As a student, I find that there are many ways to help me study, and those skills help me when I need to prepare for a test or a big assignment.

First you need to clear away all distractions such as television, radio, or games. Then you need to have a area for you to work, generally students will have a desk at home where the work, so you will need to clear away any clutter on that desk. Also, it will help you if dim your surroundings by only using a desk lamp to do your work. This will make you unaware of your surroundings and can help you concentrate better.

Secondly, you must have the energy to do your work. You should go outside to exercise so that you are not tempted to get up and run around, but you can't work yourself too hard so that you will feel like falling asleep. Also if you find that you just can't work anymore, give yourself a 30min nap so that you will refresh your mind to be able to work again.

Thirdly, you should always review and preview what you learn in class and what you are going to learn the next day respectively. If you just listen to the teacher in class, but don't bother to review, you will definitely just forget it soon after you have finished doing the homework assigned. You should always preview the material that you are going to learn the next day because this will help you have a better understanding of what the teacher is teaching so you won't have the chance of losing track.

Steven Xie need to live up to his expectations for everyone. He needs to know that he cannot disappoint people. That he needs to allow everyone to have confidence in him.

Oh, sorry about forgetting about you guys ;D

I'll send it to you in a wink. I'm just excited I'm still coming back for the synergy party though so I'm looking forward to seeing you all there!

Okay, well it was the third day of the transition orientation and I though it was pretty fun. Today we went to the Museum of Anthropology and we got a tour of the campus. I thought that UBC's history was quite interesting actually. I learned a lot about the legend of the battle between forestry and engineering and about how the wars effected the construction of UBC. I also learned about how UBC help Hungarians when soviet Russia was trying to invade Hungary. Tomorrow, we are going to Jericho Beach to learn about marine biology when the tide is very low and we will also get root-beer floats and more food ;D

Today was the first day for the University Transition Program Orientation. I thought that it was a great way for the people in Transition to get to know each other since they will need the support of their classmates for such a hard task at hand. I am quite certain that I have made some friends among my class and among the other classes. I really hope I will be able to survive transition because I know it will unquestionably be a hard task.

Why are things also need to contradict themselves?

People say you must live life to its fullest and that means to do the things you've always wanted to do. Lets say I want to become a great scientist, I would devote all my focus to study science and learn those things to get into a great university, but then again I could die before I actually become a scientist, and I would never have done what I wanted to do.

Another contradiction is that people always ask you to tell them about your goal, but if it is a goal they are talking about, don't all people die in the end so what is the point of the goal? Well, life is more about the process rather then the product so why do people ask for you goal?

My Most Important Decision

In the Modern Era, citizens of the world are relentlessly meeting crossroads of decisions. Without question, some decisions are more important then others, but when decisions that mean the difference between a bright future or one that is pitiful, or the difference between life and death, those are the decisions that are unquestionably the ones that will never be forgotten.

On a bright sunny day when the birds were singing and when my awakening was welcomed by the warm rays of the sun, my mind was frenzied by the hardest choice in my life. By my parents, I was given the option of quitting piano. At first the idea came to me as a shock because my parents had always required me to play piano when I fought against them. Then the idea of a financial misfortune had come to mind and I thought that that must have been the underlying reason. For the whole day I was racketed my brain to find my answer, but I was young and foolish then so a choice such as that was hardly simple enough for me to comprehend.

Towards that evening, my parents finally asked the question I had dreaded the whole day, “Steven, would you like to quit or keep playing the piano?” Throughout the day I had considered the after-effects of both options and I had concluded that if I quit piano, I would have more time to study academically and there would be one less thing to worry about. If I were to keep playing the piano, I would gain a greater knowledge and I would also have something to be proud of. I weighed the pros and cons repetitively until I had grown tired of pacing back and forth in the living room. Finally I decided to keep my musical art.

A year later, I found that my blind decision had come in use when I applied for a mini school. My musical accomplishments were highly regarded and had added towards a good impression for interviews. Also, my physical activities were obstructed by my muscle’s incapability to be used for a lengthened amount of time. Though it was not my fault, it was something that I had to deal with and for me to have kept playing piano felt as if it was a sufficient replacement for the other aspects of my life.

With all the choices in life that have to be made, this was personally the one that affected me the most. Although the had doubted my choice to begin with, it proved to aid me greatly in the future and through that, I have learned to constantly think over any decision that I will make.

Incredibly bored today, might as well type up and send you the family reflections because I forgot the type them.

Well today I tried to skateboard and... that worked out to be quite embarrassing because I completely and utterly failed.

I've always wondered why things always have to fluctuate such as fashion, philosophies, or different relationships. Recently, I've learned about a way of thinking where they say everything that happens now or in the future is already predetermined, but I don't like that idea, it makes me feel like I don't have control over my own life. For fashion, some of my friend at swimming wear this and people at school wear that and sometime they contradict each other and so I get confused when people talk about things like that. Also there have been many times when I asked myself, should I have said that, done that, befriended them? Sometimes I am not always sure about all the different relationships people have with each other and I will make mistakes because of that.

One of my mom's friend's son is moving into a smaller house and they are giving away somethings. I just got a $100 skateboard that's never been used before =D lucky me. Well I'm trying to learn how to skateboard via youtube.

I'm so tired from my fitness test. I did 300 push ups ;D

Then I had swimming and my abs... died.