Slice Of Life #223 - Life As It Is - Tuesday, July 30th, 2019

    Throughout this week, life has been pretty good to me. On the day before yesterday, I came back from Taiwan. In Taiwan, I went to a summer camp where we got to experience and play with nature. But because my brain is currently really exhausted, I'll save that for next week.

    I've just finished all my piano homework - which was a lot of homework - and because of that, my brain is exhausted and I don't want to write a really long post. Today is our king's coronation, so today is a public holiday. Because of that, I went hiking with my parents friends this morning.

    We went hiking in the mountain next to our neighborhood (or really close to our neighborhood, at least). I last went hiking there ages ago, which is pretty weird if you consider the fact that I live almost right next to it.

    The mountain we went hiking at is really massive, and also really energy consuming to climb it. There is also a waterfall in the mountain, which we went to (but didn't go swimming in). Because my dad is taking a lifestyle medicine exam soon, he stayed at home to do some revision. Malaysia has lots of really beautiful mountains, and I've went hiking in lots of them before. Some parts of the mountain we went hiking at were closed by the government because there were really beautiful lakes in there one of the lakes were green - in color - or something like that...

    While I was in Taiwan, my dad ordered a kindle for me to read books on. The kindle came yesterday (delivery was surprisingly fast), and it is extremely useful. You have to buy most of the books, but you can get pretty much every classical book in the world for free. Just make sure you get the one that says Amazon Classics Edition. For me, that's really good - because I'm reading classical books (I'm reading Treasure Island) right now and need the dictionary (you can click on any word if you don't understand it and it's definition will appear). If you want to read books that cost money, they're a lot cheaper than the paper version.

    Well, that's pretty much my life as it is. I'm gonna wrap it up for now. Bye!

Slice Of Life #222 - A Piano Exam

    I took a deep breath as I walked into the examination room. "Good afternoon, Madam," I said to the examiner.
    Today was a big day. In the morning, I had my Moving on Ceremony, where I got my certificate for completing elementary school. Now, I was taking my grade 2 piano practical test.
    "Please take a seat right over there," The examiner told me.
    I walked towards the piano and put my music on the stand. I opened it up to my 1st piece.
    "Let's start with Balleto, your first piece. You may start whenever you're ready."
    I placed my hands on the keyboard and started playing my first piece. I finished playing my first piece with a few mistakes, but not very obvious mistakes. Next up was my 2nd piece, The Ballerina. Somehow, I messed up in the middle and couldn't keep playing on, so I had to restart, which was extremely disappointing because I played that piece the best. I played the 3rd piece almost perfectly, so I was happy about that.
    Next up were my exercises. I had selected an exercise to play (the easiest one), and managed to play it perfectly. My examiner had the privilege to select my 2nd exercise. Fortunately, she selected the 2nd easiest, and I also played that perfectly.
    Next, the examiner came and asked me for my favorite piece. I showed her my favorite piece. She asked me a few questions about the piece. I was able to answer them all correctly (for some reason, she asked me really easy questions).
    After that, I played my scales. Scales are a set of notes in different keys. You would play either one octave or two octaves (for me, I had to play all my scales for two octaves). Overall, I played my scales correctly. My index finger slipped while I was playing a scale, but I managed to recover.
    Last but not least, I had my aural. I actually did pretty well in my aural test, because I got all questions correct except for one.
    "Your test is over," My examiner said to me. "You may go home now."
    "Thanks," I told the examiner. "Have a great weekend!"
    "Indeed, I will."
    I clutched my book tight as I opened the door and walked towards the waiting room, where my mom was waiting for me. The test was finally over.

Slice Of Life #221 - I Almost Forgot... - Tuesday, July 7th, 2019

     Okay... I have almost forgot to write today's slice. And, I don't know what to write about. It is really late now in Malaysia, so this slice will be a quick one - I need my sleep.
    Tomorrow, I'm going to do some maintenance in my "Lego Paradise". I need to do some repairing to a few things I have made out of Lego a long time ago. I call this place a "Lego Paradise" simply because it has lots of things made out of Lego in it.
    I am now laughing because of something I have found on Google. This picture brings me good memories - I was doing some research and trying to find a picture about plastic pollution with my friends when I came across this picture (on the right) and me and my friends started laughing like crazy - even though now that I think about it it really isn't that funny...
    Okay, it's getting late! I'm gonna go to sleep now! Bye!

Slice Of Life #220 - Social Change Blackboards Share - Tuesday, June 18th, 2019

    I walked into my classroom and got my computer out of the computer cart. My teacher, Mr. Herbert walked into the room.
    "Okay, class," He said. "As you know, today, we're going to be sharing our social change blackboards, or SCBs, with the 4th graders, your friends, some teachers, and your parents. Please get your blackboards ready."
    I opened up my computer and opened up the online map that showed live statistics of the air quality all around us. I was going to show it to the people that came to my blackboard. After everyone had done what they needed to do, we all started chatting to each other - because we felt like it, at least.
    Mr. Herbert croaked the frog. When he croaked the frog, it meant that he was trying to tell us to stop talking. He told us to go find our blackboards (but you didn't need to if your blackboard was on your table).
    At last, people started coming. I started presenting about my blackboard. I talked to them about global warming (which was my blackboard topic) and greenhouse gases and asked them to "go home tonight and do something to help our Earth."
    I actually managed to convince a parent to go vegetarian 2 days a week (I don't know if she's actually going to do it or if she's just saying it, but DO IT!)
    On the other hand, some of the 4th graders just wanted to know stuff about the blackboard.
    When I got home, I stuck my blackboard to the wall with a "sticky sticker" I had. Then, I took a few steps back and adored my amazing masterpiece. I had spent a long time working for this, but it had all paid off.