Stress?

Many teenagers today are stressed out because of various factors. What do you think is a major cause of stress to teenagers? 

Before I start on the causes, stress is caused by stressors which are events that occur in your life. There are good and bad stressors. Identifying these good and bad stressors can help us to prioritize our life and help us figure out stress techniques before harm. What happens when we get stressed? Firstly, our neurotransmitters start to fail as the stress overloads. The neurotransmitters that control our body clock shut down. This causes you to experience sleeplessness and leads to insomnia in most cases. Next is our energy level will drop and we end up not wanting to get things done. Last but not least, the neurotransmitters in the pleasure part of the brain will malfunction. This leads to sadness and depression. Your body will end up shutting down and making it harder to combat stress.

The first major cause of stress is family problems. Family problems range from petty quarrels between siblings to huge scale divorce and extreme cases of abuse. From a small scale, the bickering within siblings can be stressful. Your siblings are the people you see at home and grew up with together. You tend to have strong emotional connection with them and you feel distressed when they are unhappy or sad or angry, it is even worse when that anger or unhappiness is caused by the disagreement between siblings. This leads to minor stress from family problems. On a larger scale, quarrels between parents and relative also lead to stress. You feel incapable of doing anything as a teen to deal with these adult matters. You get frustrated, sad and just plain angry at yourself and this contributes to the stress teens feel all the time. The underlying problems there lead to a divorce where could end cause the family to end up in smithereens. Physical and mental abuse of a parent on a child also causes stress on a teen which already faces self-esteem problems.

Next, there is stress that comes from trying your best to keep your grades up. Everyone has expectations and also pressure from others to achieve them. This is clear when we talk about teens. Teens are expected to be diligent, hardworking and have good grades. When it comes to the top students, they stress about getting those As and those above average aim for the As and Bs. No one wants to get bad results so they stress about getting better than they had before or at least equal. This stress motivates us to study but at times it can be overwhelming.

Thirdly, romantic relationships cause stress to teenagers. These days you see puppy love in the air and lots of people are in relationships. The ones which are single and overwhelmed with friends who are all lovey-dovey can be affected by peer pressure.  Everyone is in a relationship and I am still single? This causes stress because everyone wants to belong in their group of friends and not be the odd one out. The teenagers who just broke up from a relationship experience stress too. In the process of breaking up or starting one can be stressful for the teens involved. Most teens have not reached a level of maturity or stable emotional developed brain to handle strong emotions like romantic love or heart break. When these strong emotions come on, they tend to feel distraught in a break up or confused with feelings of another individual. The stress of thinking about it and contemplating all the possible factors are apparent. Other than that, those relationships are not always smooth sailing and teens experience rollercoaster-like emotions sometimes due to the connected feelings between two individuals. They feel sad because the one they care for is depressed about something. The long list of emotions goes on.

Fourthly, one’s financial state also brings about the worry and stress. As a teen, you have lots of expenses like school expenses, books, stationary, food and more. If the teen is poor and faces financial despair, this could cause worry that leads to stress. The worry of not being able to have money for the next meal they have is nagging at the back of their heads. They worry more on how to earn money or a part time job if they do have one instead of focusing on school work and activities. Financial state plays a big part because this world of ours runs on the pieces of printed paper we call money. 

Stress in our lives cannot go away forever. We have to learn how to combat it and deal with it before it gets out of hand. So take up those yoga classes, go for a run, play some games or have a laugh! Invest in a small teddy as a stress ball. That is what I did but the teddy was a gift. Release the stress you have by doing something you love. Sing a song and maybe watch a movie or just go and talk to someone about your problems. The internet is also a great place to express your feelings as an anonymous person. Get your life going and don’t let stress weight you down too much. Cheer, till next post!

PS, if you need it http://www.emotionalbaggagecheck.com .

Literature Camp 2015

"That is the end of the first national level Literature Camp 2015," said Miss Juliana. 

I spent a day almost 12 hours busying myself with this national level event which my friends and I worked hard to plan. The many visits to University Malaya, meetings and preparations for the book sharing, Literature Race were all a bunch of fun.

