Mayonnaise

Today, I was playing DragonFable, just because. I started doing one quest. Halfway through I'd forgotten what I was meant to do so I clicked on the "objectives" button.

This is what I saw:

Two stories and some more bits and pieces

So much about a storm. It lasted for about 10 minutes.

I found these stories (or, to be more accurate, my mum found these stories) in our house dating from when I was 5! Reading them, I thought, "Damnit, I could write better then than I can now!" (However, my mum and I think that at least one might have been a retell or copy of another story.)

Original spelling and punctuation has been retained- however, it's not always obvious whether I've used a capital letter or not, especially with the letters P and S, so in these cases I'll use whatever makes sense. Also, anything in square brackets are things that I've added while typing the stories up.

A Big Mistake [note: this one rhymes, which is why my mum and I think that I've copied something.]

I was painting a line when my Brush leaked a blob. What a mistake! I started to sob. I was so mad, I shook though and though. So I splased on more Paint... Some Yellow, Some blue. I Studied the PaPer and looked uPside down. I blew on the Paint and created a Clown! I Painted Some heads, Some arms, and then legs... and made some new SPlats that looked like fried eggs! What fun! What a blast! I would make this fun last creatures from circus burst into sight... from dreams and from nighttime, from Bright morning light. When my friends saw this art, they asked what it takes. So I told them my seacret... just make some mistakes.

MINE! [I think this one is either a rehash or a copy of another story, given the plotline and my age at that time.]

Isabel went to play with Claudia.
She climbed onto Claudia's rocking horse.
Mine! Shrieked claudia and pushed her off.

Isabel picked up Claudia's Carrot top doll.
Mine! Screamed claudia and Snactched it away.

Isabel saw Claudia's Wooden animals piled up in an old shoebox She took them out and set them up on the Carpet.
"No, no, no!" Cried Claudia "My moo cows. My baa lambs!"

Claudia's mother put on their hats and coats and gloves and scarves.
"What we need is some fresh air." She said

Isabel and Claudia and Claudia's mother walked to the park. Claudia's mother pushed Claudia's new tricycle.
When they got to the park Isabel climed onto the tricycle.
"No no no!" yelled claudia My bike my bike. Me! Me! Me!" She pushed Isabel of the tricycle. "Now Claudia, let Izzie have a turn." Said Claudia's Mother
"No Izzie! no Izzie!" Screamed Claudia.

They Watched the bell fly off and land into a bird's Nest.
"Mine! Mine! Mine!" And she pushed it [I assume the tricycle, not the bell] out of Isabel's reach. It ran down the hill. It ran faster and faster. It ran over and over.
They Watched the handle bars fly off and land in a tree.
They watched the [yes, this was seriously underlined- the makings of The-a, I guess] of and land in the bandstand and the saddle bag in a baby's pram [saddle bag?!]
They watched the Wheels come off and roll one by one, into the road, into the pond and into the park-keepers hut.
They Watched nuts and bolts and Screws and Chains Spray into the air and across the grass and dissapear forever into piles of leaves.
They ran down the hill and stood ["stared" may have been what I was trying to say here] at the battered broken new tricycle frame...

"Yours." said Isabel and went to feed the ducks.

[Blurb]

Isabel went to play with Claudia. She climed on Claudia's rocking horse. Mine! shrieked Claudia and Pushed her off.

Poor Isabel has a hard time, trying to play with her friend. But in the end, it is Isabel who gets the last laugh.

A witty and origanal picture book for the very young.

Isbn 0-340-56698
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978034056695

The next thing I want to write about is an exercise book I had written in at about that age (possibly younger as the first story makes almost no sense, especially when compared with the two above). It has a lot of story titles, but not a lot of stories. Here are all of the titles, plus the stories, if there are any. There are also a lot of pictures in the middle of the book, which aren't related to the stories, so I won't describe them here.

Betty Who Does Not want to lean the alphebet
Betty Never Leaned the Alphebet. She said she Didn't. That was really Boring. Clara's Sister, Phobia [!!!] Made an Alphebet Chart out of Coragated Cardbord. Betty Didn't Lik it. Clara said she had to read Alphebet At School, Betty's teacher made Everyone (even Betty) To Make an Alphebet book. Alpha mind wasn't on. Potter Marcus hated it. So didn't Betty Dawan. She came from Holland School and wore clogs. She saw some leased English shoes yesterday But now All Leased [sold?] out. They Couldn't Buy it for her best piese summer song. [At about that time I had to play a piano piece called "Dance of the Wooden Shoes" and my mum wanted me to wear clogs and a dress she had made with a tulip pattern. Unfortunately we couldn't find any clogs.] Then they leased Size 12. That was Betty's size. Hopefully She had English Shoes!
The End

Hamilton's Box
Mummy Ummy Ummy Ummy ummy
Stephanie's Naughty Babies (Real story) [For some reason I had this thing about my piano teacher, Miss Stephanie, having really naughty babies. The first story I wrote when I was 3, titled "Oh No No but Where is my Baby" was entirely about these naughty babies. I don't know if she even has children.]
Hattie's great show
The Laybour [The Layabout?]
The Game [I JUST LOST THE GAME!]
Delaby (An Australian Story)
Children Brad Stephanie and Folk
Taller Kyte
Tettie Brutionationafras [it has "nation" in it!]
Liffie Style [it's hard to tell whether it's "Liffie" or "Iffie" because there's so much scribbling out]
No Neat hair
My Grandma
My Mom [so I've just suddenly turned American now, have I?]
Phobia Is Sad [GOOD]
Dear Newly Read Children,

Here are some more excerpts from a few other exercise books I've found.

Special Space [this is dated- I was 6 at the time I wrote this one]

When we were learning about Space, we thought Space was special. So we called Space 'special Space' It is so nice there.

Well Miss Jones said
Space was special
Space was Cool
Space was Shiny
Space was dark
Space was firm
[my goodness, you can make so many innuendos out of this!]

I read a book about...
space
planets
It was special!
It was cool!
It was Shiny!
It was Dark!
IT WAS FIRM!
[and in come the innuendos...]

[Also in this book is a list of languages, or should I say "languases?" The three languages listed are Malay, English and French. If this book is anything to judge by, I must have thought that those were the only languages which existed in the world. I was wrong.]

