relaxing

Too hot here but travelling in this place is like going to a living museum. Every angle is a picture.

I've been a good girl so nothing happened after the warning the other day :)

I must be bad in writing?

Two weeks ago I took IELTS to satisfy the language requirement of a postgraduate degree program I've applied for.

The requirement is an overall of 7.5 out of 9.0 with a subscore of no less than 6.5.

I thought it'd be easy.

Just now I checked my results...

Listening 8.5
Reading 9.0
Writing 7.0 ...phew... barely "passed"
Speaking 9.0

I thought the writing was easy. At least much easier than CFA or any exam I have taken.

"More than enough", my husband said to me with a smile.

But I'm not happy. I don't know why I got only 7.0 for writing. I thought.I did well.

Then he said it takes a bit of luck to get a good score in an exam.

Hm... I dunno.

I think he was trying to make me FEEL better cos there's nothing wrong but I was trying to THINK about why my writing score was that low.

Sorry you've got married to a perfectionist :P

warning spanks

The trip is so far so good.

My husband said I've been a good girl, except that he's not happy I never used my German even in a party full of Germans in his hometown.

But I don't have enough words to express myself.

He said I should have said at least thank you in German. At least I should have tried.

True.

So he said I need one warning spanking and took me to a study.

Closed the door and all the windows, then the moment came.

5 hand spanks on my butt.

Not that painful but I'll definitely try to use the language.

Tschüss!

here we are...

Germany :) it's funny to look around with my 3-year-old German. I've just seen an ad. I know the word "jetzt" means now, but now what? I've no clue. At the restaurant my husband talked to the waiter. I heard "ein bisschen" (a little bit), but ein bisschen what? Well, keine ahnung (no idea).

It's funny I just follow him and look at this city from a different perspective.

going away :)

After completing all those exams and projects at work, my husband and I are going away for three weeks :)

I still don't know where our destination will be, but he said I can use my 3-year-old German there.

Germany? Switzerland? Belgium?

Can't wait.

born to be good at exams

It's actually quite fun to go to an English exam. This time it's IELTS, cos I need it for the admission to a postgraduate degree course.

My husband didn't give me any pressure, cos I only need an average of 7.5 out of 9 for the admission but my practice tests seemed to suggest that I can get 8.0 to 9.0.

So I just had some fun.

Most of candidates seem to be students. Some of them seem to know each other.

The one-to-one speaking test was especially fun.

Examiner: Do you work or study?
Me: I wish I were a student.

The examiner looked a bit surprised.

Then we had a conversation on a topic which I cannot disclose here. It was just like chatting.

The second part of the test was a 1-minute impromptu, which I love doing! The topic was not an easy one like "describe your hometown" or a festival, a concert, a book that you have read or anything like that, but it's related to an area which I explored quite a bit in the last summer. I can keep talking about it for 1 hour hehe. Please call me a lucky girl :)

My husband kidded and said if I can get straight 9 for IELTS I should think about starting some online tutorials to teach people how to pass the test... lol

Anyway I still think it's cool to be a native English speaker like my husband. There's something missing in my language no matter how well I do in English exams.

I guess you'd probably agree.

british school 18 years ago = german school 50 years ago???

YouTube has suggested a related video to me: School 50 years ago

I expected something totally different from my concept of school, but I am surprised. It has quite a lot in common with my boarding school experience in England almost 15 years ago!

We had uniform in probably the same materials (just a different design, and with a tie). We had to tie our hair (no need to braid). We had to wear knee high socks in winter. We were not allowed to wear accessories or make-up. We were not allowed to smoke... so many "have to" and "not allowed"...

Then there was this headmistress' monthly room inspection in my first year in secondary school... And students being punished to do some chores in school (I was sent to the laundry department with my friend to help the staff fold the ironed school uniform for 1 hour after school every day for one week)...

It just brings me back to my old times. I didn't realize school was that tough.

Of course school lunch was different, and teachers were more encouraging than in these clips. But still, the male teacher was a bit like the discipline mistress in my school when we did something bad.

Well, I only understand about 10% of the German in the clip, but it's quite easy to follow what they were doing, probably because English school education (at least my school) was quite similar to that.

um... actually the teens seemed to be more active and spontaneous when they were filmed in a normal situation. They looked quite anxious in that school, but I guess the producer wanted to make the contrast more dramatic and that's why they called it "die Harte Schule"?

I think the programme is quite interesting even if you don't quite understand German like me. If you do, then maybe you'll like it a lot.