In Japanese, I’d say お茶を飲みすぎている.
I have a confession to make.
I’m addicted to tea.
Don’t ask me why — I’m as clueless as you are — but it seems that from the time I come home from school (or wake up on weekends), I binge myself on unsugared, boiling hot black tea.
Apparently, too much tea can be detrimental to the kidneys and liver, and it can cause insomnia. It can also weaken your gums, and affects digestion, which in affect makes skin dry. Yes, I have suffered from some of the symptoms listed, but nothing in excess of simple insomnia.
According to this lovely site that I found on the first page of Google search, there are several benefits to someone who drinks a decent amount of tea, which is defined here for an adult (that, I believe, is pregnant) a maximum of 7 cups of tea:
…there is about eight times the amount of ‘anti-oxidant power’ in three cups of tea than there is in one apple, and every time you brew up in a cup or a pot for upto one minute you about get 140mg of flavonoids.
Further studies are looking into how tea could help your heart. The results from trials so far show that flavonoids may prevent the oxidation of the so-called bad cholesterol in the blood that leads to the build up of plaque in artery walls, as well as helping to maintain a healthy cardiovascular system.
Both black and green teas contain fluoride and they appear to help control bacterial growth that can result in dental plaque.
On average, I used to drink around 6 cups of tea a day, but since then I only take about 4. So, I suppose I’ve improved quite alot, and considering I’m not yet (physiologically) an adult, I was going a little overboard. Nevertheless, I still sneak in those extras, which probably accounts for my insomnia! Just imagine: when I was in Japan, I was drinking green tea nearly every moment of the day!
I used to be similarly addicted to water, where I’d drink about 4L a day. Not good, my skin just failed on me, even though I felt really good. DON’T DO IT! Unless you do heavy exercise every day, I don’t think even a doctor would recommend it.
I wonder if addictions to the trivial things in life like water and tea are like getting addicted to a drug? I don’t EVER plan on trying drugs outside of medicinal use, but I guess I have some fraction of a feeling of how drug addicts feel when they try to “quit” Even at this fraction though, I think it’s easy to give up on something if you just have the mental strength to take you through it.
Lunar Cycle Chapter 3
For those who haven’t read Chapter 1.
Please Enjoy 
Soul and Maria exchanged glances of worry.
“Are you OK?” Soul asked dryly.
Maria slapped the back of his head, causing his helmet to echo, “Well of course he isn’t OK!”
The stranger collapsed, causing dust to spread all around Soul and Maria. Maria kneeled and turned him over so that he could lie on his back and felt his neck for a pulse.
Nothing?
The stranger’s hand gripped Maria’s arm and he opened his eyes. His expression became a smile as his eyes turned completely black.
“Soul, what the heck is happening?!” she exclaimed, struggling to break free, “I can’t get him off me!!”
“Just- Just relax, please!” he replied anxiously, adrenaline making his head throb like a sore thumb.
“What business have you paladins in this World? Why do you gallivant into danger so?” snarled the man in a double-toned voice, “You only bring trouble and destruction to all the Dimensions! You all should be punished!”
His entire body tensed as a dark aura surrounded him and flowed to his side, revealing a black figure of energy. Maria’s eyes widened and her mouth trembled, panicking as she tried to break free from the human that still held a tight grasp on her wrist. There is only one entity in the universe that had this innate ability of strength and manipulation, and instantaneously its name rang a fearful resonance in their consciences.
Darkness.
“Soul, he’s trapped me! I can’t break his grip…”
“Just stay right there, I’ll take care of this…” Soul grabbed a scroll in his left hand and the handle of his sword in his right. Swinging both hands up at once, he untied the knot in the scroll with his mouth while aiming his sword at the Darkness.
“Loyal dogs of Time, How dare you challenge me without even answering my questions? You all come and go and learn the arts of war, but if there’s something they don’t teach you, it’s respect!” it shouted.
“Shut your mouth!” Soul retorted, flinging the scroll open and wrapping it around his blade. He chanted Winston’s words and the scroll was absorbed by the sword, turning it from lacklustre silver into a resplendent white.
“On the contrary, Paladin, I have no mouth with which to speak,”
The sun, almost completely submerged beneath the horizon, was making way for the moon opposing it.
Looks like it’s now or never.
“Maria, look out!” Soul yelled, and swung his sword at the Darkness. It dodged the sidewards slash with a short jump and landed on the surface of Soul’s blade.
“How repugnant. You still ignore my questions,” it assumed the shape of a human, retaining its ominous black veil, and held out its right hand to form a sword out of Maria’s shadow. Maria quickly became weak and stopped resisting against the grip of the lifeless body as her shadow twisted and turned around the Darkness’ hand, stretching into the shape of a simple sword. She collapsed.
Soul looked from Maria to the Darkness, “Dirty tricks!”
“So you agree that two-on-one is fair?” it replied, “No etiquette whatsoever-”
“Etiquette? You lot roam all the Dimensions, taking them over by brute force, and you want to lecture me on etiquette?” Soul closed his fist tightly and stared directly into the Darkness’ faded eyes, “Then you claim that we bring the pain and sorrow, all the destruction. That we should be punished?! Ridiculous!”
“Well then, state your business and this might be a little more pleasant for you…” it demanded with a smile.
“Piss off!” Soul tightened his grip around his sword and raised it over his head, forcing the Darkness to jump out of the way. He turned the sword in front of him and stabbed at the Darkness. It held up its right arm in defence, making it expand into a black wall. Soul sliced, forcing his blade into the shield.
“You can’t penetrate this, foolish paladin, it’s made of pure energy,” the Darkness chuckled from behind the wall, “Energy can’t be created or destroyed, but can be changed from one form to another…”
Soul grimaced at the shield, forcing his blade into the energy causing it to swirl and fade.
“What in the-?” the Darkness gasped. The shield expanded and curved at its sides, surrounding Soul’s blade. Soul continued pushing forwards with all his might, and eventually his eyes caught sight with the Darkness. The energy slowly formed into the Darkness’ hand, grasping the blade just inches from its head.
