I just got back from school, and I took a horrible chemistry test which I answered with only 2 and a half hours of sleep, yep, that was baaad (Triple "A" intended!) .
But that just falls behind when it comes to the mid-term school report I recieved, the grades weren't as bad as the typos!
I got 0 on homework grades for chemistry, and 0 for test grade for physics!, that almost killed me, and when I went to the teachers they actually gave me full marks, it's just dreadful typos, also for computer I got 16.5 out of 20, and for geology I got 10.5 out of 20, that's not acceptable!, tomorrow I will discuss it with the teachers, I'm pretty sure they're typos also.
If all typos are fixed, I predict I will get a grade of 97.5% or so, which is good, but I need to aim for more than 99%, or so thinks my parents.
So I showed my report to me parents, my father almost pulled his gun on me (joke, no gun!) and he turned to be a red Hulk, and when I explained the typos at a speed of 4 words per second, my father became less red, and his size returned to normal (That was all jokes, my father just smiled and looked at me, which is when I explained the typos).
But did I get praise for getting only 7 words wrong of each 200 word I write?, did I get any praise for knowing and understanding 97.5% of all subjects? NO, because that's bad!, that's just bad, I should get 100% he says, he said life is hard, you either fail or succeed, and I'm not doing any good now, he says the least mark I want to see is 99%, I -obviously- was burning with bitterness on the inside, I wished I could just disappear and fly to the sky and roam the space, 97.5% is an unrealisticly good mark!, if a doctor has a success rate of 97.5%, s/he'd be legendary, but 97.5% is unrealstic, 97.5% is an excellent grade! so I couldn't just go to my room with that being the last thing said, so I sat down to lunch with my father, mother, and 3 brothers (I'm the oldest one), and the following conversation took place:
My father: This is not bad, but if you want to be the best you should get atleast 99%, and I know that you are capable of that!.
Me: I know I CAN do better, and I will do everything I'm capable of, but if I get 97% at the end, I won't kill myself over it.
Father: But you should, 97% isn't that good, and you only study one hour a day, study 2 hours and you'll atleast get 99%, I know you're smart.
Me: I will try my best, but all I'm saying is I won't kill myself over it.
Mother: But then you won't be afraid of failure.
Me: Aiming to succeed is better than aiming not to fail, I want to be motivated.
Father: I give you money, and I buy you games, and I let you go wherever you want, and we trust you completely, isn't that motivation? (That didn't sound as bad as it sounds now, he was just referring to the things I have that most other kids have, and not counting his favors on me.)
Right now I felt depressed, when I said to him I want to be motivated, it was an indirect way of asking him to praise me for my grade, I felt that my extra high ultimate 97% is so under-apreciated.
Me: What? Isn't 97% any good?, why do you guys look like someone just died??
My mother looked at me and smiled.
Father: This grade isn't bad, actually it's great, you're one of the top 5% of students in Saudia Arabia
Just then.. just at that moment.. a cool breeze went through my body and put off the fire that was in my chest.. and as I held the tears in my eyes, I smiled.
My father continues smiling: but your potential is too much for you to neglect, aim higher ok?..
And I left there in a better state than the one I came with.
Family is such a great thing.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
AntiVirus
So hi again!.
I should be sleeping for school, but Friday is insomnia day for me, I just have all types of sleeping problems, and if I go far and take a hot bath, drink hot milk, wear extra comfortable PJs and relax for 30 minutes before sleeping, I sleep uncomfortable, if I do none of the above, I will go to school on Saturday without closing my eyes for 20 seconds, and to top it off, this Saturday happens to have a very hard chemistry test, yeppy!.
But anyway, I'm hear to talk about my newest project in game programming.
I, although very experienced as an amature game programmer, have never made a full game, always parts of code everywhere, and examples to teach people how to do certain things..etc, I mean I have very high skill for an amature, but I have never completed a game, for the simple fact that after a month I get bored with the project and shift-delete it, for no appearant reason, so my problem is will, not skill.
This game I'm tying to break the bad habbit with, and I will see it through!.
