Time flies by

Wow times passing by really quickly and we are nearing the middle of August. I’m so so excited for next Thursday which is… A Level results day. Yaayyy. Both my brother’s results will be released on that day. My oldest brother’s A Level Results and my youngest brothers AS Level results will be released on this day. Yes as you can probably tell by now, they are quite similar in age; there is only a 15 month age difference between them. I think my mom and I are more nervous for their results, than they actually are. Hopefully this means that they feel they have performed well in the examinations and will both receive brilliant results.

My cousins are also due to receive their final results this year. One of my cousins will receive her AS results on the 16th August and two of my other cousins will receive their GCSE results on 23rd August. So overall, there is quite a bit of pressure in all four families for the youngsters to perform well. Obviously the better grades they achieve in their A/AS Level and GCSE Examinations will mean that they can apply for good courses in college and University. The higher grades they achieve will open up more opportunities for them. 

In terms of other news, my closest friend text me the other day wanting to meet up and just generally catch up. We haven’t seen each other for nearly eight weeks now. So she suggested we link up after Ramadhan is over, that way we could probably go out for a meal together. My friend has text me and left some Facebook messages over the past two weeks so I guess she misses me. I do miss her too, but I'm busy with work nowadays, and I mostly spend my weekends sleeping, so I don’t have so much time catching up with friends, unless they text/message me first. It’s kind of one sided I know, but after another 6 weeks or so, I should be a little bit more free. After Ramadhan is over, I won’t need to sleep so much during the daytime in the weekends, so perhaps my friends and I can catch up then. 

Ramadhan

It’s the 11^th day of Ramadhan, and I feel as if this blessed month is fading away fast. The first day of Ramadhan is determined by the sighting of the moon the night before. Originally, my family and I thought that the first day would be Saturday; this would have been great news for me as I could have had the whole weekend to get used to it, and then start work on Monday. However, on Thursday night, I received 2 texts from my friends confirming that Ramadhan would start on Friday.  Consequently this meant that I would have to start my evening prayers earlier than usual because I have to pray Tarawih(special prayers that Muslims pray during the 29/30 days of Ramadhan, in between the evening prayers). This can take some time – some people take 45 minutes and some take 1 hour to complete the evening prayers during Ramadhan, so it’s best advised to complete it early (the whole prayer should be complete before midnight)

This weekend I had quite a lot of family over, due to this I couldn’t catch up on my much needed sleep as I would have liked. I thought it would be a bit strange and awkward for people to visit other people’s houses during Ramadhan, considering everyone would be fasting, so we can’t offer them any refreshments, etc. They were unwilling to stay until Iftar(the meal used to break our fast) as we break it at sunset, which is close to 9pm nowadays, and my relatives left at like 6pm because they wanted to break their fasts, in their own homes, which was understandable.

On Sunday my cousins came. This was a pleasant surprise. As my cousin brother is due to get married on 26^th August, they bought all the wedding dresses for the bride earlier in the day and they bought them to my house to show me and my family. I thought that this was a very sweet gesture. All together, they bought one lehenga and 5 sarees. They now need to send it over to the bride so that she can buy all her accessories, jewellery and shoes to match each outfit. My cousins parents who currently live in Bangladesh are due to come over to the UK a week or so before the wedding and they plan on living here for 6 months. My cousin’s mum and my dad are siblings, so we are quite close to each other in terms of family relationships.

 Overall it’s a really exciting time in our family with lots to look forward to.

Birthday Meal at Tayyabs

Well it’s been a few weeks since I’ve last written a blog. The last four weeks seemed to have just flown by. I’ve been busy with work and just life in general.

I had my birthday on Thursday and received some great gifts from my family; an Asian dress (called Anarkali), a teddy bear and pink flower tall glass, and a glass plaque with a wonderful message from my brothers. I don’t really remember what the message was, but it was really sweet. I haven’t really touched the plaque much, after receiving it. It’s really precious to me, considering it contains a thoughtful message from my brothers. I don’t want to mess around with it too much in case it scratched or slips from my fingers and breaks. Lol. So I’ve kept it in the box on the highest shelf of my room.

So last night, I had dinner with my family at Tayyabs, in Whitechapel. This was just a little outing, for my birthday which was last Thursday. We didn’t do much on the day, because it was a weekday and my parents and I were working on that day and Friday too. On Saturday evening, my dad had work once again, so that’s why we had the meal on Sunday evening.