[A list of games]

No looking
Memary game
Singing
Plays
lego
musical Bobs
word game
Scruffy Millie and Bonkers [where we all pretended to be dogs]
Dancing
troble [the board game "Trouble"]
Raceing
Bogie junior
woof up woof Down
Blue's Clues
Musical Stachuses
Make UP game
Digeridoo
Pretendtoswim [the words are written really close together]
Music
1B-2B-3B-4B
tori animal Boot
Hippopotamas
Furby Phases
Hide and seeks
Netball
Pelloest [I don't know what this is meant to mean]
title your play

Last but not least, there is a page stating that the deputy principal at my primary school can "reed" all writing.

Spelling [Doesn't] Matter- Part 2

After a long post which equates to 5 and a half pages of size 11 Calibri font on Microsoft Word (or 3 370 words, if you prefer), I'm back for more ranting!

Art

I don't remember that much about art in primary school. The amount we did lessened in upper primary school. One thing I do remember, however, was making a paper mache version of Earth in year 6. Basically we applied paper mache on a balloon and when it dried, we popped the balloon, painted the paper mache and stuck white paper coloured green on it for the continents. I had to get someone else to inflate my balloon for me and my globe was the smallest, cutest (in size) and roundest of the lot.

There was a small hole where the neck of the balloon was in every globe and it was in this hole where string was attached so that the globes could be hung from the classroom ceiling. Most people had glued on the continents so that the north pole was where the hole was, but I'd done mine so that the south pole was where the hole was. Consequently, my globe was upside down, compared with the stereotypical globe. When the string was attached to my globe, I held my globe by the string and said to the arts assistant, "My world is upside down."

LOTE (Languages Other Than English, which in my school's case was French)

Nobody liked it, so consequently nobody wanted to do it, so consequently nobody tried. I recall one girl in my class asking the French assistant, "Why is French so boring?" Another memory I have is of someone doing "1, 2, 3, 1, 2" in which they took two steps backwards for every three steps forwards, all because they didn't want to go to French.

In year 7 I annoyed my French teacher by telling him that I was going to learn Chinese in high school. This year I'm going to be doing French and Chinese. Go figure.

Music- Normal class

Most of what we did was sing. Occasionally we had to learn the names of the notes too. Not hard because I could play piano. One game we played involved having to jump onto a musical staff and the teacher would ask what note you had landed on. You could easily rig this by jumping onto the same note every time. That was only a minor flaw, however. The major flaw was that the staff didn't have a clef on it. It was assumed to be treble clef but it could also have been bass clef, alto clef, tenor clef or... percussion clef. "No, Miss, I am not standing on the C line, I am standing on the snare drum line." Or, if you prefer, "I'm sorry, but I've decided to be in alto clef today, so this note is a D, not a C." Unfortunately, back then, I only knew of treble clef and bass clef, so I could only make bass clef jokes (which I didn't, but there was one time I landed on the C space and I said E before quickly changing my answer to C, although E would have been correct in bass clef).

Music- Choir and Community Singing

In choir, the teacher generally spent most of the class yelling at us to shut up. Most people didn't really want to be there, but it was a choice between that and doing work on Behind the News or other fascinating stuff in those non-choir classes.

As for community singing, that was a little better as the class was smaller. Once we had a relief teacher who came around and made sure we were all singing. I easily countered this by mouthing the words when she wasn't nearby and singing when she was.

My neighbour- the husband of the zucchini-loving family- said that when he was in primary school, he would always mouth the words in choir practice, but when they actually had to perform, he would sing really loudly because the teacher couldn't stop him then. Today he is a primary school principal.

Sport

I hated sport, because I never understood the point of getting sweaty and tired chasing after a ball just to score goals. I felt inferior and if I actually tried then people would laugh at me, thus creating a vicious cycle. I was a good runner- both cross-country and sprints- until year 7, when I lost my ability in long-distance running.

Health

Health in year 4 was just listening to the teacher talk. Consequently, it was our favourite class. After that I think we just occasionally touched on topics related to health. Always physical health- never mental health. The first time I did mental health at school was in year 9.

On second thoughts- we did do health as a separate subject in year 6! We learned about wonderful stuff like caffeine and if I remember correctly, nutrition and risk taking. Apparently talking in class is a risk, because it means that you could get into trouble (i.e. have your name written on the board). We also learned about that wonderful thing known as puberty and we got to watch a lovely old video called "What's Happening to Me?"

Last but not least, I have just realised that I have forgotten one part of my music education in primary school. I can't believe that I've forgotten it.

Music- Clarinet

(Speaking of which, I should be practising that thing right about now.)

Another subject in which I learned something! I learned how to play the complete lower register and most of the upper register (the only note I had trouble with was the highest C in the standard range). I also learned how to tongue. I didn't practise very much but somehow I got an A for clarinet both years and my teacher thought that I was "an organised and reliable student who always works well in lessons!"

Other notes on primary school

1. Too much standardised testing preparation! I remember telling one of the teachers (my year 1 teacher) about my annoyance (she was on duty and I was randomly talking to her). I asked her something like, "You can't fail or anything like that, so why does it matter?" She asked me why not being able to fail causes the tests to not matter. She was probably trying me to change my frame of mind. I think she may have succeeded, which was all the worse for me.
2. Homework was generally one sheet due back the next week- that is, if we had homework at all. I decided to finish each sheet on the night I got them. My teacher always seemed slightly annoyed whenever I handed in homework early.
3. Every day, in lower primary school, we would have to greet our teachers with a "Good morning, Mr/Mrs/Miss [whatever]" in the morning and a "Good afternoon, Mr/Mrs/Miss [whatever]" in the afternoon. Most times, we would sing our "good mornings" or our "good afternoons." As we progressed to upper primary school, teachers began to tell us to "say it, don't sing it," and eventually we all managed to get over the habit. It was very funny to listen to the school greeting a teacher in school assemblies because the disparity between the two halves of the school was obvious! It was also funny in the first or second week in high school when my S+E teacher said, "Good morning," and a few people started singing, "Good morning Mr..." and then cut off.
4. In primary school, I learned two bicycle rules before learning how to ride a bike. In year 1 or 2, we were taught to walk our bikes across the road. In year 7 we were taught to ride on the road as the law says that only children under the age of 12, or those accompanying children under the age of 12, are allowed to ride on the footpath. This isn't a good thing if you learn how to ride a bike over that age as when you can't ride a bike properly, it's probably not a good idea to ride on the road. I will admit, however, that the law is not the fault of primary school.
5. I'm currently looking at the school policies listed on my primary school's website and it says on the year 1-3 time-out sheet the first question is, "What did you do?" There are a few checkboxes such as "I was talking too much." After this it says, "I will write a sentence:" The sensible junior primary student would write a random sentence not related to their behaviour. If a teacher tries to punish them further, they can use the badly worded question in their defence.
6. Another thing that it says is that physical assault of staff or other students or verbal abuse or harassment of staff will result in suspension. What about verbal abuse or harassment of students?
7. If you were part of that group who arrived at school before 8.25am, classmates would say something like, "Wow, you were here early!" At my high school it's normal to arrive at that time although classes in my high school start 10 minutes later than they did in primary school.
8. I'm going to go back to the subject of rules yet again. Another rule was that you were not allowed in the buildings at all during recess or lunch unless "wet weather" was called, in which case you had to go into a designated building depending on your year level. There was a time when access to the library was permitted during recess or lunch, but I think that was dropped when I was still in lower primary school.
9. In year 6 we had to write down all of the books we were reading. I filled in two sheets. After that, I couldn't be bothered- probably because I was too busy reading.

