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Saturday, 20 April 2013

Cupcake pin cushion

Made a pin cushion which looks like a cupcake

My DIY bunny

I've sewn a bunny!

Digital Photography Purple flower

http://sweetcherryangel.deviantart.com/
One of my flower shots taken in Singapore Super Trees Garden.Feel free to check out more pictures I have taken on deviantart http://sweetcherryangel.deviantart.com/

Digital Photography Yellow flower


Yellow flower plucked from my garden and shot in the room with window light and macro lens. Had to put the word Cheryl's Creation so that people don't simply copy my work

3D Typography Design

Trying to improve on typography design

香蕉人的日记 Diary of a Banana 3rd Day



3rd Day
Dear Diary,

I now know how to write my Chinese name. It's kinda difficult and complicated to write. Why didn't 爷爷 give me an easier Chinese name to write? Well, I think I can never forget how to write my Chinese name because we are required to write our names on the top left hand side on the page for every exercise we copy down or any homework. Ah, yes... speaking of homework.. well, it's A LOT! I have like TONS! I have 4 pages of 笔顺(writing characters),2 pages of 生字(writing),3 pages of 数学(Maths),造句(making sentences), buku latihan bina ayat(making sentences in bahasa), and last but not least English. And oh yeah I forgot, 听写 that means spelling in Chinese. I wonder if I ever survived this school. I don't get Chinese language. They have same words, different pronunciations, different meanings which is called 多音多义字. They also have 形似字 which is almost the same words, but is actually different and has different meanings. And they have 同音字which is same words, different pronunciations, different meanings. This is only my 3rd day and I'm supposed to absorb all this information? Is mum trying to make life difficult for me? What in the world was she thinking sending me to a Chinese school 华小? I'll have to ask her. Well, at least English lesson was a breeze. We were learning pronouns like "us, we, he,she". Even a baby could do it. But I see some of my classmates struggling to understand it. I don't get it. They could master a difficult language like Chinese but a simple language like English they failed to grasp it.My classmates and I are total opposites.I feel more like an alien in school after the second day. Maybe I should ask Mum to transfer me to another school. The guy next to me, Brian makes things worse. He wanted to borrow my eraser so I kindly lend it to him. Instead of thanking me, he threw my eraser out of the window and laughed saying:"You fell for my trick". I got angry and kinda yelled at him. Well who wouldn't if they were me? To make matters worse, the teacher heard me yelling and walked towards our desks. I thought she was going to scold him. But instead, she yelled at me for raising my voice in class. Of course, at that moment I couldn't defend myself as I had no idea how to complain about Brian in Chinese. As teacher's fury rain upon me, I glared at Brian at the corner of my eye, and caught sight of him snickering. I'm not sure if I'll able to grasp Chinese by the end of school but there's one thing I positively definitely sure by then - Brian is going to pay.  

Friday, 19 April 2013

My own version of Hamtaro

I've sewn my own version of Hamtaro! No big beads for big eyes so had to use small ones still looks cute ^^

Thursday, 18 April 2013

Day 1 in a Chinese Primary School 在华小读的第一天 ( a story for my little brother)



Dear Diary,
I haven’t felt so lost in my life. No, I’m not talking about knowing meaning of life and things you experience when you’re going through midlife crisis. I’m not sure how that feels like yet. I’m only 7. Well, it’s the first day of my school today. Mum decided to send me to a Chinese primary school to study for 6 years. I think she made a really big mistake. I had no idea what my teachers and classmates were talking about. They were ranting in Mandarin which is an alien language to me. I haven’t heard people talking in Mandarin before. This is my very first time. I feel like I’m in another country except the environment is in Malaysia. I feel like an alien on earth, or rather a human in mars. You get what I mean, it feels weird.
And it can’t get any worse when teacher arrange for me to sit next to Brian. There’s only word to describe Brian and the word is “annoying”. Actually I think annoying is an understatement. Well luckily for Brian he understands Mandarin and doesn’t feel alien to this and unfortunate for me I have to depend on him to translate what teacher is saying. Let’s say he’s the most “helpful” translator and what I meant by helpful I’m saying it sarcastically. Sometimes, he refused to tell me what’s going on or what teacher is saying.
And the teacher is not helping either or that’s what I think according to Brian’s translation. She said: “In this class, you can’t speak English, Hokkien or Cantonese. Only Mandarin.” So how am I supposed to talk anyone and ask for help? I’m so doomed. What if she asks a question? Hopefully she won’t call my name cause I totally won’t know whether she’s asking a question or telling me to do something let alone answer a question. Actually how does my name sound like in Chinese again? Then how am I supposed to tell whether she’s calling my name or not? Maybe Brian would tell me. But seeing that she always has a big long stick or cane in her hand for beating students who didn’t pay attention in class, I think being quiet when being questioned doesn’t solve the problem. She might be thinking I was not paying attention in class and cane me. Oh no, what am I going to do? When the bell rang, I was so relieved that Brian told me school was over.
So I quickly packed my bag and walked to the school gate. I saw students still hanging out in school and I was the first to rush out of class but I didn’t care. It was all too overwhelming for me. So I sat at the bench near the school gate. Then I never felt so happy to see Mum. But Mum had a strange look on her face. The look when I did something wrong. Uh-oh, what did I do wrong? Then Mum finally asked: “why did you pack your bags? It’s recess. Not time to go home yet. I’m just here to give you some pocket money to buy food at the canteen”. Oh, no. It was going to be a long day at school.

Diary of a Banana 香蕉人的日记 a story for my little brother



Introduction
In this world, there are many different languages spoken in different countries. So learning many languages is a good thing because you can communicate better with more people, make more friends. But usually people have a preferred language which is their mother tongue, so Chinese language (华语) is the preferred language for most Chinese people. Notice that I said the word “most”, so there are exceptions that prefer other languages. Well, I’m one of them. And it’s quite obvious that my preferred language is English. So yeah, 我承认我是一个香蕉人 (I admit that I’m a banana). Now you’re probably wondering why call myself a banana. We usually refer Chinese people to yellow skinned people and Westerners to white skinned people and a banana is yellow on the outside, white on the inside. So then when I admit myself  a香蕉人(banana person), I’m saying that I’m not really a Chinese at heart although I’m really a Chinese. You might think it is wrong ‘because one should be comfortable speaking his or her 母语 (mother tongue). I too feel the same way. In fact, it’s quite embarrassing when I admit that there’s no doubt my English is 10 times better than my Chinese and when I speak Chinese my pronunciations is not accurate.  

And how did I become a 香蕉人(banana)? No, I’m not staying in USA or Australia or UK. In fact, I’m staying in Malaysia. My parents are both 华人(Chinese) but because they speak different dialects of Chinese, my mum speaks 广东话(Cantonese) and my dad speaks 福建话(Hokkien) so the only language they know in common is English. Therefore, we speak English at home. So I kind of partly blame my parents for making me a 香蕉人(banana), wishing they know a common Chinese dialect. ,(Sigh)But that’s the way it is. So this diary is about my struggles and fun times being in a 华小  (Chinese primary school).