The Busy Week has passed — Hurrah!

[Originally written on 22nd February 2009]

In a previous post (see for One Day Before the Scholarship Examination) I mentioned that I had a busy week ahead, from Sunday 15th February to Friday 20th of that month. Well, this has now passed, and I feel the time for giving details has come. Yes, it was busy! And simply, what a relief it was to come home on Friday from school to enjoy a three-day holiday....

On Sunday, a week before, I went to St. Louis school for my Scholarship Examination, hoping and praying that it would go all right. Our Class as well as Scholarship teacher also came, giving the "usual," i.e. words of encouragement. The first paper was at 10am, with most of us already there at 9:30. However there was a slight hitch — not enough students had come and the paper was postponed to 11am. This meant that all things were done an hour later instead of being on time. This also meant that at 1pm , we would be giving our Intelligence Test paper instead of being down for lunch. Well, my mother was going to come at that time, and she'd probably go away after seeing that no one was down. "Why couldn't they have informed us earlier?" I grumbled. But this was just the tip of the iceberg.

We just sat for an hour, and then went up for the Language paper. It was for one hour, but it was so easy that I finished it in 25 minutes! Apparently the paper went well for all of us, and the moods were good as we come down at noon to enjoy some snacks and play. We weren't that bored about the next paper (Sadaf Miss, who was the Scholarship teacher had informed us that the second paper would be Intelligence Test, and that was no big deal, so we just enjoyed ourselves.) Then we went up at 1 o'clock. The papers were delivered. I didn't bother even reading the instructions, and just started doing the first question. To my surprise, it was based on Maths. I quickly assured myself that some questions in Intelligence were based on Maths. I did the question, and turned to the next one. Again to my surprise, it was a Maths one. Just out of curiosity, I looked at the question paper's heading and got a terrible shock. On large capitals, it was printed: "MATHEMATICS."

As I said in my previous post, we didn't know much Maths and it was more of a surprise that Maths was the second paper than the surprise that most of the sums were word problems rather than of the objective type. "Gah!" I shouted inwardly. "If we had proper information, we would have studied far more in the Break!" I was very angry, and rightly so. Still, I kept on. To my horror, I found that the sums took a lot of time, more than two minutes at least. 50 questions in 1 hour meant we only had a minute!—to solve one question, and as I said before, most of the questions were word problems, trickier and trickier, making it impossible to solve a question in a minute. When I was at the 27th question, I just checked the time out of curiosity. It was 1:50!! Just ten minutes remained. "Now," I said to myself, "this is it. Guessing time." After this, I didn't bother to solve any questions, I just guessed. (Not my fault, there was so little time. Misers.) Worse still, our supervisor's watch was faulty — it gained five minutes. And she took the paper at 1:55pm, before realizing the fact that the bell which had just rang was just a "warning" bell. I was nearly seething with fury!! But there was nothing to be done. : -(

We came down and exchanged our news, and it was no big surprise to me that all of us had suffered. Even my worst rival had the same news. We discussed for a little while longer and then ate our lunch. I had nothing, but my friends generously gave me some snacks. Soon after, my brother arrived with lunch. I ate it hungrily and then we went up to give the Intelligence Test paper. It was no big deal as I said before, although some of the questions were hard. They did take some time to solve, especially the code ones, even though I flatter myself that I am the "Code Master." But as our stomachs were fed and the minds surprisingly calm, we all did the paper well and then came downstairs. We had been there for six hours! I could hardly walk!! Finally we reached home. Phew.

All this for just one day! However, it turned to be the biggest in the week. Thank God the first paper on Monday was easy — Social Studies! Clearly nothing to worry about. Then on Tuesday we had Marathi and Science; Wednesday English and Hindi; Thursday was a holiday (hurrah!); and Friday we had Maths and Drawing. I am pleased to say that they all went well. :D But seriously, how tired I was!! And simply, what relief to come home.....

Thankfully we had a three-day holiday, for Monday there was some Indian festival, Mahashivratri or something (not sure if the spelling's right.) So we are enjoying ourselves! Yes, yes, we do have some homework — nothing to worry about, though. All in all, it had been a HECTIC week! But then, hard work is always rewarding, and this has been proved in my case.

I'm enjoying myself! : -)

[Originally posted by Philip Mannering at 12:09pm on Sunday, February 22, 2009.]

One Day before the Scholarship Examination

I am typing this a day before the Scholarship Examination that I have to give, on Sunday. It spoils one of the only two holidays for me. And on top of that, there are further exams, the IV Unit Test — lasting from Monday to Friday! Yes, a really great week ahead. 