Well, that's almost all from me. Apparently some cyclone or whatever is due to hit south of here, so we're going to get a thunderstorm and I should turn the laptop charger off.

Spelling [Doesn't] Matter

I think that while spelling matters, it shouldn't count for too much. After all, there are some great books out there containing deliberate spelling/grammar errors: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain (*shudder*- I had to write an essay on that book, and books often become horrible when you have to write essays on them) comes to mind and so does the "Chaos Walking" trilogy by Patrick Ness.

In my later years in primary school we had to make our own spelling lists using words which we had spelled incorrectly in our writing. During spelling practice times, it was those words that we would work on. However I'm not sure that was the best way to learn how to spell. It alienated the good spellers who were forced to choose words like "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" to fill up their spelling lists. Problems then arose when the teachers asked us to put each of our spelling words into a sentence. We couldn't complain, because complaining would only invite the response, "The point was to pick words that you're going to use in your writing!"

Perhaps there should have been a greater emphasis on grammar. I remember reading some poems or stories written by people in year 6 or 7 in primary school and seeing a few that seemed to be written in Engrish. In all fairness, there might have been some people who spoke English as a second language in that bunch that I wasn't aware of, but by year 7 it shouldn't be necessary to spend so many lessons on quotation marks. We had definitely started learning about those in year 2 because I remember the teacher telling us to put a 66 at the beginning of speech and a 99 at the end. I don't think we ever really progressed past quotation marks, which made me pretty angry when a relief teacher corrected my work by putting a semicolon in place of a hyphen. I was angry not because I was being corrected (for once!) but because I had never been taught how to use a semicolon and therefore should not have been expected to know how. Semicolons, hyphens and commas, to me, come under the category "dodgy pieces of punctuation;" that is to say, their use seems to be a bit arbitrary.

Even the use of words seems a bit arbitrary. Thesaurus.com says that arbitrary can mean "whimsical, chance," with synonyms such as "erratic" and "optional," or it can mean "dictatorial" with synonyms such as "absolute" and "no ifs ands or buts."

Actually, on second thoughts, forget all I have said about schools needing to place a greater emphasis on spelling or grammar. The whole primary school framework needs to be reworked- and desperately, too. Here are some of my random comments on primary school.

Rules

Gosh, the rules. You might think that I am the "too cool for school" type when I say this, but I'm not. No, I was a conformist, I am ashamed to say. Here is a snapshot of some of the rules my primary school had.

1. No hat, no play. This was an okay rule and would have stayed okay if it hadn't been reworked during my later years in primary school so that the hatless students had to go and sit outside the staff room during break times. (This rule was waived on school photo days, due to student resistance and staff understanding.)
2. Library day is only one day a week and year 3s (or was it 4s?) and younger have a borrowing limit of only one book (maximum is 4 books in year 7). Outside of that time you can't borrow books. In year 3, however, I had heard that someone else had gotten permission to borrow books outside of that time and so I requested that permission too. It was granted to me for a little while, until eventually the librarian questioned me and asked if my teacher (?!) had said it was okay. I replied in the affirmative. Now I'm not quite sure what possessed me to lie, but I think it may have been fear of my teacher as she was very loud and I hated loud noises and plus she had the habit of picking on me for some reason. I think I hoped that the matter would just be dropped and I wouldn't have to confront my teacher and ask her for permission. Alas, it was not- the librarian went and checked with my teacher. I was sent to the deputy principal's office (the deputy principal was far scarier than the principal). The deputy principal then asked me to write an apology letter to my teacher for lying to her.
3. Restricted borrowing areas depending on age levels in the library. There were some "Year 7 only" books. There weren't a great number of them, but I still wonder why they were there in the first place. The worst offender was perhaps the little white trolley thing that pre-primaries and year 1s had to borrow from. Later on in year 1 (I think), the teacher would pick some students each week to gain the privilege of borrowing from the shelves like the big kids (not a one-off privilege, a permanent one). Every week she would pick some more students. I don't remember ever being picked and I always wondered why, because I was far past reading picture books at that time.
4. 10 minutes eating time! 40 minutes (later shortened to 30 minutes) playing time! An okay-ish rule in junior primary because I understand that a lot of little kids would just want to go and play. However, this alienated the slow eaters, even more so when the teachers had the bright idea of making all of the year 4-7s sit outside the undercover area to eat lunch. I assume that this was because they only needed one teacher to supervise the lot of us rather than different teachers to supervise individual eating areas. Outside the undercover area were the four-square courts, so when the bell rang for playing time, the junior primary would come and play four-square in your food. You might say that it wasn't necessary for everyone to simply run off when the bell went, but in a way it was- after being forced to fit into a given mould for long enough, any kind of freedom was good. The only good thing I can say about this rule is that lunchtime was longer in primary school than it is in my high school.
5. When you have finished your work, do not say anything, just quietly go on with unfinished work. This rule wasn't applicable in every classroom, but it was in my year 4 one. It alienates those who finish everything quickly.
6. You can only take one book for silent reading. This rule was applicable in my year 3 classroom for the second semester (I think). This alienates and bores the fast readers who can finish several books in the allotted time for silent reading. (I used to be in that category but then in year 7, I tried to feel less alienated by not reading and now I read quickly no more, no more.)
7. There was little margin for time to arrive at school. The earliest you were really allowed to arrive was 8.25am (earlier arrivals could sit outside the staff room, but you could sort of tell that this practice was discouraged). The latest was 8.40am, when school started. In my high school, it's normal for people to arrive 20-30min before school starts.
8. When you arrived at school you had to go straight to your class (or at least the area outside of it). This alienates those who feel better on their own. I recall one time, in year 6 I believe, I went to the eating area outside of class as the classroom wasn't opened and for some reason I felt overwhelmed by the amount of people there. I went and sought solitude beneath "The Three Trees" on our school oval. This wasn't the first time- I had done this most days for a week or so, until a teacher told me to stop because apparently I could get kidnapped by aliens flying UFOs.
9. THE TOILET RULE. No, seriously, this was the worst rule out of all of the rules in primary school. Once, in year 6, I asked for permission to go to the toilet. The teacher replied in the affirmative but told me that I "owed him time after school." Thankfully, he forgot, and despite being a conformist, I did not remind him. I thought this was a one-off incident. Unfortunately, I was wrong. He eventually introduced a "toilet list" on the board. If you went to the toilet during class, your name was added to the list. If you went multiple times, dots were added after your name. This list made me feel anxious and, consequently, I went to the toilet even more. My name was, almost without fail, on that list, sometimes with a dot or two after my name. I believe this has done me some damage because apparently I didn't even talk about this to my parents. According to my mum, all I said was that my teacher "didn't like me going to the toilet during class." Also according to my mum, there's a serious problem when a kid can't talk to her parents about stuff like this (in fact, I'm having trouble writing this now, because I'm worried that everyone will laugh at me because I already talk about toilets too much *cough*aeroplanetoilets*cough*). Perhaps the problem was that I bowed to authority too readily and took a teacher's words as law that you shouldn't speak up against. Thinking of this incident makes me extremely angry that I was a conformist.

