Slice Of Life #304 - Quick Little Update - Tuesday, March 9th, 2020

Life has been pretty rough for me lately. My slicing has gotten pretty inconsistent, which isn't a very good thing at all. My uncle's also been recently been diagnosed with cancer, and he's been transferred down from Penang to KL for treatment. Most nights we go visit him at my aunt's house, and sometimes I get home pretty late :/

However, school's started for me, and now it's on campus! It's much more fun being on campus, but that does mean that I can't sleep in anymore, which is a little sad... However, homework is so much easier to cope with now, and I can get it done easily and quickly.

My slices may also get a little shorter as time passes on, as I'm becoming busier with all my school activities - High school is definitely going to be a whirlwind. Because of that, I'm going to end this slice here - I'll see you next week!

Slice of Life #303 - Nothing Much Going On - Tuesday, Feburary 2nd, 2020

     Here I am again, writing a slice much later than I'd have liked to because I forgot about it... Here I am again, writing a slice on my sofa, inside my house, because the lockdown's just been extended. Life's getting a little monotonous staying at home, doing online school every day.

    Although, I think that the government's starting to take more responsibility and step up their efforts to curb the virus. During the first lockdown, they did quite a good job, and after a few months, the cases started going down. However, during these past few lockdowns, they haven't been enforcing the rules as much, and lots of shops are staying open despite the fact that they're not supposed to be open. I'm not entirely sure why they're not enforcing it as much, but my guess is that the economy is really suffering, so this is their indirect solution to it: Making new rules to appear like they're taking charge, but not really enforcing them to allow businesses to remain open, therefore keeping the economy flowing.

    However, today they've announced that they'll be implementing stricter rules, just like the first lockdown we've had. I sure do hope that they'll enforce it, because I'd really like for the cases to go down and for life to resume like normal again.

    Enough said for today, gotta go sleep!

Slice Of Life #299 - Yet Another Break - Tuesday, December 1st, 2020

    Well, my last post said that I took a short break, but since then I've taken an even longer break, a break about 3 months long. I've been getting quite a lot of homework, so I wasn't able to slice for quite a while. However, now I'm back with a short update on how life is treating me.

    Currently, school is still online for me due to the Covid-19 virus. At first, Malaysia was dealing with it pretty well, and we only had 8 thousand cases in total (which was bad enough for everyone here already). However, after a few people not adhering to the rules, the government's bad enforcement of their very own rules in a jail located in Sarawak, and the elections that were held in Sarawak, we have successfully brought ourselves to a whopping 67 thousand cases! Impressive! 

    Therefore, as you probably can infer, we're still cooped up in our homes, without any fresh air to breathe. It's probably been this way almost the whole year now, and it's not very fun. We've gone into lockdown in March, and the lockdown was lifted around June (well, technically the lockdown was still a thing, but everything was mostly back to normal). The lockdown has since been imposed again on us in the month of August, which left us about 1-2 months to walk around freely outside (although we still had to wear a mask). Thinking about this right now, I probably do have a vitamin D deficiency from being indoors too long and not having enough exposure to the sun 😅😅. Not a very good thing!

    That's pretty much it for my update on my life today. Hopefully I'll be back next week, we'll have to see!

Slice Of Life #298 - Taking a Break - Tuesday, September 29th, 2020

     I took a break from slicing for a few weeks, but now I'm back! I kept telling myself that I would do it after I got my homework done, but when I got my homework done, it would always be time for me to sleep and I didn't have time to slice. The rest of the days were okay and I didn't really have much homework, but for some reason, I always had a lot of homework on Tuesdays but not a lot of homework on the other days. 

    Fortunately, however, I didn't have much homework today. I've already finished all my homework, and therefore I can start working on slicing. Hopefully, I'll be getting less homework in the future so that I can keep slicing more often, but I'm probably going to be slicing lesser and lesser as my homework increases.

    So far, nothing much has really been happening and life has been going on as usual. Covid-19 cases in Malaysia are going back up again :(((( but we are safe here in KL because most of the cases are in Sabah. It's getting late now, so I'm going to end this post here (I know it was a boring one). Bye!

