Life at Bellerbys College

Easter is Coming!!

Posted by Ksenia

Hello!

The end of term is coming very soon and actually I am a very naughty girl – I am going back to Russia even earlier – on 15th of March.  The Vice Principal of Bellerbys Brighton, Mr Corcut, was very nice to give me permission to go and in return I am coming back early to prepare for the BIG event – mock exams.  We have nearly finished the syllables in certain subjects, so I will have lots of revision to do… But I definitely won’t think about it during the holidays!

On Wednesday the attention of all AS students was focused on the presentation given by LSE, UCL, Kings, and last (but not least!!!) Imperial College of London.  One more time we realised how great it is to study in London at such prestigious places. 

Anyway, most of the AS students here are dreaming to study in one of these fabulous universities.  The talk made me go and visit the Imperial College website again and have a look at their courses.  Most of them sound fantastic and and I still can’t make my mind between Biochemistry, Biochemistry with Management, and Biochemistry with a year in industry (as you can see the only thing I am quite certain about is my favourite biochemistry, it’s a good start anyway!).

Last Saturday there was an interesting talk at Bellerbys as part of Brighton Science Festival.  It was about fusion – the process by which a huge amount of energy can be produced.  The realisation of this project is still quite far away in the future, but potentially it can give the mankind an unlimited source of energy (sounds exciting, doesn't it?) so we were really inspired by the idea.

Chinese New Year 2008 @ Brighton & Hove

Posted by Shiny

I've mentioned the Chinese New Year before but it was actually just the beginning of it.  What I came across later tended to be much more eye-catching.  This is a marvelous day in my life.  It was supposed to be a simple Chinese New Year performance, but then we’ve made it into a great success.

Before I start talking about what happened in Brighton, I would like to recall the memories about our trip to the London School of Economics.  On Sunday, 3rd, Feb, we went to LSE for a Chinese New Year performance.  There were three cars taking us to LSE from Brighton.  It took us approximately two hours to get there due to the traffic congestion in London even though it was Sunday. (If we can by any means improve the traffic condition in a city, it would definitely make a big difference to people’s life. Travelling is inevitable in our daily life.  Sometimes we travel for fun while sometimes we travel for work.  No matter what the reasons are, transportation is extremely important.  That’s one of the reasons why I would like to study transportation engineering of Civil Engineering).  The traffic was a bit annoying as I had car-sickness.

After arriving at LSE, we paid a visit inside the Confucius Institute of LSE then we went for our performance in the campus of LSE.  Many volunteers from LSE, Imperial and UCL were working with us. As we were in a new circumstance, we unprofessional actors didn’t do as well as we did in the rehearsal. But we have tried our best.  And after dinner, at about 7p.m. we went to the Old Theatre to prepare for the performance.

How Hard it Can Be to Get a Visa

Posted by Ksenia

Happy Valentines Day everyone!  Hope you all had a great time!!

This week was marked by our short trip to London.  Actually me, three Chinese boys, and three girls – from Ukraine, Moldova and Russia are going to Italy this half-term as a part of United Nations Association of Bellerbys.  Our final destination is Rodi Garganico but we are flying through Milan and Bari.

Rodi (I believe you have never heard of it) is a small city on the cost in the south east of Italy. We are going with Mrs Arulraj and will be having a great time with Italian students from the local fashion college.  I will tell you everything about this trip in my next post (something to look forward to during the half term…. Ok, I understand you have some more exciting plans).

So we went to London to get our Italian visa.  And of course it was just impossible for me to go without doing something stupid.  Firstly the night before I did not bother to check my documents thoughtfully. As the result when I was already in lift ready to ran to the station (as usual I was “a bit” late) and I decided to check everything just to be sure… I realised that I forgot my passport (what may be cleverer? To go to embassy for a visa without a passport!)  So I ran back home, took my passport…and then I was not “a bit” late anymore, I was very seriously late!!!  (It was me who said to others not to be late in the first place).

