Summer Holidays

The holidays have begun again...
According to my online countdown that I have created, it is 40 days, 20 hours, 7 minutes, and 40 seconds (as of when I am writing this sentence) left until I leave my house for the bus stop.
This summer holiday is probably going to be even more boring than ever. The only thing that I'm doing ( a big thing) is going to Germany for 5 days.
The summer holidays are too long. You get bored easily, you have nothing to really entertain you.

I've needed to be really careful about what I post on this blog, seeing as a good few people from school have found out about this whole sad, useless, pointless (you name it) blog, and those people are (regularly?) checking this blog to see if I've posted anything, um... strange, harsh, private, sad, funny...(the list goes on).

That is about it for now, though I still have a funny feeling that I've forgotten something.

Rorry

PS. and yes, I will continue posting pointless things on here. Why? Well, I've got nothing better to do you see...

Wimbledon

Am I the only one in UK hoping for a Novak Djokovic win? (vs Andy Murray)

Shock!

Rafa Nadal has just lost in the FIRST round to Steve Darcis (ranked 117th in the world) in straight sets. 7-6(4), 7-6(8), 6-4. A brilliant performance by Darcis to stun the possibly injured Spaniard. (That sentence sounds so posh doesn't it...)
That clears the way for Roger Federer, seeded 3rd, who now has an easier route to the Semi finals, as he would have met Nadal in the quarter finals (had they both got there).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/23034085

Spain Tahiti

10-0 to spain.

Bored

I've just had some great dinner at a family friends house.
I think I've got double PE first thing tomorrow.
I just wrote this post because I'm sort of a bit bored.

I will continue updating my previous blog post on tennis when I have time and feel like it.

Greatest Tennis Player of All Time...

I just watched the French Open Final between Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer. Nadal won it 6-3,6-2,6-3. Ferrer was at his best, but Nadal was at his best too, and we all know what will happen in that case on French clay. Rafa has now won this trophy 8 times, with only one loss at the tournament. 8 times is more than anyone has won a single major event (apart from Rafa now).
He is surely the King of Clay and the best clay court player ever. But what about the greatest tennis player of all time?
I am just going to post about that now.

I don't know much about former players but Rod Laver, Roy Emerson, Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras would surely be up there in the conversation.
But the present day players up there would be Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and of course, Roger Federer.

Rafael Nadal is such a good player. He is a real fighter and competitor with 12 Grand Slams to his name and a Golden Slam to his name too. If it weren't for injuries, he may have won more.

TBC...

SF

THAT was such a good semifinal between Nole and Rafa.
5 set epic. The last set had so much drama in it. A shame that Djokovic got a bit distracted at the end. It would make sense to blame the umpire. That was poor decision making. He should have just said YES or NO.

Now, its the other semifinal. I thought I would be back in time to only watch this one...
Tsonga vs Ferrer and despite the fact I was looking forward to it, its a complete walkthrough for Ferrer at the moment. He is leading 5-0...

Live Roland Garros

Jo Wilfried Tsonga Vs Roger Federer
French Open Quarter Final

Federer is a set and a break down.

UPDATE

Federer is TWO sets and A BREAK down.

Match point to Tsonga! Please come back Fed
Saves one
But loses the next!

French Open Result

Roger Federer comes back in tremedous fashion to win the match against Gilles Simon in 5 sets, 6-1, 4-6, 2-6, 6-2, 6-3!

He will be making a record 36th consecutive Grand Slam Quarter Final appearance when he plays Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
3 French players in a row for him then...
The support at the Paris court was mainly behind the Swiss Maestro and not the French man! Quite something.

French Open Live...

Gilles Simon vs Roger Federer

Simon set point at 40-30 on 3rd set...
Deuce...
Advantage Simon...
3rd set Simon!

Simon leads 2-1 in sets, 1-6, 6-4, 6-2

Roger Federer is in big trouble now... He needs two straight sets to turn this round and maintain his record of consecutive Grand Slam Quarter Final appearances...

COME ON FEDERER!

Emergency help for Spanish classmates.

Welcome to my blog (If anyone has chosen to look at this that is...)
I've done over 40 posts in my got-nothing-better-to-do life. Actually, I just did a post a hour or so ago!
They range from posts to do with English to other post about Sport, teaching Japanese etc.