Slice Of Life #297 - I Forgot To Slice! - Tuesday, September 1st, 2020

     Yup! I forgot to slice last week. I had a lot of homework, and that was at the top of my mind. I tried to the topic of slicing popped up a few times, but it kept getting forced into the deep intricate network of my brain, and I totally forgot about it.

    I remembered on Wednesday, but I also had a lot of homework that day. In fact, I had a lot of homework last week, but for some reason, my teachers decided not to give any homework on Friday, so I didn't have any homework to do during the weekend. It's weird. Sometimes, teachers give me lots of homework when I don't have time to do it, and when I do have time, teachers just don't give me homework. It'd be great if that was switched around.

    Fortunately, I don't have a lot of homework (school wise) this week. In fact, I was able to finish all my homework during WIN (What I Need) Time today (WIN Time is like a subject we have where we can do our homework, ask teachers for help if we're confused, or do anything that we need to do). I only have one more thing to do, and that is to study for a Spanish test that will take place on Monday. I also have to make a presentation for my Chinese class and finish up my piano homework before next Wednesday, which I should be able to do. However, my Chinese homework requires me to make a presentation about Malaysia's history, which will take a very long time as not only do I include lots of graphics in my presentation (which takes ages to do), I also have to research all the facts as I have terrible knowledge about Malaysia's history (which will take EVEN LONGER).

    I preordered a book called Resist (by Alan Gratz) on the Kindle, and it was supposed to get downloaded today, but the order didn't register and for this reason, I still don't have it yet. I suppose that's okay, as I still have lots of books that I haven't read yet at home.

    It's 9:30pm now, so I want to go read some books and possibly even finish up a book that I'm currently reading. Bye! (I've been ending my posts a lot more with the word bye now...)

Slice Of Life #296 - False Alarm - Tuesday, August 18th, 2020

    I was working through a really hard question on the Language Usage MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) test. Suddenly, the fire alarm rang. "Evacuate, evacuate," The monotonic voice repeated boringly.

    "Now, out of all times?" I questioned. We were taking a very important test, the test that I cared about the most, and the fire alarm had rung, asking us to get out of the building.

    "It's probably just a false alarm," My teacher, Ms. Larsen, told all of us. "Let's just stay in the room and see what happens..."

    We pointed out to her that the high school classes had all turned off their lights and were heading outside. "Okay, you know what?" She continued, "Take that back. Let's go. I'm suspending your test for now."

    We rushed outside and were met by high-schoolers rushing around. "It's a false alarm," A high-schooler told us.

    "Okay then," Ms. Larsen said and sighed. "Back to the room!"

    "There goes 5 minutes of MAP testing time!" I mumbled sarcastically to myself.

    We headed back into the room and resumed the MAP test. And the bad news? The question now was even harder than the previous one.

Slice Of Life #295 - I Don't Have Any Ideas - Tuesday, August 11th, 2020

 Today, I'm out of ideas regarding what I should write. So, I'm just going to talk about how my life is going and how 7th Grade has been treating me so far. I'm loving 7th Grade so far. I have some pretty good teachers that all have a great sense of humor, so I'm feeling pretty good going into 7th Grade. This morning, I borrowed the book Illegal from my humanities teacher. I've just finished it not too long ago. It's a really good book about refugees and the tough moments they go through. Having seen refugees myself, I think it's a great book that helps let us know that we are the lucky ones and that we should in turn help others and come together as one as a society so that our world can become a better place.

I just realized how late it is, so I'm going to end this post here for today. Bye!

Slice Of Life #294 - First Day Of School! - Tuesday, August 4th, 2020

    Today was the first day of school! Except that it was online. However, before you go ahead and complain about me leading you to the "climax (not really)" and then going all the way back down the "story hill" by telling you that it was online, let me tell you that the rest of the school days are back at school (physical school).
    Only 2 grades in the Middle School can go to physical school during one day, so today my grade, Grade 7, is tuning in online. For the next two days, Grade 8 will be online, and Grade 6 will be online on Friday. Fortunately, after this week, we all are 100% back to school (except for some others that can't come because they are not in Malaysia, who will be online).
    I'm actually pretty excited for 7th Grade, because I got some pretty fun classes. I got the elective that I desired for, and also got a pretty fun Wheel class (which is kinda' like an elective, too). However, because school's reopening, it does mean having to get up a lot earlier. Tomorrow, I will have to wake up at 6:30am so I can get ready and eat breakfast before leaving for school at 7am. Well, with that being said, it's getting pretty late, so I'll have to end this post here. Bye!

