Lesson where the teacher told us stories + Monster Blood Tattoo series

Yesterday we were able to get the English teacher to tell us anecdotes for the whole period. We were talking about waxing and hygiene, tattooing, piercing (and how she pierced second holes in both her ears herself with a sewing needle when she was a teenager). We kept asking her questions and for more information on this and that, I wasn't expecting her to really keep answering them. I think we only got away with it because she didn't have anything important to teach us then.

Our parents take our HSC with us

Writing about HSC before reminded me of something else my English teacher said about HSC. She said that your parents are taking the HSC with you. When they're stressed, talk to them about it, tell them to take a break. When they're worrying, reassure them. If they get a less than ideal mark, tell them it's not the end of the world. Talk to them, guide them through it, manage up.

Isn't that very true. I think sometimes that in being so focused on our our stress, we sometimes forget that our parents, especially the Asian parents, can be just as if not more stressed. We have our teachers and friends to help us through it and tell us to relax, but our parents have to keep everything to themselves. For an Asian family such a mine, I think it can be that the children absorbs the less stressed attitudes of Australian society but the parents feel that this is the most important thing in their children's lives up to that point so they stress and stress and stress. They are taking the HSC with us, but they have much less control than we do over it.

~.~oOo~.~

I think most times Sydney Girls' mufti days (they call it Civi Day) the have a theme. But it seems that most people don't bother (or are too embarrased) to dress up. On a Harry Potter themed Civi Day, guess what everyone came as? Muggles.

A girls raised a good point though, because we're not at our local schools any more, most of us have to take public transport to get to school. It would be pretty embarrassing to be dressed up and be stared at on the train or on the bus.

The importance of sleep

My English teacher is prone to going off on a tangent, and that's what she did yesterday. She told us that according to statistics, adolescents require 7 point something to 8 point something hours of sleep per day. But on average, teenagers are only getting 6-7 hours of sleep. I'll admit here that I'm guilty of that. For one reason or another, I seem to sleep late and I'm sure the story is the same for most people my age. Going around the class, 6 or 7 hours of sleep is the most common answer.

She says that students are always operating on sleep-derived mode and that we only manage that because:

1. Most of us are fit and healthy (there's no obesity problem at school)

2. Most of us have good diets, especially those with Asian backgrounds eat lots of vegetables.

3. We're all water conscious (we drink enough water) and we exercise etc.

She said that if they had the choice, they would have school from 10 to 4, because that's when teenagers will work best. Adolescents naturally want to sleep in later in the mornings, that's how our body works. She taught us a trick to help us sleep better (that I knew already, but anyway): heat a small cup of milk in the microwave oven for 1 minute and 27 seconds, and that produces chemicals that help you sleep. Today a lot of girls said that they tried it, they slept more and they felt a lot better for it. I know it'll help, and I probably make it one of my goals to try and sleep earlier.

Adolescents also save up their sleep and sleep in til noon or something on weekends (that's not something I do, for one, Grandma won't let me). She said that's actually not good for you. It takes 3 days to make habit and 3 days to break it. So on Monday you're forced to wake up early and your body goes into shock. You're not used to it, that's why we feel especially tired on Monday (so there is a reason!)

She also said that when the HSC comes, being healthy and well rested gets you half the marks. Memorising facts doesn't matter because you don't know what would happen on the day (that's what she said). I think that is something that will be a very big part of getting a good HSC mark. I've had it happen so many times that I slept late the night before an exam and got a really bad mark because my eyelids were drooping the whole time. I made so many silly mistakes because I was just feeling so groggy.

She also mentioned an experiment involving the use (or not) of Facebook. All the HSC students in a girls school (not Sydney Girls) agreed, as a grade, to not use Facebook for 6 months before the HSC. They all said they felt a lot more relaxed, they all felt better about their work load. And their HSC mark was actually better than their class mark. They said that the lack of the pressure to keep checking, keep updated and the pressure to respond is a big stress buster. That's something for you to chew on, so you think I should get a Facebook and stop using it 6 months before HSC to get this effect?

Switch to Chrome

I switched browsers from Internet Explorer to google's Chrome yesterday because I couldn't log into blogspot and I can't work out why. So far, Chrome is a lot, and I mean a whole lot faster. Everything is so much cleaner, there's no fiddly bits I never use. The font is a bit strange though, well, I guess it's just different. The themes are really pretty though. Chrome can't doesn't let me save pdf directly off the internet, but that's what I keep Internet Explorer for. For the far superior speed, I think I'll stick with Chrome.