“You look shocked, Darkness,” Soul started with a smirk, “What’s the matter?”
“White Gold… You paladins are more educated than I believed… However-” the Darkness swung its shadow sword at Soul’s head. Soul dodged lithely, jumping back in recoil as his armour grinded the hard ground. Dust flew around Soul and the creature, and for the first time Soul noticed that he couldn’t feel anything.
They don’t have… emotions? Soul thought as the dust cleared, This will be harder than expected, they must have changed since last time. I’m running out of time, the spell can only last for so much longer.
“Paladin,” Soul jumped and pivoted in mid-air. The Darkness was right behind him and he wasn’t prepared to defend himself. Soul recognised that it no longer had a right arm. “Paladin, paladin, paladin…” it paused and tapped its foot for a few seconds, “Oh, you stupid paladin. Do you not realise that our kind don’t heal that easy? Just goes to show that-”
“Enough! I’ll answer your questions!” Soul demanded, held up just centimetres from the Darkness’ sword. “If you will answer mine, and give Maria back her life force,” – his voice lowered – “I will cooperate with you fully,”
The Darkness smiled again, “Excellent. A parley. Well then, what are you doing here? Make it snappy, or I’ll finish you off then use your girlfriend’s energy to repair the damages that you’ve caused,”
“She isn’t-”
“That is none of my concern, answer!”
“We’re here to investigate what you lot are up to. We are surprised that you’ve escaped the Reverse-Dimension and we don’t plan on returning the Tear Pendent.” Soul cringed as he addressed the Darkness.
“Interesting… things may be a lot different to what we initially thought. Well, I’ll answer your questions later. You two are a pair of nosy travellers, you know that? No harm whatsoever!” it bellowed, starting to laugh, “You’ve promised to cooperate. Now, I’ll return this woman’s life and take you with me. Any objections?”
Soul looked down in frustration and shook his head slowly.
“Excellent.” The Darkness chanted unintelligibly as a dark aura formed around Soul, binding him. “You know, X would probably be interested in hearing your questions,”
Soul struggled against the tight barrier, “You promised, Darkness! Give her life back!”
“Ah yes, you are no longer of any harm to me now,” It muttered under its breath and the sword dissipated into swirls of darkness that surrounded Maria’s hollow body. “COMBINE!” it shouted, and the swirls danced viciously around Maria with the appearance of a tornado. One by one, the swirls once again inhabited her body.
“Well then, paladin, time to show X what I caught,”
Soul stared at the Darkness in disgust, unable to move a muscle against the aura.
It assumed its shapeless form and expanded around Soul. In an instant, Maria was isolated with the homunculus next to her.
Lunar Cycle Chapter 2
OMG LOOK HERE BECAUSE I KNOW FOR SURE PEOPLE WILL MISS THIS UNLESS I MAKE IT BLEATINGLY OBVIOUS!
When their mystical vertigo halted, the paladins stood up and stood their ground.
“We’re right in the middle of it…” warned Soul.
“I don’t see anything though…” replied Marie in almost a whisper. The ground was dusty and red, and littered with animal remains, as if at some time ages ago there was once water and life here. How the Shadows could survive this foreboding place was beyond the paladins’ comprehension.
As far as the eye could see, there was clearly nothing where they were sent, so they decided to scout the area one at a time, letting one stay in the middle while the other searched around the one left behind. When it was Soul’s second time scouting, Marie noticed a strange fluctuating in Soul’s shadow. Concerned, Marie took a quick glance behind her and realized that the idea of either of them having a stretched shadow perpendicular to the sunlight was alarming.
“Soul!” Marie called, “We’ve been trapped!”
But something was wrong; Marie just couldn’t get her words out. Her voiceless pleas made the echo of Soul’s boots hurt her ears. At any cost, she needed to get his attention. Marie grabbed her sword and unclipped a latch in its sheath that divided it into two. With all her might, she made deafening clanging noises that quickly got Soul to turn around.
“What on Earth are you doing?” he asked with a slightly raised brow.
Maria’s voice remained silent as she pleaded with all her might that Soul would notice what was happening. Soul looked around himself in worry, trying frantically to recognise the problem. Maria’s shadow crept closer and closer to her, eventually crawling up her legs. She was turning into a darker tone and started to freeze up as if she were stark naked on a snowy day. Soul looked at Maria, slipping into a trance, and finally it clicked.
Soul reached for a pouch and revealed a handful of red dust. Chanting, he tightened his grasp on the dust, a warm aura surrounding him. The shadow was no further than Maria’s hips before Soul exhaled a strong gust of breath, releasing a vermillion light from his grip that tangled in the air like a rope and struck her. The shadow, competing with the light, reluctantly returned to the ground and separated from Maria, causing her to gasp for air.
“No probs, Mary. Just look out, right? They haven’t left the building yet,” he explained.
He’s right, Maria thought, it’s only a matter of time before it emerges.
Both of the paladins stood their ground, clasping their swords. The vermillion glow around Maria was fading, revealing specks of red glitter all over her armour.
“Sure, just don’t you dare call me-”
“Mary-!” Soul yelled.
A crack in the ground expanded into a circle, and a dark figure with long claws came into formation.
“Shadow!” They exclaimed.
Soul drew his sword and cut through the air a few times. He charged at the Shadow with his blade behind him, preparing for attack. The Shadow dodged his erratic slicing, jumping over him, only to be split in half by Maria close behind. The Shadow burst into streams of darkness that swirled out into nothingness.
A flush of relief overcame both of them.
“That was too close,” Soul puffed.
“Yeah…” Maria agreed, and turned from Soul,”…And if you ever call me Mary again, I’ll beat the stuffing out of you, Soul,”
“Whatever Mar-” Maria scowled at Soul, and although he couldn’t see her expression through her helmet, he could feel her negative energy, “Eh, I mean Maria…”
Her expression became a smile, “That’s more like it,”
“I guess this is our queue to be more careful,”
“Something like that. It seems we’ve become rusty over the years,”
Soul chuckled, “Oh Maria, you make it sound like it was so long ago! How long is a year anyway?”
