Monday, 30 April 2012

Smoking Among Teenagers

     Often when we go out for a walk at the park, we see somebody smokes. When we go to the shopping complex or supermarket, people smoke. And sometimes, when we look carefully, we see not only the adults but also the teenagers.
     Teenagers issue is quite shocking but not surprising. When teenagers smoke, it sure will make their parents and others shock, but it is so common that people don't seem to take it seriously. They just blamed the teenager and labeled him or her as a bad teenager.
     People do things with reasons. Teenagers do things with reasons. And so when they are smoking. They smoke with reasons. The first one is to look mature. The teenagers, have not thinking clearly and deeply, think that when you smoke, you have become an adult. This is wrong because what makes you mature and look more dependable is the way you think and the way you decide, which is good and which is not. Then, they want to peer their pressure. Teenagers are students. Students are surely will be given homework and they have other things to do such as chores at home, co-curriculum activities and things that they think are quite hard to handle. So, they need something to reduce their stress. And without knowing or maybe they know but decided not to care about the effects, they take on smoking. The third reason is they want to try something new. Teenagers are full of curiosity. They like to try something that they have never done before. In this case, when someone offers them cigarettes, they just take it as they have never try it before, just watching other people smoke.
     The teenagers know about the effects of smoking, but they care less about it, or maybe they don't understand about it clearly. Smoking will cause physical effects to the smoker. First, there will be yellowish stain on their fingers and teeth. When they hold the cigarettes between their two fingers, the cigarettes dust will stick to their fingers and as for the teeth, the smoke inhaled will turn the teeth to yellowish colour. It is caused by the substances in the cigarette. Then, sooner or later, facial wrinkles will appear. For the teenagers, the facial wrinkles appear at an early stage, which means the wrinkles appear at young age.
     Smoking also will affect the health of the smoker and also the people near the smoker. When the smokers inhale the cigarette's smoke, it will effect the organs along the pathway to the lungs such as mouth and throat. Then, it can cause cancers such as mouth cancer, thyroid cancer and worst of all, lung cancer. The cigarette contains about 4000 harmful poison and substances such as nicotine and carbon monoxide. The substances in the cigarette and the smoke can increase the heart rate. These effects can happen to the people around smokers too. In fact, they face more danger than the smoker face himself or herself.  For example, if a male smoker has a pregnant wife, the baby may be aborted or will be physical effected when it is born. 
      Smoking is surely not good for health. Smoking is absolutely not an activity that will be encouraged to teenagers as they are the country’s future hope.

Friday, 27 April 2012

QWERTYUIOP

This is one of the short stories in Form 4 Literature Component. My class was asked to post the synopsis in our blog.
-Lucy Beck was a young girl who had graduated from Belmont Secretarial College. While her other friends had   pass with many 'O' levels, she got only one. Her typing was very slow and she was not confident in getting a job. So, when she was offered a job as a secretary at Ross and Bannister's, she was quite shocked and excited.
     On the first day of work, she came to her office early and was given some strange advises from Harry Darke, the office's worker. While she was doing her work with the typewriter, she felt something strange happened to the typewriter. When she looked at the paper, she saw the letters 'QWERTYUIOP' were repeated over and over. She ignored it at first but then, threat-like words appeared on it. She was scared as the words were like they were written by some angry person. She braced herself up and wrote a reply with the typewriter. She found out that there was a spirit in the typewriter named Miss Broome. Miss Broome was once a secretary at the office but she was fired after forty-three years of work due to her health problem. Miss Broome was loved her job so much she didn't want anyone to replace her even after she was dead.
     Lucy asked Harry Darke about Miss Broome and he answered all she needed to know. Lucy wanted to keep her job so badly as she was fed up of being poor. When she used the typewriter, she typed 'QWERTYUIOP' many times so Miss Broome would 'talk' to her. She persuaded Miss Broome to leave the typewriter and rest in peace. Lucy wrote that Mr. Bannister missed Miss Broome so much and he didn't want her to leave but her health worried him. Finally, Miss Broome left the typewriter and Lucy managed to keep her job.  
     

Wednesday, 11 April 2012

Debate!