The Game's name is AntiVirus, it's a puzzle-RTS game, where you play on a set map, and viruses walk on a road to get to your hard drive and damage your computer, you have to build towers that shoot down the viruses before they can damage the computer, and you win the stage after the last wave of viruses has ended and your computer's life points didn't reach 0.
That would be the simple run down, the game will have some complexty & depth to it, and it will support diffrent play styles, and I believe, that if I actually completed it, it's going to be a top rated amature game.
I'll be posting the game's news, pictures and latest updates on any progress achieved.
I should be sleeping for school, but Friday is insomnia day for me, I just have all types of sleeping problems, and if I go far and take a hot bath, drink hot milk, wear extra comfortable PJs and relax for 30 minutes before sleeping, I sleep uncomfortable, if I do none of the above, I will go to school on Saturday without closing my eyes for 20 seconds, and to top it off, this Saturday happens to have a very hard chemistry test, yeppy!.
But anyway, I'm hear to talk about my newest project in game programming.
I, although very experienced as an amature game programmer, have never made a full game, always parts of code everywhere, and examples to teach people how to do certain things..etc, I mean I have very high skill for an amature, but I have never completed a game, for the simple fact that after a month I get bored with the project and shift-delete it, for no appearant reason, so my problem is will, not skill.
This game I'm tying to break the bad habbit with, and I will see it through!.
The Game's name is AntiVirus, it's a puzzle-RTS game, where you play on a set map, and viruses walk on a road to get to your hard drive and damage your computer, you have to build towers that shoot down the viruses before they can damage the computer, and you win the stage after the last wave of viruses has ended and your computer's life points didn't reach 0.
That would be the simple run down, the game will have some complexty & depth to it, and it will support diffrent play styles, and I believe, that if I actually completed it, it's going to be a top rated amature game.
I'll be posting the game's news, pictures and latest updates on any progress achieved.
School and the new system
I know I'm posting alot now, but eventaully I'll settle on the right frequency.
So I'll talk about our school and it's new system, but first I'll run you the basic school system in Saudia Arabia then talk about more detailed things.
School starts at 6 o'clock in the morning, we have 30 minutes to freshen up and shake off sleep, then we line up in the yard to do some exercises and hear the Cast and updates on things happening in the school, usually finishing sevenish. (The cast is a daily event, where students from a class chosen by the cast scheduel go up to a microphone and they read some poetry, words of wisdome, science facts, advice... and really good stuff, most people hate it, I hate it too when it becomes repeative, but mostly it's not, so I enjoy it)
The day is devided into 8 studying periods, each is 45 minutes, and we have them all in the same class, we don't change classes, teachers come to us.
We have a 20 minute snack break after the third period, and a 20 minute prayer break after the sixth period (Might sound wierd to most people, but this country IS 100% muslims, so for us, it's wierd not to have it), and we get out at 1:30pm.
The subjects.. you can't choose to study some and leave the other, all subjects are mandatory, but when going to 11th grade from the 10th grade, you get to choose between a few courses, the most common 2 is scientific and artistic, scientific takes advanced chemistry, physics, biology, geology, mathimatics, english language, and computer, with what's left over of religion subjects, and arabic language from past years.
I don't really know what the artistic course includes, but I know it highlights arabic language, history, poetry, religion and psychology, while little to no mention of the scientific subjects.
There's schools for boys and there's schools for girls, public or private, schools never contain students of both genders unless it's kindergarden, and although each and every boy (I don't know about girls) makes fun and says: "Oh god!, why do we need to be separated" or something along those lines, each one of us knows it's for the best, because it makes not having pre-marital sexual contact hard if possible, and all the things these guys want to do other people's daughters and sisters they don't approve of being done to their own daughter or sister or mother, so I'd say the people that actually want it to be mixed is 1%, and those are the guys who have no heat in their blood, and don't mind of dishonoring things being done to the females in their families, but more on that another day ;D.
We study 5 days a week, study days are Saturday through Wedensday, and weekend is Thursday and Friday.