Again in Economics, the teacher was giving an example of the influence consumers' choices have on the producers' behaviour. So he says: Pearl here is selling Vegemite sandwiches for $2. Jenny here is selling meat pies for, say, $5. All these people (gesturing to the whole class) is lining up to buy meat pies. Only one person (teacher goes to stand beside Pearl) comes up to your stand, and he asks, "Where can I get some meat pies?"

He's wonderful.When he explains things he does it really well and he uses a lot of humour so I remember it well. Economics is my favourite class hands down.

I have to write an essay and a creative for English,1500 words each. Luckily it's due at the end of the month. They were originally exam questions so they're not meant to be so long. I have a problem where I use a superfluous words and I find it hard to be concise and to the point, and these long essays will not help me break that habit.

Dopamine + Uni attendance in Australia and Iran

Golden Queen

I read the science magazine Cosmos (not Cosmopolitan) and there's an article about a study on people that got "chills", which is a "marker of extreme pleasure" when they listened to music. I don't know if you've ever gotten goosebumps or chills when you read a really good piece of writing or listen to music you really like, but I have.

Implicit Discrimination

I thought, and I would be the first to admit that I'm very sheltered, that because of the policy of multiculturalism, that discrimination isn't bad in Australia, or at least, a lot better than some other countries. But just because something is better doesn't mean it shouldn't continue to change. Australia is better than a lot of other countries in terms of discrimination, but even if explicit discrimination doesn't exist, implicit discrimination is still abound.

Yes, Mr Malfo- I mean, Mr Harrison

Yours truly by Lasaro

Ugh, I'm sick. I hate being sick. It's when I am sick that I remember how comfortable I am when I'm not sick. I can't sleep properly because I can't breathe through my blocked nose and I keep coughing. Being sick is miserable. I've taken medicine, but I'll probably get a sore throat tomorrow. Ugh.

I can't believe I said that

Noise From the Silence 5 by Shel-yang

It was the last period of the day and there's less than 5 minutes left, and my Economics teacher was dictating to us. But he being silly (like he sometimes is, but funny too), and saying it one word at a time. That was probably to make fun of the fact that some girls always tell him to slow down. Then a girl said, wait, what was that again. And he went even slower, by that I mean he's stretching the word out.

Then I said: "Oh stop doing that." in what sounded like a really annoyed tone. It sounded like the tone you would take with an annoying whiny kid. I wasn't, seriously, I was startled when I realised I said it because I really didn't mean to say it, it just slipped out. It directly bypassed my brains and fell out of my mouth. There was silence was a few seconds, and then everyone laughed. I laughed.

What homework?



Noise From Silence 9 by Shel-yang

 I'm sure you've seen this happen before too. The teacher says, "while you're doing that I'll check the homework", and half the class, in perfect unison, choruses "What homework?"

Science teachers and their lame sense of humour



Noise From Silence 8 by Shel-yang

 It seems that all science teachers have the same sort of so-lame-it's-occasionally-funny sense of humour. My chemistry teacher put some solutions to chemistry questions up and there were "solutions" on it. The way he said it reminds me so much of Mr Spies. They says a lame pun or a lame joke and it's so obvious that they thinks it's so funny that you just have to groan and laugh.

Rosary and Books



Noise From Silence 7 by Shel-yang



I saw a dead little white worm on top of the cooked rice yesterday, when Mum cooked it, and I paid extra attention today when I'm washing the rice. Guess what, I found 11 little white worms in the one and a half cup of rice I washed. They look like little maggots and it’s making my skin crawl. High protein rice much?

Funny Economics Teacher



Noise From Silence 1 by Shel-yang

My English room had a fireplace! How cool is that. There’s even a chimney to go with it. It’s filled in now, and a heater is put in the same place, but isn’t it so cool that my classroom has a fireplace?

Rambling and observations on school

Singing Dolls

On Thursday, a girls in my English class came up to me and ask “I was wondering, did you happen to have skipped grades?” So of course I said no. Then she said “Oh, you just look so young.” I asked her how old she thought I was, and the girl next to me said, “Honey, you look 12.” O.O Again. I really don’t look my age, do I? That would be a wonderful thing to be able to say when I’m 30 or something, but I’m only 16, any younger and I would be a baby.

New School



Melt Down



It's so hot. I hope you're all bearing the heat well, Mum finally caved and turned on the air-con, so I'm good now. But I wouldn't have survived school without my fan. In teh new school it seems lots of girls bring those Chinese/Japanese fans to school.