For the first time in my life, I entered the school's debate competition. Clueless and without knowing what was I supposed to do, I just talk and talk and yeah, I have to admit it, it was so bad.
THE HOUSE WOULD BAN SMOKING IN PUBLIC PLACES
That's the motion of my first round of debate. And can you believe that my team was the opposition and we were supposed to oppose the motion! How can I oppose something that I support it myself? I've never debate before and our opponent, the Skyhawk team, is really good. I mean, they have debate before and they even went to the final round last year. So, we are stuck and we were smashed into pieces and finally, we lost. Not surprising.
Then, there was the second round.
THE HOUSE BELIEVE THAT SHOPPING IS A SPORT
And for the second round, we acted as the government. We are lucky, though, because our opponent was just like us. I mean, I think they have never debate before and no offense, but, they were worse than us in our first time. And as I expected, we won.
Minutes later, we debated for the third time.
THE HOUSE WOULD PAY FOR POLIGAMY
My team is the government, and we don't really understand this motion. And our opponent was really good, and they were so rich in confidence and they were so fluent when they were talking. We just made do with what we have and I expected that we will lose. But, WOW, we won! So surprising.
We then rest for the night and went to the fourth round on the next day.
THE HOUSE BELIEVE THAT BARBIE DOLL IS AN INSULT TOWARDS WOMAN
I thought we had toughen up our skill, and I was really confident in debating. We were the opposition team and we had lots of idea and I think, we would do better in this round. I admitted that the government team was quite good but still, I could sense many of their mistakes. They stressed the bad effects of Barbie Doll for just muslim women. That was the biggest mistake and even the judge thought so.
The fourth round ended and next, was the quarter final. We didn't know who won for the fourth round, and we didn't think that we want to continue with this thing.
THE HOUSE BELIEVE THAT THE WORLD NEED A SUPERHERO
Wow! We won the fourth round. And, as we had three wins and one lost, and we were at the fourth in the ranking, we were qualified to the quarter final. Guess what? We were the government, and our opposition team, was the Skyhawk. For the second time, we felt so worried and yeah, I thought that we would lose. But we had toughened ourselves and we fought them with enthusiasm. The quarter final was really interesting, but I did bad for my reply speech.
We waited for the result and as I expected, the opposition team won the round. So, that was the end of our team but I was really having fun in debating. I hope next year I will get the chance to enter the school debate competition again. Hmm... I think my story has gotten too long. Haha. I think that's all I want to share. Okay, so, goodbye.   

Sunday, 25 March 2012

D'Mesah

Today my family and I attended our cousin's wedding ceremony. The ceremony was quite fun, as I didn't see my cousins for quite a long time. Anyway, the ceremony was held in Gopeng, Perak, at my uncle's shrimp fishing pond (kolam memancing udang d'mesah). Here, I slipped some pictures of that place:




I don't have any pictures of that ceremony. But what I can tell you is that the ceremony was quite a gala. I met my cousins, but still I was bored. Many of my cousins either too old to join with or too young to play with. So, in the end, I spent most of my time babysit my cousins' children. But, the babies didn't really like me (sob). Whatever.
I love to be here. The atmosphere here is quite refreshing. There are so many trees, in fact it was next to the hill (I don't know what its name). There is a small stream and the area is so huge. I remember going there on the 2010's Eid (or is it 2009?). At first, we just wanted to visit our uncle and aunt but at last, we stayed there until the evening. We even hiked up the hill. It was just the best Eid ever, I thought so.
Okay, back to our topic. Most of my cousins stayed here for the night. For my family, at 11 o'clock, we said our goodbye and headed to my mother's sister's house in Ipoh. Ah, so good I get to surf the Internet. Okay, so that's all for now. Next time I will post another stuff. Goodbye.

Friday, 23 March 2012

The Busy Week

I was exhausted, tired and I think I will knock out (ha!).
     This week I've been running many errands: QM, PRS and other things that I can't remember. Such a busy week for me, I think it's the busiest I've ever experienced (sigh). With the water supply at school ran out, I have to go home for this weekend. And for this weekend, I think I will spend less than a day at home. My family has a wedding ceremony to attend this weekend. And we really must attend it because it is our cousin's (my father's sister's son) ceremony. I don't even know if I will get the chance to use the Internet. So, now I was rushing to get this done and right now I am typing furiously, the words are flowing like the pouring rain. I have been keeping this since, I think without I realise it, three days ago. And I am so glad I have this blog to write to. Hmm... I think that's all I have to say for now, I really wish I get to use the Internet this weekend. Maybe I will update this blog this weekend (if I have the Internet access: wish me!) Okay, so goodbye!

Friday, 9 March 2012

My Biofacts

This is my biodata. Sorry I can't give you much but these are all I can tell, for now. Maybe I will tell you more about myself next time because I don't know what else to tell now. So, here it is:  
Name: Nurul Athirah Zulkifli
Birthdate: 12 April 1996
Place of Birth: Klang
School: SMKA Maahad Hamidiah
Class: 4 al-Ghazali
Hobby: Reading English novels~
Desired Career: a businesswoman, insya Allah


See? So little and not very informative. But truly, I don't like to share my personal information. Hmm...


Life ain't like books. Books got somebody writin' 'em and tryin' to entertain ya. Life is more like set of Legos. Unless you take care of 'em, you lose a few pieces and you end up steppin' on 'em with bare feet. You gotta take care of your life. ~Laura Moncur (1969 - )Merriton: 35 Minutes Away From Home, 02-29-12~