English, English and more English

Today is one of the the two big days of this week.

A day when I will be trapped in a freezing and deathly silent hallway, filled with rows and rows of anxious and frightened students such as myself.

A day when the stress levels of each individual will reach impeccable boundaries, resulting in frisky, sweaty hands and constant twitching of the mouth and eyes.

A day when the only way to escape from the torturous atmosphere binding down all of us, is to display an excellent show of varied vocabulary, long but exuberant strings of well-structured sentences together to create an  imploding and enticing work of art.

Yes, today is the second day of my English exam. And I've just practised my descriptive skills for it, oh yeaah.

UNESCO - A historic step towards the establishment of a Palestinian State

What was the biggest news 2 days ago? Kim Kardashian's curt marriage? No, it's even better and even more significant.

UNESCO has granted Palestine FULL membership to the agency.

Alhamdulillah! The moment I heard of the news, I was ecstatic with joy, jumping around everywhere, eager to tell the whole world that YES FINALLY, A PROGRESSING STEP TOWARDS RECOGNITION OF A PALESTINIAN STATE!

The resolution passed with an overwhelming majority: 107 votes for, including Brazil,China,South Africa and FRANCE, 52 Abstained, including Britain and Italy and 14 against, which OF COURSE includes the US, Israel, Germany and the Netherlands.

During the voting procedures, it was absolutely phenomenon. The BIG MAJOR countries that voted for the resolution resounded applauses all over the assembly, while it was deathly quiet when the US voted against. Perhaps the best reaction was to Israel's opposition; several delegates were stifling a laugh, trying to be professional but, OH THIS IS JUST TOO OBVIOUS AND FUNNY I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY THEY HAD TO ASK . HA! Anyway,The successful resolution received a standing ovation by many countries and overall, there was a very genial atmosphere.

That is of course, until the US and Israel crashed the Party, and made everything sombre again. BOOOO

The US decided, in response to Palestine's membership, to cut off dues worth $60million to the UNESCO. This is actually a huge blow to the agency,as the US provides 22% of their funding. General-Secretary Ban Ki-Moon once again expressed his deepest concerns over this and said it was up to member states "to ensure the United Nations system as a whole consistent political and financial support." Aiyaa, Ki-Moon, no congratulations whatsoever? I am sad.


In addition to cutting funds, the US claimed that the move by UNESCO was "premature" and will not do well to establish a proper Palestinian state, which they claimed should be established through peace negotiations. Errr... US, you do realize that the 'peace negotiations' are currently on hold because Israel refused to freeze building settlements on PALESTINIAN land? Not to mention, it's been HALF A DECADE since peace negotiations have occured. And look where that has gone to.


Ah, well now we are all waiting for the Security Council Vote. Although I am 99.9% tha tthe US will veto, 3 of the other permanent members have voted 'FOR' palestine's membership in the UNESCO, so... we'lll see how that turns out.


Despite all this, I am nonetheless extremely proud that the International Community have decided to take such a bold move to realize the state of Palestine. InsyaAllah, many more will come,a nd Israel WILL be sentenced to justice.

Breast Cancer Pink Walk

I was going to talk about my experience at the Breast Cancer Walk yesterday on Friday Night, but MAN I was way too tired to even THINK about finishing my to-do list, let alone write a blog post about it. So here goes:

We (My brother and I) arrived pretty early. Actually way too early, our coordinator hadn't even arrived yet. The weather was gorgeous, with lots of wind and bright sunshine.

While my brother did nothing and made friends, I went to help at the tent as a volunteer. We were selling T-shirts and badges for 100QR and 10 QR respectively, with all revenues going to charity. awww. Several people were wondering whether the t-shirts were free, while others actually donated like 400QR without wanting a shirt or badge or anything. MasyaAllah.

It was really fun to help sell the shirts, a really good experience. However, the one thing that POSITIVELY sucked so bad was the weather inside the tent. BOILING.STICKY HUMID HOOOOOT SUMMMERRRR. It was like being shoved inside a steaming hot pressure cooker. AJSLASJKL I was already sweating before the walk began!