Education (i.e. what school is meant to give you)

I'll break this section up into subjects or bits of subjects (English is a pretty broad subject, so that one will be broken up).

English- Spelling and Grammar

Everything I learned in spelling was by myself. I don't know all of the spelling rules to this day because I spell stuff "instinctively"- that is to say, I don't think about the spelling because I've written or read the word enough times before and also I have a tendency to think in the written word. Where I don't know a word, I spell using a combination of related words that I know and trends in other words that I know. In year 7, we had to write down as many words with the "ee" sound as we could think of. It was only when our work was marked that I remembered that in year 1 or 2 or whatever they had said that e consonant e makes the "ee" sound. There was another time in year 5 when we had to sort words according to spelling rules and I felt alienated because again, I'm primarily a visual speller who writes enough to spell most words accurately without thinking about how I'm spelling them. I told the prac teacher that I didn't learn how to spell phonetically and with her air of superiority, she asked me how I learned how to spell. I couldn't answer that question because I could spell prior to entering primary school and therefore couldn't remember.

English- Comprehension

I've always sucked at reading comprehension. Even in year 3 I was fully aware of the fact- on a self-evaluation sheet, I had written "I need to work harder at comprehension." Yet nobody was there to help me.

In Year 7 I remember on one reading comprehension sheet I picked "sympathetic" (the right answer) but then my eye fell upon the word "indifferent." I didn't know what "indifferent" meant then, but it looked good, so I decided to pick that one instead. Upon learning that "sympathetic" was the right answer, I became extremely unhappy and was bracing myself for the torments from my classmates, which never came and weren't ever going to come, but ever since year 3 I was in the habit of continually expecting them. This is the thread by which I survived primary school.

Aside from that, perhaps my problem was that I have a warped view of life and a warped view of certain word usage. In my early years of primary school I had a tendency to use the word "reason" out of context a lot (well, according to some random samples I've found lying around the house such as "Are we on the reason?"). I also knew the word "phobia" and what a phobia was because I had one of loud noises, but I didn't link those two together. Today I am, like, in, like the like habit of liking to use the, like, word "like" out of, like, context, like, a lot.

Another killing question was in year 5. The teacher had written the questions up on the board from a previous standardised test without the multiple choice answers. One of the questions was, "How has the author described [character]?" My answer was, "The author has described [character] through what the other characters have said about them." Apparently, that was incorrect and all I should have written was "The author has described [character] as weird." What gets me is that my answer was correct- the question was badly worded and so I suffered for it. It is true that in a high school level answer I would have written answers to both interpretations of the question, as in, "The author has described [character] as being weird through the usage of dialogue between the other characters in the text," but I think that in a primary school, if having one half of the answer is considered to be 100% correct, the other half of the answer should also be given some credit, not simply turned down with a shake of the head as my year 5 teacher did.

Speaking of standardised tests, I tend not to do so well in standardised comprehension tests which are multiple choice or short answer. However, I can write essays, which are "extremely long answer" questions. (I'll write more on essays- and other forms of writing- later.) Perhaps it is because standardised tests can have badly worded questions, as shown above. One question I encountered on my test was about a guy called Jacob and one of the questions asked me what distinguished Jacob from the other characters. Was it the way he saw, the way he talked, the way he walked or the way he felt? The text didn't mention anything about the latter three, as far as I can remember anyway. As for the way he saw! The text gave no hint that he may physically see anything differently from the other characters. It was more about his way of thinking. I was tempted to scribble in "E- The way he thinks" and shade in that bubble. In the end I decided to read the first option using the metaphorical meaning for the word "see" and shade in that answer. There was also another question which appeared to have more than one answer and they seemed equally good.

Anyway, I'm going off the topic here. My ramblings about these tests can be saved for another day. On second thoughts, they can be saved for all of the politicians in the world.

English- Writing

In year 7 the year 6s and 7s were set a task- to write a 10-paragraph (or however long it was) essay on how our choices influence our futures. We hadn't been taught how to write an essay. We hadn't really been given any pointers on how to write an essay. The bottom line is: if you're going to make your students write an essay, teach them how to write one first.

Each paragraph had to be at least 10 lines long. We each had our own individual ways of getting around this. I lengthened out all of my contractions and wrote long words in place of short ones (e.g. "gigantic" instead of "big" or "huge"). Also, because I use running writing, I could make a word take up a lot of space. Naturally, the tenth line of most of my paragraphs contained only one word. Some people opted to use headings for each of their paragraphs which transformed into an extra line. Bonus credit, however, goes to the aviation fanatic in my class who only wrote about five words on each line as if he was writing a poem!