The day stated before the sun has awoken and the committee members, photographers, teachers dressed in our blue T-shirt, Red Crescent members in their white neat uniforms and the students of 5 Balau in casual clothing gathered in school. I remember being too excited to sleep the night before, no idea why. It was a big thing unlike anything that we've ever planned before. I rush out to school on my yellow bicycle after having a substantial breakfast. It was not enough of a breakfast later I realised. How nice it was to have my stomach grumbling for food after the race was over. We departed to our destination, the education faculty of University Malaya. When we arrived, we all climbed up to the administration block to meet our teachers bustling about giving out goodie bags and breakfast to the registered contestants.

Once we got our breakfast and got the green light from Madam Monica, our teacher-in-charge of the event, we headed out to set up our stations. The race lasted a really really long time (it felt like forever). Not only were the bugs and "invisible" mosquitoes unbearable but the humid weather made us sweaty and sticky. Gladly, once the day creeped closer to noon, the bugs and mosquitoes went away. During the race, my station was pretty boring truthfully. It was a more exciting interpretation to test the participants' knowledge on two of the many poems they were instructed to read - "There's Been A Death In The Opposite House" and "For My Old Amah". It made the play treasure hunt on some stairs with rails. Then classifying and figuring out the representation of the clues they found. Some of the groups were highly enthusiastic when they were searching for the clues. Sadly, many of them missed that one clue pasted behind the instructions that were on a pole. 

After the race, we had lunch. Before the next activity began, I got to know some interesting people. Some girls from Tunku Kurshiah College, Malay name Maktab Perempuan Melayu, is a premier boarding school located in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan. I talked to Liyana, Shifaq and Asmah from that school. The girls were knowledgable and outspoken for 15 and 16 year olds. I half-expected them to be 17 like me but I then realised that not everyone is my age. Closer to home, I also met Nicholas and Calan from SMK USJ 12. How nice is was to find that they were frisbee fanatics like Xin Wei and I. Calan also knew my friend from Johor, Rachel Sia. How small this world is! My friend, Rebecca even had a friend that she reconnected with while most of us made some new buddies. It was a good way to get to know students from other schools through this event. I hoped for an activity where we could mingle but there was not much time for that.

After the short yet entertaining drama from the 5 Balau students, the event was then continued with the book sharing for the two books "Animal Farm" by George Orwell and "Inferno" by Dan Drown. The books were interesting books on different topics. One on how animals run their world and soon become what they sought to abolish but the animals do not know what is right or wrong anymore. They feel it is fair that their kind is leading them but do not realise they get less food than before the animals took over. Inferno about a debatable topic where a disease is released into the world to make a third(if not mistaken) of the population infertile that would contribute to stop the world from perishing due to the overpopulation of humans. The participants were sporting and shared their thoughts of the book combined with some recent topics. It was good to let them express but some of the participants were not so cooperative.

At the end of the event, many pictures and selfies were taken. Huge group photos of the participants and committee members taken separately. There was cake for the teachers and committee members courtesy of one of the teachers. The event was a success! We hope the schools that participated had a good time. I enjoyed myself with my friends. Even though it was just a one day event, it was really tiring. I crashed in bed really early that night and had a good night's sleep. Hopefully there are more events like this to come in the future. With that, I end my post for today. Cheers, till the next post!

Post Freedom Writers

Recently, we class got to watch the movie "The Freedom Writers". It was interesting and very moving. I felt it meant a lot to us because the story was about this class of students that were our age but on the other side of the spectrum. An integrated high school with students that were involved in gangs, drug trafficking and more. These kids fought for their lives every day. They just hoped to live another day from where they came from. It brought a new meaning to life for the students of 5 Batai.

Our dear teacher asked us to write about some of the topics in the movie. First is prejudices found in the movie. One clear example was the fact these different gangs, cliques and races had a problem with each other. The Blacks prejudice against the Latinos and other races. This was without a valid reason or knowledge. It was just because they thought they were here first and "they" were invading their land. Many prejudices are still present in the world today like racism and sexism. A prejudice where you have to protect your own kind that Eva had to follow was also mentioned in the movie. Eva was instructed to protect the people like her father by him. She had lie to protect Paco from the
court of Law but in the end Eva did what was right. She may have had lost her family of Latinos but her classmates who were once divided, came together and showed her that they are her family and that she will never be alone.