Our QIS team of volunteers at the hot summer tent

The main organizers of the event, Karen and Shadi Al Kharouf were really nice and awesome and they really appreciated our help. We were all completely happy to help! :D

With Karen Al Kharouf :D

At 5 pm, Shadi told us to go on on the walk. And off we went! We were the last ones going however, and MANY people had already went before us. Some even brought HUGE banners and stuff. Awesome!! Look at this smashing picture of a really long balloon.

ZE PINK BALLOONZ

My brother had went ahead of me, and I started to become worried. For some reason, there's just this feeling of 'AGH I NEED TO SEE MY BROTHER IN REAL LIFE IN ORDER TO CONFIRM HE IS STILL ALIVE!' Plus he wasn't picking up his phone so...

Thankfully though, I caught up with him. He wasn't too far ahead, so that was good. He was walking with a new friend that he made, Brinton. He was Karen's son and EXTREMELY hyperactive. We all talked about the most random things like sharks and getting to the Sheraton as fast as possible. It was so amusing to hear him talk and basically I though the walk was especially enjoyable with Brinton. Thanks!

The epic bluriness of my camera

We FINALLY arrived at the Sheraton at around 6, earlier than I expected to be honest. I decided to call Mom to pick us up and sadly we had to part ways with Brinton :(. I really liked the kid. Nearby the Sheraton there was a mini show with performers from all over Qatar, although I think most of them were filipinos/as. It was excruciatingly loud for me though, hahahah.

The performances were mindblowing. There was this dance crew who danced really well, with lots of complicated dance moves. There was also this little girl who had such an amazing voice, absolutely breath-taking, strong and very rich, MasyaAllah. Despite the awesomeness of the show, my poor ears could not bear the loud music ahahah.

 The litte girl with the powerful voice

We sholated a bit and decided to buy some icy orange juice. YUM! So refreshing and delicious, absolutely loved it. However, the price did not go too well with me (5 RIYALS PEOPLE FOR A STINKIN CUP), but I guess it was okay. Apparently there was going to be a ship for some QIS students to go back to the Islamic Museum, but goodness knows, I had no idea where they would set off and when. Oh well. I also saw Mr.Clayton and another teacher being loners kekekeke. I felt glad to meet them to be honest, I felt a lot more relieved.

FINALLY at around 6:45, mother came. YAY MOTHER! The car was so cooling and just evaporated all my sweat, leaving me in a refreshed state. But I still had to mandi anyway. LE DUH. And sadly my shoes squelched in the mud and now it's a horrendous muddy-poo colour. EURGH.

Overall, it was a fantastic day out of the house. We exercised, met new people, and we all did it for a great cause. I DEFINITELY will attend the walk next year as well InsyaAllah!

PS Sorry for the horrible quality pictures. My camera is the suckiest camera around,and I'm not the most top-notch photographer out there.

Thursday - "weekend"

Today is Thursday. In theory, it should be the start of our weekend. The start of doing some homework, but also relaxing and having fun. Therefore, we should all look forward to this blessed day right??

...NO

Unlike those wonderful thoughts, I DREAD every Thursday. Why? It's just another reason for teachers to give us EXTRA homework and give us EXTRA tests to do. It also means I need to hurry up and do my MUN stuff, or else I'll suffer.

...I rant a lot about MUN and school. I'm just lacking sleep you see.

I also cannot form comprehensive sentences at my half-asleep state. I've realised that the thickness of my eyebags is proportional to my age and year. It is also proportional to the heaviness of my bag.

I've once weighed my bag. On a normal, not so heavy day, it weighed 9 kgs. Man, I should be a weight-lifter by now, where are my muscles yo?

On Wednesday I REALLY wanted to do a review on what we learned at Travel Club but one of my friend was sick, and the other was on a trip. Great. I just left the classroom instead. ASJAKLS and we were supposed to do Spain. Aaaah Can't be bothered to research.

My eyes...so heavy right now, as if someone is pouring lead continuously over them.

Lately I'm starting to get sick, I think.

Oh home is very lively nowadays, 3 kids of my mom's friend are staying with us. I can no longer concentrate on my quran lessons.

I'm scared for tomorrow. it's Friday tomorrow. Meaning I have to do MUN ASHFJSHLASKJ

I've found quite a lot of interesting articles just now on productivity and stuff. I want to write a post on it, but my brain is malfunctioning right now and refuses to reboot and work.

So here you go, the incoherent ramblings of Salma Sopian when she is tired as hell.