Maths (or "mathematics" for you fancy ones)

I think I actually learned stuff in maths. The problems I had with maths were more with my own twisted frame of mind, not with how maths was taught. If I could change anything it would be to at least show the students how many types of maths there is out there besides the ones taught in primary school and algebra (e.g. trigonometry, linear equations) so that those ahead could go in pursuit of more knowledge- that is, if school culture didn't hold them back. Oh and to teach multiplication and division of fractions in primary school. I felt very behind when I went to high school because I hadn't been taught in primary school (we touched on multiplication once, but never division).

I was fortunate, though. At my friend's school, the year 7s had to do year 4 maths because a lot of people didn't know why you had to carry the 1 in subtraction.

Science

Let's do a competition to see how many drops of water we can put on a 5c coin!

No, seriously, that's what science was in years 3, 6 and 7 (perhaps year 4 as well). In year 6 they did a mould experiment but I was away on the day they started it.

In year 4 and 5 we did more varied experiments. Like sit outside and time how long it takes for ice and chocolate to melt. I'm being serious here, but I'm glad to say that wasn't the most exciting one we had to do. We had our fair share of balloon rockets (which I was fine with because the balloons didn't have to be blown up too big) and gliders (it was in this lesson where I made a stupid mistake because I was going to say one thing and out of my mouth came another, making me feel extremely dumb). Aside from the aviation ones, we had to build bridges and towers out of paper straws too.

Social Studies

This was never really taught as a separate subject in upper primary. Not that I can remember, anyway.

Technology and Enterprise

Let's see how much stuff we can make out of cardboard boxes and other recycled materials! Through T+E, I quickly learned the shortcomings of cardboard. I was never an artsy-project type of person, so I didn't like T+E that much, but it was bearable until the balloon car experiment.

When you're powering a model car with balloons, of course you're going to want to make it as big as possible so that your car has more air to power it. The bigger a balloon gets, the more likely it is that it will pop. The bigger a balloon is when it pops, the louder the noise it makes. I, a ligyrophobe, made all of these calculations at lightning-fast speed. T+E for the next week or so was agony. I was given solace on the day when all of the cars had to be tested in a competition. I got sent to a year 4/5 class where I had to explain to the deputy principal (who was taking that class) a bunch of kids two or three years younger than me that I had been sent to that classroom because of my fear of loud noises such as balloons popping.

This has been quite a long post and my computer slows down every time I inadvertently highlight something in it, but unfortunately I still have far more to say about primary school. If you are actually interested in this stuff, then stay tuned for part 2.

Lost in translation

So I went onto Google Translate and typed in random stuff (the translation languages were set to Chinese to English) just to listen to the English voice- though just now I've worked out that the Chinese voice is funnier when you type in something in English.

I don't know why, but that just made me laugh. What do "european titles" have to do with aeroplane toilets, anyway? I thought I was the master of linking random things with aeroplane toilets!

What do they teach the children in China?

I was looking at a Chinese textbook I own (due to the lack of English, I assume that it's for Chinese-speaking children to learn Chinese) and the text was:

雪
冬天到了，下起了大雪，满地白白的。
小猫打开门，一看就叫了起来：“下糖了！下糖了！”
小狗听见了，马上打开门，说：“不对，是下盐了！” 他们争了起来，都说自己是对的。
这时，小兔走过来说：“你们别争了，是糖还是盐，大家尝一尝就知道了。”　小猫和小狗尝了一点儿雪，说：“它不甜，它不咸，吃在嘴里凉凉的。”　小兔告诉他们：“这不是糖，也不是盐，它叫　‘雪’。”

There might be some wrong words in there because typing up Chinese gets pretty messy, especially since the words for "he," "she" and "it" all have the same pronunciation.

Very rough translation:

Snow
Winter has come and it is snowing, making the ground white.
Little Cat opened the door, and as soon as it saw, it called out, "Falling sugar! Falling sugar!"
Little Dog listened and immediately opened the door, saying, "Wrong, it's salt!" They argued, both saying that they were right.
Meanwhile, Little Rabbit walked over, saying, "Stop arguing over whether it is sugar or salt, if everyone tasted it they would know." Little Cat and Little Dog tasted a little snow, saying, "It's not sweet, nor is it salty, but eating it makes my mouth cold." Little Rabbit told them, "It's not sugar, nor is it salt- it's called 'snow.'"

Of course, it is perfectly sensible to eat some random substance. I have nothing against Little Rabbit suggesting it since Little Rabbit obviously knew what it was, but as for the other characters...?

Liebesträume

I'm learning a piano piece called Liebesträume, simply because it was one of the sample scores on Sibelius and I liked it. I haven't given a link to a Youtube video here because it's a very expressive piece and there are lots of interpretations of it.

However, it is a very hard piece to play. In the first section the melody alternates between the left and right hands and the harmony is a lot busier than the melody, making it hard to draw out the melody. Then there are some bits where the notes are written really tiny. The climax of the piece is dramatic and all, but it involves jumping around a lot.

It's taken me at least a week (roughly an hour a day?) to learn the piece and I'm not done yet. I've had to do bits at a time, sometimes only 3 bars. This is in stark contrast to simply bashing through the piece until it's good enough for my standards, which is what I usually do when I'm learning a piece.

Another reason why The Journey: Live Another Day won't get finished on time

I suck at 4-part vocal style writing. Majorly.

I'm okay at writing perfect and plagal cadences (a cadence is just two chords pretty much). The difficulty comes in writing choral music (and other cadences which I haven't learnt about).

I'm going to have to learn a truckload more before I can finish this song. Oh well, there's nothing stopping me from taking the finished parts on the plane with me in 78 days. The finished parts are well over 2 minutes long, combined. So far what I've done can be broken up into four parts:

1. Introduction- 54 bars long, or 1 min 38 seconds
2. Walking down the 737 aisle- 20 bars long, or 54 seconds
3. Carolyn and Lucy- 8 bars long, or 32 seconds (it's slower than the other two sections)
4. The Aeroplane Song- 3 bars long, or 11 seconds

That adds up to a total of 3 minutes and 15 seconds, if I added correctly.

Now for a little more info on what each of the sections are about- except for the introduction, because I don't really know what it's about either.

I've already done a post about "Walking down the 737 aisle." Obviously, it's about me walking down the aisle on the Boeing 737 on the way home.