Secondly, there was stereotyping in the movie as well. The perfect stereotype seen was when Miss Gruwell's husband said "I can't be your wife." after she asked him to support her like wives do. The stereotype of husbands go to work and wives stay at home to support the husband is still present in society. However, the people have changed and women have become more independent to get their own jobs. In some cases, the women achieve more than men and earn more than them too. Truthfully, in my opinion, this stereotype should not be upheld because it is all down to the mutual agreement of a husband and wife that keeps them together. In the movie, I feel that the husband should have gave Miss Gruwell a chance and told her how he felt about her working so late and et cetera .

Next up is the topic of discrimination. The whole movie was filled with discrimination of many sorts. Firstly, there was the example of discrimination - harassment. Inappropriate jokes, insults, name-calling was seen clearly in the movie. They also displayed behaviour where the would fight with other races just because the school was in chaos. There was also a cartoon drawn by Tito in class of an inappropriate cartoon on Jamal with big fat lips "kissing up" to Miss Gruwell. When Miss Gruwell saw the drawing, how raged she was. She mentioned the Holocaust and drawings of the Jews with big fat noses in the papers. She talked about the greatest gang in history which took over countries that did all those stuff to get rid of their enemies. This was to prove to the class discrimination was bad.  Other examples of discrimination in real life is discrimination in hiring, housing, sex discrimination and wage discrimination.

Lastly there were examples of segregation presented in "The Freedom Writers" movie. This is clearly seen in Eva's monologue at the start of the movie. She states that there are the different type of cliques "latino's, china town, the ghetto, and a white kid" in school. There are also cliques in my school but I feel that we are pretty united due to the flexibility of the students and open mindedness of the our generation. Then again, it could just be my year. People who are new have to try to fit in to a clique to feel welcome. This brings us to the psychological factor of wanting to belong. The movie really shows the big contrast between the class when they first started out and after Miss Gruwell brought them together. At the start of the year, the students came in and sat in their cliques but Miss
Gruwell changes that when she moved the around. I felt it was a good first step for her. In the end, you can see the class worked together to raise fund to bring Miep Gies to their school and were all united on bringing Miss Gruwell back for their Junior and Senior year.

In our world today, you still see all these - prejudice, stereotypes, discrimination and segregation throughout the society. The different levels of them in the various places. Relating to another movie "The Duff" (it is PG13 in US but was not shown in Malaysia due to certain parts of the movie), we should all learn to love ourselves and ignore the labels on us as well as the cliques we are in. High school is a vicious environment. With that I end my post, till next post! Cheers.

How A Bad Day Is

I just want to share with you how a bad evening/night, in specific, occurs in my house. I do not know how you would feel in my shoes but you can try to see from my point of view.

Let us start with waking up in the morning. Eyelid flutter open and the feeling of the sunlight stream in from the window. I lie under the covers waiting for my alarm to go off but it does not. Too early again. I get up either by body clock or awoken by someone moving around in "my" room. I check my phone and it lies there beside me. I remember what I did last night. Must have forgot to put it on the table again.

I fall asleep again into light sleep. Being awoken the moment my mother tries to pry my phone from my hands. I must have dozed off again with it there. In the end, I get up and succumb to the every morning rituals of brushing my teeth, washing my face, brushing my hair, breakfast and just aimlessly walking around my house or room.

Back to my room after breakfast to finish up the homework which are due to my horrible habit of procrastination. It is bad indeed. Why don't I finish it during the weekdays? Hard habit to break. My family and I leave the house to obtain our meal of the day, lunch. Lunch then tuition for me but grocery shopping for my brother and mother. All sunny and no storm cloud in sight, for now.

The food churn in my digestive system and the drowsiness kicks in. This unbearable feeling of wanting to nap with the relaxing yet piercing cold air circulating the room makes tuition class slightly less appealing. My brain is on the verge of shutting off. Deja vu moment when I realise I have seen this in my dreams before. How quaint.

I am greeted with the breeze that tags along with the million of rain droplets pounding on the roofs, roads, cars and people as I exit the tuition centre. No softball due to the rain and thus I go home to do my several miscellaneous things.

The bad day starts when my mother calls me down to help her cook. For your information, she only cooks on some Sundays. This week she wants to teach my brother and I new things. I comply by walking downstairs and helping but my brother still has his butt glued to the chair in front of the computer. League of Legends again. I do not know why she flared up when I was just telling her about the computer.

