Homework Task 1 : “My Eid Experience”

From top- Kampua mee, Bintulu Market, Fishing boats, City Point Mall

HOme COming StOry

13/10/2007 Saturday
Dear Blogger,
I am finally back in Bintulu. It had been a long day. Today's the first day of Hari Raya, so I guess everyone is in a festive mood. I am to tired to go anywhere so off to bed, I went. (flashback) Unfortunately, the morning of Raya, I was still at my room in UNITEN. My flight was at 1.40pm so I still have a morning all to myself, literally. Everybody has gone back to their kampung a few days before. I send Hari Raya greetings by sms to my Malay friends. Switching on my laptop, I watch a few clips until 10.45am and then dragged my belongings downstairs and waited for the taxi. Surprisingly, the LCCT airport was as crowded as usual. I also met an old classmate of mine there. We chatted for a while about the different paths we have taken. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, I took the one less traveled and that has made all the difference." Onboard the Airbus AK5272, I waited patiently for my destination-home.


14-15/10/2007 Sunday & Monday
Dear Blogger,
I visited all my Malay and non-Malay friends. We had a lot of fun eating and sharing our experience over the pass few months. Then, on Monday, we went around town together before visiting our old school. The school was literally empty as it was the school holidays. We went through our old classrooms and tried to guess where we sat before. Most of the time we were silent, with occasional burst of laughter. School has many memories for all of us. Not all of us were their, some have move on and while others did not come back this holidays.


16/10/2007 Tuesday
Dear Blogger,
After yesterday and the day before, I decided to relax a bit at home and do the piles of homework a brought back. i started of with the numerous essays that I have to complete. Occasionally, I took some breaks to read newspapers and do other stuff. At the end of the day I rewarded myself , watching the whole Harry Potter series!


17/10/2007 Wednesday
My family and I went out for breakfast at our favourite coffee shop. Restaurants are too expensive, but who needs them when the best mee in town, "kampua mian" can be found at coffee shops. After a delicious breakfast, we went shopping at the newly built supermarket in town, Walmart. Walmart is a bit different from other supermarkets in Bintulu as it opens at 10.00am following the standard international supermarkets and hypermarkets in KL. Usually, local supermarkets are opened by the latest 8.00am so it is a bit weird for locals. Anyway, I also went to get a haircut before heading home. In the afternoon, I went to the library to study and borrow some books to read. I still have a lot of things to study before the final exam so it does dampened my holiday spirits.


18/10/2007 Thursday
Nothing much today as I stayed at home to do some revision. Surf the net and kill some monsters online with my warrior and magician.


19/10/2007 Friday
Blame it on the exams as I had to study today. :-( Oh ya, I did some shopping again this morning with my parents. Then, the rest of the day is for books.


20/10/2007 Saturday 11.00am
Today is the day I am going back so I have to packed my stuff before my flight in the afternoon. In the morning, I also watched television and did some revision. After lunch, I went to my room. Looking at my room, I noticed that time stood still in here. My calender still shows March the 12th, 2007, the day my SPM results were released. Then, at about 2.30pm, my family sent me to the airport. Onboard AK 5273 bounded for Kuala Lumpur, I am not sad leaving as I know I will be back. Where ever time and fate takes me, home is where the heart is.

Homework Task 2: “My Rigorous Efforts in Improving English Listening, Writing, Reading and Speaking Skills”

English is not an easy language. Being a pre-IELTS examinee means that I really have to take improving my English seriously. After all, if "Rome was not built in a day ", then English definitely cannot be learned in a week or so. Therefore, I really should planning beforehand what rigorous efforts that has to be taken to sharpen my linguistic skills.

Note that first and foremost, I have to improve my reading skills. I must read more materials that are written in English. I will have to really make it a habit to read newspapers everyday and also read books, encyclopedias and other articles I could lay my hands upon. Surfing the internet for good juicy articles is also a source for reading materials. In addition to that, speed reading is a useful skill that I must learn and practice. Reading will help me improve my vocabulary. Expanding my word bank is important for writing, not forgetting speaking and listening.

Good listening skills is also important to master. I need to listen before I can speak well. The best way to improve listening is to...listen of course! All I have to do is to allocate at least 2 hours a week to listen to the listening modules provided online by websites such as ESL Lab, Australian Network and etc. Also, I should watch shows and movies in English more. Practice makes perfect.

Learning to write well is more difficult. To write well, I need to read a lot and I mean a lot. Reading sample essays is a good idea to improve my writing skills and I should make it a point to borrow and photocopy some notes from my friends who took SAT recently. I should also practice writing real IELTS essay questions at least once every week. I would need ideas to write so I should make a compilation of short notes and mindmaps of ideas for every essay topic I wrote or read. In addition to that, I should try to read and complete the Vision Grammar workbook by the end of this semester.

I believe that there is no better way to improve speaking but by having a casual or intelectual conversation with someone. I need to learn the pronunciation of difficult words from Merriam-Webster and practise them. Learning more about the speaking test through the internet is also important.Having a study group is a good way to improve speaking skills as we can learn from each other and get use to communicating in English.

Surprisingly, although there is no shortcut to improve English, learning English not so hard. All I have to do is to pay attention during English and IELTS class, complete whatever task my lecturers gave me and do some learning myself.

Hence, all it needs is a pinch of confidence, a sprinkle of inspiration and a lot of hardwork.

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