The food was delicious. All five of us chose different dishes (Mom, Dad, my two brothers and I) and then we had a taste of each others with naan bread. Then for dessert, we had mango lassi. It was an extremely wonderful evening out.

My youngest brother was the most anxious to come home, due to the Euro game, England versus Italy. It turns out he didn’t have much to be excited about considering Italy won the match.

In terms of other news, my brother has finally finished all of his exams. He had his last two exams on Friday. At least he’s all done now and the whole house is relaxed. For some reason, there is always a little bit of tension in my household, even if even one of us (my brothers or I) have exams. Tension in a good way, like we support each other in terms of giving each other space and stuff; not watching too much TV or playing games whilst the other one is revising. It’s like if two of us are having fun, then naturally the other one will want to join as well. So we have to keep it low key. But yeah, that’s all over now and we can all have fun.

Lots of lovely sunshine and the colour Blue

Wow! It’s another beautiful, bright and sunny day. Summer is truly here. The weekend is nearly here, and what a weekend it is. A four day weekend I could take a mini holiday couldn't I? Well I guess anyone could.

Alas it is not to be, as I have to attend a wedding this weekend with my parents.  I so wish could miss it, stay at home and maybe go to the park (which is just behind my house, by the way), less than five minute walk from my front door. Unfortunately I don’t have the excuse of studying and revision, the only thing that would have appeased my parents, especially my mum to allow me to stay at home. Luckily for my brother, he is allowed to stay home to revise, considering his exams have not even started, never mind completed. Yes, he starts his exam on 12^th June. I think he is lucky because he gets to spend the next four weekends at home. He thinks I’m lucky considering I can go out during the weekends, attend weddings/parties and catch-up with friends and cousins, etc. Everyone has a different way of looking at things. It’s only a difference of opinion. The major difference between my brother and I is that I am more of a homely person, I like to keep myself to myself. For me the perfect weekend is staying in my pyjamas, watching TV, movies and eating lots of junk food, etc. Ooh and I also love reading books. I have lots of books to read over the summer holiday. On the other hand, my brother, is more of an outdoor sporty kind of person. He likes going out and playing sports like tennis and badminton.  You could never get him to sit down to watch a game of football, tennis, cricket or whatever, but ask him to play a game, and he’ll be the first one to agree, eagerly setting everything up and splitting the group into two groups. He’s very competitive when it comes to sports, but its the fun friendly competitive.  He’s most happy surrounded by people, friends and relatives, always making them laugh and wanting them to be happy.

In terms of my reading, first off i think I’m going to start with Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini. I bought the book way back in January, but it’s just been sitting on my bookshelf, untouched and unread. So I’m really looking forward to reading that.

So this Sunday I have a wedding to attend with my parents. I plan on wearing a Turkish blue Anarkali (Indian style dress). I didn’t have many accessories to match with the dress, so my mum took me out on Monday afternoon after my final exam to Ilford shopping centre.  It’s been a few months since I’ve had to attend any family functions/ weddings, but I am definitely looking forward to it. The wedding I am attending, the bride is a relative of my mum’s, well her aunt and my mum are closely related. It’s all a bit confusing and complicated, but I think it’s just the case of meeting them in real life and getting to know them properly.

Also I still have to get round to tidying up. No improvements have been made on that area since yesterday. Oh well what can I say?  That’s what Monday and Tuesday is going to be for. 

Completed my Degree

Wow! It feels so good to say that now. Yesterday I completed my final exam; Financial Econometrics.  It was a good paper, that’s only because I went over last year’s exam paper as part of my revision. The questions that appeared on the actual exam paper were similar to last years, so there were no nasty surprises.

My closest friend had her last exam on Friday. We both had the same exam that day; Statistics. That exam was pretty difficult, not as good as my Econometrics paper. Thankfully I did achieve a really good coursework mark for Statistics, so all my marks should average out. I did tell my friend after our Thursday’s Partial Differential Equations exam, to not rub it my face the fact that she finished earlier than me. She was really good about it on Friday evening on the journey home. She was like she’ll be thinking about me over the weekend, while show goes out shopping and stuff. She was also saying that she needs to clean out her whole room, because it’s really messy with paper, books and folders everywhere. Her sister-in-law is too scared to go into her room now to use the laptop, because of the mess. Lol! How funny is that?

