My Rigorous Efforts in Improving English Listening, Writing, Reading and Speaking Skills”

Because I am taking IELTS next sem, I have to improve my English so that I can obtain at less band 6.5 so that I am allegeable to enter top u in Australia to continue my study in degree level.

First and foremost, I have to improve my reading skills. I must read more English materials. Making it a habit is hard but I will try. The easiest English material to get is the newspaper and articles at the internet are also a source for reading materials. Reading will improve my vocabulary. Expanding my word bank is important for writing, also for speaking and listening.

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. Therefore, I should watch shows and movies in English more not forgetting the website to be use to practice because practice makes perfect.

Writing well is more difficult to master because I need to read a lot and have a lot of idea and knowledge about the current issues. Reading sample also helps. But of cause practicing writing the essays helps the most.

For speaking, having casual conversation using English with someone I think will help because it makes us feel confidence to use English plus making us know how to pronounce difficult words. Learning more about the speaking test through the internet also helps.

To sum up, I need to do a lot of work to improve my English. Hope that my teachers and friends can help me too, but I know, it all depends on me.

My Eid Experience

My eid experience this year I guess starts when I leave Uniten on 10th October 2007 to went back home which is at Sitiawan, Perak. This is because I went back using bus express. This is my first time I went back home for Eid using bus. Before this, my father uses to pick me up using his car, but this year he is busy. Going back to Sitiawan using the bus is really exciting to me. The “Balik Kampung” song keep on playing in my head. At Pudu, I can see many people. I am touched when I think the hardship the people around me have to face to make a living. The ticket promoters had to shout continuously to attract people attention to sell their bus ticket but his voice is deem by the noise of the surrounding people and they are many more people selling things to make their income. Deep inside, I am glad to God that I do not have to work hard to earn money but instead I just need to study. After about 4 hours in the bus, I arrived at Sitiawan at 10pm. It is a relief to be home after a month leaving it.

The next day, I had “Sahur” with my family for the first time for this Ramadan. Then I help my family especially my mom to clean my house and decorate it a bit. Then I pay my sleep debts. For Fast breaking, I enjoyed it very much because my mom cooked her specialty, Goat Kari.

On Friday, after the Friday prayers, my family and I starts our journey back to my mother’s hometown that is at Dong, Raub, Pahang. It took about 5 hours to reach Dong. Along the way, we have to use the Highway, so we came across tollbooths. In them, there are smiling people giving and receiving tickets and money. It just came across my mind that how boring is their job. But without them, the highway system will not be able to work. Someone must do it. Like an old saying, because of a nail, a horseshoe is loss, because of the horseshoe, a horse is loss, because of the horse, a massage was not delivered, because of that, the war was loss. This shows that all of us play a role in this world. For me, as a student, I must learn and strive my best to attaint good grades.

After arriving at Dong at 8pm, my father and I went to the mosque. After Isyak prayer, we join the village people to go from house to house to “takbir”. I like joining them because there are a lot of food to be enjoyed at every house we go. We went to 4 houses that night. I feel touch when the “Takbir” was shouted and we all followed the Imam. But most of all, I enjoyed the food very much. I was filled to the max that night.

Saturday, Hari Raya. After breakfast, my family and I plus my grandpa and my relatives went to the mosque to perform Raya sunat Prayer. Then, we went to my grandma grave. We recite Surah Yasin together. This makes me appreciate value of life. It was a touching moment. Next, we went to visit my relative houses. Eating raya dish is a must. My first day of raya ended with a stomach ace. Maybe because of too much lemang or ketupat I have earlier.

On Sunday, my family and I went back to Sitiawan. Then, we visit my father’s mom house at Ayer Tawar and other relative nearby. The third day of Shawal, my family and I just stay at home. Many children came to my house to “Beraya”.

To sum up, this year Hari Raya celebration is different to me because I realize a lot of things, especially about my study. I have to study hard and attaint good grades so that I could continue my study abroad.It is not easy to earn a living without proper qualification. I do not want to be a ticket promoter or a tollbooth people. I want to be a teacher.