PS. Mcountdown was feeling very happy today, beautiful stages for Infinite, and SNSD's best 'the boys' stage EVAAA

Wednesday huhu

ASHJDFKLA Today, we were supposed to go to the Doha Tribeca Film Festival with the school. HOWEVER, because there were way too many people and no other teacher wanted to accompany us, it was cancelled.

NOOOOOOO I ACTUALLY THOUGHT I WAS /FINALLY/ GOING TO SEE WHAT KATARA IS LIKE

ehuehue yes, I've never been to Katara /bricked


AND, I was going to review the film too and talk about my experience in Katara. But NoOoOoOoO that is completely out of the question now HRRGH so majorly raging rn.

You know, after that last post, maybe I'm going to start talking and reviewing about food. I do love food. But I'll probably get hungry. and then I'll be come fat. shoot, looks like that's out of the window (NAAAH IMMA DO IT ANYWAY MUAHAHAH)

Learning Languages - A way to become smarter

Currently I'm learning quite a few languages. I know fluent English, I can speak my mother tongue (Indonesian) to a certain extent (actually to the extent of an elementary grade schooler but whatever),  I am now learning French at school and self-teaching myself Korean.


Whew, that's quite a lot.


But as it turns out, all of these languages I'm surrounded in are extremely beneficial to the brain, even if the exposure is in minimal amounts.


Learning Languages allow the mind to see past one perspective and indulge ourselves in multiple ways of thinking. They allow us to embrace new concepts and to create links between two different languages.
For example, if an English thought of lunch, they would think of sandwiches and crisps. But ask the same to an Italian (in Italian of course - 'pranzo') and they would most likely respond with pasta and meat and vegetables. However, ask and English who can speak Italian and perhaps they will respond with "sandwiches and crisps"

Both, together? Only bilinguists |D

You see? Learning Languages MERGES our way of thinking and allows us to sympathise and understand more about others' culture. You don't need to travel halfway across the world to immerse one's self in a country's culture; all you could do instead is to learn the language of that country and you may even start thinking like a local!


And, as represented in the example of the Italian and the English, learning languages can form new concepts that monolinguists can't ever imagine.
A personal example: as an Indonesian, I eat rice for breakfast. My mother is extremely pushy when it comes to Indonesia, insisting that our home culture should be based on Indonesia's culture. I also know that rice is considered a no-no for breakfast in other places. As a result of my bilangualism, I often eat rice with sausages and eggs and milk, combining my culture and the English culture.


But whenever I say "I have rice for breakfast" people start eyeing me cautiously and weirdly ahahahaha


In addition to the benefit of having multiple perceptions on the world, bilingualism is extremely advantageous to both old and young people. According to Professor Vivian Cook at the University of Newcastle, editor of Language and Bilingual Cognition:

“Young children develop theory of mind earlier if they know two languages, and in older people, bilingualism can postpone the onset of dementia.”

Amazing, no? Just so you know "theory of mind" means the ability to predict the mental states and actions of others: What does that person know? What action is s/he likely going to take? and to be able to understand that other beliefs, other people can have different perspectives and opinion on a subject.
"Dementia" on the other hand, according to google dictionary, is a mental disorder caused by a brain disease/injury, with symptoms including memory disorder, personality changes, and impaired reasoning.


tl;dr Languages can save your brain and help you become less RACIST /thumbs up/ Like the Panda MUAHAHAH

Black, White,Asian AND cute. Although my bio teacher hates them

credits: Medical Xpress, Definition of 'Theory of Mind', Wikipedia


ASJSKLA Now because of this article, I have the urge to continue my studies in French and continue learning Korean. I've decided that I should reserve 15-minutes of my life to learning Korean everyday. I'll see how this goes, and apply it to French as well. Yippee-YAY!


Now that I think of it, perhaps my love for languages (yes, I do love them) has helped me to become not much of a picky eater. I can seriously eat anything and everything, spicy,sweet,salty,sour and i love trying new food from other cultures. It's so INTERESTING to know what they think is delicious and what they think are AWFUL.

Great, my stomach's rumbling now

For example, I remembered when I went to Hajj, there was someone distributing krupuk ( Indonesian seafood crackers) to everyone in the tent, including the non-Indonesians. When the non-Indonesians ate the krupuk they were like "BELURGH" and just gave the krupuk bag back. hahhaaha turns out they don't really like those kind of things kekekeke.