Actually speaking of my best friend and messy rooms, I’m no better. My books and files are everywhere around my room too. My room and desk table is scattered with paper and notes. My mum was telling me last night that I need to clean everything and tidy my room up, but I told her that considering I only finished my exam yesterday lunchtime, it’s obviously going to take me some time to sort my room out. Considering I am busy until Friday, I guess my cleaning duty will start in the weekend. Thankfully it’s going to be a very long weekend, so I’ll have plenty of time to clean my room and also to enjoy myself, doing other things except for studying. Lol! It feels so good to say that.

Family and Cousins!!

Revision classes have begun, from Monday, what with going over PDE coursework marks, comparing with friends and receiving general feedback. I have to say I am quite pleased with my mark, although looking back, it doesn't feel like I put much effort into it, considering I barely remember doing it. However, considering I submitted it more than a month ago, and I had 3 more assignments to complete since then it’s hardly too surprising, now is it?

Personally for me, I didn’t find all my third year modules hard, I would say that the PDE module was by far the easiest module I have studied throughout the whole year. Ok, maybe not so easy as I make out to be, that’s only because I think most of the major concepts which are taught in that class, just sort of click, it just makes sense to me. However that is not to say, that I will get the same mark in the final exam. I still must go over all my lecture notes and revision material for this course as well as the other modules, to ensure that I do well overall.

My timetable for the rest of the week is pretty jam packed. I’ve got a lecture on Thursday morning for 2 hours, an on Friday; I have a total of 6 hours of lecture and revision time to get through. I have 3 hours of Financial Econometrics and 3 hours of Actuarial Mathematics to get through. Oh Joy! If that’s not bad enough next week I have even more classes to get through. This week I have a total of 4 lectures however, next week I will have 5 lectures to get through. This makes sense seeing as I have 5 exams to complete this May,

On 8^th April it was my granddad’s Birthday (my mum’s dad). He lives in America with my grand mom and Aunt (mum’s sister) and Uncles (mum’s brother, and brother-in-law) and cousins. They had a super great birthday party with cake and candles, etc. My cousins uploaded the pictures on Facebook, and then tagged my brother and I on the cake. This was his way of saying that although we weren’t there to enjoy the celebrations, we were very much in every one’s thoughts. Aaw, how cute is that? I found that a very kind and thoughtful gesture. I showed my mum the pictures from Facebook, she was well emotional, but I knew she was happy at the same time at seeing her parents. How Cute!!

I literally just remembered, last week on 14^th April, it was New Year’s Day for Bangladesh. My cousins, whom live there, enjoyed the New Years day with great enthusiasm. They all dressed up in colourful saris, painted each other’s hands with henna tattoos, and went to fairs, etc. They all uploaded pictures on Facebook, just so I could see. Aaw, how cute!!

That’s one of the many things which I love about family and my cousins, it’s that whenever they are having fun, they don’t forget us and try to include us in some way, shape or form, this time in terms of uploading Facebook pictures and tagging us. 

Holiday over

The Easter holidays have nearly come to an end. Only a few more days to go before I am due back to uni for three more weeks of structured revision with my friends and peers.  Most of my revision time has consisted of answering past paper questions and then going back and then rereading the lecture notes – mainly the one’s which were taught at the beginning of the year – only because those were the ones which were easier to forget.

The scheduled revision sessions are planned to go over the past papers again and correct any silly mistakes we may have made during the holiday period. Another really useful reason to attend the revision sessions is that some of the lecturers just might give hints on which of the topics are most likely to come up on the final exam paper.  I don’t think they will state the topics so obviously, but some things can be picked up by what topics they go over during the revision sessions and also which topics repeatedly come up in the past exam papers. Some of the lecturers have provided additional sample questions as a set of revision booklet. This is really useful as it gives us the students ideas on what the lecturer wants us to go over in more detail.

This Easter has been one of the quietest holidays so far, mainly because it’s the most important set of exams (personally for my family). One of my brothers is sitting his A Level exams this June, his marks are really important for him to secure his place at his chosen university. My youngest brother is studying for his AS – Level exams which take place. His one is really important for him, only because he takes his studies very seriously.

I haven’t met any of my cousins this holiday. I suppose they are all really busy revising for their exams as well. Two of my cousin’s from two different families (my dad’s two sister’s children – one child for each sister) are both the same age and will be sitting their GCSE exams this summer. There is a bit of friendly competition going on amongst them, which one will come out with the better set of exam results.

Overall, it’s quite a short blog this week, but that’s what happens when May is just around the corner with all those exams to sit. I’ll write more when I can. Keep Reading. J