Maria paused and took off her helmet, her straight black hair spreading down her back in one full tumble, curling at the ends. Her eyes were a beautiful green and her smooth skin was slightly tanned. She looked down doubtfully, “Honestly Soul… I don’t know….”
Soul’s heart sank at her expression. He had one true weakness that would plague him in any battle: his ability to feel emotion. All it took was one decent look and Soul felt one hundred times the emotion of his company. The eyes said it all, and he often wondered if it was how he got his name. If anything was certain, it was that he didn’t know how he was born or named nor even remember his own childhood, and that he felt depressed and severely homesick.
What is a home, anyway?
“Hey now, don’t do that to me!! You’ll give me a heart attack if you start showing me your face like that again!” he joked – hopefully she would take the facade.
“Let’s not get facetious, Mr. Libido,” she snarled. Soul felt his mood lift.
It worked.
The sun dipped just above the horizon as they continued their patrol. It was at a dangerous angle to be waiting for an attack from their foes who they know take complete advantage of the shadows. Nevertheless, they had only defeated seven more Shadows – no closer to finding out what their incentive was.
“It looks like we might need to patrol through the night…” Maria groaned.
“Probably. Those damned creatures will probably flock at us at night, but,” Soul explained, “we would probably be better off retreating halfway through sundown,”
“Understood. They’ll be omnipotent at night,”
Plus, the only minions capable of proper communication are the Darkness. If we wait until night, we’d just be setting up our gravestones, Maria mused, if we could capture one of the Darkness and torture some intel out of them, we could quickly find out what’s been going on. But until then, we’re stuck in the dark, she smirked, There’s no other way… we need to utilise the gold feigning spells…
“Right, it’s my turn. Take a break, Soul,”
Maria stood up and assumed her position fifteen paces from Soul to patrol a circular path. Soul sat and looked in every direction that Maria couldn’t, occasionally sipping from the reservoir strapped around his shoulder.
The sky turned a brilliant orange that blended with the horizon, casting shadows across the few clouds that remained in the barren world. A small gust of wind was picking up around the paladins, kicking up dust clouds that buffeted their armour. Maria fixed her helmet back on to protect her eyes, and while she adjusted the eye guards, a strange shape came into focus.
“Soul… Hey Soul!” she called.
Soul got up and turned to Maria, “What’s up?”
“What is that over there? I can’t make it out, but it doesn’t look like a Shadow or one of the Darkness,”
Soul raised his hand above his brow, extending his view and protecting his eyes at the sun that directly bombarded them. In the distance, with a little bit of strain, a dark human shape was emerging from behind the heavy dusty gales.
Maria and Soul assumed their basic battle formation, one next to the other with swords unsheathed in preparation for what was to come.
The shape finally got close enough to form a weak human wearing a worn out shirt that was soiled by the dust and track pants tied by a thick rope of cotton. His expression was horrifying – as if he would drop and die any moment – with dark widened eyes and a scarred mouth. As he got closer, a fresh cut in his cheek came into view.
“Oh- Oh my God… Now I’m seeing… mirages…” he muttered, almost inaudibly, “Looks like… I really won’t make it. Oh God…”
Lunar Cycle Chapter 1
The cloud rolled calmly over the dark sky, the full moon piercing the eyes of those below. Ever since the last equinox, that large, white circle hadn’t been so bright. The elder swiftly checked the almanac by casting his long finger over the ambient colours, stopping on the appropriate date. With a stroke of his long, black beard, Winston chanted a short spell that summoned two paladins before him. Both were almost identical, except for a blue and red ribbon that each wore around their left shoulder, respectively; they swivelled and bowed at the knees before the sage.
“I apologise for calling you so abruptly, but there isn’t much time. The lunar patterns don’t match the records anymore…” Winston said, hastily.
The paladin wearing the red ribbon was coarse in speech, “That must mean those damned creatures are among us once again!”
“Inevitably,” replied Winston.
“So you wish for us to track them down…” sighed the paladin wearing the blue ribbon.
Winston picked up on her lame reaction to such a dire situation.
“Marie, this is no simple matter. We are not just experiencing one alteration in the lunar track… I have been tracking this down for three months now and I’m certain that I’ve seen the moon appear four times full.” Winston explained. The warrior with the blue ribbon looked down, afraid that she may have offended the sage. Winston noted this and swiftly put his hand on her shoulder guard.
“It’s OK Marie,” he comforted, “you will have to track them down, but this is very much a dramatic change from our situation before. Please understand – and this goes for you too, Soul – that we may be facing more than a few simple Shadows in the time to come. Masses, warriors, masses! On top of that, I have a strong feeling that we have the Darkness working against us,”
Soul swallowed nervously as he looked down slowly at Winston’s explanation. The Darkness are among us, too? he thought. He looked towards Marie making the same gesture and could feel her sharing his thoughts. The Shadows were one thing, but the Darkness were another. They both knew that they could easily slay the likes of a simple Shadow with a simple slash of their swords. The Darkness were harder to vanquish, requiring that their swords be coated with white gold imbued with white magic. Winston was a very observant old man, noticing every gesture they made before him revealed all of their thoughts.
“What you both need to do right now is relax,” Winston said cheerfully, “I will cast a spell over your swords to refurbish them from all of the battles they have suffered from already. As for the Darkness, I have prepared for you both a spell that transmutes stone into white gold. It only works once, for about a day, so keep it for emergencies,”
He showed the paladins how to use the spell, demonstrating that they need to wrap his prepared scroll around their sword and chant a spell that they had to memorise.
Marie was concerned with her temporary protection from the Darkness, “You made it out as if there are myriad Darkness and Shadows – we’ll have to properly prepare our blades sometime,”
“That’s right, Marie, but we mustn’t be hasty. We need to figure out why they have come back and how,” Winston explained.
Soul was quick to reply, “Yeah, we knocked them into a Reverse-Dimension the last time I checked. There isn’t much escape from infinity!”
“And they are probably back to retrieve their Tear Pendant, thus regaining their strength to return to their havoc wreaking scheme to take over the Main Dimension in order to gain the ability to travel to, and take over, other dimensions.” Marie lectured blandly.