True Beauty

Bright news this week for every tomato, strawberry or plum in the land which hasn't quite made it in the supermarkets' perfection stakes. One chain has decided to give them a break, the chance to parade on those illuminated air-conditioned shelves along with the scrubbed and polished delicacies which are correct to the nearest millimetre. The visually flawed or oddly shaped, as they're termed, are being offered at a discount, as a service to cooks and jam makers, and to help cut waste.

It's the same spirit in which the National Trust has been running a year-long Ugly Veg Competition, offering prizes for such one-time rejects as two-headed carrots and corkscrew runner beans. And very welcome this all is - it's long been a scandal that so much good food has landed in the swill bin simply because it has the odd blemish, judged not beautiful enough.

Tastes in beauty vary widely, of course - one man's musical bliss is another's hell, a painting which warms one heart leaves another chilled, and (especially at a time of wall-to-wall exposure) not everyone will be convinced by talk of the Beautiful Game. And a remarkably large number of mothers give birth to the most beautiful baby in the world.

But we need beauty: the stunning sunset, the great building which sets our spirits soaring, maybe just the few roses outside the kitchen window.
All true beauty, like all love, reflects something of the God who is perfect beauty, perfect love. And that fact should temper how we react both to beauty and to ugliness - and especially in people.

What is most beautiful or most ugly about any human being is not the physical features they've been given, but what's expressed through them... pride or humility, selfishness or generosity, vengefulness or forgiveness. 'She's beautiful,' might be spoken of a strikingly attractive girl who sets heads turning and breaks a dozen youthful hearts a month. It might also describe an old woman, crippled, bed-bound, her face distorted, ravaged by illness and a thousand cares, but from whose eyes shine the unmistakable marks of a life of love.

By that measure, what we do about the despised and rejected of our own society offers the truest assessment of its beauty or ugliness... even more surely than what happens to the ugly fruit and veg.

Tourism & transport

I have no idea what to write about transport and tourism so I just to compare and contrast the difference between Sitiawan and Kuala Lumpur transport and tourism.

First of all, I will discuss about the traffic. In Kuala Lumpur, there are a lot more people compared to Sitiawan and most of them have personal transportation, such as a car or motorbike. Because of this, the traffic in KL is much more than Sitiawan, making traffic jam a comand thing to the city folk. Sitiawan traffic is calm, but traffic jam do occur sometime. I travel around Sitiawan and Manjung plus Lumut using my motorbike or sometime my bicycle. But since I start studying in Uniten, which is close to KL, I travel around in KL using public transport such as taxi, train and bus. This is because, Sitiawan public transport is not reliable and not many. This happen because the Sitiawan citizen travel around using personal transport most of the time and for me, it is more fun traveling around with my own bike with my friends as a group.

Secondly, about tourism, there are a lot of interesting place to visit in Sitiawan. Such as, Lumut, Teluk Batik (beautiful beach) and a bit further, Pangkor Island. This nature beauty’s are not available in KL but KL offer a lot of beautiful building such as KLCC which is one of the tallest building in the world. KL also is a shopping heaven for the tourists with a lot of bargains and choices to choose from. Sitiawan do not have many place to shop but it have 1 hypemarket and 4 supermarket to accommodated the citizen shopping needs.

To sum up, I like living in Sitiawan but I enjoyed my stay in KL because there are a lot of things to do and I love beautiful building.

Space Exploration BENEFITS

We've all heard that technology developed for the space program has effected our lives. But ask ten people on the street what advancements in space technology have had the most impact on Earth-bound humans, and many will likely recall commercials for an orange-flavored breakfast drink. A few more may remember other commercials for ballpoint pens that can write upside down.

It seems doubtful this is what space scientists and pioneers had in mind for "commercial applications" of their inventions.
Still, you might be surprised to learn that you actually have seen commercials for more far-reaching space-based technologies. Or perhaps had the life of a loved-one saved by another spun-off space technology, or that you rely on yet others to plan your holiday trips and keep you comfortable and safe en route. You might have even received some of them as holiday gifts.

