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We all got our thesis results.
I got a 优 (you) which means excellent. Everyone in my class passed the thesis. For the 24 people in my class, the results are as follows:
Excellent : 5 people
Good : 7 people
Medium :10 people
Pass : 2

The teacher was saying that compared to the students who graduated last year or the year before, we all did quite well. I think she said that because unlike the previous 2 batches of students, this time we all passed the thesis.
Thesis final result= Thesis writing 60% + Thesis defense 30%+ 10% for something else (I’ll check this on Monday. )

I didn’t expect to get such a good result. I was quite worried because I got asked 6 questions during the thesis defense. Usually, they ask only 2 or 3 questions. Well,according to my main teacher, maybe the other teachers were interested in my thesis.
I didn’t worry about my exams results but I was very worried about the thesis. Well at least now it’s all over and I know that I’m really going to graduate. The graduation ceremony will be on the 17th.

I took the HSK advanced level exam yesterday. I almost didn’t sit for the exam because I didn’t prepare at all. I was reluctant to go but when I thought of the RMB 400 that I had spent to register for the exam, I decided to go. Frankly, I think the date chosen for the HSK exam is very bad. Only a month has passed since the semester began. Like my friends, I’m not really in a studying mood yet. I’m still busy trying to get used to the new classes(International trade law, Guide to thesis writing, Business negotiation, International settlement, Advanced Chinese,etc) that I have this semester after not touching any books during the 2 months summer hols. I think that it would have been better if the HSK exam was around the end of the semester. Anyway, it was a nice experience. I didn’t do well this time but at least now I know what the real exam is like. I’m looking forward to my second attempt next year in April.
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Comments about the exam and the location:

The exam was as hard as I expected. :faint: Compared to this exam , the HSK intermediate level exam is a piece of cake.
I took the exam at Fudan University. It is quite near Tongji University. There were too many students in each classroom. The majority were Korean and Japanese students.
During the oral exam, I was wearing a headset and had to talk into the mouthpiece. I could hear everyone talking. The reading aloud part was fine but when it came to answering the 2 questions, it was a bit hard to concentrate because I could hear the people around me saying their replies to the 2 questions. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the guy on my left was done with the exam. He had removed his headset. This caused me to panic a bit. I was only half-done replying the second question. I was perfectly aware that his head was tilt to one side and he was listening to me now that he was done. It was so hard to stay focused like that. Arghh. I think most people were like me. They hurriedly finished the oral exam because they noticed that the people around them were done already. I remember that there was a Korean girl who was still talking by the time everyone was done. I was thinking: “Wow, she managed to ignore the people around her and stayed focused” .

A few tips for next time:

Prepare for the exam! Starting now! Buy HSK books to practice doing mock exams and try to finish the papers within the allocated time. Practice writing essays.( I did poorly in the essay writing exam this time.) I also need to watch TV more often, especially the news.

Bring a mechanical pencil to use for the essay. I had brought a blunt 2B pencil to be able to shade the boxes in the answer sheet fast. I had another extra pencil which wasn’t blunt but it wasn’t sharp either. I had to erase and rewrite many characters(esp. those with many strokes) because they looked horrible.The strokes looked out a tad too thick when written using that pencil I had brought. I wasted a lot of time because of that.

Wear a watch. Or bring a clock. I wore a watch this time but not everyone did that. There was no clock in the room where I had my exam. I guess it might be different for other universities.

Stay focused during the oral exam. Ignore the people around.

hmmm I can’t think of anything else to add to the list for the time being.

I hear that the results will be out in about a month. I’m expecting the worst.
My Japanese classmate Aki and I are planning to go to the bookstores on Fuzhou Road this Thursday. I plan to buy a few books which will help me get ready for the next exam. I’m also thinking of buying some Japanese books. I want to learn Japanese!

Something I want to get off my chest: Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I can’t believe I missed Lin jun jie(JJ Lin)’s Shanghai concert yesterday!

Today, I heard from a friend that the April 2006 HSK results are out online since yesterday afternoon.
I went to check my results online.

