e. malfunction. sometimes when i find myself staring at the question, i would just trust my heart and circle the word that i think might fit. there are a few tips on how to utilise this style, so, do your homework and search for it ok if u find that it need herculian efforts to memorise the bombastic words. mr. google is ready to assist you anytime.

so, for the part where i did my sentence completion section, i managed to get 'good' and 'marginal' for the questions. i know that if we read in the SAT books, there is always this kind of reminder to SEARCH FOR THE KEY WORDS OR KEY PHRASE to indicate clearly the suitable word for the whole sentence. personally, i love this part. why? i love to know that there is a section in the SAT that i understand what it asks about. when i read the sentence, i first try fit my own words to the blanks and then, find the similar word with the same meaning. if it has two blanks, there should be at least a blank that we can guess smartly. if this style appeals to you, try it out. it helps me, so, maybe any of you out there might find it helpful too.

some of us would think when the heck do people use all these kind of huge grand words in life? my answer, mostly in novels. not many people share my love for reading english novels but seriously, in a very nerdy way, i suggest all of us increase our reading materials. Reader's digest's vocab section also helps if you cannot fit reading noels in your hectic life schedule. do whichever way you like. i do not guarantee if my style would be applicable to yours. but, there's no harm in trying. after all, it's for our own good.

will update more about other parts later, but for now, bear with my endless rambling on vocabs.


words for the day: FIND THE MEANING, WILL YOU?

1. draconian
2. obviate
3. postulate
4. omnipotence
5. hubris

(if jason is reading this, i can guarantee you can easily answer all these words, buddy)

Dejected again

My shoulder and neck really ache. But the most hurting part in the computer lab today is not that. It is the same feeling I had in my SAT CR exams. Never in my whole life through the Malaysian Education system had I felt so darn dumb in an English Test. SAT slams it in my face the hard cold fact that my English proficiency is hopeless. SAT doesn't castigate me directly but reprimand me indirectly through the results that I am getting. It's almost traumatizing to be experiencing it all over again today.

My weakness is still the same;obviously I did not improve. I can't seem to grasp the vocabularies. I hate memorizing but the truth is that memorizing seems like the only way. I told myself that I had to succumb to reality but I just can't force myself to go against the policies I hold on to. I am not an iconoclast but I hate to conform to what I believe is wrong. Intransigence gets me no where, this I am aware of. So do I just give up and study the conventional way?

Today 's practice test portends a far worse ramification if I do not crawl back up from that valley of laziness and procrastination. Dilatory is not going to get me anywhere either. It is true when they say that no one can possibly teach you English. It is a language and language needs to be acquired not studied. But i know in some ways, all these English preparatory programs that I am going through right now is not going to help me had I not change the way I think-I used to think and seriously believed that all I need to do to get through SAT is by merely going to class and do my homework, a palpable farce. Teachers are helpful, as a guide, not an answer to all your English issues. The worst mistake I did was depending solely on teachers-which now I tearfully regret. You need hard work. You need to work assiduously, ten folds more diligently.

I think Mr. Yu Jin wanted a more technical aspect and review of what I have done today but I decided to go on with this less technical and more personal post because I feel that the only thing left for critisizing is myself. CL needs to perservere and perspire through this times. CL needs more than a couple of exercises and lectures. CL needs more than the CL he used to be.

Today's test has shown me yet again my lack of acumen in this particular subject I once thought I was good at, obviously not. Today's test has reminded me of that young man feeling belittled and inferiored by a language he grew up with. Come this November, it is going to change. And that "change that we believe in"(quoted from Obama) will start now. "The man in the mirror"(by the late M.J) will not be the same good-looking, hot guy, but will be a freaking scary little English nerd freak! Maybe not to that extent but you get my point.

p/s: I was horrendous in the sentence completion and as I've stated in this whole post, the reason is because I am unaware and not familiar with the words. I've identified that the best way to overcome it is through more practice. Sounds easy, hope it is too...