Winston was pleased with their enthusiasm, oblivious to Marie’s sarcasm, “Sure, they could be back to do all of that. Then we have the fact that they cumulated so many minions and, as Soul said, they escaped from the infinite confinements of the Reverse-Dimension,” Winston looked up at the dreary walls of his cave-like environment and mumbled something inaudible to Soul and Marie. Blue symbols appeared on the wall and floated into the air. They began to ripple and rotate, and eventually spiral into a fireworks display of smaller circles that spread out around them. Between Winston and the Paladins, one circle remained larger than the rest. The sage closed in on the circle and pointed out a region which turned red, fighting with the blue light in the air.
“Before anything, you need to brighten up this segment of the Main Dimension – you can’t afford anything following you into the other dimensions…” Soul chuckled at his use of the word “brighten” but quickly became serious when Winston scowled at him. “We’re going to need to take haste, here,” Winston walked through the circle, causing it to become slightly distorted, and waved his hands over the Paladin’s swords to fix their cracks.
“Prepare yourselves,” Winston warned while taking a few steps backwards. Soul and Marie kneeled simultaneously, bowed their heads and closed their eyes. The wizard waved his hands up to make all of the circles floating in the air disappear, and then clapped his hands with great force, interlacing his fingers. The echo of the clap travelled through the dim room and danced around Soul and Marie’s heads. Winston’s hands released slowly as if they were clasping invisible fists and released a white light that engulfed the two warriors
“Good luck,” whispered Winston with effort, bringing his hands together again with difficulty.
My gosh writer’s block much???
I usually make tons of posts over the holidays, but I just can’t think of anything to write about. I didn’t really want to write about things I did; the most I did do was go to the movies. I guess I should address one of the primary issues I’ve had since posting this blog: Creative Writing.
Ever since I established the goal in order for me to improve in creative writing, I have written tons of stuff. I have received a lot of critique, and my creative writing marks have jumped exponentially, which I’m quite pleased with. To celebrate, I want to post one of my creative writing pieces on my blog… but I’m not sure which one!
So, I’ll leave it up to whoever may stroll by. I know this isn’t the most popular blog on the internet, but if at least one person suggests something, I will post it.
Here are the titles:
- Lunar Cycle
- My Half Yearly
- My frist draft in preparation for Half Yearlies, New Blood
- My second draft for the same reasone, New Blood v2
- Very short attempt at fruity language
Gogogo! If no one replies, I shall just post my friend’s favourite: Lunar Cycle.
I hope you’re all good and have a good holiday to all school students to have them!
What is all this about?
Hello Friends!
My name is Charles and I’m in the process of completing my final four terms of school. The purpose of this blog is to keep a record of my progress at school and track my personal development. I was very inspired by a recent blogger who likes to go by the name of Jess from whom I adopted a similar, if not the same, purpose for blogging. Therefore, this blog will (obviously) include very similar things to Jess‘ blog, but I like to think of my blog as an alternative record of my final journey to hers, and from a different perspective (I don’t like reading as much as she does, unless you consider non-fiction “reading”) 
Jess‘ is better formulated and artistic, and her writing style is superb (it reflects how much she reads). So, if you haven’t seen it yet, what are you waiting for?! (Just don’t forget to come back after you become engrossed in her one )
I’m sixteen years old with a big workload, which I’m finding as each day passes by isn’t the right approach to being the absolute best I can be academically. My main goal is to blow away the rest of my state in the final HSC examinations and overall performance, but I’m not sure what I should set as my main goal specifically. A UAI of 100? I have read so many sources and have received so much negative feedback that I do 13 units of school work (if you don’t know what that means, a rough idea is that I do one and a half subjects more than I should). So what about high 90’s? IS that still achievable in my position. I will make it my goal that by the end of the year, I will settle all of my uncertainties and aim for a realistic, specific goal!
Then there arrives the question, “What do I want to do in university when I achieve such a milestone?”, but I’m dilly-dallying now, anyone who reads this proabably has better things to do! All these things will be approached in due time, along with other miscellaneous pieces of my life
Conquering Bad Habits
I have always followed up a bad habit of not doing any sort of homework until the night before. Today, I got an assignment for Advanced English, and I immediately wrote in my diary “Make a plan for organisint the Adv English task for this month”. If I want to achieve anything near my goal of high 90s-100 UAI, then I have to start planning out my assessment tasks now. This task is worth 30% of my HSC, and I only get 4 weeks to plan drafts and complete it!
In preperation for further imminent assessment tasks (I’m waiting for you, Extension English!), I have devised a method for planning my assessment tasks’ completion:
- Work backwards, starting from “so-and-so” must be finished by today, until research “that thing” in my diary, for every week.
- Divide each week’s goal into seperate tasks, and allocate a small ammount of time to devote to each task in every day.
- Insert the plan into organiser of choice (I chose a diary, as mentioned).
- FOLLOW THE SCHEDULE RELIGIOUSLY!
It is important to make the periods of time small so that I don’t get lazy and I feel relaxed, and if I get interested in the research/writing I do I’ll have the flexibility to stretch the time I spend on it. Also, I can be more flexible if I happen to get a whole load of important homework in one day, and couldn’t really be bothered to do an assignment for a long time. I chose periods of about 30-50 minutes.
What I’m trying to achieve is underscheduling, a concept from Zen Valedictory which I happened to find on Jess‘ blog xD (At this rate, I’ll be referring to Jess for a while, now!). I’m not taking that sort of approach full-on though, just putting it on trial for now.
My most important step would be to follow the schedule, without which nothing would be done! It seems obvious, but there has been many a time that I have made wonderful plans, then have never followed them!
New Goal: Strive to follow this method of planning assessments and getting things done on time!
Let’s see how I go by the end of the week on this one!
An Achievement!
Today, I was feeling really hyperactive, doing stuff really out of the ordinary. I was tired as well, so it was really unusual for me to have these weird side effects. I feel that it payed off, though. Today, at Japanese class, I got back my listening exam and saw a lovely 100%! This is a first for me, because I usually end up in the high 90’s. Not that I find that a problem, just that I find it annoying! This has given me inspiration to achieve well in all of my other subjects as well in such an important time of need!
