Hokay, so here’s the Earth!
Just kiddin’, I’m not going there…
If you’ve been coming and going by my LJ today and yesterday (which I doubt, seeing as I’m sure you people have lives) you may have noticed it was trying on about sixteen thousand different layouts.
I finally decided, so far! on this one.
*Sighs*
I wish I could customize it but I can’t unless I get a paid account. Damn you, LJ! Damn you to HELL!!!
I did my TOEFL iBT exam yesterday. That’s “Test of English as a Foriegn Language — Internet Based Test” for those of you who don’t know. (Yes, although I have been educated in no other language besides English, I had to take this test in order to get into Qatar University. This also despite the fact I have taken the SAT and have very high scores in the English portions. They don’t count it. God knows why.)
The TOEFL iBT is different than the paper-based or computer-based test. It’s got a speaking section, for one thing, and it’s been tweaked up a bit. Basically, this test was not easy. I mean, it’s supposed to be for people who don’t speak English natively, right? So it should have some degree of basic simplicity, or else people would have a really hard time with it. But right off the bat, on the reading section, the first passage is this rambling piece on ecology. Numbers and scientific terms were all jumbled together, so that I had to re-read the piece several times to make any sense out of it. And this is coming from a self-proclaimed English freak, whose childhood was pretty much comprised of me with my nose behind a book.
To be honest, doing the TOEFL was relatively easy for the most part…but it required quite a bit of thinking and effort, more than one would expect to do with a test like this and with language skills like mine. Irony of ironies, I swear the SAT was easier than this! No joke!
The speaking section of the test made me feel pretty self-conscious. It was comprised of me having to listen to a conversation and then verbally answer a question about it into a mic on the headset I’d be wearing. There was also a part where I’d have to read a small paragraph, and then listen to a lecture/conversation about the same topic, and then verbally answer a question combining the information from both sources. I’d have 15-20 seconds to plan out my answer, and 60 seconds to say it. Needless to say, I do not speak well under pressure. (Mind you, I can be very articulate but not when I have 60 seconds to talk to nobody in particular.) Quite frankly, I was so weirded out that I was pretty much talking to my chest. (See, not everyone in the room begins speaking at the same time, so some would still be working on other sections of the exam while others are speaking. It felt…odd, to say the least.)
In any case, I did the best I could and I’m sure I did really well. All in all, though, it was pretty fun! I liked the organization of it and the way they timed it. I just think that the difficulty factor was a little high for a test that’s not for native English speakers.
I didn’t know whether to make this a long entry or a short one.
I’m gonna stick with short because I really don’t have much to say at the moment. Just one thing:
Seeing as I’m updating my iPod with more songs…I realized that I’d deeply appreciate it if anyone out there would just throw song titles at me to download. Songs that you may like that you’d think I just might enjoy. I’d appreciate that, merci.
*Yawns*
‘Til next time…
Honeybunch, your deadline is up. I told you very clearly that if you did not update your LJ by the 28th of February, I would steal your socks. It is now the second of March and you have still not updated.
I regret to inform you that your socks are now my property.
The physical distance between us was, unfortunately, not taken into account at the time of my ultimatum, so I cannot literally take your socks away from you. However, if I do find out that you have been wearing socks without asking my permission after this date, you will be sorry. Very, very sorry. Not even that Cujo incarnate you’ve got running around in that house of yours would be able to save you. Have I made myself clear?
Hurrrrrumph.
Sincerely,
Jubne.
PS: You still owe me three songs. And an e-mail.
PPS: You’re a horrid excuse for a friend. *Cries*
It was Madi’s seventeenth birthday yesterday! Wow…really—-wow. Honestly, it seems like only five minutes ago we were celebrating her fifteenth. It’s terrifying and, simultaneously, fascinating, how time just zooms by…*shudders*
She went out with her friends to City Center (a big shopping center with a cineplex and ice skating rink) in the afternoon, and she had a lot of fun. That’s especially good because her birthday fell on a hectic exam period in school this year. (Which sucks rotten eggs. My own birthday, May 31st, often falls on the start of finals season–especially in middle and high school. You could feel my shivers of ecstatic excitement. Ooooo…)
It was a pretty busy day. I’d woken up early to go to my driving lesson. Which didn’t go as well as the lesson the day before, seeing as how I couldn’t seem to keep myself from knocking cones and poles over. Good thing Mohamad was in a good mood, or he might have shot me. Maybe I should cease my habit of not having breakfast before going—-my brain must be trying to tell me it refuses to operate in a state of malnourishment. Who am I to deny my brain what it wants?
I also went to this nifty store with my mom to buy balloons and other decorations for the house to prep it up for when Madi got home from school. It’s like the Qatari equivalent of Dollarama…loads of really cool stuff for less than a riyal! (Okay, not THAT cheap…but almost!) I officially declare myself in love with this store. It’s the one place I don’t mind shopping in. I am a very, very, very reluctant shopper. I don’t like looking at or trying on clothes. I am a bit more tolerant of shoe shopping, and that’s only when I’m shopping for sneakers. I am a crazy lover of shopping for stationary…and right now…cool junk you can find in dollar stores. Ah, such is the life of me.