Slice Of Life #293 - School's Reopening! - Tuesday, July 28th, 2020

    School's reopening again! I'm actually pretty delighted to hear that because I'm going to go insane if this goes on any longer. Before the Coronavirus, we all used to dread school because we were really busy, but because of the Coronavirus, lots of my classes have stopped, so I'm a lot less busy now, and on second thought, school's probably going to be the only thing keeping me sane.

    Also, a quick update on my comic-making: the final version, or the inking, is finally done! I've inked my drawings and Mr. Matt (check him out at smithvssmith.com!), who thought me about comic-making (trust me, I knew nothing), has helped me put the text. I'm very satisfied with the product. Check it out!!
    Now, I want to go read, and I don't have anything else to write about, so I'm going to be ending this post here. Bye!

Slice Of Life #292 - Currently... - Tuesday, July 21st, 2020

• I have just finished taking a bath.
• I'm going to be rushing this post as I want to be done before 9pm tonight.
• I'm working on my piano homework about transposition, which is SO HARD. I spent 30 minutes working on it yesterday and yet I'm still not done.
• For those of you that don't know, musical transposition is when you have a series of notes and you transpose them (well, I guess that's not a very good definition because I'm just repeating the same thing 😅) a certain amount.
• See it this way: You have a series of numbers and you have to increase them by a certain amount (ie. 5, so if the numbers were 10, 13, 15, the answers would be 15, 18, 20. Except that it's about 10 times harder to do that in musical theory). That's what transposition is.

Slice Of Life #290 - (Attempting) to Make My Identity Card - Tuesday, July 7th, 2020

    I'm 12 now! And that means that I have to go make an identity card (IC), as I can't use my MyKid (identity card for kids) anymore because it doesn't have a photo. Because of that, I did what any kid would do: I went to the immigration center with my parents today to make a new one.
    Upon reaching, we met a woman at the front door who asked us what we were here for. We told her that we were here to make my IC, and she asked us another question.
    "Do you have an appoinment?" She asked us.
    "Appointment?" I questioned. Since when do we have to make an appointment? I thought to myself.
    "Yeah. If you don't have an appointment, you have to go make one. Please take a look on our website.
    Okay, no big deal. We just have a make an appointment, and then we can make my IC later today.
    However, upon logging on to the website, I found out that all the slots were full until the end of the month. Woah! I thought to myself. There sure are lots of people turning 12 this year!
    Well, I'm back home now, and we've scheduled an appointment this Thursday - at another immigration center (I mean, I can't wait too long. I'm pretty sure it's a rule that I have to make it very soon right after I turned 12, and I turned 12 two months ago). I had to postpone making my IC by 2 months because I celebrated my birthday under lockdown, so now, I have to make it since the lockdown rules aren't as strict anymore. Until then, bye!

Slice of Life #289 - Cooped Up At Home - Tuesday, June 30th, 2020

Yup, you've guessed it! I'm still cooped up at home. Fortunately, there's no law saying I can't go out now, so I can still freely go out whenever I want. But, because we have to social distance to stay safe, me and my family are staying home for most of the time. I'm not going to complain much about it though, as it is an improvement - I can at least go out now.

On Sunday, I went for my first ever badminton lesson in 3 months. And now, I'm not really regretting it at all, but my hand hurts a lot. Somehow, even though I ran a lot, it isn't even my leg that's sore, but instead my arms. Fortunately, only my right arm is sore because it was the only arm that I use when playing badminton.

Summer camp is over, which also means that I'm going to be really bored again. However, I have made a checklist which is actually making me busy, so I'm pretty grateful for that. I always underestimate how long it takes me to complete everything on the checklist I made, because in life, most things are easier said than done.