I WILL DO WELL IN FURTHER ASSESSMENT TASKS AND EXAMS!
In other news, I helped one of the old patients at the doctor’s surgery my aunt works for with her general computer needs, and she gave my aunt and I a scanner! I’m ecstatic, could my day have gotten any better?
What did I do?
- Work towards outstanding marks in an exam.
- Act hypo, honest and friendly to everyone.
- Help a kind old lady out with her computer.
What did I get?
- 100%
- A scanner.
- Endorphins.
How much better could this get? If I be the best person I can be and be relaxed at the same time, then I’ll just keep getting more and more similar rewards! (Come on, more 100%’s!)
There was just one negative: It took a day to achieve. I’m writing this post so late I can’t even realise how much I’m repeating myself (probably). Luckily, I only have an hour of work to do for school so I shouldn’t be drastically affected by this glorious day. But hey, I made the lives of many people much brighter and happier, which benefited me – a small price to pay in my opinion!
A Lazy Day…
Today was such a hot day, but it was so calming and it made me really lazy xD After a 2 hour snooze when I got home, I got stuck into some homework for Japanese and soon found it was 7 o’clock, so I was working on it for roughly an hour or two. I felt like I did absolutely nothing though! Was it that I had to read and write or that I was just really exhausted? I’m gonna do a little experiment tonight: I hate mornings, I’m tired during afternoons and I can be the biggest night-owl in my house. So why not try and do all of my homework during the night? I’d just feel the way I always do in the morning, and I usually take long naps during the afternoon anyway, so as long as I can negotiate ways for regaining lost sleep, I should be able to be all good, right? Yeah, probably wrong, but I’ll try it tonight.
I’m a little disappointed in myself for not doing 30 minutes of work on my Advanced English assignment yesterday, despite the fact that I was totally out of it. This is a good why I made my work intervals short, though, to make my time flexible in the chance of unforseen circumstances. So tonight, I’ll be working 1 hour on my Advanced English assignment In any case, I finally received my Extension English assignment, and so I’ll have to plan out for that also. Busy, busy, but I haven’t even gotten into the true difficulty of my HSC courses yet, so I’m lucky to only have 3 assignments right now.
Self Note(s): I haven’t gotten stuck into the poster-making note strategy yet, something I should be getting into ASAP! Also, I should start the “Quiz and Review” method of study from Zen Valedictory!
No Slacking Off!
Improvements, Improvements!
Earlier on in the week, I introduced to myself a new goal:
…Strive to follow this method of planning assessments and getting things done on time!
I can finally say that I’ve successfully fulfilled this goal for this week, in regards to my Advanced English assignment, truly a great improvement… My FIRST improvement! Recently, the temperature has been really scorching hot, so I overclocked a few hours in my new routine for doing work and study. There is only one problem with the way I’m operating, and that is that I deprive myself of much-needed rest at night, replacing it in the afternoon. The consequence is that I lose the energy I have to use for school and it’s really annoying, feeling like drifting into a deep sleep in such a crowded place.
I felt absolutely drained by the time I got home yesterday after trying it out the night before. Another issue I have with this method of work is that people usually need me to do things for them in the afternoon, whether it be go to the shop or roll out the bins – something you just can’t avoid doing! Today, my state of consciousness was really noticable. One of my friends and teachers actually pointed out to me that I looked like I wasn’t feeling well, that I looked serious, “..like I wanted to kill someone,” as my friend put it. I certainly didn’t feel like any of those things, obviously! When I got home, I slept ’till pretty late, about 7 o’clock, and I still didn’t feel the temperature drop. As I type, the heat is hitting me at all angles, but I don’t really find that much of a problem because I like the heat: it’s nice and calming.
Back on track, there is one thing that I’ve noticed about my late sleeping, and that’s that I get up earlier, feeling better. Why? I wouldn’t have a clue, but it’s something I wanted to conquer throughout all of year 11! If I can somehow adapt to this manner of being active, then I can easily complete all of my homework because I have no distractions at night. I’ll keep this on trial and see how I go next week…
Goal: Maintain the late-sleeping strategy for a week, and observe any notable consequences.
If I find that negatives outweigh the positives, and that I can actually carry out this strategy without it affecting my school and overall life too much, then I can move on to other issues, such as how to manage nights before exams and so forth.
Now time to uphold my first goal and continue with my assignments!
EDIT: It’s quite sad that I have to address my progress in this goal so quickly, but I don’t think I’ll be able to carry it out. Personally, I’m performing fine, but my parents are worried that my new routine might just affect my health (as deedragon pointed out in her concerns) in terms of my eyesight. They were also worried that I might get so tired that I might not be able to do little errands when they want me to (I knew this would be a problem 
) I can’t really say how much it affected how I go at school thereof, because I never really got a chance to adapt to this way of doing schoolwork. For the record, my sleeping time varied over 12am-3am for the short trial period (about 2 or 3 days). I think their main concern was that I was using the computer desk during that time to do homework though, so they might have thought I was using the computer… hence the eyesight worries. I’m gonna try my luck at carrying out my little routine in my room (no computer there) so I might still be in the game to see how this’ll work out. Otherwise, this little project is done for, so I’ll have to create a backup plan…
The Rubik’s Phenomenon
What’s old is new once more in my school, with the Rubik’s Cube taking it by storm, for want of a better cliche. This was only followed by the “scoobies”, card games, portable gaming consoles (ok, maybe that’s still in, because I have a DS crew that congregate every lunch time), and even notebook computers.
It was only a matter of time before I got caught up in the whirlwind, mastering the “T-method” (as I like to call it) of solving the puzzle. So far, I’ve solved it myself 3 times, which I feel is a decent achievement for some Joe Blow who thought he’d never see the thing solved unless it was bought brand new or broken and remade or even if the stickers were pulled off and replaced conveniently.