She magically presumed I was complaining about the computer and my brother. She started shouting on top of her voice. You could feel the air around me shake and shiver in fear. You can hear her voice echo slightly. This continues to go on as she cooks. It is then I realise, my family members are quite temperamental. I think to myself "I should just keep quiet next time." Sometimes you just have to keep quiet and let everything swirl around you violently as you wait the storm out underneath that small piece palm leaf. Dangerous isn't it?

I had to use the computer to play these brain games from the Lumosity web page. Not so great when you have someone babbling and talking about other children of her friends along with their achievements and discipline. How they study by themselves even when their parents are away at work, not play computer games and like somebody she knows. How they are not involved in any relationships and their amazing jobs, scholarships.

The moment someone shouts at you something about you not thinking or using your brain. We all know people say stupid things that they do not really mean when they are angry. It just slip of the tongue or heat of the moment. Does it make you feel slightly dumber than you really are? Does it lower your self esteem? People expect so much higher than what you are but are never satisfied with what you do.

This is how life is sometimes. You look down on yourself and when they find out you do, they scold you. You just never have the words to explain to them that you are part of the cause. Sadly if you do they get angrier in most cases. You just pour oil into fire and end up burning yourself to a crisp.

I heard from someone that whenever I write, I always write in a very sad tone. I hold on to the bad past and I just cannot remember most of the memories. It gets jumbled up and becomes a messy blot of ink in my mind. No longer words or pictures but a blur of letters and colours. I am mad and sad? Perchance.

Mommy's 51st

I had it all planned out. Well,it was some thing like it. All I was missing was a cake and the mood to celebrate.

This year, I decided to be creative and do something handmade for my mother. I used newspaper and made her face out of newspaper and the earrings I already planned to give her since last year.

I came back home after choir practice and ran up to my room. I wrapped up and did the final touches on the small box of earrings. I looked at my craft and hoped that my mother would not think a kindergarden child did it. My drawing skills were not necessarily the best out of all the three of her children. Basically, it did not look that impressive.

"It is the thought that counts."

I walked down the stairs and to her home office. I bravely knocked on the door and went in. "Happy birthday, mommy!" I wished her. I passed her the gift and looked for satisfaction in her reaction. Let us just say that it was not the best reaction I could receive from my mother. It was enough for me. I then ran back upstairs and tried to finish my homework. Sadly, my nerves would not let me. I was still too excited (or you could say nervous) from giving my mom her birthday present. The thoughts of doubt sped through my head like a racing car on the track.

The thought rushed out of my head as my brother and I were called down for dinner. We ate in such solemn atmosphere. My mom told us that she did not want us to sing for her nor blow candles. "I'm too old for that." I quote. No matter what she said, my brother and I still sang her that birthday song even without the candles. At least it felt somewhat birthday-like. My family will never get used to celebrating birthdays cause all we would do is get cake, sing, blow candles and eat cake after dinner.  I guess the big celebrations and meaningful parties were just an influenced misconception from the many American television shows I used to watch as a child.

We had this beautiful delicious cake from Ficelle Boulangerie & Patisserie that was given to my mom from her friend. We made a guess that it was a sponge and cheesecake mix because it was as filling as a cheesecake but the texture was spongy. It was quite amusing trying to figure out what kind of cake it was. It was an elegant hemisphere shaped cake which was totally cream coloured all around it. We sang for my mom, took some photos and continued with cake cutting and eating of the cake. My brother even had two pieces.

I kind of forced my brother to take a photo with us cause clearly he did not look that happy. I wish I could have done more for my mother's birthday but as a high school girl, some things are not possible at this age and time. I hope my mom enjoyed her birthday and had a good time. With that, I end my post. Hope you enjoyed my blog. Till next post!

Librarian One Day Camp 2015

14th of March 2015
Before the sun woke up, librarians dressed in our black librarian T-shirt and white school tees gathered in the school canteen. Everyone brought their bags and food, ready for a full day ahead of them. I walked to school with my beloved ice box, bought a bag of ice from 7-Eleven and made my way to school. It was still dark and chilly as I enjoyed my walk. We around 7.30 in the morning we boarded the bus and made our way to the two destinations which is the Rimba Ilmu and the library of Universiti Malaya. I went to Rimba Ilmu first so let me tell you about how my day went. Gladly, we were allowed to put our food and heavy items in a room before we began our adventure.

