Thursday 19 April 2012

Bienvenue

Bonjour, Salut

Since this is the first entry from French language, let's begin with something mouth-watering...



                      A big part of visiting France, either to study French or just for a holiday, is trying out all the amazing French food and sweets! Specialties such as Foie gras, Coq au vin and Bouillabaisse and sweets like Creme brule,Macarons and Mousse au Chocolate make people cross the world to visit this culinary nationFor me, the most typical French treat is French pastries, such as the pain au chocolat, bichon au citron or my favourite: the croissant!


                        Wherever you go in France, whether it’s to a bakery, supermarket or café, you will always find croissants on the menu, either as a snack or for breakfast. The croissant is made of a leavened, buttery puff pastry. The dough is brushed with butter between each layer and then rolled and folded many times, this technique is called laminating. The croissant is named after it’s crescent (croissant in French) shape.

                     The technique of making the croissant has been in use since the Middle Ages, but the modern croissant we are talking about now dates back to the 19th-century in Paris. The ancestor of the croissant is the Kipferl from Austria, which dates back to the 13th century. The first bakery that sold croissants in France was the Viennese Bakery (“Boulangerie Viennoise”) in Paris that opened in 1989 by an Austrian artillery officer, 
August Zang. This Austrian bakery quickly became popular and inspired French bakers first in Paris and then across the nation.



                       Today the croissant is an important part of many French family’s every day life. Generally they eat it for breakfast, with some jam and an espresso. The croissant is something you can find everywhere in France and usually people here buy them fresh, or frozen, since they are rather difficult to bake by yourself.

                         If you haven’t tried a croissant yet, come to France and try it in a French café together with the French people, the only right way to enjoy a croissant!



From: Miss Aimi Amirah bt Jaapa 

PMR Language Camp



                 A fort night ago our department held an amazing language camp for our beloved students of form 3 at Sempurna Resort in Kuantan. It was a wonderful 3 days event. From the look of the students’ face we can tell that they had a lot of fun attending the camp. 


Students reading the oath devotedly 



Dedicated teachers were busy preparing materials



Students showed their hidden talent in acting during Puisidra




Some of the students’ works were pasted on the wall for everyone to see



Aerobic with Mr. Ade Sukma was the students’ favourite slot



Miss Aimi Amirah and Miss Roselini were among the most cooperative as they faithfully spent their precious weekend to be there the whole time



Mr. Taufiq was excited as if he was the one receiving the reward ;p


                Showering these kids with knowledge and exposing them with the outside world is our ultimate intention of conducting this kind of activity. Hopefully this kind of program can be done again in the future with a lot more improvement. 

Sunday 15 April 2012

Steamboat Outing


Venue: East Coast Buffet Steamboat, Jalan Beserah Kuantan
Time: 8.00 – 10.00 pm
Date: 10th April 2012
Atmosphere: Happening (with our presence) :-)
Food rating: 4/5 stars


Wednesday 4 April 2012

I wonder why things didn’t go my way...