I didn’t mention the fact that I sat for the intermediate HSK exam in April (23 April 2006) because I didn’t find it important. The day of the exam was the same day that one of my hamsters escaped from the cage. I was so busy looking for my hamster after I got back home after the exam that I didn’t give a second thought to the exam.
I have to admit that I didn’t study at all for this exam. I was lazy, busy and had to deal with some personal problems at that time. On the eve of the exam, I opened my HSK book and tried to revise but I stopped after skimming over the first page. I told myself that it’s too late to start revising and that I should just go to sleep early instead of worrying. I have optional HSK classes every Wednesday afternoon this semester and I attend those classes for the sake of getting extra credits (so that I can opt out of taking the Chinese history class next year!:P) . My HSK teacher is a good teacher who explains things in details. Her class is a great opportunity for me to brush up on my grammar. I also attend my other classes regularly and it seems that all that was enough for me. I don’t mean that there is no need to study for the HSK exam. It’s just that each person has his/her own method.
Maybe it was mostly because I had sat for the HSK exam during my 1st year already (May 2005) but this time, I wasn’t stressed on the exam day. I sat for the exam at Shanghai International Studies University(SISU) instead of Fudan University this time because I couldn’t hear well with the wireless headset at Fudan last year. I didn’t want to take any risks this year. Many people I know chose SISU too. At SISU, we got old headsets but they weren’t wireless ones so the sound quality was better. The fact that they put a big clock in the front of the examination hall also made me feel relaxed. Last year at Fudan, there were no clocks in the examination classroom and I had forgotten to wear a watch.

This year, my results are as follows:

I couldn’t really believe it at first because I got full marks for 阅读 and my overall is 47 marks more than last year。
综合 is the last paper and I’m usually very tired when I reach this part. Still, I’m satisfied with my results this time. They didn’t write which level I got on the website but I know that it’s HSK level 8.

HSK单项等级分数

HSK总分等级分数

More info there.
I’ll get my HSK certificate next month maybe.

I have many essays to submit before Friday; overdue essays which have accumulated over the past few weeks. I can’t believe that I’m so late in submitting homework. It’s not that I didn’t do any of the essays. I did some of them, those with topics I find interesting. It’s only those with the topics I find boring which I haven’t done. For some of the essays, I’ve written a few sentences before casting the sheets of paper aside. I must write the essays, however boring I find the topics. *determined*
My teacher is a very understanding person and she probably won’t mind me submitting my essays so late but still, I feel very bad about it.
Today, I’m going to write at least 4 essays and I won’t sleep before I finish my 4th one. :no:
My exams are next week and then it’s the one-week May holiday!

The other day, we had our ‘Listen and Talk’ class. For each class, after doing the Listening exercises on the book, one of the students has to go in front of the whole class to talk. We are allowed to talk about any topic that we want.
It was one of my Bulgarian friends’ turn the other day and she choose to talk about ‘Relationships between people of different countries’ . It was a very interesting topic. When we were nearing the end of the class, she mentioned the word ‘性交’ . Whatever she wanted to say about it, we never got to hear. Our teacher said “No, no” and told us that we shouldn’t say that. She explained further and told us that Chinese people use phrases like ‘发生关系’ or ‘肉体关系’ but that they don’t say ‘性交’. She also explained that Chinese people born before the 1980’s don’t talk about sex. They feel embarrassed. It’s kind of a taboo subject for them. That reminds me of another teacher with whom we had Oral Chinese Language class last year. During one of our discussion classes, one of the students had said that in a relationship, sex is important too. (I guess we were having a discussion about what was important in a relationship. ) The teacher had looked very embarrassed and we were amused by that. Still, we understood why she reacted like that. We all know very well that many Chinese people are not very open when it comes to talking about sex. However, I know some Chinese people (the younger generation ) who like to exchange point of views about sex, especially with foreigners. They like to know what people from other countries think.
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Definition of ‘ 性交’:
According to my pocket Chinese- English dictionary : ’sexual intercourse’.
According to my big Chinese dictionary 现代汉语词典 : ‘两性之间发生性行为’
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I’m late for class already and won’t have time to read this :
Sex and the Contemporary Chinese Woman. I’ll do it when I finish class. I’ve skimmed over the article and it seems quite interesting.

I have to admit that I was looking forward to the end of the winter holidays. I was getting very bored. My classes resumed on Monday, which explains the lack of updates. (also because my darl is back!)

I have many classes now, compared to the first semester of my first year at Tongji. (I had only 8 classes a week back then. ) I already got my results for the first semester of my second year and they are good. The second semester is going to be a challenge. I’m not complaining. I know that the third-year students have even more classes. However, the fourth-year students have only around 4 classes a week.