We started off with an informative explanation of the bugs we will be able to find later in the Rimba Ilmu. A young man named Safuan told us differences between an insects and other bugs like the spider which is an arachnid. We learned that an insects has 3 parts(for those who did not know already) which are the head, thorax and abdomen meanwhile a spider has only two parts-  the head and the cephalothorax. He introduced to us the damselfly which come from the same order as the dragonfly which is Odonata. They look pretty much like the dragonfly but the two insects have their differences. One, as larvae, the damselfly larvae has a little tail that the draognfly does not have. Secondly, when adult damselflies are at rest, their wings are held closed which is opposite to the dragonflies that have their wings open when at rest. It was even more intriguing when Safuan told us about the shedding of insects to become bigger. He even showed us a shedding of an adult damselfly if I am not mistaken.

An exoskeleton that has been shed

After that, we headed to the exhibition room. This room is where all the information and even some creative artwork was displayed. We even saw this display that creates a hologram. It was quite interesting. There were displays of the different types of stick bugs, butterflies, beetles and spiders. We even saw Lichen. Lichen may sound familiar to most form 4s because we learn about them in symbiosis as an example of mutualism. The lichen consists of a fungus combined with one or more species of alga. The fungus provides water and mineral elements as well as protection to the alga from intense sunlight, whereas the alga supplies carbohydrates from photosynthesis for growth. Thus there is symbiosis.

Lichen

Next we made our way to the Rimba Ilmu, there we saw many things including the different trees as our classes are named after trees. We saw a leafless tree that bears flowers only when the leaves drop. Other than that, we saw a huge Golden Orb spider, some huge pandan, a tree that sheds red leaves, lots of palm, red barked tree that makes itself look sick, some dragonflies at this marsh area, a cute tiny brown spotted toad, the mickey mouse plant, a huge Sukun tree leaf and many more interesting plants and animals. The best of them all was this beautiful clear pond which you would never expect to find in the an urban area like Kuala Lumpur. I fell in love with the clear water with the little fishes swimming around in it. The rest of the photos I took are on Facebook if you would like to see them.

Beautiful clear pond

When we gathered back, the other group was already feasting on lunch. We joined them and had our share. My friends and I grouped up and brought pizza, drinks, nuggets and fresh cold fruit. My habit of bringing fresh cold fruit is one hard to break. My love for watermelon and cold fruit runs deep. My juniors were overjoyed when they heard I bought cold watermelon. You should have seen how fast it was finished. Next was the ice breaking games which was 4 stationed game that made the teams swap around every 5-10 minutes. I was in charge of the chopstick game. As always, most of my photos are on Facebook but here is one on the better ones.

After that we had some complications with the bus driver that did not know he had to pick up one more round. Gladly the bus finally came and we went to the library at around 2.15 in three rounds due to the insufficient space. We had a short 15 minute tour compared to the 45 minute tour the first group got. It was not that enjoyable though. I would have wished for a chance to glance through the amazing trove of English fictional books that sat proudly on a whole one and a half floors. We moved to a empty space close to the big bus stop in Universiti Malaya and played our last game which was Minesweeper. Then we got back to school and was joined by the other group before our camp was finally finished. Everyone adjourned home happily and safely. It was a good camp this year but a little bit more messier than expected due to the lack of leadership and slight confusion.

That is all for now, hope you have enjoyed my post. Till next post!

Dear 7th.