SO LET'S LEARN A LANGUAGE NOW EVERYONE! EVEN IF YOU'RE FAILING IT! (like me)

A pressuring life: More to come?

warning: rant ahead. proceed with caution

Lately, I've been under a lot of stress. Usually, I enjoy stress, it helps me to stay focused and motivated and keeps me from wandering off. But like everything, too much stress isn't a good thing either.

First, let's see. MUN. Aaaah the bane of all things. The mother of no life. Let's get this straight: MUN is relatively fun. Although it is AWFULLY time-consuming, there are many benefits you can achieve by taking part in conferences, such as learning more about politics, the views of countries and why, debating, public speaking skills etc. Last year, MUN wasn't too bad, there was a lot of work but meh, I could handle it.

This time though, Oh my GOD...DOES THIMUN THINK I HAVE THE TIME TO DO ALLLL THIS? SERIOUSLY? Policy statements for each topic, I can handle; Making a resolution, I have enough time to complete it well-enough, but 5 OPERATIVE CLAUSES FOR EACH TOPIC? ARE YOU INSANE? DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND OPINIONS FROM A COUNTRY WHO IS NEUTRAL? URGH. Basically, this THIMUN thing is FREAKING HELL Right Now.

Do you hear that flushing sound? That's the sound of my Eid holiday TOTALLY being washed away and going down the drain.

And I really thought I could enjoy things a bit after my English exam. But nooo. As soon as I finish that exam, I'll come home to an eternally-growing mountain pile of work. UGH.

'Cause it's not just exams and MUN. Oh no, of course not. I'm 123409520% sure that homeworks will be issued,and they will NOT be pretty, In addition, I have 3 tests on Chemistry, Biology and Physics welcoming me with wide open arms after my toilet holiday. yay. I can feel the joy radiating from every pore on my skin.

NOT.

This is Year 11, huh? Living without really living. Spending every free minute studying, or catching up with work and whatnot. Focusing on your IGCSEs. Whew, I really wonder how people in Year 11 last year managed to survive.

But for some odd reason, I feel great that all of this is happening to me (okay, I lied, not GREAT, but yeah quite ok). I think through this, I'm really starting to appreciate Salah and its benefits and refreshing properties.I always feel a whole lot more energized after praying, ready to conquer that mountain, no matter how intimidating it is. Alhamdulillah, I feel thankful that Allah has given us such a wonderful gift.

Plus, if I compare my life to last year, in year 10, I think this year I'm definitely doing less activities. I mean year 10, WHOA:

• IA, 
• Backstage,
•  Karate, 
• Quran lessons, 
• Film Festival, 
• Evil Music Centre Piano, 
• MUN

All of this in addition to all my schoolwork.  Whereas this year in year 11:

• Play (very small Role)
• MUN
• Quran Lessons 
• Volunteering sometimes?
• Obsolete Piano

and that's it. WAOW, I really need to stop complaining, I did fantastically awesome in year 10, woohoo! I'm sure I can get through all of this, InsyaAllah. May Allah help me with all my problems and works, and InsyaAllah, this will actually help to eradicate some of my smaller sins.

~Interesting Tidbit~
WOOHOO! BIG BANG WON EUROPE SOMETHING-TO-DO-WITH-MTV AWARDS 2011! YEAAAH. Ridiculously proud rn oh yeaaah. now they're proceeding to the Worldwide Act, competing with Britney spears and other stars from around the world. I am somewhat surprised however that no kpop act got into the "best fans" category. Seriously, have you SEEN kpop fans before? It's like, fangirling is their primary job and nothing comes before that.

 Lunch for the whole cast AND staff for 'Protect the Boss' funded by Jae's fanclub

Kwon JiYong Rice wreath. SO MANY RICE PACKS ICANT EVEN

Oh and also, I don't know why I'm so asjdklldjlasd happy and joyful when I heard the Sung brothers were replacing suju at SuKiRa. maybe it's the SujuxInfinite interaction. idk. Either way, I'm giddy that my first and second love are somewhat interrealted oh yeah.

on a more depressing note. 1-6. enough said. okay, man utd-man city UGH MAN UNITED WERE YOU SLEEPING AND HAVING TEA PARTIES FOR ROONEY'S BIRTHDAY ON THE FIELD OR SOMETHING? I don't even want to know.