My time-table for this 2^nd semester is as follows:

Monday
Intensive Chinese 08:00 – 09:40
Listening and Speaking 10:00 – 11:40
Computer Studies (Basic) (in Chinese) 13:30 – 15:10

Tuesday
Listening and Speaking 08:00 – 09:40
Newspaper Reading ( and understanding) 10:00 – 11:40

Wednesday
Intensive Chinese 08:00 – 09:40
Extensive Chinese (mostly Reading comprehension + Answering Questions)
10:00 – 11:40
HSK Guidance 13:30 – 15:10

Thursday
Intensive Chinese 08:00 – 09:40
Survey of China 10:00 – 11:40
Newspaper Reading 13:30 – 15:10

Friday
Writing (essays,letters,etc) 08:00 – 09:40
News listening 10:00 – 11:40
Intensive Chinese 13:30 – 15:10

hmm.. two new classes for this semester.
However, I still want one more class, ‘Learning Shanghai hua’ (Learning Shanghainese, the Shanghai dialect.).
That class is only for the third-year students who are in their 2nd semester. I don’t feel like waiting one more year to learn some Shanghainese. I want to attend that class. I’ll go find the teacher before next Wednesday (first day of that class) and ask her if I can just sit at the back in the class and listen. I hope that she’ll let me. If she gives me the go-ahead, then I”ll have Shanghainese classes on Wednesdays from 15:20 to 17:00 .
Total number of hours of classes would then be 25 hours.
Yes, I must really be crazy for wanting that. The only bad thing is the amount of homework. ah well….
Better look on the bright side instead:
Less time to think, less time to torture myself with those doubts I’m having,
my written and spoken Chinese will be better,
Less time to go out and spend money,
I might get to learn Shanghainese (if the teacher lets me join the class) which will be useful (after all, I’ll be here until August 2008) ,
Less time to pig out (*pokes stomach*).

I’m most likely not going to study once out of class. I’ll be doing my homework, going to all my classes regularly but that’s it. Last semester, that was enough for me to get 90+ on each exam paper. I hope that it’s going to work that way this semester too. My spare time will be spent with my loved ones and my (*cough*) beloved computer instead. Oh… and some time outside on the track field to get fit.

This is old news(two weeks maybe) by now… but the HSC results were out in Mauritius and as usual, QEC (Queen Elizabeth College ,the middle + high school(all girls) i had attended) got the most laureates (again!It’s the same every year. Go girls!). All laureates will benefit from a full scholarship to study abroad. (as far as i know, there are around 30 laureates (girls and boys) every year and they all go to study in UK)
More info about the laureates there. (it’s in French)
Ever since the educational reform a few years back, I don’t follow the news when it comes to education in Mauritius . I’ve heard of a new reform not long ago but frankly, I’m not interested in knowing more about it because I think our present educational system is all messed up. I consider myself lucky not to have gone through that. I was perfectly happy with the old ranking system. I think that competition is needed to bring out the best in everyone. Bah. I don’t want to talk about education in Mauritius or about the government. I only want to post these pics, simply because I miss high school.
I saw the photos on an online community for Mauritians (where everyone can have their own personal pages) and asked Kendy (the girl who posted the pics) for permission to use the photos on my blog. She kindly agreed and emailed me the photos.
Here they are:
QEC girls,happy & excited upon hearing about the number of QEC laureates. I was once like them too, celebrating with my friends.

I like this pic. Number of fingers equals to number of QEC laureates. Twelve!
From left to right: Nadya, Kirsty,Kendy and Terry.

I miss my QEC days. Time really flies. It seems like not long ago that I attended my last Prize Giving Day at QEC.
ah yes, the QEC school uniform is like that. The length varies from person to person. Usually it’s knee-length or ( *gasp* ) way below the knee during the first year and gets shorter and shorter (above the knee) but still, at a decent length (for most girls anyway) when we reach our final year. For other girls’ colleges, the colors are different but it’s the same thing when it comes to the length of the uniform. The QEC Winter uniform (optional) consisted of green trousers (or jeans) and a white blouse. When I had first started attending QEC, it was even green trousers ,white blouse, black blazer and black tie(influenced by the formal British-style school uniforms) for the Winter uniform. I never got to wear that. They stopped wearing the tie and blazer when I was in my 2nd year. I don’t like green but I grew fond of my old school uniform over the years. I have a few photos of me wearing my school uniform somewhere on a CD. Need to look for them.

(Note: I said that I was happy with the old ranking system . If you (esp Mauritians) disagree with me or want to tell me why the new reforms are better, well no need to tell me about it. I don’t want to have a debate here. Everyone is entitled to his/her own preference. Comments will be moderated and deleted if necessary. )

I was a bit amused to see my blog’ stats during this past two weeks. The most popular search keywords were “december 2005 HSK test answers” or something similar. Were people expecting to find the answers to the 11 December 2005 HSK exam before the exam itself?:laughing:
The exam was this morning. Like I said before, I didn’t sit for the exam. Who feels like studying in December? Christmas is coming! I don’t have any plans yet but I love Christmas.