A year is devided to 2 terms, separated by a 2-4 weeks vacation, and each two study years are separated by 10-14 weeks of vacation.
So to the grades system, each subject has 50 grades a term, 5 in the hands of the teacher, 15 on the mid-term test, 30 on the end of the term's test, but some simpler and verbal subjects have all 50 grades in the teacher's hand, but these are usually the ones you don't need to worry about.
Most subjects have 4 exams a year, a mid-term exam and an end-term exam for each term.
But wait!, no they don't!, they changed the system!, now there's no 4 exams a year thing, there's exams all year long, the grades system have been reassigned, 10 to little pop quiz exams made all year, 10 to homework, and 30 to the end-term exam!.
But fear not!, there's more!, before, universities only looked at your last year's (12th grade's) grade, if it's good you get an interview and if it's bad you don't, completly disregarding all the previous years, so students kick back through 11th grade and work hard for the 12th, but GOD no!, we can't have a kickback year!, just as I reached the 11th grade they said the 12th grade's grade = 11th grade/2 + 12th grade/12 ...AND THAT SUCKS.. I didn't get my rightfully deserved kickback year, I'm an "A+" student, and I wanted to kick back, now I have to work hard to keep my grades.. T_T, that just hurts!.
And the grades for all subjects isn't 50 a term anymore, subjects' grades are now multiplied by how many periods a week you have of that subject, so we have 4 biology, chemistry, and physics preiods each weak, instead of 50, they get 200 grades a term each!, so the english teacher whom I don't go well along with (They teach us really boring english, the whole course should be revised) has 250 grades in his pocket! comparable only to math with 300 grades a term.. I mean, I sleep in english class and I play my NintendoDS and draw doodles on the back of the english's note book, now he has 250 grades?, that's just baad (with a double "a").
But the new system has some good stuff going for it, for starters 20 of 50 grades are controled by the teacher, and I 90% of the time have excellent relationships with my teachers, I talk with them about stuff, joke around and stuff like that, so I'm sure I'll get a little help here and there, on other side, now rude students have one big reason not to be rude with the teacher.
Before, we had only 4 tests a year, and to be honest, I only studied each subject 4 times a year, in the night before the test, although I'm an "A" student, that's due to my own intellegence, not to blow my own horn, but I make the most out of the periods I get in school, that I don't need to study it at home, and I can usually know what question to expect the test would include, but nevertheless, test nights were really stressfull, I studied like a maniac, how canI compress 3 months of study into one day?, but I managed, but now, with a lot of pop quiz tests.. I'm studying all the time, and when the end-term tests come, I would've studied all that stuff before, and I'll just have a good relaxing time before my vacation.
And although my kickback year was terminated, now I don't need to push myself too hard, I have 2 years to get great grades, before 12th grade was your one and only shot to a good university.
So anyway, that's what school is like at Saudia Arabia, and I explained the pros and cons of the new system, that's about it for today, now I'll get some sleep before my chemistry test tomorrow (it's 1am now, what the hell?).
So I'll talk about our school and it's new system, but first I'll run you the basic school system in Saudia Arabia then talk about more detailed things.
School starts at 6 o'clock in the morning, we have 30 minutes to freshen up and shake off sleep, then we line up in the yard to do some exercises and hear the Cast and updates on things happening in the school, usually finishing sevenish. (The cast is a daily event, where students from a class chosen by the cast scheduel go up to a microphone and they read some poetry, words of wisdome, science facts, advice... and really good stuff, most people hate it, I hate it too when it becomes repeative, but mostly it's not, so I enjoy it)
The day is devided into 8 studying periods, each is 45 minutes, and we have them all in the same class, we don't change classes, teachers come to us.
We have a 20 minute snack break after the third period, and a 20 minute prayer break after the sixth period (Might sound wierd to most people, but this country IS 100% muslims, so for us, it's wierd not to have it), and we get out at 1:30pm.
