IELTS challenge

I hate those ironic pictures of IELTS students

IELTS is a horror movie to most students especially when their academic future depends on it.
When I joined university I took a TOFEL test instead and was pretty enough with my English level at that time to get me accepted in all colleges. Now that I graduated I wanted to keep my options open to possible future higher education pursuing so I decided to go through all the trouble now when I am somehow free rather than wait for a last minute chance to apply.

The challenge I'm gonna talk about is not an expected academic one but rather a challenge of getting passed harsh circumstances on the way to get the IELTS. I reached a point where I truly believe its not meant to be to take this test or worse I got hit by the evil eye lol

I tried to keep it a secret from many people that I'm planning to apply for IELTS simply cuz I wasn't sure if I'll take it now or then. Only my close family members and some of my workmates -who were so nosy to ask what I'm reviewing in my free time *pfffff* - got to know about the IELTS on my schedule.

When I went to register for the first time I took few hours off work and had to walk around a huge ancient university building to reach the IELTS center. When I finally got there I was given a bank account number to pay the fees and was not allowed to even reserve a seat or fill an application before that!:l

After work on the same day, I headed to the nearest bank which told me that an amount less than 1000 won't be accepted and that money exchange offices are more suitable for such transactions.

I went to the office which then said it won't work to transfer money to a university account I need a specific person name and turned me back to the bank I came from..(this is when I started to lose my temper) 

I went back and explained that to the lady and she asked me about which bank the account is under and so its easier to go there and pay (why u didn't say so from the beginning!!).. unfortunately that bank was already closed.. 

Due to work stress I couldn't find the time to go and pay so I was late by a week or so and thus missed the exam on January, yet I believe its for the best.

to cut the story short; I had to go back and forth for around 4 times to register and every time I forgot an important document unlike the usual me who comes fully prepared. First my ID was at home then it was expired. back for my passport and lastly the receipt as a prove of my payment !!!!!!!!!!! on the last time I started crying on the way back and bumped my head on the car door so hard while my husband trying to comfort me lol

I FINALLY reserved a day, the first of Feb ~

My sister in law happened to had the same exam with her friend and it was nice to have an experienced company on the day of exam. All the time I was praying to this last step to go smooth. 

when it was time to enter the exam hall we took a place at the beginning of the line and when it was my turn bad luck came knocking again !!! I was told that I need my ID not my passport as the lady reserved my seat using my ID before knowing its expired and forgot to replace it with my passport number instead !! I kept my nerves cool and left the line rushing to my car where I kept my ID. Although I was supposed to be from the first batch entering the hall I ended up at the last of the line =___=

there was around 10 rows and guess what!? my sister in law and her friend were at the second and me next to college students at the 10th row !!!!! still cool.

prayers on my mind while holding my disbelief from the series of bad luck doings happening at once. The exam coordinator was reading the guidelines for the exam meanwhile I started feeling like I need a visit to the toilet immediately ! WHY THE HELL did I had cornflakes with milk on an empty stomach! I was in a war wondering if there's time to go to the toilet now or wait for the breaks between each session. I took a risk and went with the first option. xD


luckily the listening part went great but when the reading part was being distributed the craziest shock came rushing !! Now I understood the meaning of "Genre: G " posted on my table, I was assigned for the GENERAL version of the test not the academic! Here I went nuts, "EXCUSE ME!! EXCUSE ME!! I registered for the academic test this is not what I registered for !!!" *freaking out*  the row examiner went rushing to the coordinator and explained the situation while I was like no way such a joke is playing on me oh god no please no I can't wait for 15 more days to retake another exam nor can I go through the long process of registration AGAIN!!

Thank god the drama ended by giving me the right version without questioning and I couldn't believe I handed in the papers and got out of that place finally

I went joking with my friends saying I'm sure my result will get lost somewhere in UK there is no way it can reach me smoothly lol

The results came in time and the series of drama ended with a big joy of getting band 8 out of 9 alhamdellah. :)

In this exam I learned the true meaning of fighting for something you want and working so hard to get it. It was such an unforgettable story that will keep me laughing whenever remembered. Did you had such a situation where you thought maybe its not meant to be but you made it anyways?

peace,
Amna

Unexpected Interest in Architecture!

