How Animation Affected Me

Ever felt wanting to visit a particular destination because of some animation works?

I was merely addicted with Disney Pixar's Brave, and so I fell in love with Scotland immediately.

It all started when I was randomly surfing through tumblr and encountered a page explaining about Disney Pixar's upcoming movie several months ago. When I did some research about it, I finally found out that the movie will be set on Medieval Scotland. The main character in the movie is a girl with an insanely curly red hair called Merida. 

What's interesting about the protagonist is that SHE is playing as the main hero in the movie, replacing the oh-so famous prince charming in several fairytales. 

In summary, Merida is really bold and tomboy and always wanted to be free of her mother's control, a queen in her clan (Clan Dunbroch) and at the same time also being a diplomat for the Clan Dunbroch named Eleanor. Her father, Fergus, is the source of Merida's wittiness and quirkiness. He's the one who taught Merida to use bows and arrows -- which is something that is always being opposed by his wife, thinking that Merida should always be the 'stereotypical' princess.

And nananananana~ #shot okay, that's just about it for the Brave session. The movie is pretty much about relationship between a mother and daughter, and the rest, you have to find out for yourself hohoho...

Anyway, about Scotland, I was thinking aiming Edinburgh University for college.

Concerning my interest in biology, I guess Scotland would be the perfect place. Although I've never been there myself, I heard that the condition there is quiet different from England. Since it is also geographically in the northern Great Britain, so I think the weather would possibly be much colder than in England. 

I've talked about Scotland with several people and many of them mentioned several things about its spectacular landscapes.I like traditional things too, after went to some Highland games event in Jakarta last year, I saw men in kilts everywhere. It was awfully amusing for someone like me who never even saw men dressed in kilts that only reaching their knees along side with their high socks.

But I felt that Indonesia and Scotland could be identical too sometimes.

Yes, kilts and sarongs.

        

Scotland. Scotland is everywhere.

In summary, Brave has pretty much changed my life now. 

Dadah

How I advertise fencing...

ACTUAL FENCERS LOOKING FOR FENCING NOOBS

STOP RIGHT THERE

YES YOU

Just so you know, FENCING IS NOT ALL ABOUT MUSKETEERS AND CHIVALRIES.

And we certainly don’t fight with light sabers.

MPH Building 1, Monday & Wednesday

3.15 PM – finished

                

Or Go to Mr. Sugi (head coach) in PE Room, 
Building 1

We welcome everyone, students, teachers, whoever you are, whatever grade you are in. Publics are also accepted


***


I've always felt that fencing is just one of the many most invisible clubs in my entire school. Football here is too dominating. Therefore the idea of making a poster in order to advertise fencing popped up in my mind.

Sometimes I brought my foil to class and one of my friends asked me "where did you learn to fence?" and then I said that our school has a club for fencing. She was quite shocked about it and admitted that she never heard about fencing ever exist in our school. Hm.

And about publics being accepted in our club, I think it was my head coach's idea. Because when you fence, there's no such thing as barrier.

After all, the more the merrier.

Dadah

-Nibras Sakkir

SÌ. MOTHER OF FOIL

I am so thrilled today because I just found out that

Valentina Vezzali actually noticed meeeh!!!!!!!!

I know this is a bit exaggerating for some reasons, but I just can't help it. I mean. This. Is. Valentina Vezzali.

Mother of foil. Though several months ago she was beaten by Arianna Errigo in 2012 Olympic in London (I despised her for quiet a while, but meh, I must admit that girl is amazing indeed. Plus her screams are terrifying but... they are quiet effective for self-encouragement I suppose).

But she is still the greatest woman ever in the history of foil fencing. Regardless who beat her, I'm still very very very proud of her. To like a really insane degree.


From your Indonesian fan,

-Nibras

More about EF International Academy

These are just several videos I got in youtube for EF International Academy. I'm so glad that there are actually many students from Indonesia who are also helping to support the Indonesian students to come and experience life in every EF International Academy campuses, everywhere, whether it'd be New York, Oxford, or Torbay.

These are the official videos made by EF. To be honest, at first I was very very doubtful about my decision to study abroad, but when I watched these videos, there was this spark inside of my saying "what are you waiting for? This is a really good chance. Get out! Go get a taste of the world." 

These ones, if I'm not mistaken, were made by one of the many Indonesian students who are currently studying in New York and Torbay. 

This is a video they made in the New York campus, Tarrytown. I saw the girl at the beginning in one of the EF International Academy seminars. She was pretty nice and I think she really do have fun studying in New York.

Well congratulations, you made me even more excited now xD

I love that part where one of the students said "Come to EF! Come to EF!"

Another one was made by the Indonesian students in the Torbay campus, the admission people showed me this video once. From the video, I assume that Torbay itself is quiet a good city when it comes to studying there.

