First Cellphone, Speaking Up and a Titan

In the past week a lot has happened for me. On last Friday night, between midnight and 1 am, I got a new cellphone. My parents gifted it to me for getting the marks I got in the 10th CBSE Exams. Its Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. It was my choice. My parents told me I could have anything. I would at first interested have been interested in the iPhone. I loved the fact that it had a touchscreen so did the 5800. But there were a few thing I didn't like about the iPhone, like it been SIM-Card locked which means I could only use it with the SIM I had bought it with and unlocking it would remove the gurantee/warranty, a 2 megapixel camera with no flash and inability to take video, the weight and the cost. I liked the 5800 because, first of all it negated all the points I have written above and also because it's from Nokia. It even has GPS, which I may never use, but still IT HAS IT! Its got a 3.2 megapixel camera, full QWERTY keyboard (on-screen touch) but there are other modes too, like a mini QWERTY keyboard, regular phone keypad and also handwriting recognition, resposiveness seems fast enough. I have installed a few apps there. I will give full list of features and apps I am using at my tech blog soon, Inshallah.

Here is/are a few pic/pics of my cell model I got from the net:
This week, in class we had to talk (just self) about a topic. Its part of some Listening & Speaking skills, for which are (hopefully) awarded 10 marks in the term exam. 5 marks listening and 5 marks speaking. It was supposed to be on tuesday only, but owing to the number of students in class (now 50), it continued on Wednesday. But only 4-5 boys had to do it. The remaing from Saturday onwards. I spoke on the topic, 'Are We Addicted To The Internet?'. I made my point that we are not addicted to it, unless you call yourself being addicted to electricity too. Its just that useful that you seem addicted to it. This is the third time since I came to this school that I spoke in front of the whole class. First time was in 8th standard, we had to explain the basics of a drama given in the course book. Second was in the beginning of this term, had to give a factual description of the place we are from. And now any topic. Alhamdulillah it went well. At first I was a bit nervous, voice was not coming out right, hands were shaking too much. Bu thanks to Allah and the supportive nature of my class, I did it well. Something I said made the whole class laught and then, all nervousness fell out.

Then on Wednesday, one of our family friends (originally my mother's) came here. They actually had come to do something call Gulpashi or Gulpushi, or something like that, again for the 10th marks. It is some type of drama done in India. They got dinner of chicken as well as mutton kababs, biryani, two types of sweets. They also gifted me a watch. A Titan watch. I liked it a lot. The only problem is tat I won't get to wear it much as, its very formal.

Here are are a few pics of it too



So thats it for this week.

First Round Tests From Tomorrow

Its been exactly a month since my last post [I don't know why I always tell the last time I posted]. Its been getting busier by the day. I didn’t hope this would happen so fast. Bu the only reason I haven’t posted so far is because I am not easily self-motivated.

Chemistry has been by far the toughest. The first chapter was full of formulae but most of the second one went over my head. The second chapter’s name is Structure of Atom. We were introduced to the quantum structure of atom, which I don't know how the person who modeled it understood. There are many theorems on how it is formed, many principles and much more crap. In math the first two chapters we were taught, Sets and Complex Numbers were very easy. They were like the fun part of math. Now we are in Trigonometric Functions. I prefer the trigonometry which has values [because I can do it], not the innumerable question in which I have to prove that crap and trash are equal, mathematically,

Crap = Trash

Physics isn’t much of a hassle. The problem is just with the derivations. I hate deriving an equation that's already given. The good part is it will be only for this year as in the CBSE Board Exams (X and XII) we don't have these. But the bad part is that the whole of this year is remaining.

The easy subjects are English and Computer Science. Alhamdulillah I have never had a problem with English, because, well its English, what can be the problem there? As for Computer Science, it’s computer science. That’s the subject I can do best at (and Inshallah will).

So about the tests now. My first test is tomorrow, Sunday 17 May. Its Physics and Computer Science. Second on Tuesday, Chemistry. And the last ones of Thursday, Math and English. The Thursday will be the first one I will be going this academic year. Alhamdulillah the timetable is well designed (for the students) if you consider the number of days its pushed into. Until VIIIth standard, there is about 1 test a week. That totally rocks!! Too bad it doesn't totally rock for me.

I have written this post using Windows Live Writer. I wanted to try it because it seemed one of the things Microsoft made nicely. I am saying that because I read about other bloggers using it, others like, I think Lifehacker, Life Rocks 2.0, Rarst, Killer Tech tips, How-to-Geek, AskVG etc. So far its not been bad. I will publish a review soon. So until then.