OK.

Accuracy in Spanish:

The most obvious one would be feminine and masculine. In most cases the endings should rhyme (BUT THERE ARE SOME IRREGULARS). There are other things to be careful about too!
I would say that the only way to get better at it is just practice, practice, practice.
Here are some false -and sometimes correct- sentences. Check them! (Scroll down for what is correct)

1. Me gustaría vivir en Tokyo porque está muy conveniente y hay más cosas que hacer! Es muy moderno.

2. En mi pueblo, había un estación de tren.

3. En mi barrio ideal, tenería un polideportivo para los jóvenes.

4. Mi pueblo es en el sur de Inglaterra en una casa pequeño con mi familia.

5. Normalmente, no haga nada porque mi barrio es muy aburrido. Hay no nada que hacer.


















1. Me gustaría vivir en Tokyo porque es muy conveniente y hay más cosas que hacer! Es muy moderno.

2. En mi pueblo, había un estación de tren. (It was already correct!)

3. En mi barrio ideal, tendría un polideportivo para los jóvenes.

4. Mi pueblo está en el sur de Inglaterra en una casa pequeña con mi familia.

5. Normalmente, no hago nada porque mi barrio es muy aburrido. No hay nada que hacer.


Questions

In questions, there are mostly one or two words which you actually need to listen to.
Also, if you do not understand the question exactly, just answer something close to the topic. You may not get full marks, but you will get some marks. An even dirtier way (though it may require some skill in how you structure the answer) would be to have both positive and negative opinion in your answer. This would mean that you would get marks even if you do not know whether the question asked you for the good thing about your town or the bad thing about your town.

I have highlighted the words that you need to watch out for in questions.

¿Dónde vives exactamente?
              - Start like 'Vivo en..........'

¿Cómo es tu pueblo?
             - Start like 'Mi pueblo es........'

¿Que es lo que más te gusta de tu barrio?
             - Start like 'Lo que más me gusta de mi barrio es el hecho de.........' or 'Lo mejor de mi barrio.............'

¿Qué cambiarías en tu barrio?
             - Start like 'Cambiaría el hecho de.............'   and  'Tendría............. en lugar de.........'

¿Dónde te gustaría vivir en el futuro?
             - Start like 'Me gustaría vivir en..............'

¿Qué es lo peor de tu pueblo?
             - Start like 'Lo peor es que...........'

¿Cómo sería tu pueblo ideal?
            - Start like 'En mi pueblo ideal, sería.................'


Any questions, leave a comment on this post!

Good luck.

Rorry.

That would be cool!

Just some notes to post.

Europa League Final today between Chelsea and Benfica. Hope Chelsea win!

Chelsea and Arsenal could face a playoff for 3rd place. If Arsenal win by one goal against Newcastle, and Chelsea draw vs Everton (scoring 2 less than Arsenal), that would mean playoff time! So any of these will result in playoffs:
Arsenal 2-1 Newcastle and Chelsea 0-0 Everton
Arsenal 3-2 Newcastle and Chelsea 1-1 Everton
Arsenal 4-3 Newcastle and Chelsea 2-2 Everton    and so on....

I was just thinking today that it would be weird if this blog kept on going for the next few years and into adulthood!

I'm preparing 3 posts now, but it may take some time until I get to post them on this blog. One is England Vs Japan, one is about tennis I think, and one is about Arashi and SMAP (Arashi and SMAP are my two favourite Japanese boybands. They are really popular in Japan. I think Arashi's albums sell 700,000 copies in the first week alone. More on this in the main post!)

Rorry

Ummmm...

Kei Nishikori beat Roger Federer 6-4, 1-6, 6-2 at the Madrid Open.
Federer had points to defend, having won the tournament last year.
I hope the Maestro is back at his best as soon as possible.
I also hope Nishikori can gain confidence from this and break into the Top 10.

New Man U manager

It has been confirmed a few minutes ago that David Moyes will replace Alex Ferguson as Manchester United manager on 1st July. It is a 6 year contract.