Dear 7th of March,

I had a fun time today with you. I woke up early to greet you at 6 in the morning. You were still a bit glum and dark as I made my way to school for my last annual school road run on my bicycle. I am sure you watched over me as the many students and teachers dressed in blue, red, yellow, purple and green flooded the multipurpose court. Everyone (well maybe not everyone) was pumped up for the run that morning. I know the runners from the P1 category were all hyped up. You seemed to lighten up as we progressed from announcements to the entertaining and safe warming up routine. The Mickeymitez cheerleaders lead us with our stretching. The event kicked off with the girls from P1 category (which is also my category). The journey was not the best one but a least I finished the run in the top 40/50. I could not tell because they stopped giving numbers after the 30th, you see. I am sure you were overjoyed as the guys of L1 category left as the last to leave and came flooding back in within 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, I hid away in the packed canteen as it filled with the students who had finished the run. My friends and I just rested there after we finished, anticipating for the award ceremony. You were glowing, I could tell. Your smile so bright that it blinded us if we looked for too long. We clapped and cheered for the winners that took home medals. I was proud of my friends that won. I never did expect this irony when I heard a guy from my class had gotten first place for his category. Our history teacher was in charge that certain category and let me say that he is not the best student off the block. He apparently reached, tapped the table and slumped to the floor. My teacher instantly asked him to get up in a strict voice. It was a fun story to listen to from my classmate.The event ended at 11a.m. sharp. I cycled home in 5 minutes and got into the bath after some rest.

After my shower, my mom's friend came over. She is a skin specialist or something of that sort. She sells the Artistry products and teaches people how to use them. My mom was buying a new set so she taught us how to for about 45 minutes including talking about makeup and taking before and after photos. We used the Hydra V Artistry set - foaming cleanser, scrub, mask, softening lotion(toner) and refreshing gel. It was pretty nice, my face felt really good after that. Apparently she explained my acne was probably due to hormonal changes at this stage and soon it will go away. It was pretty nice talking to someone who knew about face care and makeup. The session ended at 12.20 p.m.. I have no idea what I was doing between then and 12.40 because I was supposed to be preparing for my choir performance that night.

At 12.55 till 1.15p.m., I managed to do up my hair, put on some basic makeup, grab my stuff, pack stuff in the garment protector and rush off to school with my black shoes and socks on. At school, we met at the canteen. Everyone looked fresh and well prepared even though some of us ran this morning. After moving to the choir room, we got our blazers and did our warm up. We practiced a bit of our songs and then faced to mirror to look at our expressions. At around 2.15p.m., we packed up and got on our way to the MBPJ Civic Centre Hall. It was a pretty magnificent hall but not as amazing as some I have seen before. We enjoyed part of the cheerleaders routine and then got on to the stage for ours. Sound check went well and our teacher and senior said we sounded good. All we hoped for was to get an even better performance later.

We waited and ate dinner. Enjoyed some funny moments, had a laugh. We got into our performance clothes and then waited for our cue. We were so nervous yet excited but knew in our hearts that it could not do anything to stop us. I was so proud of them after the performance. I knew we could safely enjoy the rest of our evening. We enjoyed the Mickeymitez + All Star performance, the several dance routines - Jia Wen and Yvonne(hope I spelled their names correctly), Checkmates, the KL Stepperz, and K-Famez , Solomon's infamous famous act, the amazing solo singers Ashley from Sri KL, our own choir girls Julia Gonsalvez and Natasha Tan that sang with Solomon and also Syahiran, entertainer / beatboxer. It was a wonderful night and it ended well.

That is my day on the 7th of March. I had a schedule packed full of stuff and we also managed to squeeze in birthday songs for Rachel Lim Jia Ying and Ooi Del Phin in the bus on the way back to school! Here is a little shout out to you two amazing people in choir. Rachel Lim being president for Harmonix Youth Choir 2015. She is my best friend till this day and forever more. We knew each other in kinder and was reunited as tuition friends then joined as choir buddies in our school now. We have been cheer mates and are now on the same softball team and choir international team to Bali. I cannot thank her enough. Hope you like your little present (if you see this). To Del Phin, you are the best junior and one of the most experienced ones I know. From conducting in SK TM to conducting the junior choir in their first ever competition when we went to Ipoh in 2012 to conducting us in 2015. Talented and hard working, stay happy and don't stress.

With that I end my blog post for this week. Hopefully you have reached the end of the post. If you have, thank you for actually reaching the end of my post and reading about my day. Till next post, bye!

7th of February

On the 7th of February, many events have occurred in the past years. Ironically, the seventh of February also turns out to be my birthday. How hilarious. Back to our topic for today - events that occurred on the 7th of February.