 Unlike London, which is the capital of the UK, it tend to be a bit noisy I guess (no really, I have this... particular issue when it comes to capital cities) and maybe the possibilities of me getting lost in the big city and traveling constantly instead of studying... would be big. I guess. Ahahaha...

If some of you wanted to know more about EF International Academy, this is the official website for EF International Academy:

www.ef.com/academy

That's it for now, I hope by reading this post some of you would like to join EF International Academy too. Get to experience live in another country and live in an international environment really makes you feel proud of your own country and heritage (personally, I will be really missing the Indonesian traditional cuisines, because this is 'not the Netherlands', I mean this is the UK. So... yeah.).

Especially since we are going to be in another country, we will get to experience how life is, when it's just 'us.' As in everything in our life is being managed by us, no parents, no family, just us. 

Then you're also going to take responsibility to be one of the many representatives of your country, because people would automatically judge your country by your own behaviours there.

Everyone will be different in their very own ways. I guarantee you will want more, more, and even more of it.

Dadah

-Nibras Sakkir

Author Diterima!! -- I Got Accepted!!

A few months ago I received an email from my mama, and it said this:


My reaction towards it:

So I got accepted in a school in the UK, in Devon to be exact, a county in the Southwest of England. It is one of the many programs held by EF (Education First), perhaps some of you may heard about this "EF" company who specializes in language training and other educational programs for children, teenagers, and adults, especially when it comes to facing international environments and providing us chances to be able to experience life in other countries.

I did some research about the city, other than being located in Devon, it also received another nickname as the "English Riviera."

Any guess?

In Devon

Started with "T"

English Riviera

T-t-t-


Ok. Enough. It's Torbay.

Torbay is actually the borough, the city I will go to is Torquay.

To make it easy for me to emphasis the difference between "Torquay" and "Torbay" is:

Torquay + bay = Torbay #slapped

Okay, back to the main topic now. In Indonesia, EF has a pretty great reputation being a company who is famous for its great English course and home stay program (my visit to Oxford last year was also managed by EF). My mama was invited in one of their many seminars, she suddenly spotted an EF International Academy stall and decided to take a look. That's the beginning of how I started to be keened on EF International Academy.

At first I was going to apply for Oxford, but then the admission people said that the age requirement for Oxford is rather high (If I'm not mistaken, the Oxford campus would only accept students age 16+ and I guess they don't have any program for International GCSE) and the only possible campus I can attend to in the UK is the one in Torbay, in Devon.

EF actually has three campuses, two in the UK (Oxford & Torbay) and another one is in New York, but I heard that they are going to open another campus in Vancouver, so I think that makes two campuses in North America.

I'm going to attend International GCSE program, I think it's some kind of a preparatory program before I attend the 'actual' high school (I don't know though, this is just based on my own interpretation about IGCSE since the program itself is very different from a regular Indonesian school program). Then after I finished my IGCSE program, I'm going to chose between two programs, which are IB (abbreviation for "International Baccalaureate") and A-level.

I'm aiming for A-level though, (again this is based on my very own interpretation) A-level is a program for schools in the UK that is only focusing on what you're aiming for college (as in 'what major you are going to take'). So the subjects you're going to take tend to be just a little than what you used to take (I heard that you could even just get about 4 subjects) but then you have to 'decrease' it as you reached another grade, then when you reach your final year you're going to face some dilemmatic problem for choosing between two subjects that you're going to take in college.

In Indonesia, 9th grade is still counted as middle school, until you managed to pass the national exam in the 9th grade (usually national exams occur in March, April, or May), then you will continue to high school. Same goes for high school, if you managed to pass the national exam in the 12th grade, then you're going to go to college. So in Indonesia we have three years each for middle school and high school.

But in the UK, I think they said something about 9th grade being equivalent to 10th grade.

Well... I guess I'll be taking that as 'accelerating' then.

I'll be leaving for the UK this year in early September. That's another thing about the schools in the UK and Indonesia. Here in Indonesia, we started another new academic year in July, while the UK is somewhere in the early September. Yes. We Indonesians get a rather...... little ration for the holidays. Apparently our government still believes "the more you come to school and have less holidays, the more you will get good marks on your report." Instead of "understanding the process is the fundamental principle, off with the grades. Who cares? It's not all about academics anyway."

I'm planning to take A-level program.

And I'm aiming for biology for my major in college.

I hate math though.

But then again, anthropology seems to be an interesting subject.

Oh the dilemma.


-Dadah

Nibras Sakkir


Note: And if some of you--who are also going to attend EF International Academy in Torbay--are reading this. I would say "Hello (this is a bit awkward somehow)" Hopefully we could meet and possibly become classmates in our school. Cheers :)




Pictures and gif don't belong to me.