;_; today the tidbit isn't super interesting kehehehe. That's because I actually wanted to talk about this article on how preserverance is a better indicator of how succesful you will be/are, rather than self-control (marshmallow test) or tlaent, although these both ARE taken into account. BUT it's too long, I'm pooped out today, and I can't find the aritcle. Oh well, maybe I'll write about it next time.

The Giant Prophet

Today, I want to share with you an interesting tidbit of information that I learnt 2 days ago at Islamic Studies Class at Maryam Centre.

We were talking about 'Counting the Prophets' on that day. Our teacher introduced us to the topic by talking about Adam, the First Prophet. Since he was the first man,well that would make him our great-great-great-goodnessknowshowmanygreats-grandfather. Imagine that! That would mean TECHNICALLY we are all somehow related to each other.

But anyway, our teacher then showed us an amazing picture that stunned all of our breaths, MasyaAllah.

Look how GIGANTIC this thobe is. And guess what? It is the perfect size for Prophet Adam!

Yes, Prophet Adam was THAT huge. So I guess Giants are real then, eh? Back then anyway.

Just exactly how tall was he? According to a Hadeeth reported by Abu Huraira, The Prophet (SAW) said: "Allah created Aadam according to his image, and he was sixty arm-spans tall. After him, the size of people continued to shrink until now"

Now Let's see, an arm span is about 2 feet or sixty centimetres. Multiply that by 60, and we get a whopping 120 FEET OR 40 METRES! That's how tall Adam was back then. Compare that to the average height of man now, which is around 6 foot, Prophet Adam was a GIANT. WOW, SubhanAllah.

Prophet Adam also lived MUCH longer than us, according to a Hadeeth recorded by at-Tirmithee from Abu Hurairah which states that Adam used to live for 960 YEARS

MasyaAllah. Thought that this would be very interesting to share :D

An insight to my tidbits

I've always wanted to make a blog.

And I have. Once. A Loooong time ago. I tried to commit to it, but I felt like blogging about my life only, doesn't seem like such a useful or fun activity. It felt dull, boring and... repetitive? So I gave it up. But still, I wanted to make a blog.

Why the persistence? Killing 2 birds with 1 stone

I love doing activities that not only benefit me, but is interesting and engaging as well. Blogging...is like having your own personal space to let out your opinions, express your interests, and just generally be you. I feel like this will benefit me a lot, because there's something I've always wanted to change: my ugly passion of NOT writing.

I want to become better with my words, sprinkle some fancy vocabulary here and there, so that I will eradicate my hatred for writing. Because somewhere, deep inside, I want to LOVE writing.

However, learning from experience, I don't want to write JUST about my life. I want my blog to be useful to others as well and to give out knowledge and information. I've been inspired by blogs such as productivemuslim.com and eatyourkimchi.com, who provide interesting and useful information to all its readers.

But...sticking to one subject? I didn't like that. Because the thing is, I'm interested in everything. I'm interested in music, travel, kpop, education, becoming more productive, becoming a better muslim, books, movies and just general information.

And then it hit me. How about I write about ALL these things? Sure it would be messy and quite underdeveloped, but perhaps through this, I can find a passion to WRITE about ONE topic.

Well, why don't I wait instead so I can think over what my blog should be about? I'm tired of waiting anymore. My blog will never magically come alive if I just sat and waited. Nothing happens when people wait. We have to stand up and take our chance right now.

So here I am. tl;dr My blog will be about ANYTHING I find or deem interesting. Most likely it would be about self-improvement, Islam, travel or kpop but I'll sprinkle a few tidbits here and there,as well as my life.

Waaahh I'm so excited! I hope I'll be able to make this one change in my life, and I hope that when you go through my blog, I hope you too will also find new knowledge.

Oh and as a last note, I want to share this recent article about changing our habits. It turns out, goals are not always necessary to make a change. The most important thing are these 4 principles of change:

1. Start very small.
2. Do only one change at a time.
3. Be present and enjoy the activity (don’t focus on results).
4. Be grateful for every step you take. (taken from: http://zenhabits.net/4/)

InsyaAllah, I will be able to follow these principles in regards to my blog and..well...everything else in life :D

Peace, Salam!