The subjects.. you can't choose to study some and leave the other, all subjects are mandatory, but when going to 11th grade from the 10th grade, you get to choose between a few courses, the most common 2 is scientific and artistic, scientific takes advanced chemistry, physics, biology, geology, mathimatics, english language, and computer, with what's left over of religion subjects, and arabic language from past years.
I don't really know what the artistic course includes, but I know it highlights arabic language, history, poetry, religion and psychology, while little to no mention of the scientific subjects.
There's schools for boys and there's schools for girls, public or private, schools never contain students of both genders unless it's kindergarden, and although each and every boy (I don't know about girls) makes fun and says: "Oh god!, why do we need to be separated" or something along those lines, each one of us knows it's for the best, because it makes not having pre-marital sexual contact hard if possible, and all the things these guys want to do other people's daughters and sisters they don't approve of being done to their own daughter or sister or mother, so I'd say the people that actually want it to be mixed is 1%, and those are the guys who have no heat in their blood, and don't mind of dishonoring things being done to the females in their families, but more on that another day ;D.
We study 5 days a week, study days are Saturday through Wedensday, and weekend is Thursday and Friday.
A year is devided to 2 terms, separated by a 2-4 weeks vacation, and each two study years are separated by 10-14 weeks of vacation.
So to the grades system, each subject has 50 grades a term, 5 in the hands of the teacher, 15 on the mid-term test, 30 on the end of the term's test, but some simpler and verbal subjects have all 50 grades in the teacher's hand, but these are usually the ones you don't need to worry about.
Most subjects have 4 exams a year, a mid-term exam and an end-term exam for each term.
But wait!, no they don't!, they changed the system!, now there's no 4 exams a year thing, there's exams all year long, the grades system have been reassigned, 10 to little pop quiz exams made all year, 10 to homework, and 30 to the end-term exam!.
But fear not!, there's more!, before, universities only looked at your last year's (12th grade's) grade, if it's good you get an interview and if it's bad you don't, completly disregarding all the previous years, so students kick back through 11th grade and work hard for the 12th, but GOD no!, we can't have a kickback year!, just as I reached the 11th grade they said the 12th grade's grade = 11th grade/2 + 12th grade/12 ...AND THAT SUCKS.. I didn't get my rightfully deserved kickback year, I'm an "A+" student, and I wanted to kick back, now I have to work hard to keep my grades.. T_T, that just hurts!.
And the grades for all subjects isn't 50 a term anymore, subjects' grades are now multiplied by how many periods a week you have of that subject, so we have 4 biology, chemistry, and physics preiods each weak, instead of 50, they get 200 grades a term each!, so the english teacher whom I don't go well along with (They teach us really boring english, the whole course should be revised) has 250 grades in his pocket! comparable only to math with 300 grades a term.. I mean, I sleep in english class and I play my NintendoDS and draw doodles on the back of the english's note book, now he has 250 grades?, that's just baad (with a double "a").
But the new system has some good stuff going for it, for starters 20 of 50 grades are controled by the teacher, and I 90% of the time have excellent relationships with my teachers, I talk with them about stuff, joke around and stuff like that, so I'm sure I'll get a little help here and there, on other side, now rude students have one big reason not to be rude with the teacher.
Before, we had only 4 tests a year, and to be honest, I only studied each subject 4 times a year, in the night before the test, although I'm an "A" student, that's due to my own intellegence, not to blow my own horn, but I make the most out of the periods I get in school, that I don't need to study it at home, and I can usually know what question to expect the test would include, but nevertheless, test nights were really stressfull, I studied like a maniac, how canI compress 3 months of study into one day?, but I managed, but now, with a lot of pop quiz tests.. I'm studying all the time, and when the end-term tests come, I would've studied all that stuff before, and I'll just have a good relaxing time before my vacation.
And although my kickback year was terminated, now I don't need to push myself too hard, I have 2 years to get great grades, before 12th grade was your one and only shot to a good university.
So anyway, that's what school is like at Saudia Arabia, and I explained the pros and cons of the new system, that's about it for today, now I'll get some sleep before my chemistry test tomorrow (it's 1am now, what the hell?).
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