Goodbye

The Week in 11th So Far

My new academic year started this week. I am in 11th now. I got the science stream, which means my core subjects are English, Physics and Chemistry with the two optionals as Maths and Computer Science. The options work like this: the first option is a choice between Maths and Bilogy and the second option needs to be chosen from Language, Computer Science, Physical Education and Bilogy (i.e., if its not already choesn in the first option. The other streams are Commerce and Humanities. My optionals are Maths and Computer Science. There are about 90 students in the Science Stream divided into two classrooms, around 45 each in the Commerce and Humanities with their own classes. I am in the section XI-B-1. The other science section is B-2, B-3 for commerce and B-4 for Humanities.  I am sitting on the first seat, just in front of the teacher, because my friend, Fahd is sitting there. One of my friends, Haroon is now in the commerce stream, one, Saif is going to India for good, and my other two good friends, those were the only 100% non-crazy friends of mine, Arbaz and Ayaz are too in other classes. This time I got all good teachers. This wasn't so since the last two years.

Now about the syllabus. I have two thick enough texbooks for both Physics and Chemistry, three small ones for English, one fat (like always) for Maths and a pretty fat one for Computer Science. Most of everything seems tough so far (far here stands for just a week). English, Maths and Computer Science seem easy. English always has been. The Complex Numbers stuff seems funny to me, because our teacher told us that these numbers don't actually exist but are imaginary. And I don't understand why we have to study something that isn't even Real. Computer Science have been updated a lot. I can say so because

1. No more exclamation marks after writing that a CD had hold upto 650 MB of data. But they haven't changed it to 700 yet.

2. No more articles on Zip Drives or Trackballs.

3. They know what a Blu-Ray Disc is.

We also start with C++ programming this year which seems interesting. But the only Operating Sytem (OS) they have is Windows.  I was expecting atleast LINUX or maybe UNIX. And the Linux part isn't much too. I ave been donloading some Live-CDs of some Linux based OSes. I now have Ubuntu 8.10, 8.04, BackTrack 3 and CrunchBang 8.10.02. I haven't tried any of them but maybe I will today.

I had school today too but as usual I didn't go. I am anti-more-than-five-days-school and pro-two-day-weekend. My sister went but found out that it sucks. 

The End of 10th Standard

Its been more than a week since my exams were over. Since then I have unsuccess fully wasted a lot of my time, which means I didnt waste it properly. The Arabic and English exams were extremely easy. Alhamdulillah English has never been much of a difficult for me. I expected Arabic to be tougher than it was. But Alhamdulillah I didn't meet my expectations. It was an extremely easy paper. I must have got an average of two marks for every line I wrote. It was a hundred marks paper. I pity those who took the other languages. They had to write a few lines to get a mark. The science paper was a bit difficult but it went well too, so did the Science Practical Skills Paper, which basically is a Multiple Choice Questions' paper with questions relating to the practicals we did during the year.

After that I haven't been doing much except watching JUST one movie a day. I wanted to watch at least three. I also had to get my registration for next year, 11th standard done. Alhamdulillah it was easily done. I went to school yesterday with my father for completing the formalities, which included paying some money for it at the Fee Couunter. This is the task that took the longest. I was given the token number 145 when 100 was going on. After an hour it was at 120. Some friend/relative of my father works in the school's computer department. He went into the fee room and had the task done quickly. After that I had to submit the registration papers to a teacher who was at the upper floor. That took about 3 minutes at the most. While I was doing all this my father went in to buy our new textbooks. This was a slow procedure too. But it was done. After that I went to my aunt's home in Jeddah. I had fun there too. So much for this week, my school will be starting on Saturday.

2 Down 3.5 To Go

Last time I posted was about a week before my first exam. Now two of them are over. First was Social Sciences on 4th March. I had completed studting it jus a day before the exam, which is not usual for me. I usually get it over a few days before. My bus came at 5:55 am that day. I reached school by 7. I didn't revise much in the bus. Just some important points. Its because if I revise in the morning I become tense, take a lot of stress remembering things I may have forgotten. We had to enter the examnination room (just a classroom, but specific seats for students and a seating plan) at 7:30. There were about 18-22 students in the room. For 15 minutes we did nothing but fillin in our deatils on the answer sheets and just sat there. At 7:45 we were given the question papers, but only to read. I ticked the questions whose answers I thought I knew with a pencil. Then at 8 am, we started answering. I tried to do it as fast as I could. I wrote for about two hours without pausing, even to check the time. Then at 10 I checked the time. Looking at the time scares me as it gives an impression that it won't be enough. And time is never enough. But Alhamdulillah most of the answers were over, only a few of the big ones were remaining. I completed the paper by 10:30. Overall it wasn't very difficult. Alhamdulillah I never had much of a problem with Social Sciences, partly becuase its like a collection of short stories, partly because most of what we are studying in it is what we have been studying for years and partly becuase if I have a basic answer I can easily expand it to a large good looking one without loss in quality. The only problem was a question in which a an image was given, we had to recognise the crop in the image and had to answer a few questions about it. I image was the worst I had ever seen. But I just wrote it as tea, for no apparent reason and it was correct. I know that becuase the same image (but recognisable) was in the geography textbook. That was the Social exam.