Now, my friend has brought upon a new challenge, destined to either entrance others into completing it, or making them cower in fear at the mere difficulty of the puzzle: a four-by-four. Some might find that laughable, having had solved pyramid, electronic and overall poly-shaped Rubik’s style puzzles. Whatever you may be familiar with, no matter how cooky it may be, maybe you’d like to share some of those crazy experiences witnessing others or yourself solve those seemingly imposible (and evil) pieces of plastic.
Andre Rieu Concert
Yesterday, I went to see Andre Rieu and his Johann Strauss orchestra play some awesome classical music. Coming from a 16 year old, that spells nerd, right? Maybe so, but I enjoy classical music as long as there aren’t boring vocal solos or too many wind instruments in them. During the concert, Andre claimed that music is the most beautiful thing we have in the world, but in reality is that true? I wondered this because during the performances, there were interesting light shows that amplified the mood created by the music – shouldn’t the beauty of music have amplified it’s own mood? I’m not saying Andre is wrong, heck, music is one of the things that has lasted over centuries, but it has been used and abused 
There were a lot of interesting people going, too, not snoody old people like I thought there would be. I also didn’t imagine the trip there the way it turned out – little more than a rock concert, beer boozers were humming out a cantabile of Andre Rieu favourites, from Motzart to Strauss, on the train ride. The way back? Boring. I did happen to see someone with extremely large feet, and a lady with an upturned nose, but other than that, nothing.
P.S. About the light amplifyng the music, it really helped me understand the feelings of the tunes because I wasn’t exactly in the best seats. Which reminds me: I LOL’d when I noticed it was bucketing down with rain on the people who paid for expensive seats, while the rest of my lower class bretherin and I remained in the safety of the shelter. It was also funny to hear conversations around me… “Apparently, they bought the more expensive seats, a ho ho ho” “Yeah, and now look at them! Serves them right for being such smart alecks“
I agree, they deserved it for taking their time getting to their seats while Andre was lolling around waiting for them to wait, playing freebie fillers with his orchestra.
A little reflection so far…
OK, being offline for about a month doesn’t go without things happening. So, I’m going make an effort to dedicate this post to the events that have taken place and the problems I’ve had and whatnot here, to see how I’m working so far.
Extension English has become quite a hinderance for me. It isn’t that I don’t HATE the course, it’s that I don’t GET it. What do we actually have to do? How do we go about it? The science courses, for example, are very straight forward: you must know all the required knowledge, and there are even question answering scaffolds that we get taught in order to answer questions. I mean, even Advanced English is more straight forward (but that is probably because it is supposed to be an easier course). I haven’t completely ignored it, though, I’ve tried my hardest so far and I’m just finding that maybe I could use all the time I’m putting into it into my other subjects. I’ve actually already decided that I want to drop it. The issue is my teacher, who keeps egging me on with that magic sentence, “You have the potential.”
Sure I came first in EE in year 11, but first in the school is very different to first in the state. Plus, my exam marks were attrocious, something I just don’t want to risk for the HSC. Besides that, if you haven’t already noticed, I’m losing my motivation and interest, and that is something you need to be in an extension course in order to succeed – motivated and interested in it… dedicated. What’s worse is that I’m not much of a reader – I’ve estimated that it would take me at least 7 hours to complete The Great Gatsby which is approximately 200 pages long. Some people can finish it in 1-3 hours, and those are the people that belong to EE. Those are the people who would do well because they enjoy reading, whereas I don’t
Reports came in last week (the last week), and I must say I like what I saw. Top 10 in all of my subjects except for Maths 2U and 3U. On top of that, the first lot of results for HSC exams were completed:
- Biology – 96% (Two marks off 100% =_=”)
- Maths 2U – 83%
- Maths 3U – 70%
And that is all IIRC. The rest are still in marking. I’m pretty pleased with my results, in any case, and I don’t blame EE for any hinderences, because I put it off in order to study for these (well, it was kind of a half half thing, but I still don’t put any blame on EE).
Now a little bit of a study schedule to keep me on track:
- Advanced English – Read at least 50 pgs of a text a day.
- Maths 2U – Complete a chapter of Excel a day (They aren’t very elaborate)
- Maths Extension 1 – Read through the past topics in the Cambridge/Coroneos Textbooks (perhaps a topic a day, if there is time).
- Biology – Get through the homework the teacher has set and make notes, also read ahead into the syllabus (perhaps a worksheet a day, a past focus point a day [not to be confused with dot point] and likewise with the future topics’ syllabuses)
- Physics – Same with Bio, minus the homework.
- Continuer Japanese – Complete a homework task a day, Complete a booklet each week.
- Extension Japanese – Revise past work, Go into future work – complete a Sample Task a day.
Realistic… I dunno. I’ll have to start doing what I’ve just written and see how I can adjust it.
It’s Christmas Eve =)
Just wishing a happy, peaceful Christmas Eve. Don’t forget to watch the carols! ;)
It’s Christmas Day!
Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone has a happy day and enjoy any plans they may have. I’m sure not too many of us will be studying today *sigh* If only every day was like this.
It’s finally the end…
Another year, another period of time that you won’t ever get back. Have you ever felt that a year of regret has just gone by? Experiences that you could have had, that you just won’t get to do are probably the experiences that eat you inside out for the rest of your life. If this has ever happened to you, let it be a lesson Treat every day as if it were your last! I only got into this sort of mindset in the latter half of the year – but still, I got a little in over my head… will a year of regrets never pass?
This could be the birth of a New Year’s resolution.
On the brighter side of things, I’ve been sucked into reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. A decent read, but there is a great fluctuation between boring and exciting. Still, a book to have me hooked through about two thirds of it is a feat unachieved since Marcus Zusac came along. Maybe this will set another goal for me, because I’ve been noticing my slow reading speed lately – I SHALL CONQUER THIS
My brother recently got two games that have got and engulfed my attention: Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training and The Curious Village-something-or other. Both of them involve irritating the brain, achieving an increase in intelligence and processing speed, an idea that I quite enjoy. It’s been a while since I hurt my brain this much.