I always try to balance my computer time and non-computer time each day, and so far I'm finding that it's going pretty well. Now, I tend to do one activity off the computer (ie. piano, reading, etc.), then one activity on the computer (ie. Duolingo, which is an app that I use to help me practice my Spanish), and vice versa.

And then, after dinner and returning home from my daily walk after dinner, my computer is a no-go zone. My parents haven't created a rule that says I must do this, but for some reason I've just done it a lot and now it's a habit, so I just tend to not use the computer after dinner. I don't know what exactly it is that fuels this need to get off the computer, but there's just something in charge of doing it, and I'm grateful for it. Maybe it's the fact that I haven't been on the computer after dinner for so long, I just want to keep it a habit and not break it (It's kinda' like I'm on a "no computer streak", and I just don't want to break it).

Now, IT'S DINNERTIME (WHICH I REALLY NEED BECAUSE I'M SUPER HUNGRY), so bye!

Slice Of Life #288 - Nothing To Write About - Tuesday, June 23rd, 2020

    We're still in RMCO (basically lockdown), so life is still pretty boring. :( However, the country is starting to reopen again, as I can go to more of my classes now. I can go take piano lessons, swimming, and badminton lessons now - and we're talking REAL lessons (like, non-virtual ones).
    Other than summer school, life has been pretty boring today. I've played games for longer today, so my plan for today is to: GET OFF THE COMPUTER FOR THE REST OF THE DAY AFTER WRITING THIS. Wait. Actually, "get off the computer for the rest of the day after writing this and taking today's dose of coding lessons (I'm learning coding for free now because I have lots more free time, and also, why not learn something new?)
    After doing some coding, I'm going to practice on the piano, clarinet, read, write (maybe? kinda' not in the mood to do it today, but maybe I'll be in the mood later), and do anything that pops up in my head later.
    Well, since I have lots of things to do, I'm going to end this post here! Bye!

Slice Of Life #287 - SUMMER HOLIDAYS!!!!! - Tuesday, June 16th, 2020

YAY! It's finally summer! Except that we still have the quarantine, of course. Which means that I'm still going to be pretty bored...

Fortunately, this year, summer camp is free, and I won't be travelling anywhere during this period of uncertainty, so I'm taking summer camp this year. There are 2 periods for summer camp, with the first one being from 9:00am-10:00am, and the second one starting at 10:30am and ending at 11:30am. During the first period, I'm taking a class called Fun with Geography with my 4th-grade teacher (because my geography is pretty bad :) During the second period, I'm learning how to use an app called Garageband to create music. I'm really loving this class because it's pretty easy to make good music with it, and I've only spent 2 days learning so far, but I've already created 2 songs (one of them is complete, the other's not quite complete yet). Fun with Geography is pretty fun too, and I'm learning lots of new stuff because my school doesn't teach geography as a subject, so therefore my geography is pretty bad (haha).

The lockdown is not as strongly enforced anymore. We're currently in RMCO (Recovery Movement Control Order), which allows daycares to reopen and companies to start working (at their full working hours, in fact), but schools cannot reopen yet (not that it really matters for me, as school's already over). Because of the new rules, I'm now able to take piano lessons again (and hopefully badminton too), which I'll be taking tomorrow at 3:30pm. I'm really excited to have piano lessons again!

Now, I don't really have anything else to write about, so I'm going to end this post here and go read A Wrinkle in Time (which I've surprisingly not read yet!) Bye!

Slice Of Life #286 - Robert B. Gaw Citizenship Award - Tuesday, June 9th, 2020

    I logged into the zoom call with no problems (surprisingly). Mr. Casey and Mr. Woodward, my principal and assistant principal, greeted us as we came into the zoom call. I got settled and waited for the ceremony to get started.
    Finally, the ceremony was in full swing. We all listened as Mr. Woodward talked about the history of this award and the criteria for it. "Robert B. Gaw used to be the head of school at ISKL (The International School of Kuala Lumpur)." he said. "This is an annual award sponsored by the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) for students in Grade 6, 7, and 8. Based on the criteria below, established by the PTA, this award is given to one student in each grade level who, in the opinion of the teachers, and I quote, exemplifies the international aspect of the school. He/she interacts in a positive way with, and shows an appreciation for cultures other than his/her own; demonstrates courtesy to teachers, staff and fellow students, and shows  respect for the rights of others; demonstrates a positive attitude and willingness to support in-classroom and extra-curricular projects and activities; and is gracious in dealing with success as well as disappointment."