The first news that I saw when I got back home was the fact that David Moyes had left Everton. Later on, I clicked on an article about this on the BBC website. It only had the same information as articles I'd already read, so I went back to the BBC football homepage to find that in the 10 seconds I was reading the article, David Moyes had become Man U manager, and the BBC Football homepage had changed, with a huge picture of David Moyes. I always get excited when this special layout happens!

This news means that Jose Mourinho will not be going to Man U, and he should hopefully be coming back to Chelsea.

On the other hand, I wish David Moyes all the best with managing the red side of Manchester, though it will undoubtedly by a pretty hard task.

Manchester United manager

It has been announced today that Sir Alex Ferguson will retire from being manager of Manchester United Football Club.
I cam back from school and was shocked (though I was prepared from the morning) at the news. Though I am a Chelsea supporter, I feel no one can deny the level of achievement and success that Sir Alex has brought to MUFC.

Since we all know Rafael Benitez is stopping as Chelsea manager at the end of this season, I hope that Jose Mourinho will come back to Chelsea. This is not only because of his personality, but because if he does return, he will surely have Frank Lampard sign another 1 or 2 year contract to keep Lampard at Chelsea.

I would like David Moyes to go to Man United, not only because I want Mourinho at Chelsea, but also because I think that a more stable, Premier League experienced manager would be better suited for the job at such a huge club such as Manchester United and would be a better, stable, calm successor of Sir Alex Ferguson.

Although my predictions here may be a bit dramatic, I have a feeling that something similar to this will happen this summer. There will be a lot of manager movement.

I think that David Moyes will go to Man Utd, Rafael Benitez will go to Everton, Jose Mourinho will go to Chelsea, Jurgen Klopp will go to Real Madrid and a slightly experience manager will take over at Borussia Dortmund.

Spanish GCSE Written exam

If there is anyone reading this, and at the same time, anyone who is caring enough to worry about my results, I shall let them know.

Although these results are not official, my teacher looked at my work and predicted that I will get an A;one mark off an A*.

Spanish GCSE

I think we're getting our Spanish writing exam results back tomorrow.
I can't wait but I'm slightly nervous.

What if I get a D!

Rorry

Japanese Part 2

In Japanese there are 3 types of letters/words. They are hiragana, katakana, kanji (ひらがな, カタカナ, 漢字)
Those who look carefully may be able to notice a difference.
Yes, hiragana normally are the 'curviest', with a lot of rounded lines.
Katakana, on the other hand are slightly more straight. If you look and compare all of hiragana and katakana, you should be able to notice this difference.
And finally kanji are obviously much more complicated than the other two. Kanji originally derived from chinese characters. However there are many chinese symbols that are not used in Japan and some vice versa.

Hiragana are used for letters and words that do not have an obvious kanji to write them with. Kanji are used for nouns, the main part of verbs and adverbs, and the main part of adjectives etc. School, port and bridge (学校,　港,　橋)are just 3 words that can be written using only kanji. A combination of hiragana and kanji are used often like when you say 'I ran' 走りました. Katakana are mainly used for foreign words, including names and objects like camera (カメラ)
The 'alphabet' of hiragana and katakana are exactly the same.
There are thousands of kanji.

Also, there is something called romaji that is used when foreigners first start to learn Japanese. Romaji is where Japanese is written using the English/American/European alphabet. If you see something like 'take' written in romaji like so, you would not pronounce it like the English 'take', but pronounce it by dividing it up into a combination of 2 or 3 letters each. In this case that would be 'ta-ke'.
Romaji is not often used in Japan, although you may see it being used in the major cities like Tokyo, specifically for tourists in trains, stations, bus stops and road signs but make sure you don't rely on this too much.

The hiragana alphabet is as follows.　The left alphabet should be read like reading English - Left to right, top to bottom.

あ　い　う　え　お                   
a     i     u    e    o                           
か　き　く　け　こ　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
ka   ki  ku  ke  ko                              
さ　し　す　せ　そ　　　　　
sa  shi   su  se    so           
た　ち　つ　て　と　　　　　　　　　　　
ta   chi  tsu  te   to                             
な　に　ぬ　ね　の　　　　　　　
na   ni   nu   ne  no                 
は　ひ　ふ　へ　ほ
ha   hi   fu    he   ho
ま　み　む　め　も
ma  mi  mu  me  mo
や　　　ゆ　　　よ
ya        yu        yo
ら　り　る　れ　ろ
ra   ri    ru   re   ro
わ　　　　　　　　を
wa                     o　　
　　　　ん
          m/n


As, you can see, there are some spaces 'missing'. This is spaces for some old hiragana that is mainly not used anymore. Some versions of hiragana alphabet do still include the missing ones but in reality you do not actually need to know them.