Study, study, study... and with "Complete your books," that's all the vocabulary the teachers seem to have these days. Our Scholarship teacher (also happening to be Class Teacher for us) says, "It's not my exam yet I’m worrying about y'all." And well, that's perfectly true. We haven't learned Mathematics (one of the three subjects; Language and Intelligence Test are the other two) fully yet. When I say "we," I mean it, for it's not only me, it's everyone else. It's not our fault. The books were given in December when they should have been given in July: we kept asking Miss about it but she said continually that the books weren't published yet, and we were thinking that there would be no scholarship exam for us, that are how the things were going. And then out of the blue we received the books in December and were asked (I should say "ordered") to complete three whole books in two months: you could have knocked me over with a feather!! Things didn't really get serious until late January, and it was too late then. Miss said "do most things at your own; I can explain only a few," — perfectly correct, but how can we do sums which we're never taught how to do??

Still, we did what we could. We completed the Language book—so easy it was, and what fun to do! Intelligence wasn't bad either; in the early days I loved it. But Maths. No, no. I always shudder at this type of Maths. How can I solve the sum when I don’t know how to? Miss did explain some sums, but oh, such a lot remained (and still remains). And when she did really get serious, it was too late as I said.

It's not all bad; the multiple-choice format means that I can guess right sometimes. That would be really good, if I'm lucky enough. There was some talk about negative marks — for goodness' sake, we can't have that! No, not at all. Totally unfair. I repeat: it's totally unfair. Bah!

Tomorrow there is the Scholarship exam. God knows how I'll do. But I do hope that.....

That....

That I get satisfactory marks, by the grace of God, and the great good luck.

The exam is St. Louis High School (oh no, it's a girl's school — sorry!), a nice school, my parents said, having seen it from the outside. We have to reach there by 9:30am: the first paper—Language; hurrah!—will start at 10 o’clock and last for an hour. Then from 11am to 12pm there is the first break. From 12 to 1 we have the second paper—Intelligence Test. Then another break of an hour. Then the last paper, from 2 to 3. We go home by 4 o’clock. Six hours!! *Gulp.*

And then there is the History Civics and Geography exam on Monday. Thank God it's an easy one—I don't know what I would be able to do if it had been Marathi and Science (which is the second paper.) Hope that goes all right!

A really busy week ahead. Ah, but these are just some of those days. They'll soon pass, I always say to myself, whenever they come. And they do, needless to say.

Scholarship Exam at St. Louis School, here I come!—relishing, as always, a good challenge, although, as always, grumbling outwardly. ; -)



[Originally posted by Philip Mannering on 9:16pm, 14th Feb 2009.]

Introduction of The Interests of Life

Yes, rather a poor name for a blog. But before I start rambling, I must start the introductions:

I am a teen boy (or going to be this year in August), living in Mumbai, Maharashtra in India. I am a book fanatic. I love books: they’re my only source of amusement. TV? Pooh! Books are the best friends a person could ever have (yes!). And that’s why I love reading and writing.

That's why I'm a great fan of Enid Blyton and similar children's literature authors, such as Richmal Crompton and E. Nesbit and Willard Price and Frances Hodgson Burnett... the list goes on! And that is why I joined the Enid Blyton Society forums (I'm known by the same username there) and am a keen visitor of the Enid Blyton Society site and enidblyton.net (often known as the 'sister site' of the former!). I love discussions. I also love the internet, though it's a bad master (but a good servant — I seem to be using this line much recently!); I enjoy browsing and surfing the literature websites.

As I said, I love reading and writing. I have read hundreds of books, although, as it must be remembered, there are practically thousands and thousands of books, and I haven't read even a quarter. I do enjoy most of them; but some of them are rather dull, but they are the same ones which other people like. Difference of opinion; ah, this is the spice in life. I also love writing, both creative and journalist-like. I have written a few stories: intend to write some more in the holidays. I also started a novel way back in August, but that’s rubbish of course, for a beginner. Maybe I'll continue it later on when I feel like it, but for the present, it must stay in development. As for journalist writing, I love writing reviews for the books I have read. It gives an extremely good feeling — analyzing the book, mentioning its good and bad points, style of writing... ah, wonderful.

My other hobbies including comparing similar things. I love differentiating and mentioning small details others wouldn't notice. This is my oldest hobby, as I was comparing two similar pencils at the age of five! Now, it has waned a bit, but I still find enjoyment in it.

To come back at the blog's poor name, I am afraid that I didn’t like any others well enough; they just didn’t suit the purpose of this. While this one... well, its my interest in life, isn't it? ; -)

This blog's purpose is just to update you, and even me, on what happened. You might even listen to how much time does it take to write a review, how much time does it take to read a book, and other equally idiotic stuff. And you might also listen to me grumbles at time, and listening why and all that stuff. Well, it might sound incredibly idiotic, but then, children always are idiotic.

*‘Philip Mannering’ wants to apologize in advance for the boredom he’s going to cause.*

[This post was originally posted by Philip Mannering on Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 12:22 PM.]