Firstly, "Black Tuesday" occurred on the 7th of February 1967. It was summer in Australia. On that date, over 100 fires were burning across southern Tasmania. A combination of abundant forest litter, strong notherly winds up to 100km per hour and extremely hot air, created the ideal conditions for bushfires. The bushfires swept across the south-east coast of Tasmania and burnt through 264,270 hectares within five hours. Sixty two people lost their lives, and 1400 homes or buildings were destroyed. The fires killed thousands of chickens and sheep among other livestock. The Insurance Council of Australia estimated the 1967 damage at $14 million, with the 2011 estimated normalised cost of $610 million. It has been 48 years since that incident, the Australians still remember that tragic day. The people were in total shock and could not explain how they felt. Most of them had nowhere to go. This was the first and last of these severe bushfires in Tasmania. 

Second event that happened was on the 7th of February 1992. The Treaty of Maastricht was signed on the 7th February 1992. The Treaty on European Union(TEU) was signed in Maastricht on that date and entered into force on 1 November 1993. The Treaty of Maastricht went beyond its original economic objective where it was to also to strengthen the democratic legitimacy of the institutions; improve the effectiveness of the institutions; establish economic and monetary union; develop the Community social dimension and establish a common foreign and security policy. It marked a crucial milestone in the process of European development and integration. Seen from a chronological perspective, it elaborated and implemented concepts discussed in the previous Single European Act of 1986. Perhaps most importantly, it established the European Monetary Union (EMU) and the Treaty on European Union (TEU). It also paved the way for further developments.

Sadly those were the only two interesting events which actually happened on the 7 GH of February. The date is not as interesting as other dates. That is the end of this post. Once again, thanks for reading! We shall meet in the next post.

Mood

What is mood?

Feelings. I define them as how you feel after reading a few lines of a story, seeing a photo or listening to a song. It could be the mood of disgust when "Ms. Lina's face contorts after seeing the big fat rat scurrying around her kitchen" or the mood of joy when "Ariff grins from ear to ear as soon as he gets his final examination results that are straight As.". That is what mood is about.

How to put it in your writing?

Step 1 : Select different details to point out each time

Firstly, you pluck out those things to shape your mood. You select specific details support the mood you are after and helps you to  construct different images in your mind. If you are about to write a scene that is supposed to be scary, be mindful of the images and vocabulary you use to describe the setting. You should probably remove the cute and happy family of bunnies, in other words.

Step 2: Use of word pictures and comparisons

You should heavily use work pictures and comparisons in writing. This helps to accentuate the mood in the scene. For example, when describing a yard, you can just use simple similes instead of personification which could be too much at some point.

Step 3: Vocabulary

When writing a scene, choose your vocabulary carefully. Words like grave, bole, shrouded,withered cand creeping to describe a scene very mysteriously while using words like blossomed, furry, bashful and bounded helps you to paint a happy mood. Images of regret and loneliness is helped by the words wasted, brittle and cry to make a scene just pop with that depressing mood.

Step 4: Words that help you paint the picture

When writing a scene, you should subtly use words that "sounded to the eye" . For example, the word shimmered is used when the author wants people to think about shivered, using "cherry" to sound close to cheery and "lacy" to sound like lazy which is relaxed.

Description are like painting. With the right tools, you can convey the right message, image and feeling that the artist wants to create in the painting. It is the words that you choose in your description that helps to convey the mood you want to create for the scene. Use those tools careful and let your imagination run.

Lunar New Year 2015

Wonderful weather on our journey

17th Feb, Departure
We woke up at 5 in the morning, packed up our things and departed at 6a.m. to our destination - Batu Pahat.  The morning was slightly cloudly and the weather was pleasant. (picture is attached below) We rode 3 hours to Batu Pahat and reached my grandmother's house at around 9.30a.m..It was pleasant to be greeted by my grandmother after not seeing her for almost 5 months. We spent the day just sitting in the house and waiting for the eve to come. Fiddling with our phones and reading some books is all we did as we awaited the arrival of our cousins the next day.

18th Feb , Eve of Chinese New Year

 The eve was a relaxing and fun day. I woke up at around 8.50a.m.. At around 10, my mother drove my grandmother, brother and I to the restaurant that we ordered food from. My younger cousins managed to reach around noon. We all got into my mother's car and made our way to the Batu Pahat Mall at around 2pm. We bought our stuff, some clothes and the Yee Sang for tonight. We got back to the house and I just chatted with my cousin, Andrew about the Singaporean O-level system as he is taking O-levels this year while I am taking SPM. We all got ready for the reunion dinner. This year we were missing my eldest uncle and my three elder cousins. The two of them which were doctors had to be on call until the end of eve so they were only arriving late that night.