As he started describing the Grade 6 recipient for the award this year, my heart was beating frantically although I had no idea why. It took me a whole 20 seconds to realize that he was describing me! I quickly ran through everything he said about the winner. Mother tongue is Chinese - Check! Signed up for Care for Kids twice - Check! He participates actively in the Jazz Band - Check! I realized that he was describing me!

My heart was beating very hard at this point. I could feel the loud thumps against my neck. It felt like there wasn't enough space for my heart to be contained as it started beating like a wild elephant. "With this," Mr. Woodward said, "I am very happy to announce this year's Grade 6 Robert B. Gaw award recipient!"

I was super excited to find out who it was. My eyes were fixed on the computer screen just to see two of the worse words possible. Connection lost. These two very large words were shown in the middle of the screen. "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" I shouted. "The WiFi always crashes at the wrong times!"
"Zhi Hong, it's you!" My mom shouted at me. She was also on the Zoom call, and her WiFi also crashed, but it crashed after my name was announced.
"YESSSSSS!" I screamed out of happiness. I had not anticipated this to happen at all. I quickly moved to another place in my house, hoping for a better internet connection. Finally, it worked. The internet was strong enough and I rejoined back into the Zoom call.
"Zhi Hong, do you have anything you want to say?" Mr. Casey, my principal asked.
    "Yeah," I replied. "I'd just like to thank all my teachers for their help along the way, and I'd also like to thank my friends for being there for me. I wouldn't be here without you."
    "Congratulations, Zhi Hong. We hope to see you soon, and congratulations all of you on an awesome year! We'll open the chat now so you can say congrats. Once again, congratulations on completing Grade 6, and we'll see you next year!"
    As soon as the chat was enabled, messages started streaming in like they were bolts of lightning. "Thank you so much!" I wrote in the chat. "I wouldn't be here today without you!"
    I left the Zoom meeting that day feeling elated and speechless. I HAD DONE IT!

Slice Of Life #285 - Novel Knockout - Tuesday, June 2nd, 2020

    I clicked the mint green "Join" button. Here goes nothing, I thought to myself. The teams were being shown on the screen. The moment I saw the sign, I knew our team was in for some trouble.

    Zhao Yang (ZY), Maya, and Wesley on one team?!  I thought to myself. Of course they are - and they're probably going to dominate if I'm just being honest...

    I met with my team and we started the Kahoot. Today's competition was multiple choice, and we were competing as a group against other students in our school for some Kinokunia/Amazon gift vouchers.

    The competition was very hard. The fact that all the books were novels (except for 1 book) didn't help at all. Longer books meant more detail, and more detail wasn't a good thing, especially when the competition required you to remember all the details of the book.

    Overall, I thought the competition was okay. Some questions were brain boggling and simply left me dumbstruck, whereas others were very easy. Fortunately, they were multiple-choice questions, so we managed to answer most of the answers correctly.

    I still remember how I felt when I looked at the scoreboard. I did not feel confident. Just as expected, ZY's team was crushing us. However, after a while, we were hot on their tails. As we entered the last 10 questions, we knew we couldn't let them win. We went into full tryhard mode and answered the questions to the best of the ability (not that we weren't doing so before). Fortunately, our hard work paid off. We saw our points get higher and higher until our group name finally skimmed past theirs. WE WERE IN 1ST PLACE!

    But I knew we had to keep maintaining that lead. This group was good, and they could steal our lead anytime. And fortunately again, we were able to do that. The last few questions went by like a blur, and finally, it was time to see the final score for the first section of the competition. My heart thumped loudly. I shivered even though it wasn't cold as I waited for the final score to come out. Finally, 1st place was revealed - IT WAS OUR TEAM! I shrieked with joy and lay down on the floor. We were in the lead - at least for now...