The "Carolyn and Lucy" part is about a couple of flight attendants living in my imaginary world (both loosely based off real flight attendants). When I was nervous about my flight home, I imagined Carolyn and Lucy calming me down and I felt better. This section has a soprano solo (Carolyn) and an alto solo (Lucy), as does the next section, "The Aeroplane Song."

I've imagined that section of the song to go something like:

(Kayleuetski):
You sang to me to calm me down,
And your words were...
(Carolyn and Lucy):
Aeroplane, flying high,
Aeroplane, in the sky

I've also imagined another part of the "story." This part is a little weird since it involves a talking (or to be exact, singing) aeroplane toilet. I guess that bit will just have to be sung by a human, probably a male voice.

(Choir)
... and it said to you...
(Boeing 737 toilet)
I can take away your fear,
But you will have to flush me first...

Yes, I know, I imagine the weirdest of things.

All the same, that's what imagination's for.

Started a new blog

Today I started a new blog called "Xiniyan's Orb of Happiness" which is to hold our happy moments and anything else that makes us happy. It's at http://orbofxiniyan.blogspot.com/. If you wish to contribute, you can post a comment and I'll add it as a blog post or you can ask to become an author of the blog and I'll send you an invitation which you should hopefully receive via email.

The reason I created such a blog is because sometimes, when you're really down, you forget all the good parts of life and so the blog is to remind you of them.

My response to "You, My Friend, Have Just Crossed The Line."

I had to go the doctor's today over my ears feeling weird. While waiting, I wrote some random stuff which I guess could be a response to Beth's blog post "You, My Friend, Have Just Crossed The Line." Here it is. Be aware that I can be rather erratic when I write in my diary because I write stuff as it happens or as the thoughts come to me, not in one chunk at the end of the day. Anything in square brackets are comments which I've added while typing this up.

Why do I shudder at the word "injection?" Is it because I dislike pain or am I truly afraid?

I believe I got my fear of needles because it felt like everyone had decided that I was afraid. Now I am denying it because it feels like I'm being attention-seeking or dramatic by having too many fears and phobias.

In short- I think society is probably to blame, but I put the blame on myself. I put a lot of blame on myself. My "circle of control" is probably not that big but I often imagine it as being bigger.

In any case, I'm not even sure if I need to have a blood test/injection/whatever, so there is even less point to panicking at this moment.

Kuyarue. [This is Mimaiyan- my made up language- for "fear not."]

Damn it, why do I have to have all of the phobias and whatnot? If it's not my fault, then whose is it? If it's nobody's fault, then what, exactly, has given me countless fears?

Why are people so cruel to the fearful? We [when I say this I mean sufferers of anxiety disorders, including myself] have enough on our plates to deal with, so why do people add extra unwanted rubbish?

It is rarely the strong who Society subjects to such treatment. Instead it is the ones who need support who are beaten down.

Society has its mercy, however, which it shows to the physically ill. What about the mentally ill? According to normal people, our struggles are funny. [I'm generalising, of course.] OCD is made fun of and people with other anxiety disorders are "scaredy-cats." I for one am not feline in appearance. I doubt any of us have that many cat-like features.

I think Society shows its merciful side to the physically ill because it "wasn't their choice," as if the phobic choose to be phobic.

Society is a cruel place indeed. Especially to those who needs its kindness.

***

On second thoughts, perhaps Society doesn't even show mercy to the physically ill or disabled. The Hungry Jacks ad states that "you need two hands to understand." What about the one-handed or no-handed ones who walk among us? [Or what if you have two hands but one doesn't work?]

By the way- I did not end up getting an injection. I had to have the earwax in my ears syringed out but that's kind of different.

Beth, if you are reading this right now, I would also like to add that the name of the nurse who syringed out the earwax in my ears was Sarah.

Another excerpt

Another excerpt from The Journey: Live Another Day- this time from the beginning of the piece. This section isn't completed yet. I'm not entirely sure what, exactly, was this section meant to be about in the first place, though. Whatever, it's pretty. (In my opinion.) Do be aware that the music in this excerpt is pretty quiet, like the last one.

Instruments and Singers (in score order):

Flute (solo)
Harp
Soprano
Alto
Tenor
Bass
Violin I
Violin II
Viola
Cello
Double Bass

I think that perhaps I should change the string parts. At the moment they're almost entirely the same as the singers' parts.

Walking down the 737 aisle

Here is an excerpt from The Journey: Live Another Day. It's me walking down the aisle to the aeroplane toilet on the Boeing 737.

My cousin took that photo of the flush button some time back. (Funny how when I went on a plane four years ago I didn't notice that the toilet lid was closed in the picture. Now I know to close the lid- the hard way.)

The reason it's saved as a video is because there doesn't seem to be a way to upload just sound files on Blogspot, but then again I'm not really looking too hard. If I can find a way to suggest stuff to the people who make Blogspot then I'm going to suggest it as well as suggesting a "countdown" widget.

Making the video was unbelievably messy. For starters, Sibelius can either export files as midi or wav. Wav. files are supported by Windows Movie Maker (I think) but they take up loads of memory. I tried using a midi to mp3 converter on the Internet but the sound quality got worse, so I searched around and found that iTunes can convert wav files to mp3 files. It took me ages to figure out how.

Bleh. Anyway, enjoy.

Random thoughts on my old phobia

Society appears to have taught me that fear is something to be scorned. And so I have scorned fear, including that within myself. Not helpful.

My other random thought is that The Journey: Live Another Day probably won't be finished by Music Tour at the rate I'm working on it. I just don't have any kind of creative spark to write music at the moment and I procrastinate too much. Bleh.

Composing

(Warning: music nerd blog entry up ahead!)

I'm currently composing a piece about my old phobia and how I conquered it (well, most of it, anyway). The title isn't set. It's gone between Phobia, Phobia- Journey Another Day and now I'm considering changing it to The Journey: Live Another Day. I'd also written a few stanzas of a poem to help with musical ideas.

I scrapped the choral-centred intro that I had before and chucked in a harp and a flute to make it more instrumental-centred. The piece now starts with a flute solo, accompanied by the harp. Later on the string section (violin 1, violin 2, viola, cello, double bass) and the choir join in, while the flute drops out. Sopranos and violin 1s have the melody, as they usually do.

The melody is perhaps better suited towards the clarinet's range, but I wanted a flute to make for a more solemn tone. The intro is about how having a phobia has affected me and my desperation to conquer it. The first stanza of my aforementioned poem is:

Child, awaken-
you must go on
and to do so
your slumber must cease.