That morning I made my personal record – I reached the Brighton station in less then 15 minutes. Usually it takes me about 25.  Finally I was just a “bit” late again.  Luckily we had already bought our tickets so we caught our train and everything seemed to be fine.  We all were a bit sleepy because we had to get up really early (our meeting at the station was arranged at 7 o’clock). We were happily chatting all the time and the train arrived on time. But it was just a beginning of the story…

One Week and a Bit More of My Life

Posted by Ksenia

Hello my dear readers!  Hope you are enjoying your time as much as do!  Before I forget – if you have something to say or to ask – please to not hesitate to leave comments.  I will be very happy to answer you!

Ok, last time I wrote that my mum was coming.  It was great!!  She was in Brighton for few days and every evening after college I went to meet her, we had a nice dinner in a restaurant and a long chat, of course!  Obviously I did not do much work, but my teachers were real angels – very understanding as usual.  On Friday we went to London by train.  That is very convenient, only 50 minutes and you are in London Victoria!  What did we do in London?  I think the answer is quite predictable…  Like every female human being, me and my mum love shopping!

But London is much more than just great shops – after visiting our favourite places we decided to find an unusual restaurant to eat.  I’ve been to London so many times but I could never find China Town, do not ask me why.  I am absolutely hopeless and never know were to go.  But this time we were well prepared, we followed the map and finally succeeded!  That is really a great part of the city which does not look British at all and there were so many restaurants there, that the choice was extremely difficult.  But the food was really worth it!

We also visited Tate Britain Gallery (something for our cultural development).  I was very pleased to see some paintings of Brighton.  One of them was done two centuries ago on the exact place where Brighton Pier is situated now.  It was such a strange feeling to see it…  I also really liked several pieces done by artist called Rossetti.  Surprisingly he was born in England, even though his family name sounds Italian.

One Week in January

Posted by Shiny

It was the last week of the January exams.  We have experienced a lot this week.  And it was indeed a busy week.

On Monday, in the afternoon, we had an awards ceremony of the United Kingdom Senior Mathematical Challenge.  This year our college really had a fabulous harvest.  We’ve got hundreds of certificates to hand out this year many of which are Gold Prize.  At least 25 candidates have received a gold certificate.  My ex-high schoolfellow Chen Jun has got the best prize at our college.  Some students believe that in the recent years, the mathematical level of Bellerbys may have gone up gradually year by year.

On Tuesday, I had a C4 exam, which was almost a doom.  I found out that I have got many answers wrong.  I was horribly frustrated after the exam as I think that I should never have a bad grade for an straightforward module.  I don’t really want to retake any modules in June since there would be loads of work then.  Nonetheless, “There is a crook in the lot of every one.” 

I went out of the library, attempting to comfort myself, but I just couldn’t calm down until I saw the “Table Tennis Club” going on.  Oscar and I went to join them in the exam hall without any hesitation.  We played with some Russian students.  Haven’t played the table tennis for ages, I really missed it.  At first I couldn’t play properly, and it was partially because the Russian students were skillful.  There is no doubt that the balls were a bit small and not like those for formal competition and the bats are not ideal enough either.  However I definitely enjoyed the game since I lost myself and utterly forgot the sadness of my painful exam memory.  Finally, I got some practice and I was able to compete with the Russian athletes.  Since then, it was a bit hard to judge who was better at playing.  The Table Tennis Club has enabled me to tackle my bad mood in time by doing some sports I like.  Hopefully soon students will be able to play basketball and badminton in the college too.

Great January

Posted by Ksenia

Hi again!

So, the first month of 2008 is coming to it's end.  Time for a short summary!

Until January 7th I was in Russia, it is so nice to be at home!  I visited all my relatives, went out with friends, went ice-skating, did some shopping, read books, listened to music, and did not think about studying at all.  So when I came back to Brighton my head was light and empty.  Thanks to my teachers, they were quite understanding...

The 18th was my birthday!!!!  I've just turned 17!  It was a great day; I received lots of presents, cards and greetings!  One more time I realized how wonderful are my friends and family.  In the evening we went out with my best friends to have a cup of tea and a piece of cake in the coffee shop and a good chat (see photos!).  As every girl I just LOVE sweets!