Slice of Life #284 - Reading - Tuesday, May 26th, 2020

It's pretty late now, so I'm going to be keeping this post really short. I didn't really have anything to talk about, so I guess I'll talk about what I've done today, and that's a bunch of different things, but mainly reading. I'm very happy to say that I've read about 400 pages today and have finished My Life as a Ninja, which I started today.

I've also worked on homework today, but I still have a lot to do. Fortunately, we're going to be getting time to do it in class, so I think that I should be able to get my homework done. And if the class time is not enough, then I'll just do it in my own time.

Tomorrow morning, I'm probably going to go for a 2km run with my dad (except that he's going to be on the bike). I'm going to sprint the first 800m to see what my time is, and then I'll jog the rest of the way home.

Then, I'm going to go to school, which, unfortunately, is starting early at 8:30am tomorrow, which means that I may be in a little bit of a rush. But other than that, it should be fine. I'll cope.

Now, I don't really have anything else to write about, and I've somehow managed to write this post in 5 minutes, so I'm very happy. Bye!

Slice Of Life #283 - Life As It Is - Tuesday, May 19th, 2020

    Currently, my life is still the life under lockdown. The lockdown has been extended again until June 3rd, but fortunately, it's only CMCO (Conditional Movement Control Order). This means that most businesses can resume and kids can now go outside (but we can only stay in the car). School continues to be online, and we're going to have all end of the year things online (ie. the end of year assembly will be online this year).
    Recently, I've been taking online BSA (Boy Scouts) merit badge courses. This allows me to earn merit badges and continue progressing in rank online during these weird times. Last week, I took a course for the chemistry merit badge, and I'm happy to say that I now have that merit badge! This week, I'm taking a merit badge on safety. The two choices I had was between safety and communications, but I decided to take safety as I would have the chance to do communications with my troop when the CMCO is lifted (communications is required, so I'll have a chance to do it). I also chose safety because I felt like safety is a very important topic, and that it may help me a lot in the future.
    Now, I have nothing left to write about, so I'm going to go and continue taking the safety course (I have 1 video left to finish by tomorrow). Bye!

Slice Of Life #282 - Travel to India - Tuesday, May 12th, 2020

Ahhh! Finally, something intresting! Let's jump right in...

Yesterday night from 7:30pm to 9:30pm, I went to India for a short break! Except that it was online. My dad decided to join a Tour India thing, so I decided to join him for some fun! What we got wasn't really what I expected to get, however. At first, I thought that we were going to "literally" tour India with 3D maps and buildings (using google maps or something like that). However, it was really just a powerpoint and a woman telling us all about India. However, overall, I thought that she did a pretty good job. I learnt a lot about India during those 2 short hours.

After the course, I decided to go and make brownies for me to eat during breakfast. That all went really well, except that I may or may not have filled the container so much that it overfilled...

This week, I'm also taking online courses in order to earn my chemistry merit badge for Boy Scouts. It started from yesterday and will be going on until this Thursday. So far, it's been going pretty well and I'm liking it a lot. I've learnt a lot as a chemist these past 2 days, and I can't wait for tomorrow's course.

I don't have much time left, so I'm going to end this week's slice here! Bye!

Slice Of Life #281 - Tomorrow's My Birthday! - Tuesday, May 5th, 2020

    Tomorrow's my birthday! I normally don't talk about my birthday in these types of posts (or do I? I forgot), but I have nothing to talk about other than my birthday, so it's worth talking about it. We're going to be ordering from one of my favourite restaurants, Sushi Kitchen. We don't really have any other way of celebrating my birthday tomorrow other than eating from that restaurant, mainly because we can't go outside due to the Movement Control Order (MCO).
    Life at home is starting to get very boring. I don't really have anything to do when I don't have school/classes. I'm going to try and finish a book that I've borrowed quite a while from the library this week, but probably not the book that I have on my kindle - mainly because that takes so long to read. I've spend hours reading it but have just reached chapter 5 (which is on page one thousand something)...
    I'm going to be keeping this post short because I don't really have much time left now. Bye!