When I started my lifetime journey in deciding what I wanna be in the future I picked to be a scientist, I started going through encyclopaedias and getting frustrated on why our brain can't contain all the theories, pictures and information

I was a person who loved science in any form it came.

that trait's vibe stroked powerfully when I grew older, I didn't become a scientist as I dreamed to be, but I realised there is an alternative way to celebrate science as if it was my own!

respecting the work of others and building bridges of all those touching achievements and educating yourself more about them would make you a scientist, an intellectual human being!

working on this belief footsteps, I wanted to choose a cultural elective subject that would introduce me to a new field and there it was 

"Contemporary World Architecture Course"

a subject that mixes art in beautiful decorative pieces and science in balancing all these blocks on top of each other to fulfil its function with a lot of room for analytical thinking

and As expected I fell in love with many great buildings just like I would do to any valuable painting

Architecture gave me another angle to stare from when I wonder around the streets in future :)

My professor was such an inspiration, he visited various countries and paid all the magnificent buildings a visit so all his presentations were filled with personally taken pictures

How exciting can it be to go on reunion trips at one of the greatest building of the history

I think beside a religious building a breath taking building is as holy!

What was the architect thinking when he placed that column here and how he figured that such structure would stand against harsh circumstances?

and most surprisingly how one human being could manage to build a massive building so percisely!

Thats the beauty of Architecture !

Below are some of the inspirations I got out of this course:

Buildings: Sagrada Familia Church in Barcelona by Gaudi

if you ever went to Spain, you should pass by this church because its not just a church it one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites! 

The work started back when Gaudi was assigned the project in 1883 and is still incomplete till nowadays!! can you believe that? a building that is being built over history and is expected to be done in 2026 !

Its really huge and complicatedly decorated reminding us of the gothic era, Gaudi made a wonderful job on every piece he laid his hands on over Barcelona ! 

much respect to this man, it will always be a dream to visit this place..

People: Frank Lloyed Wright

I fell for this man's arrogance because it was right in its place.

he didn't receive a formal education in decent architecture universities but he polished his skills on his own with a long experience and natural talent

When he spoke he knew what he was capable of and he saw himself ahead of time and space and dared to call himself immortal!

One inspiring story when he designed the Wax company offices and built a lily pad shape as a roof supported by thick columns that would go thinner at the ground level just as a stem to those pads. It made other architects worried on their stability, a very thin base column to support a huge round piece would go against the known architecture physics at that time! 

so they called for a live demonstration and a daring demonstration they got! that roof was able to hold 10 times it weight until it collapsed!

The view of the offices

I was trying to imagine his feelings watching the site workers add those weights to his structure, that could've been his career collapsing  over there not just a column but he was watching silently how his work came to prove his greatness!

"Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change."
- Frank Lloyd Wright 

oh there are many other stuff I want to share but had to stop on these two! 

Currently I'm working on a final project of looking up one of the world's expos to write about. I never appreciated such events until I worked on them and found that it is somehow a festival of architecture !

Architects from different countries come together in one place to be given a chance to build a pavilion representing their country.

and now I wanna go back in time to Yeosu expo and analyze every single pavilion I went through! xD

 

so that was a dedication to an interesting subject I took this semester, what about you readers any influential subject you took this year? 

- Amna Al Dhaheri

Our First Mobile Game!

I can't believe we actually made it this far, we managed to publish our first mobile game this week xD

we have been working on this game for almost a year as a senior graduation project !

when our interest shifted from robotics to gaming our dreams had a major shift too and we dreamed day and night of making the awesomest game in the history of the college !

and we came up with "Cooking Time" game !

main screen

now I know it may seem expected from girls to lean toward makeup and cooking games, me myself didn't think I would develop something like that when I'm 22 years old lol but when its fun and from the range of your interest pushing yourself forward gets easier 

we developed it to be the first Arabic game in Emirati accent so young users would love to explore something so close to what they know or see 

4 main Emirati dishes

Although we barely had the basic knowledge about gaming and almost zero skill with the massive resources on the Internet all excuses fade away 

and so we were so excited to check how well we did on the gaming field standards. Last week we participated in Mobile Application Contest (MAC) in Khalifa university-Abu Dhabi, and got 3rd prize with 10,000 AED and priceless positive feedback from users who loved the game ! ahhh so proud.

the marketing and documentation of our performance is what is left from the project and all our work will be paid afterwards !