Written by: Norazita Abdullah 5University of Leeds, 2010

                 " I wonder why things didn't go my way..." I told the magic words to my father, then he raised his eyebrow. His dimmed eyes were much colder now. I thought of my Graduation Day from the high school, two weeks left from today. The day was in a complete sadness when the three of us gathered in the solemn room. It was a damn cold morning when the tiny drops of rain scattered to the window, sparkled like thousand diamonds. Mother was leaning on the bed, her lips moved slowly and her breath gone incoherently as she saw my glistened eyes with unshed tears.
                    "Please be strong, mom. I want you to be there, on the Graduation Day!" I whispered to her numb ears. One of her frozen hands was locked in my father's while another one filled the gaps between mine perfectly. My father took her extremely cold hand to his chest, warmed it with his heartbeats of love. My mother started to gasp for air but nothing had eventuated. Her eyes bulged and her mouth agaped while her chest started to growl loud pitch of the sound of the pain. She breathed her last breath and slowly, her eyelids became smaller until all I could see was tiny slid, hiding the light that was sparkling into her eyes. There was nothing we could do now. Time had telescoped. The death had knocked on our door.
                I leaned my head on her breasts and buried my face onto her chest as I heard a great cried from my father that echoed the entire solemn room. Copious tears streamed down my face and I started to wail. I sobbed until my entire body was vibrating with it. I was accelerating with numbness and I was vulnerable with the sudden loss. I kissed her good morning on her cold forehead and to the both sides of her sunken cheeks. Things would never be the same after this. It never would because little did I know that promises pivoted on nothing but lies. Little did I know that love was fragile. Little did I know that all the things left behind were nothing but cried. Little did I know...
                After the great loss, my father who was on the top of the most people who had the sense of humor ranking in my life had become like a wild animal. He was almost better than Tom Bergeron in the American Funniest Home Videos before but he had turned to be a person who rather stayed awake when the others were sailing to their dreamlands. Eye bags were drawn on the lower part of his eyes. All of the things that happened in my life after the death of our beloved significant figure in the house made my sorrows multiplied as the clear image of mother suddenly crossed my mind. Vodka bottles were rolling on the floor and the sharp smell of liquor was spreading through the air. My father never touched those things before. If I could stay strong, why he should be so breakable?
              That night, when my father was gone for his another bottle of beer to the nearby shop, I entered his bedroom, actually, my father and my beloved late mother's bedroom. I unlock and opened the closet. I took one of my mother's most favourite black 'kebaya' and crushed it smoothly on my face. I closed my eyes and I could smell her scent now. I closed my eyes again and tried to concentrate in the mother's fragrance that was still on the 'kebaya'. I felt like she was locking me in her warmed embrace now. I undressed and wore the black satin kebaya. I felt like she was much closer to me now. I heard the uneven steps on the floor and I hurriedly buttoned the kebaya like I had been caught poking around in somebody else lingerie drawers when my father appeared on the door. I shouted for him not to enter the room but he had opened the door.
                  "Daddy!!" I tried to protest but I froze on the floor as I saw he was quivering in anger and I could hear the growling sound was building in his chest. I was too shocked to remember how to move. He staggered towards me with those groggy steps. He threw the giant alcoholic drink bottle to the wall. The crushing glass spread on the floor nearby and the foaming water was splashing on my face like it had been sprayed from a hose. The night was darker than the other night and the clouds were too thick for the moon to shine through. I still could hear the incoherent growling sound from his chest. His eyes were wild and the shaking rolled through him until I saw he was vibrating. His shape blurred.
               I recoiled as he slapped my right check. I held it with my right hand. It was warmed and hurt. He had become more aggressive. As the pain shot through me, I burst into tempered. He pushed me to the bed and I kicked his stomach by using both of my legs strength. He dumped onto the cold floor. The groaning sound of pain came out of his bruises lips. Thin streamed of blood came out of his lips. He stared at me wildly and he seemed cannot remember that I was his daughter that he had promised my mom to take care of.
He stood on his feet and began to crush the things on my head. My forehead was bleeding when he acted like an animal. 
                 "Darling, you're back. Welcome home..." he whispered to my ear the pressed his bleeding lips to my cheek then down to my throat. He made the circuit two times before I grabbed his baseball bat beside the bed and with all of my strength, I knocked it on his head. He stopped doing the ridiculous thing to his own flesh and blood when the great streamed of blood flow through his forehead, down his face. He fell beside me on the bed.
               I started to hum my lullaby that he used to sing it to me when I was a baby, according to my mother. He stopped breathing. I remembered of my oncoming Graduation Day. Tears refused to wet my cheek and I did not know why. I circled my hands across his chest and buried my face there, listening to the beatless heart. I fell asleep.
Top of Form

THE HUNTER


 A hunter is brave,
Strong and bold,
He was not afraid of anything,
As I was told.

A hunter is heartless,
Along with his riffle,
His shot a long mile,
He can kill double.

A prey is hopeless,
And travels in groups,
Eventhough so,
They make pretty good soup.

A hunter is alone,
A silent killer,
And the prey should run,
If you don’t want to be dinner.

A hunter and a prey 
Should work together,
Even though opposites,
They need each other.