I have to eat now, but I'll get back to composing afterwards. I'm hoping to be able to listen to the completed piece on my flights to Europe, especially if my phobia tries to return to haunt me.

Invasion of the Zucchinis



That's what happens when my neighbour tries to grow zucchinis.

My neighbour has been growing vegetables lately, including zucchinis. Especially zucchinis. They're big "slombangers" as she calls them and they're invading her garden as we speak. So much so that they may even prevent her watermelons from growing in a quest for zucchini supremacy.

At least she'll have plenty to give away on Sneak Some Zucchini on your Neighbour's Porch Night.

Hang on. If she's one of my neighbours, I'm one of hers. That may be problematic.

I'd better make sure to run on August the 7th lest I drown in a sea of zucchinis on August the 8th.

A short and not-so-sweet random thought

Between Sydney and Canberra we stopped at a Shell service station to use the toilet. We met up with some kids from a school from Brisbane there.

They'd most likely be experiencing the flood right now as I type this.

The worst type of cliffhanger

I was watching Les Misérables (not the musical) today for the first time. It has one of those plots which is like two plots woven into one (if that makes any sense). Unfortunately, the movie showed the ending to only one of those plots, leaving us (my mum and I) wondering what happened to the other person. I'm going to see if I can get my hands on the book- hopefully that will shed some light on the ending!

Yes. I want to read a book.

Translating part 2

I'm going to continue working backwards with this translation project, so now that I've finished translating the last sentence, I'll translate the second last sentence.

生活在神秘美丽的马勒戈壁朝尼族自治区。
Google Translate says that this means "the mysterious beauty of living in Nepal of Mahler's ethnic autonomous regions towards the Gobi."

(?!)

Anyway...

I know all of the words in the first half of the sentence from either knowing them before or by translating them yesterday.

生活在神秘美丽的...
Lives in mysterious, beautiful...

Google Translate is good at translating individual words... most of the time. I was mucking around with the last few characters and no matter what I did I came up with random countries, including North Korea, Nigeria （尼日利亚） and Nepal （尼泊尔）and according to Wikipedia and the National Geographic website, llamas come from South America.

Apparently 戈壁 (Gēbì) is the Chinese name for the Gobi desert, which apparently is located sort of on the border between China and Mongolia. It's Asia's largest desert and the world's fifth largest. The things you learn trying to translate fake Chinese Yu-Gi-Oh cards!

If all of these Asian areas come up, then perhaps llamas have been introduced to Asia, so I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board here.

According to this person llamas can also be found in Asia (I'm assuming more likely to be Nepal than North Korea though, because Nepal is more mountainous and some other site said that llamas are found in "elevated regions in South America"). Wiki Answers probably isn't the best place for information, but it's good for now.

Just for kicks, I shoved the second half of the sentence through Google Translate again and it says "Nepal ethnic autonomous regions towards the Gobi Mahler." At first I wondered why it didn't say Ma Qin- every time I'd searched up 马勤 all I got was "Ma Qin." Then I realised that I'd got the character wrong due to the iPod's fuzziness and it's actually 马勒 (mǎlēi). This is the part that shoved "Mahler" into the translation.

But why Mahler? Mahler's a composer! I Googled "mahler" to make sure that there isn't a place or anything with the same name, but it seems that Mahler's just a composer. Another translation Google gave for 马勒 was "muller" which according to Google is also just a name.

I am very confused. So I'm going to take a break.

Translating

My friend gave me something to keep me busy- a Yu-Gi-Oh card (probably a fake fan-made one) in Chinese for me to translate! It can be found here- search up 草泥马 for a better chance of finding it.

Here is the text (mainly just copied and pasted from the website, not exactly what's on the card)

草泥马
神兽/兽族
百度十大神兽之首。生活在神秘美丽的马勒戈壁朝尼族自治区。拥有哀怨的眼神。

And here is Google Translate's translation:

"Baidu first ten animal living in the walls of the mysterious beauty of the horse toward the ground Nepal Autonomous Region. A sad look."

I used my dictionary a lot and even then it only helped a little because I'm lacking in knowledge in Chinese grammar (not that there is too much grammar in Chinese) and there were a few characters that I couldn't see because it was too blurry on her iPod touch (that's why I looked up the original source on the Internet as I was hoping that it would have some "commentary").

Here are the words that I looked up, for anyone interested in learning the Chinese language (it's actually a lot easier than it looks).

神秘 shénmì- mysterious, mystical
生活 shēnghuó- life, to live眼神 yǎnshén- expression in one's eyes
勤 qín- diligent
自治 zìzhì- autonomy; self-government
自治区 zìzhìqū- autonomous region
哀愁 āichóu- sad, sorrowful
哀怨  āiyuàn- sad, plaintive (btw, that means "sad, mournful")
拥有yǒngyǒu- possess, have, own
兽 shòu- beast, animal
神 shén- 1. god, deity; 2. supernatural, magical; 3. spirit, mind; 4. expression, look; 5. smart, clever
族 zú- 1. clan; 2. death penalty in ancient China; 3. race, nationality; 4. a class or group of tyings with common features
首 shǒu- 1. head (the body part that is- just to clarify that for those sick-minded people out there!); 2. first; 3. leader (there were also two other definitions in my Chinese-English dictionary, but I didn't copy them down because they were irrelevant)

This gave me enough to translate the last sentence.

拥有哀怨的眼神。
Yǒngyǒu āiyuàn de yǎnshén.
Possesses sad expression in eyes.
Note that the character 的 (de) is just a grammatical word. Often it indicates possession, like an apostrophe S in English. However, this character is also used after adjectives. It doesn't really mean anything on its own, but it makes the sentence flow better.

I also translated a few other words on the card.

The title of the card is 草泥马。At first I thought that this could not mean "llama" (even though the picture was a llama) as 骆驼 (luòtuo) means camel or llama. However, when I searched up 草泥马 on Google Images, all of the pictures were of llamas. Therefore, even though Google Translate says that 草泥马 means "mud horse," I'm going to stick with pictures from websites which are presumably made by native speakers of Chinese.

The text at the top of the flavour text box which indicates what type of monster it is says  [神兽/兽族]. The first two words (神兽- shénshòu) mean "beast" or "animal." The next two words (兽族- shòuzú) mean "orc" according to Google Translate, but it could probably just mean "monster" as well- my definition of "orc" does not fit in with my definition of "llama!" However, I looked up both 兽族 and "orc" and similar results were yielded, so that word is probably specifically for orcs only.