serious assumption tackling

morning, sir! then, i hurriedly took my seat, wondering what our lecturer was going to do for my first lesson with him.

what is SAT? pop. the first question. scholastic aptitude test. scholastic assessment test. self-assessment test.

warning: this is about my experiences facing SAT 1.
my classmates and i took the test last june. frankly, i must admit that my scores were quite bad. too bad to enter any ivy leagues that our sponsor, sime darby has listed for us. feeling disappointed, i realized that i had actually took the test for granted though i don't know whether others feel the same way i did. well, there's no harm in sharing my own experiences i guess.

1. SAT IS NOT LIKE WHAT YOU ASSUME IT IS.
i somehow nonchalantly thought that doing the exercises from my princeton review, collegeboard and barron's books were actually enough. i didn't finish all of them but then, my mind generated thoughts like, of course you can do it. just look at the questions. all of them are doable. i seriously thought that my so-called sufficient amount of practices were enough to face SAT in just three or so weeks of proper preparation. if that kind of thought ever crossed your mind before, quickly erase it or else destroy it in any way you can before it becomes noxious in your head. DO NOT TAKE IT FOR GRANTED NO MATTER HOW EASY YOU MAY FIND IT WHEN YOU ARE DOING THE PRACTICE TESTS FROM THE BOOKS. my seniors (bankers) kept reminding us that we should focus more on critical reading, practice a lot of maths and improve on our writing section. i listened, but didn't seriously do what they asked us to do especially the CRITICAL READING part. so, from the bottom of my heart, listen to what mr yu jin said about living, breathing, sleeping and eating (for those who are fasting, please do not eat your books no matter how starved you are (^_^)) our SAT books before the test date. if possible, do as many practices you can. one of my facilitators during the commonapp workshop told me that she did at least one critical reading section per day, and she will enter Browns University soon.

2. THE LONG HOURS
the gruelling, mind challenging 4 hours of continuous (5 minutes breaks in between the sections) 10 sections of the famous critical reading, mathematics and also writing. if you think you can sleep only for two or three hours and still survive the whole day without feeling sleepy or stressful, try do the SAT test in full rehearsal. i thought that i can survive this. after all, i survived my biology test in school so why can't i survive this one, right? we are clearly aware that this test clearly emphasizes on the conciseness and precision of time management in answering the questions. i don't need to explain the technical aspects of the test because we can find the directions from our sacred collegeboard SAT books. yes, some of us can certainly survive the long hours but me, i experienced a serious longing for the test to end as i started the sixth section. i guess it was because i was feeling the pressure or else, i was just plain tired. so, here, a very common advice but still, i think i should add here is that we are supposed to GET ENOUGH REST THE NIGHT BEFORE THE TEST. by enough, i mean really rest your mind and sleep in the right position so that your body can sustain the strain of sitting too long on the chairs during exam. who says SAT only challenges your mind? sometimes, standing seems like a boon when u sat for the test.

3. WRITING LIKE WE WERE IN SCHOOL?
unfortunately, for writing section, no, we do not write like we used to in schools for our SPM. at first, i find it very hard to organize my thoughts into proper academic if not factual essay because i was soo used to write narrative essays with its flowery, full of jargons language. our previous lecturer clearly showed the right way of combining facts and personal experiences to produce a splendid essay. a very well written ACADEMIC essay. what i can comment about the topics is that it's basically asking for our OPINIONS. but, what differentiate them with our school essays is that these topics TEST ON OUR MATURITY OF THINKING AND KNOWLEDGE. so, LET'S ALL start thinking out of the box and expand our views of life. it helps me in my writing. (if you want to try to really open up your view on life, jodi picoult is a recommended author)

for now, these are a few things that i can come up with. if i remember anything, i'll post it later or my partner will add. basically, some of you might find the things i typed cannot be that serious but trust me, this is real experience. think it for a second, ok? (^_^)