 From: Nureen faihanah, Wawa, Sara Mizuan, Adnin and Aqmal 
(2 University of Duke)

My Experience: A Trip to Petaling Jaya

The night before the trip, the members of the Drama Team gathered at the square for a briefing by Miss Rohaida and Miss Akmar. Miss Rohaida told us that we were all chosen to be on the team due to the fact that we are all crazy lunatics who couldn’t be quiet in class. Later on, she told us that we have to wake up as early as 3 am to get ready for the trip. I was like, what kind of sane human being would wake up at 3 in the morning?
                I did as I was told and went next door to wake up my other friends. We took a shower and I swear to God I would never ever take a bath at 3 am ever again. The water was icy cold that my blood froze. Okay, that’s me overreacting. On the bus, everyone was super excited. After a while it was all quiet and peaceful as all of us had fallen asleep even before we were out of Pekan.
                We arrived at the studio around 9 and the ushers were ready to guide us to our seats. The play that we were attending entitled “The Owl That Was Afraid of the Dark”. It was indeed a good play as the actors spoke in British accent, wore perky costume and has big grins on their faces. They greeted us like 6 year olds. We were exchanging looks among ourselves but when the curtain was raised, it was amazing. The flow of the show was seamless. We laughed our heads off at the funny parts, earning us looks from the rest of the audiences. We were even showered with water during a scene where rain poured. It was extremely fun!


                After the show, we went to the mall for lunch and did some shopping. I slept most of the time on our way back. We returned to a mountain of homework. Even though the entire team was dead tired, we were all so happy that we forgot about being tired. We hope that when we compete for the real thing, we will end up as champions.

Written by: Wan Hanees (2 University of Cambridge) 

Tuesday 3 April 2012

Awesomeness Overload!


Congratulations for those who have been chosen to be a part of MRSM Tun Abdul Razak’s Drama Team 2012! Recently, our team went to Petaling Jaya Live Art Studio to watch a theater entitled “The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark”. We went there by the college bus accompanied by our wonderful English teachers Miss Rohaida, Mr. Taufiq and Miss Aimi Amirah as early as 5 am and reached there at around 9.05 am.


When we walked in, all of us were taken aback! Apparently, we were the only secondary school children in that hall. It was very awkward as it was out of our expectation! We thought that it was going to be a big theatre hall and more actors but it turns out to be the opposite. However, we enjoyed the performance and had a lot fun.



The best part was when the actors changed their costume very fast! And not to forget when all the audiences got splashed by the water guns. It was a very funny moment. There was also this interesting part where Ploppy The Owl who was afraid of the dark threw its poops to the audience. Don’t worry, the poop was just a fluffy white ball. The actors were really great! They were extremely good and hyper. I wonder where they get that kind of energy from.



                After the show, we got the chance to interview the actors and the crew. They said that teamwork is really important in producing a good play! And you have to PRATICE, PRATICE, and PRATICE! Last but not least, there were also photography sessions at the end of the show. We took tons of pictures with the actors and actresses to bring home.


Written by: Hannann Syoffeeya - 2 Al-Azhar


Saturday 31 March 2012

SPM Answering Technique Seminar


Hello again everyone! Last Saturday we had a super special event for our Form 5 students. The event is a seminar on effective exam-answering techniques held at our college hall. This event was organized by the Language Department and all of our teachers were there except for Mr. Taufiq who had other commitments and Miss Abby who was on MC. That’s right, we all sacrificed our precious weekend to attend the event for the sake of our students so they better appreciate it!

The Handouts

Some of the girls were listening attentively


                The seminar started nice and early at 8.45 am and lasted for exactly two hours. Our invited speaker, Miss Farah Jasmine Hui Abdullah, is an English Teacher at SMK  Tengku Abdullah in Pekan. The seminar’s focus was more on answering writing papers and the literature sections. Overall, the seminar was more of a refresher course where students’ knowledge on simple, compound and complex sentences was reinforced. In addition, the speaker also provided several sample essays for the students’ future reference.


Sample Essay


Daniel from 5 Duke, gave his full attention during the seminar

                In hindsight, it was a successful program as students also received feedback from the speaker based on their questions and hopefully this will contribute towards a stronger foundation in the English language among our students.  Moving forward, the Language Department hopes to organize this type of event again in the future but hopefully with a longer duration to cover different aspects of the wonderful and fun language that is English. (^_^)

Hello Peeps!

       You are reading the first entry of this blog and more are to come. Just for your information, there are 14 teachers in our department, which consist of English Language teachers, Malay Language teachers and also our one and only French teacher followed by the head of our department Pn. Noor Arbaiyah bt Jalaluddin. 

       We have so much fun handling all kinds of activities with our amazing students throughout the year and now we are sharing it with the world. We appreciate those who have helped in making everything possible for us and may god bless all of you. 




"It is not what is poured into a student that counts but what is planted." 
-Linda Conway