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.

Privjet Anastasia~

I was merely curious about the Romanov mystery, I did do some research but I thought it would be even more fun if I watched a movie that actually referred to the story itself.

da da da da dam~ #faildrumsounds

Anastasia~

Although it's a bit... inaccurate. But meh.

So I downloaded Anastasia (1997), I did find several inaccurate points in the movie but I can really understand it since, after all, the real event was quiet bloody and brutal. Plus this movie supposedly meant for kids and... brutality does not belong to children movies at all.

I bought a matryoshka doll once from some souvenir shop in the airport (no I haven't been to Russia), then my mama suddenly referred that matryoshka doll to the story of the 'missing' Princess Anastasia. 

My mama suddenly told me stories like: "That matryoshka doll is the only thing that kept Anastasia's memories of the royal family." I have no idea why mum kept telling about this matryoshka doll story  and its connection with Anastasia (I guess she believes with the rumor about Anastasia surviving, I don't really know though) but what I know is that Anastasia along with the rest of her family died about 90 years ago, all of them were shot to death and buried deep in Yekaterinburg. But I heard that the Romanovs' skeletons were later found and they are now buried in St. Petersburg. 

It's a movie that brings back my childhood but at the same time trying its best to keep my love for history, and it's just amazing. How my childhood was mainly filled with movies about the good vs the bad, and I think Anastasia seems to have done a pretty good job in bringing my childhood days back to me again, plus I shivered throughout the whole movie.

I don't know, I guess recalling for the fact that in reality, I must say the story of the bloody murder of the Romanovs is pretty... mysterious in some way. Since after the news about the murder there are rumors spreading too, especially about how their youngest daughter, Anastasia, managed to survive

Somehow with Anastasia, it's no longer about the story of bloody murder of an imperial family anymore. It's already about something else, in a whole new level of storytelling. I felt that the movie is so magical, I even forget about the whole murder thing.

The songs are incredibly amazing too, my most favourites are of course, Once Upon a December and Journey to the Past. 

Then I discovered that some people actually have Anastasia's music box and when you open it, it started to play Once Upon a December. Ugh how I want it oh so badly now.

I also knew Rasputin from this movie, at first I didn't really get who his name was and I even thought the protagonists were calling him "Lenin" since he's the principle figure in the Russian Revolution and all. So I think it's pretty much normal if he's the villain in the movie, but then I did  some browsing in the internet about it and I was wrong ahaha..

 I think his character here in the movie isn't so scary (of course it's because it's a cartoon) as his counterpart... physically (I literally shivered just by seeing the real Rasputin image, somehow) Rasputin was said to be one of the many people that caused the fall of the imperial family, but his relationship with the imperial family in reality was entirely the opposite from his character in this movie. In fact, I heard that he was actually rather close with the children, especially Alexei. When it comes to his death, Rasputin was said to be quiet hard to be killed, and I guess that's why they pictured Rasputin as some living corpse whose anatomies constantly got separated everywhere. Eh.

But I still don't get how Lenin doesn't make any appearance in the movie.

As usual, gifs and pictures belong to their rightful owners.

до свидания (Do Svidaniya) ~

Dadah

-Nibras Sakkir