More later...

Spanish GCSE

Hi,

Today, I had a writing Spanish GCSE exam.
I finished with 45 of 60 minutes to spare.
I personally think it went quite well.

Rorry

Half Term

Hi
I've just recovered from a slight temperature.
Sat night to Mon day. I had a few bad dreams.

Japanese Part 1

Hello all,

Against my intentions, I felt I could start an online Japanese tutorial!

First of all, how to say Hello.

It is Konnichiwa as people think it is.
However, be very very very very careful how you actually say it.
English people often just say 'konichiwa'.
However, in reality it is 'konnichiwa'
How to practice saying it in this way is saying each 'part' at a time.
So, that would mean you say it as ko-n-ni-chi-wa.
If you get used to it, start speeding up how fast you say it. But be careful you still have two 'n's.

BTW, in Japanese, it is written as こんにちは　（some write it as こんにちわ）

More to follow...

...

You know what, I can't actually think of anything to write.

I've been reading a few Japanese books because I can't think of a good English book to read.
Does anyone have any recommendations?


Rorry


PS. Soon coming up on this blog:

Topics: Tennis
                  -Tennis Greats
                  -Who are the players now?
                  -Who is No.1, No.2, No.3, No.4 in the world?
                  -Who will win the next few Majors?
                  -Who will claim 2013 year-end Number 1.?
             Japan
                  -Japan Vs China and the Koreas
                  -Japan Vs England
                  -Japan Vs USA
                  -Japan Vs Rest of the World
                  -What are Japan good at?
                  -Good things about Japan
                  -Japanese TV
             Harry Potter - Can it be rivalled?
             Lionel Messi - Is he really the best ever?

Yesterday

My best friend came round to my house yesterday.

Apparently he loved all the Japanese food that we gave him for lunch! Good good.

I owned him in every game that we played yesterday. Our own board game, Wii Sports Resort Archery, Wakeboard, Bowling, Golf.

First Homework Help

The first of my homework help is one on an essay that will no doubt come into handy in the near future as it is a topic that is often discussed in Ibec, RE, Philosophy and Ethics lessons.

Where was a benevolent God during the Holocaust?

What you must make sure you write is opinions from Christianity and probably one more religion, plus your own view. You can write the most from your own view so use this as much as you can and go into lots of depth.

You should write something like God has given free-will so humans choose what they do.
Then go into more depth by saying that if god was all-knowing, surely he should have known that he wouldn't be able to break into human's free will to stop them from doing evil. Also, as it was God who gave us free-will right at the beginning, then God is responsible for the acts of evil that we are committing because of the presence of free-will that he gave us.

Another very important point is that the Nazis thought they were doing the right thing too and so God, as an all-loving being could not do something against their will.

If you are still really stuck, look at this word document below. This is my essay and it should make some guidance.
Please do not use this completely as that would ruin the point of learning and also because if everyone copied this, then all teachers may end up having to mark the same thing.






















I didn't manage to attach the word document so here it is.

In order to solve this question, some will try to deny the existence of evil itself, however this is very hard to do.

Over time, Christians have tried to solve the same sorts of questions, and they have managed to get some ideas.

Some comment that God is not wholly good, just as the Bible’s Abraham, Job, the Psalms suggests, while others consider that what people consider to be an act of wrong-doing is not evil put an absence of Good. An evidence of this is the Fall of Man explained in Genesis.

God has trusted humans and given them free will, and as humans themselves have chosen the acts of evil through their own will, as well as Original Sin being passed down from Adam and Eve, God has no responsibility for the acts of evil that humans commit themselves. However, I feel that if god is omnipotent and all-powerful, he should be able to break the barrier of free will. Furthermore, I personally think that as God has given us humans free will, and because of that we are committing deeds of evil, if he exists, God should be the one to blame as he was at the start of things.