I'm not gonna write much about the game so here is the game website where you can download the game and get more info:

http://cookingtimegame.weebly.com

it will soon be available in different app stores (as soon as we receive the approval)
and we have plans of offering different languages including English soon 

please support us, leave us your comments and enjoy our game! :)
Amna

Jobs Day at a public kindergarten

I was supposed to pack my bags for 4 days in Abu Dhabi yet couple of hours earlier my mom suggested I join her and go to my little brother kindergarten as they had "Jobs Day"

This is not my first time attending my siblings schools as a guardian in place of mom; being the oldest sister I had to take responsibility in her busy days

It is different going there as a sister. you catch a glimpse of motherhood and understand how mothers society is so different than those of single people

yet some days its not as thrilling as it may seem;being a young parent will get u in really awkward position being surrounded by moms investigating looks

Anyways my brother is supposed to wear a fireman costume; a day ago my sister was sarcastically saying "why the hell did they choose a fireman for him?!" and I was like " well good thing they didn't picked him to be Bob the builder cuz he is chubby enough to be so mashallah lol"

My lil brother posing "Yeah a fireman but as cool as ice"

I got there a bit late but I was able to catch the first speaker; honestly speaking I thought the event was a bit complicated for kids at first, and I suspected that its a way for moms to feel better about the time spent by their child at school..you just wouldn't expect them to appreciate adults being dragged down from their busy life to talk about their jobs. But on the contrary; they were really bright, interactive and proved me wrong !

the kids were divided into groups based on their jobs/costumes there were policemen, doctors, engineers, firemen, cooks, soldiers and artists !

The first speaker was a pilot who was really smart with interacting with kids and he was able to own their little hearts by talking about his job as a game filled with adventures and amusing air tricks 

The policeman did a good job too and he let the children talk more about what they know on police duties
 a little girl explained a whole scenario about when she would need to call the police .. I mean that was WOW, the girl words are beyond her age and mothers were clapping enthusiastically!

Another child said "I would call a policeman if my car tire went flat!" - typical emirati boy lol he owned the audience haha

Boys and policeman having fun setting the rules

Unfortunately children didn't know the role of an engineer so he got the least attention; in the british children media for example, they had a character named Bob the Builder. Through this show children get to see how engineering and hand crafty work can solve life's problem like a fallen bridge, stuck truck or simply a broken door including the naming of the tools a builder would need !

Now that's a way to get to children and make them appreciate other professions

Engineers success to attract children finally

After that the artist came to talk and oh boy he asked a silly question to these smart kids : who is better me or a pilot ?

and BAMMM he got it right in his face and on top of their lungs "THE PILOTTTTTTT" xD !

moms were laughing and saying "you got what you deserve for comparing urself to a pilot " lol

When the talk was over we witnessed the cutest thing ever, all the girls gathering around the artist as he taught them how to draw trees ! hehe girls appreciate art more than boys apparently 

With the artist

Le chefs

making pizza, orange juice (left picture) and prepare salad (right picture) independently, cooking gets more fun when you get your child to participate in it I used to let my little brother help when he seeks my attention while cooking and he turns to be more quiet and useful around the kitchen :D

The doctors !

The most focused little professions of all, there were a bunch of dentist discussing a case another doctor injecting a little sick doll and ...

These two cracked me up, the kid is so into his job haha

My brother doesn't have the patience for painting or drawing so he finished first with a line and circle and went to show off to his teacher so she surprised him by asking the most critical question : "WHAT IS THIS?" he was like "how can I explain that to her" all over his face..

The firemen drawing their tools

It was joyful being around kids and even though when someone talks about kindergarten the image of seeing crying babies would come to our minds but children are really easy to go with when you master the art of keeping them busy and interested !

and when you participate in such events with them, the children are not the only thing to explore but the bond between mothers and their children. Women become different beings when it comes to their children.. you would see friendly mother who would like to share the experience, protective mothers where its always the other kids' fault, proud mothers who wouldn't stop talking about her child uniqueness..etc

and it made me think how would life be when you have a piece of you ~

These angels no matter how they look or act are someone else's precious..

we have to excuse parents when they act so protective and aggressive and respect their chosen strategy to raise them

I had this magical moment where I said to myself wow I would love to spend some time to explore these kids further more; wish I can get the chance to be a teacher for a day .. although I know it would be a challenge

when you try new things in life you start to respect work in any form it comes and you open to urself a whole bunch of options :)

may god bless our angels,

Amna