Anyway, the rambling shall caese here
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Improving in English
In order to be successful in English, your ability to read and understand is paramount, as well as your ability to write creatively and craft excellent essays. Unfortunately, students are often bombarded with texts such as Shakespeare that seem impossible to grasp, some students plainly hating reading altogether. I, for one, prefer to analyse film texts rather than written texts, much to the annoyance of my English teachers Reading and writing are what earn you those well deserved marks in exams and assessments. Given this, how can you improve said abilities?
First, we need to pinpoint exactly what it is we are aiming to improve.
Reading
What do we need to do when we read? Look at words; they are just a collection of letters grouped together and spaced apart to create meaning. Look at sentences; they are just a collection of words from which you read, and just as you scan the letters to read words and draw their meaning, you scan words to make meaning of sentences. The difference with sentences, however, is that a bunch of different meanings have to come together to create a bigger meaning. As you are reading these words, what do you do? You see the letters grouped as mentioned and draw meaning from the clusters – the words. Chances are you’re doing so at a pretty fast pace at that.
This is the key to reading: the ability to process and understand words fast.
Think about how you are reading now. Chances are you are reading text in blocks, rather than word by word. This is because your brain is so used to reading it’s almost as if you can predict what is to come and be satisfied when you see it there as you skim it over. Taking this a step further, we can move on to reading in paragraphs and eventually pages in order to improve our capabilities to read effectively. Of course, your ability to process at a slower pace is also alright – it’s that it is more effective to read fast to improve in English, because reading fast allows you more time to reflect on what you have read and develop ideas about your texts.
A good idea to use for getting used to reading is visualising what is happening in the story to the best of your abilities. This would probably also make your story/article/whatever more enjoyable to read, another bonus to effective reading. This is also good for those of you like me who enjoy sitting on our fat lards to get information sent to us without any self effort.
Writing
There are two ways to write in English: creatively and analytically.
Creative Writing
This is something that a lot of people like to do and a lot of people abhor - a task that requires two things of you: an imagination and a vocabulary. Writer’s block is a term that I feel is being thrown around way to often these days. It refers to the writer’s inability to draw ideas out to write about anything. Everyone has something to write about, it’s just that no-one writes often enough to know it. This is why imagination is important: you can take a anything, be it an event in your life or what you ate for breakfast, and beautify it to create an appealing piece of art. The more unique the ideas you write about, the more marks an examiner would probably be willing to award you.
To beautify your ideas, you need a vocabulary – it is inevitable. But this comes naturally as you read! As long as you strive to define words you do not understand, you will constantly build your vocabulary. Some will swear by doing crosswords, among other newspaper style word-puzzles, to increase the number of words they know. Although this is an excellent idea, these puzzles can appear to be very overwhelming at first, with very abstract words that you don’t often use appearing often in each addition. The plus side to this is that crosswords are very consistent in repeating several words, or waiting for several puzzles before the word you solved so long ago reappears.
How do you go about syncing imagination and vocabulary? The magic word is imagery. Imagery is a dire step in the creative writing procedure that some either under- or over-cook. You need to express what is happening in the creative writing task – what perspective is the piece in? Where is the piece set? How do the characters react to certain things? Overall, it is what makes the piece worth reading.
I’ll post an example of an… extract of a short story written by my little brother and jazz it up with the power of imagery:
Brother:
His mother brought his medicine so he’d get better. he [sic] drank his medicine and he had to go to the toilet. The boy’s mother asked why? [sic]
My Edition:
He heard the footsteps of his mother resonating through the confinements of the grey walls. As she entered the room, he noticed that she was carrying a strange brown vial, no doubt a punishment for his getting sick. He drank the foul smelling liquid and his bowels turned with anger. He needed to go. Badly.
“Why?!” his mother exclaimed, half chuckling at the unnecessary question she had asked.
Notice that more emphasis had been put on tactile and visual imagery. In addition, I’ve enforced olfactory and aural lightly, but I skipped the gustatory imagery, letting the smell of the medicine do the talking. Suddenly, the piece has become more engaging to the reader and they may better relate to the situation at hand. This is often known as SHOWING and not TELLING. The problem with this is that it can get out of hand at times, making the writing tedious. There is always rooms for scarcity and allowing for the reader to guess what you are trying to say. At the same time, leaving too much guesswork can work against you. It will come naturally with practise.
Analytical Writing
Mainly essays, a word that strikes fear into the hearts of many students. I have no personal experience with bad essay writing, so I can’t tell what the issues actually are, but I can provide what I do when I write my essays.
- Introduce your argument and your points.
- Provide body paragraphs in as logical an order as possible, providing a topic sentence, an example, some expansion on how the topic sentence and the example are related and why the information you have provided altogether are related to the argument you have introduced.
- Conclude by summarising all points, not mentioning anything new and concluding on your argument.
Analytical writing can’t be done without a thorough knowledge of the topic you are to write about, which is why effective reading is so important! It is well worth noting that vocabulary is of dire importance in analytical writing also, and the way you articulately string words together to create proper meaning really imposes on your marks. How insightful your argument is is also another factor. How do you make your arguments insightful? I think that perhaps your ability to create an insightful argument is a function of how well your ability to think laterally is.
Although this little post has been lightly touched up on, I believe even a little consistency will take you a long way. Never giving up is the first step to achieving goals
Lateral Thinking
Here is a little something I wrote a week ago, but I thought it wouldn’t really have much relevence at the time.
To be a lateral thinker, to see beyond the norm… “Think outside the box.” It’s all well and good, and pretty cool if you can master it, but how do you think in this manner? Here is a summary of various sources I found while browsing the net on google… If you are interested, I had scanned the first seven pages of google for random points, enjoy
Lateral Thinking
Debono:
UNDERSTANDING LATERAL THINKING:
Programmed/Vertical Thinking involves an analytical, careful and precise method of viewing facts to logically solve problems. Know what Programmed/Vertical Thinking is, then purposely draw solutions from outside of this thoughtset in order to become a lateral thinker. Look at the big picture, challenge assumtions and seek alternatives!