This problem concerning God’s ‘evil’ is never-ending. For example, if God prevented the September 11 attacks occurring, then that means that he would have committed evil in Al-Qaeda’s opinion. If one person gets what they wanted between what they consider Good and Evil, there will always be someone or something that considers the opposite.

If then God always chose whichever the majority said, that would still work against the fact that God is thought to be all-loving, and therefore he should care as much about one human as he does about another.

Christians will try to deny the claim that God was malevolent by saying that God has chosen to never break human’s free will and that he hopes that because of his presence, human’s will become stronger so they can stop the acts of evils themselves. Some will also say that as God is and was all-loving, he could not act against either of the sides (Nazis were believing God was on their side and the Jews and Allies were believing he was on their side) and so he had to leave it to humans to come to an end – he did not want to betray any. A small percentage of Christians may even say that as God allowed Nazis to kill all the Jews and he allowed the Allies to win, the Nazis and the Allies got what they wanted each in the end. He also gave Jews the happiness of them all being sent to heaven. On the other hand, I feel that this again contradicts the fact that God is benevolent because Nazis would have wanted the Jews to go to hell but instead he sent them to heaven.

 

Another idea stated by theologians would be that God’s omnipotence does not include the ability to do what is logically impossible, such as to make 3+3 equal 7. They will follow up by saying that this is the reason as to why God could not give humans wholly free will and yet have the power over their decisions at the same time. Nevertheless, once again in my own personal opinion, I feel that if God is all-loving and all-knowing as qualities of the God in the Testaments suggests, then God should have realized before he gave us free will that it would be impossible to prevent us from committing acts of evil and as results of that, free will would end up destroying Goodness.

 

A conclusion for me would be that there is no such thing as Good and Evil as something entirely separate, they are both just the opposite of each other and what people consider to be Good and Evil are different for each human and so it is impossible to make everyone completely happy, so God has to be still and watch. He cannot help, as helping one would mean committing an act of evil himself for another.

I feel that blaming God for all the evil going on and that have gone on in the world is merely an excuse for the fact that humans are powerless. God gave humans free will not for humans to stand back and let evil things happen like the Holocaust and blame it all entirely on God himself but for humans to take responsibility themselves and stop what they can stop and find solutions that would make everyone happy for things that are out of their power.

In an answer to the initial question, although it is hard for me to answer it because I do not believe in God at the slightest, if I was a Christian, I would summarize it by saying that God was there but he was waiting for humans to take responsibility for the actions taking place because he was unable to do anything as he could not break into human’s free wills. He could also not do anything because doing something would have meant betraying at least one other person who had the opposite view on the Holocaust.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home

Hi

Just got back and I've just finished having a bath.

2013

Following my last post, although I know that it is a few days late, now being the 4th now, a very happy new year to you all (probably only Deadra).
Yesterday and today, there has been some snow again. It's still only about 75cm in total on average, however because of the combination of snow and strong wind, it's not very nice to go outside; it's so so cold and you get a lot of snow on you.
The peak in amount of snow here is normally around late January so I think I am right in thinking tat there will be more to come in the near future. Luckily I won't be around then. England-livers may think that snow is great because you get to miss school and you get to play with snow etc, but I will now tell you the reality. You would still have to go to school with around 1m of snow. How you would achieve this is by digging a path out of your house and then workers would have made the roads clear early in the morning using specific machines. They would also have made strong footpaths on either sides of the roads 1m above the ground so that pupils can get to school without problem. Also, rather than playing with snow, here, getting rid of it is the priority. I don't know the name of them but you know those things on the edges of the road where water ends up going in that has like 5 thin holes in, well they get opened and the person on duty turns on the water flow so that snow can be dumped in. You also have to get rid of the snow on roofs. Doing this is a real danger because if you fall and land on the snow, you are dead because of how hard snow can be and also the coldness of it.
This is my last full day, tomorrow morning, I'm leaving here and going to the airport hotel, staying there for the night before going to the airport on getting on a flight on the 6th at 12 noon (Japan time). A 12 hour flight. Due to time difference, I am able to get back to England at 3pm the same day (GMT).
I think the next day, on the 7th, I have French, then Maths, then Biology (tests back, I failed miserably), followed by Geography and double English.

Rorry