Some of them are:

-Satellite Radio: Inducted in 2002

-Video Image Stabilization And Registration (VISAR): Inducted in 2001

-DirecTV: Inducted in 2000

-DeBakey Blood Pump: Inducted in 1999 For heart patient who had heart failure

-Global Positioning System: Inducted in 1998

-Temper Foam: Inducted in 1998 for making soft filling for seats or others

-Advanced Communications Technology: Inducted in 1997

-Fire-Resistant Aircraft Seats: Inducted in 1996

-Excimer Laser Angioplasty System: Inducted in 1994 use for correcting vision
problems

-Liquid-Cooled Garments: Inducted in 1993

With Dr. Sheikh Muszaphar as the first Malaysian astronaut, I hope that Malaysia will be able to create new invention that will change the world as we know to day so that we will be recognize all around the world as the entrepreneurs of future technology.

Personal Online Page

As any creative thinker knows the best ideas are always the most obvious. The rise of MySpace.com from nowhere to almost the top of the internet tree in just 36 months does nothing to change that maxim.

MySpace is simplicity itself - a site that enables anyone to build their own homepage for free, listing their likes, dislikes, favourite bands, top books, best movies, general interests, relationship status etc, and then hook-up with other like-minded folk.

Music, always a lively topic of conversation among the young, is a great common denominator on MySpace, and fertile ground for emerging bands - the Arctic Monkeys' owe much of their success to the site.
These days the time-honoured teenage conversational gambit "What music are you into?" will likely be met with a response along the lines of "Can I refer you to my MySpace page."

MySpace is what's known as a social networking site. It's by far the biggest, claiming about 57 million registered users, and is currently ranked the fifth most popular English language site on the net by the Alexa ratings service. Others of the same genre include Facebook, Bebo, MSN Spaces, Friendster and Yahoo 360.

All work in a similar way, offering users a host of conventional internet functions -blogging, user forums, instant messaging, personal profiles, online photo albums, visitor comment spaces - in one place.

The success of MySpace has not gone unnoticed by commercial operators who have seized on it as a handy way of targeting potential customers. For example, anyone who proclaims their interest in kite-surfing, should steel themselves for a torrent of e-mails from companies trying to sell them the latest kit.

And with millions of users, social networking sites, which make money out of advertising, are potential goldmines. MySpace was bought last year by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation for $580m (£332.85m).
"The appeal of these sites lies in the crucial part of the adolescent socialisation process which we all go through... finding your identity, voice, place and status - the tribe with which you most identify," says Jo Twist, senior research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research.

The ideas behind these sites are not new, says Dr Twist, but what is characterising the trend now is the "ease with which people can upload and share their own 'digital assets' - motifs that say something about who they are."
Some parents will doubtless gaze at their offspring busily cultivating friendships online - rather than in the real world - with an air of despair. But, says Dr Twist, it can be hard for them to understand because "many of us have our social networks in place".

The ease with which relationships can be forged online is changing the nature of friendship

Any philosopher or psychologist will tell you that close friendships with more half-a-dozen people is not possible, says Mark Vernon, author of the Philosophy of Friendship.

MySpace friendships are more akin to "audience reach... like Richard and Judy" than traditional social reach. "Friendship takes time to develop. The person who says they have hundreds of friends wants our compassion not our envy. The heart of friendship is wanting to know someone and be known by them. This is not the same as knowing about someone which is what you get if you never meet your online pal face to face."

Some will find the idea of setting out one's personal life to a potential audience of millions perplexing. Yet MySpace users show little sign of being intimidated by their extensive friendship networks, or indeed by the inevitable threat posed by dishonest, even predatory, users.
Despite a spate of paedophiles and stalkers targeting the site - two men were charged in the US on Tuesday with assaulting girls they met on MySpace - most users simply ignore unwanted communications, according to a recent academic study in the US.