Po (Provocative Operation):
Rather than build up on current ideas, look elsewhere! Using Po statements, one may suggest a crazy idea knowing how abstract it sounds, inviting others to build upon it.
EG: Po: A car should clean itself
Po: The car gets so dirty you can’t see it
Po: The dirt cleans the car
Po: Who needs a car?
Six Thinking Hats:
A method of thinking that takes you out of a certain perspective and narrows you down into a certain viewpoint. Cycling between them can provide a better understanding of the topic at hand. Put on the following caps and see how you see the world:
· White hat: neutral information.
· Red hat: emotions and hunches.
· Black hat: judging and evaluating.
· Yellow hat: optimism and positive views.
· Green hat: ideas and creativity.
· Blue hat: big picture and control.
PMI:
When you have ideas, categorise them as plus, minus, or interesting. It recognises how good or bad certain points are, and if they aren’t either, they are categorised as interesting, and worth a little more thought.
1. Recognise dominant ideas.
2. Search for other solutions.
3. Relax the mind to prevent narrow solutions.
4. Use chance to assume the out-of-the-ordinary solutions. Usually, these are pretty rare in relation to the ordinary situation.
Einstein:
· Rephrase your problem. Replace words with synonyms that would achieve your goal (hence, good vocabulary is required). Usually swapping complex, “hard-working” (or “sacrificial”) words with simpler, self-beneficial words would increase results.
· Rat out all assumptions regardless of how obvious they may be, then expose the “bad” assumptions. Think of why they are bad, what are the consequences? In other words, challenge your assumptions. Not only will this further clarify the problem, but you would also relieve your problem of bad ideas.
· Generalise your problem. Use hypernyms (words that have a broader meaning, eg the hypernym for plane being aircraft) to rewrite unclear parts of or all of the problem.
· Specify your problems. If the problem is way to broad, follow the previous idea using hyponyms (the opposite of hypernym).
· View your problems in relation to other perspectives. No matter how crazy it sounds, doing this can possibly reveal simpler forms of a question.
· Devise as many conclusions as possible. Doing so may reveal more than one way to solve a problem or reveal no real solution.
· Avoiding negative solutions will increase optimism and will help in devising more solutions by breaking one negative task into smaller, positive ones. In addition, negative solutions can inhibit the ability for the brain to think. EG: Swap “I wish to quit smoking!” for “I wish to improve my health and extend my life!”
· IF the problem isn’t in the form of a question, make it so! Our brains love to work on solving questions and even subconciously continue to work beyond our knowledge.
· For stumpers, use the following formula of phrasing a question: “In what ways might I (action)(object)(qualifier)(end result)?” EG: “In what ways might I improve my creative writing in order to make my stories more engaging so that I may earn better marks.”
· Make your problem engaging as much as possible without losing track of the goal. EG: Instead of “creating a personal development blog”, I would want to “make my readers live to the fullest”.
· Reversing the problem to find the answer to the opposite of what you wish to achieve can reveal the most obvious and/or abstract of solutions: all you have to do is reverse the solution to the reverse problem!
· Ask as many questions about the problem as possible, then gather as many facts about your questions as possible. By perfectly defining a problem, your can perfectly answer it.
· SOLVE YOUR PROBLEM!
After you come up with ideas, pause, then come up with three or four more that are better, never hang on to the first solution you come up with!
Put your ideas to practise, don’t just think- DO! By doing, you can see where you went wrong and/or right and develop more ideas!
Note:
- Debono and Einstein were important scientists. Do some research on them if you are interested
- I have initially written this article for personal use. Although I realise that I have written all of this myself, it was through the synthesis of much research that I was able to retrieve such results. I recognise the bquoted sections as parts I may have directly copied out of complete laziness as I was writing this. If you see any part of this and feel that you deserve credit for anything please let me know with sufficient proof. There is no copyright infringement intended, and I do not uphold ANY profitable gain from the materials in this article
A Summary of What’s been Happening…
OK, recently, I’ve not been blogging at all. Not out of sheer laziness, by the way, but out of the need to do a LOT of thinking. What am I goin on about? Recently, I’ve been thinking very deeply on my subjects at school. I don’t know why, but ever since the new student at my school told me that I’m an abstract thinker, I’ve been very attuned to the fact that I do go a bit beyond sometimes. He told me that I should have done better than a normal old public school, but I don’t know. I mean, looking at my progress over the years and now, being in a public school hasn’t been bad for me. I think that even private-schoolers fail sometimes, or get bad results in something, and that your performance depends on your dedication as well as your teacher’s.
Anyway, on a personal note, I’ve been getting into pop music A LOT lately, as well as listening to a lot of 90’s pop like Killing Heidi and Garbage. Man, I hope I’m not turning emo. OK, I was just kidding on that one.
School performance-wise, I’ve been doing great. I’m getting behind in Maths but I finally grasped the essence to curve sketching, so I’ll be back in the game in no time! Speaking of maths, I just remembered that someone had asked me to tutor them in maths today. Now, for someone like me who was originally HORRIBLE at maths, this made me feel really good. I’d like to accept their offer, but I’m also aware of some possible maths syllabus changes that might’nt make me suitable.
The School Magazine’s February edition will be sent out soon. I hope it gets a good response. I’ve been racking my brains to write good articles for it, I hope my colleagues don’t summa-rape it.
Extremely odd, really good hyperactive EUPHORIA!
I got my 2u and 3u maths exam results back this week, and boy, am I pleased. Usually, I’m known as the awesome-at-English nerd at my school, so when people found out my mark, I was quite pleased with their expressions
2u maths: 82% ~ Not the best (not many people can beat 100%), but not the worse on my terms. Considering that I didn’t study and just spammed my brain with practise questions, I’m really happy about this result!
3u maths: 90% ~ “WTF NO WAI” would probably sum up my expression when I found this out. This mark pretty much tops the entire grade at 3u, even beating the 4u guys, so I had to pinch myself a few times before I could believe it.
Well, no that that is over, it’s time to worry about Advanced English. I need to present an oral presentation comparing The Great Gatsby and The Sonnets of the Portuguese using a visual aid. Wish me luck…