It's late now and I should probably get off the computer. Eventually I'll continue with this translation project.

Nerdism continued

I had to help my sister clean out her room yesterday so that she could move her computer from the back room to her room, because Mum's friend's coming and she needs somewhere to sleep. My sister gave me random stuff from her room, including her first year Economics book, some folders full of her Economics notes and a laminated sheet which has a whole bunch of diagrams and explanations. Whoopidoo.

And then my mum heard that the government is planning to make high school textbooks free, in a way- as in, you buy the books and then you get all of the money back in tax returns or something. So she wants to get me the second French textbook and workbook as well (my booklist asks for the 3rd one but I only have the 1st one), meaning that I'm going to end up with four extra French books instead of two.

Nerdism for the win!

Epic clarinet playing

In Wind Quintet, we're playing a piece called The Russian Bear. It has a horribly difficult (but fun) clarinet part. Today I found a sound file of The Russian Bear on the Internet and, upon hearing how fast it's meant to be played, simply burst out laughing!

The sound file can be found on this website.

Although my right wrist was hurting yesterday, I grabbed my clarinet and tried to play it at that speed. I could keep up only if I slurred the whole piece and even then only barely. (Near the end there's a high fast part- yes, that's the bit I have to play.)

At this rate, I won't be able to do anything with my right wrist at the end of the holidays.

98 days until music tour (I've found that I'd miscounted previously). Let's just hope that my old phobia doesn't come back. Come to think of it, every second flight I've been afraid of the toilets (obviously not counting the flights I went on when I was 1), so if this pattern continues, then I'll be scared on the 11 hour flight, the 2 hour flight and the 10hr 30min flight and fine on the 5 hour flight and the 7hr 30min flight. In short: not counting the 2 hour flight, I'll be scared on the long flights and fine on the short ones should the pattern continue. It would be far more beneficial the other way around. Damn, that's just the way the cookie crumbles, I guess.

Anyway, after playing The Russian Bear today, I'm pretty positive that my clarinet is louder than an aeroplane toilet. So I should be fine.

...

... I hope.

Nerdism

I have just realised that random strangers can tell that I'm such a nerd just by looking at the top shelf of my desk.

To show you what I mean, I'm not going to list everything on my top shelf, just the things that make me look like a nerd.

1. A mini-folder type thing which has my year 7 graduation photo and my Dux Award certificate
2. A folder containing all of my year 8 and 9 certificates
3. Science Aspects Book 4
4. Science Aspects Book 4 Homework Book (Wooldridges didn't have Book 4 on its own on the day I went)
5. 250 Essential Japanese Kanji Characters (a little useful, but not very, since I don't know a lot of Japanese words)
6. Heinemann History Links: Australia and the Twentieth Century World (why do I have this book in the first place?)
7. A visual diary from year 8 titled "The Little Prince and Other Texts"
8. Sudoku Puzzles volume 41
9. 牛津英汉汉英小词典 (Niújīn yīng-hàn hàn-yīng xiǎo cídiǎn- Oxford English-Chinese Chinese-English Mini Dictionary)
10. 新华字典 (Xīn huá zìdiǎn- New Chinese Dictionary. By the way, this one isn't a Chinese-English dictionary, it's a normal Chinese dictionary, so I can't read the definitions.)
11. 新漢英詞典 (Xīn hàn-yīng cídiǎn- New Chinese-English Dictionary- this one is in traditional Chinese)
12. Collins Easy Learning French Dictionary
13. 汉英词典 (Hàn yīng cídiǎn- Chinese-English Dictionary- this one is huge)
14. 365 Puzzle-a-Day Collection
15. A study guide from my sister's old school (?!)
16. School reports from last year
17. Subject selection booklets
18. Last year's school diary
19. A 64-page A4 exercise book with Japanese words and sentences in it (at some stage I was trying to teach myself Japanese)
20. Encore Tricolore 1: Grammar in Action
21. Encore Tricolore 1
22. 中文 2  (Zhōngwén 2)
23. 中文 3  (Zhōngwén 3)
24. 中文 4  (Zhōngwén 4)
25. 中文 5  (Zhōngwén 5)
26. 中文 6  (Zhōngwén 6)
27. 你好 (Nǐ hǎo) 1 Student Workbook
28. Hànyǔ 1 (this one is actually my mum's from when she was learning Chinese)
29. Unit 3A Mathematics
30. Unit 3B Mathematics
31. Mathematics 3AB (gosh, these are creative titles!)
32. Discrete Mathematics
33. Applicable Mathematics

Yes, that's right. I have four Chinese dictionaries, 7 Chinese textbooks, 5 maths textbooks, and some French, Japanese and Science textbooks to boot. Oh and let's not forget the French dictionary. And a history book which I've never even looked in.

I've just realised that I've forgotten something. My mathomat. And if Wooldridges had had this year's French books when I went, then I'd have two more French books sitting on my top shelf.

Hooray for nerdism.

因为我无聊的

这里一些汉语。

雨停了，但是天空还多云。

现在我听 The Final Countdown. 我们吹 The Final Countdown 在乐队。我听很多音乐。我也喜欢古典音乐。

哦，现在是午饭的时候。很快。现在再见！

First blog post... and why is it raining today?

So here I had planned what I was going to write for my first blog post ("I have nothing to write") and then it starts raining as if to say that I do have something to write!

Today is 31 degrees (Celsius) and humid, and a storm has been forecast.

That's like Singapore weather. Or like that freak storm.

It's been raining this morning, but the rain in those big grey clouds up there doesn't seem to be able to make up its mind when it comes to what time it's going to fall. It's been alternating between a heavy bucket of rain and stopping altogether. Thankfully it's the holidays so it's not like I have to walk anywhere in this weather.

It's a pity that I can't write all of that in Chinese. My tutor wants me to write some stuff in Chinese in a sort of diary (only 5 sentences a week) and so far I've had so little to write that on one week I wrote about Dragon Quest IX (a DS game) and on another week I made up some imaginary character with wings called 美菊 (Měijú- pretty chrysanthemum) and wrote a couple of sentences about her.

Maybe I should just write "It is raining" 5 times. That's 5 sentences. She didn't say that all of the sentences had to be different.

And that concludes my blog post, since I have nothing more to write. I wonder what I'll write on days when there isn't any rain when I can't even write very much when there is rain...