Next was Mathematics, the best thing about it was it was on the 14th. A 10-day gap. There were 15 chapters in total. I had completed 5 or 6 earlier. 9 or 10 were remaining. I did about 1 to 1+ chapter a day. But this time too I had to study till almost the last moment. I have a problem with geometry. I don't like it much because its.........................weird. Algebra is much more entertaining. In geometry figure look different if seen from different angles, different sides, different directions. I did the longest and toughest chapter on the 13th, Tuesday: Triangles. The name of the chapter is much easier than the chapter. There were mostly theorems or proofs in it(only those, I think). I hate the proofs. If you know something is true, why the hell prove it? Its true anyway. Well, there are 5 or 6 large exercises in the chapter. I didn't do any. I only practiced the theorems properly. Alhamdulillah that was all that was needed. Like before my bus came at the same time. This time I looked at all the formulae as well as at the theorems. It took longer than usual. I reached school at the same time. Everything was the same. I didn't take much tension. Tension makes me feel like something is banging in my head, usually on the right side and makes me hear my heartbeat. I hate both of those. I felt the maths paper to be way easier than the social. There were four types of question; 1, 2, 3 and 6 marks' questions. A few of the 3-marks' questions seemed confusing and tough. I didn't see much team work on this exam. There was a bit during the social exam, but didn't seem at this time. My paper was over by 10:45.

So these were the first two exams, which Alhamdulillah went well.  Three and a half exams are remaining. 3.5 because I have english, arabic, science and the a 20-marks science's multiple choice paper. Inshallah they will go well too.

Delhi-6 [Movie Review]

Today I decided to do something different, and so am giving a review of a movie I watched yesterday. I watched Delhi-6 yesterday night  from 12-2 am. An unearthly time yes, but who cares!!!

So about the movie. I thought the Movie would be good because it was from the makers of Rang De Basanti. I totally loved RDB. But as I kept watching Delhi-6, I kept getting bored. The story has been dragged a lot. Its extremely slow. Most of the time I was bored out. Most of the songs aren't good either. There isn't any good comedy. But the ultimate moral/message of the movie is good. But it isn't wasting two hours on the movie.

So over all I would give it a rating of 3/10

A Week For The Boards

I have been studying a bit more than usual since the past few days. But I am also doing some other useless, tim wasting activities. For example, I watched SAW last night from 11pm-1am. Before that I watched the OSCARS on the 24 (Tuesday). I wanted to watch it live on Manday, but it was at 1 am. I still had wanted to. But as it happened, I mistook the date and time. I mean on the TV adverts were showing that the OSCARS would be live on 23rd Feb at 1 AM. I still planned to watch it. But instead of sitting at the right time, I thought it would be day next but technically, 23 starts from 12 AM, not when at the psychological time. But luckily there was a repeat telecast at 9 pm on the 24. There's anothe tomorrow at 11 pm. This was the first time I had watched it. It wasn't much fun. But I specifically liked the opening perfomance by Hugh Jackman and also the one by Steve Martin and Tina Fey. Ben Stiller's as good too, but wasn't long enough. Hugh Jackman's is below. But I unfortunately couldn't get the other two.

As for the boards, the first one is on the 4th of this month, its social sciences. Easy enough. I haven't started much of it yet. I have completed chemistry and biology from science, which is the last exam, and am doing Maths right now. I will InshAllah complete everything in time.

Prefinals Over, Boards Started, Almost

Its been ages since my last post. I haven't written as I couldn't get myself around to it. So let me summarise what happened since my last post. A week after my last post, we went to Madinah for the weekend. My prefinals started later went by. I thought all of them went well. But the results thought otherwise. I got just 78%. Then my practical exam, the final practical exams sarted. I had science last week. I had a bit of trouble in chemistry, but physics and biology seemed to have gone well.In chemistry I had to do an experiment of Ethanoic acid tested with litmus paper, solid sodium carbonate and calcium hydroxide. In phgysics I got the experiment of tracing the path of a light ray passing through a glass slab. And in biology, I had to prepare a temporary mount of leaf ceels to show the stomata nad to test the presesnce of starch in leave using iodine solution. I also had my math practical yesterday. It also went great. I did the linear equations one, I just had to sow the condition for consistency in linear equations geometrically/graphically. Besides that nothing much has happened. The weather is no longer cold. Although the mornings are still dark till about 7 a.m., it isn't cold.