Of course there were some serious things as well!  I've already been to two meeting run by Mr Corcut for students who want to apply for Cambridge or Oxford. Obviously a chance to get there is very small, because they take only exceptional students, but I still feel that people should try.  Anyway it will be a good experience for us!  During these meetings students will give the audience a talk about the subject they want to study.  We have already had a very interesting one from Wang who started by saying that there is no randomness, so everything is our destiny and finished by stating that radioactive decay is random, so there is no destiny.  People were a bit confused but there was a good discussion afterwards.

I talked about GM products.  In my opinion it is a topic everyone has something to say about and people tend to think about this it a lot.  The following Monday there were two talks about economics.  Even though I do not understand anything about this subject I found them quite interesting and useful, especially a short discussion about happiness and its connection to economics!

There was one more event I need to mention - WTO Economics Adviser, Philippe Legrain lead a discussion on why he believes immigration is a good thing in our Exam hall!  He is really a great speaker, usually it is quite boring to listen to a person talking for more than an hour, but this time it was not!!  There were some very good questions from the audience as well, and Mr Legrain was very confident in answering them.  And free tea and biscuits were served (sometimes it is so easy to make people happy).  We met some Sussex University students; we will have a debate with them later this term.  Hope they will lose!

And just to finish this post - my mum is coming this Wednesday!!  I miss her very much so I am extremely happy now. And we are going to London for the weekend! I'm really looking forward to it!

Hello Everyone!!!

Posted by Ksenia

Hello!!

My name is Ksenia and I am from the capital of Russia, from Moscow!

Last August I came to Bellerbys Brighton for an English preparation course.  It was great!  When I came to the UK it was extremely difficult for me even to understand English and I was absolutely terrified to open my mouth and start saying something.  But I quickly made some new friends from different countries and even did not realise that I started talking!  Of course it was summer and most of the time we were having fun, but our teachers were very patient and tried to put a bit of knowledge in our empty heads.

In September I started my GCSE course and met some more fantastic people that I can be proud to call my friends now.  Surprisingly my level of English was enough to study because my teachers always explained everything very carefully and were making lessons interesting, sometimes they were even more enthusiastic that we were!  I am very grateful to all members of staff who helped and supported me during this year.

And now am an AS student (it means that I haven’t failed my GCSE exams!! Hurrah!!), I am studying Biology, Chemistry, Math, Physics and French.  Why French?  Just because I was studying it for 8 years in my Russian school and did not want to forget it.

I really enjoy science subjects, that is what I want to do in future (to be exact my dream is a degree in biochemistry) but I think that my teachers may not be always happy to have me in their class, as I always ask too many questions “Why?” and sometimes quite stupid ones… Sorry for that, it is a part of my nature!

First Footprint

Posted by Shiny

Finally, the January exams have come to an end.  No matter how it is, that’s it, it's all become history. It’s time for “blogging”!

I am pretty honoured to be here to share my life with all the people.  I am Shiny, a simple boy from the South China, who is studying A2 in Bellerbys College at the moment.

People always ask me why I call myself Shiny.  Some people may think that because I am shy.  I agree with them to some extent, but virtually, I use this name since there is a classmate who was born on the same day, same month and the same year as me.  Her name is Sunny.  Don’t you find it magical? The names Sunny and Shiny both have 5 letters and they demonstrate almost the same meaning for two people who came to the same class by destiny.  Cherishing the destiny is crucial to me, that’s why I named the Poetry Circle I set up “Cheristiny”.

More over, Shiny represents my characteristics.  I can’t say I am absolutely optimistic, but the thing is I usually send my best smile to everyone I meet. Smiling is a contagious disease which may spread incredibly fast, therefore, another nickname of me is Smily which you can’t possibly find in a dictionary since it was just miscalled by my friends.

Besides that, the name BB has accompanied me for ages since primary school time.  Therefore, you may call me whichever you like above.  Any name will do.