We started off the dinner by following tradition where we "Lau" Yee Sang and wish ourselves and relatives fortune, health and etc. We had delicious food of modern and traditional like my grandmother's famous cereal prawn, meat buns, sea slug, KFC chicken, black Hokkien noodles, longevity vegetable and many more. After dinner, we played several rounds of mahjong. Our long awaited games oh mahjong which we play once a year during Chinese New Year was enjoyable. My cousins, brother and I also played firecrackers.

At midnight, we fired off this huge box of fireworks. This box was mistaken as a box of canned drinks by my mother and a box of oranges by my aunt. I was a spectacular watch. As we stood outside enjoying the rest of the firework filled night sky after finishing our fireworks, a police car drove by. The evidence for a fine was right at our feet behind us. It was a hilarious feat of the night.

19th Feb, First Day of Chinese New Year

All the cousins woke up at around 10.30 in the morning. We all showered and changed into our new year clothing. The shower was not empty until after everyone showered. One by one every one took their turn in the shower because my grandmother's one floored hour only had one shower and one toilet. I put on my long dark red dress with the beautiful lace bottom that lets my legs peek out of it that I got from Mirrorcle(the women's apparel store I worked at last year). The parents went around giving red packets to the children and the single young adults. My relatives also visited the house. Afterwards, my elder cousins left to their other grandmother's house in Batu Pahat and my younger cousins left for Melaka. Thus leaving my family with my grandmother once again. At night, we visited my Aunty Poohoon's house. My aunties from KL were also there when we visited. We all chatted for a while then got distracted by the movie "Karate Kid" on the television. We enjoyed the movie and once it ended, we all left. That was the end to the first day of chinese new year.

20th Feb, Second Day of Chinese New Year

The second day of Chinese New Year was a busier day for me. I sported a french braid for the day. My eldest uncle brought us out to eat lunch at this restaurant right outside. We were joined by my aunties too. It was a nice meal but a bit too much for all of us. Leftovers were brought home The aunties, my mom and grandmother chatted for a long time after. My brother and I fiddled with our mobile devices and did our homework. In the afternoon, my mother brought my brother and I to her friend's open house. There I met her son, Kenjin which is also 17 and his friends. All of them were debators and I could relate well being an ex debator. All of them were outspoken and very friendly. I learned about the Johor International Student Leader's Conference. They were apart of the committee in charge and told me about what they do. It was surprising to me that this kind of events started happening in Johor. Even though I could not go, it was nice knowing about that. I also met this guy called Amirul. He is a fellow otaku and is in to cosplaying too. Syaraf and Lisa are also some of the people I got to know at the party. I also tried Putu Mayam for the first time there. 

We went back at around 6 and ate a light dinner. It was heartwarming to see my aunts crowded around one table eating dinner at our place. After dinner and some rest, we waited for Aunty Lee Fang before making our way to Aunty Ahnah's place. Aunty Ahnah has a Chinese New Year party on the 2nd day of Chinese New Year. I have forced my mom to bring me for 3 years straight already, if not mistaken. I was excited to go this year because I made friends there last year. Gladly, most of them were there at the part this year too. The normal Joel, Jaryl, Samuel, Sarah, L'sa, D' Yinn and Jared were there at the party. Jared, Jaryl, my brother and I even went to fetch Rachel to the party as she had just came back from celebrating the eve and first day of Chinese New Year in Sibu. Some of their church friends all came along. It was a fun night. They played fireworks there too. Angpaus were given to the children by the many aunties and uncles around. It was a festive night. The last few hints of people went home after midnight. We reached home, cleaned up and went to sleep.

So that concludes the 3 main days of Chinese New Year that I celebrate. We did not do much on the 3rd day of Chinese New Year and we went home early in the morning on the 4th. It was a nice celebration and a good start to the year(Chinese calendar). Hopefully everyone had a great Chinese New Year and a goat-ful year. That is all for now, till the next post!