Life at Bellerbys College

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.

Celebration of Festivals – Chinese New Year and Christmas

Posted by Shiny

6th February is the 2008 Chinese New Year.  Last year, the Chinese New Year was at weekend, so we had time to play and had dinner with Mr. Qin, the teacher who works in the Chinese Cultural Centre.  However, this year is quite special.  The Chinese New Year’s Eve is on 6th which doesn’t allow students to play truant.

After class, the Chinese students and Vietnamese students all vanished from college at a “thunder speed”.  After making a couple of phone calls back to China, I decided to go back home to cook my own dinner.  In the past, I usually spent the Chinese New Year with friends and classmates, but I think I gotta try a new style of life.  Some students decided to go to London for karaoke whilst some went for a dinner together.  Like us, other students just didn’t have a plan.  So instead, we spend our time at home.  We could go to CC (the Chinese Centre) to have dinner with some other people, but I just wanted to go back home to have a rest.

Compared with the Chinese New Year, Christmas seems to be much more popular.  This New Year reminded me of the all the Christmases I’ve ever experienced in the UK.  In 2006, we had a fantastic Xmas lunch with our host-family.  It can be seen from the photo that we had vegetables, stuffing, turkey, champagne and dessert for lunch.  We opened crackers and the housemother gave each of us a box of chocolate. 

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.

Our Biggest Enemy

Posted by Shiny

Living in the UK, one of the biggest enemies is language.  If you don’t solve this problem, it will become a barrier to your life, just like the sands inside your shoes which makes you inconvenient and uncomfortable to move.

Undeniably, linguistic problems are really inevitable.  Having problems is not scary, because you can learn something from that.  But the thing is, sometimes we won’t learn things until we become a “clown”.

Just before Christmas, my housemate August caught a cold, so he went to a pharmacy to buy some medicine since he has almost eaten up the pills I had given to him.  He asked the shop assistant to get some medicine for him.  The shop assistant showed him a bottle of liquid, but August didn’t trust that kind of medicine.  So he told the assistant to get some other sorts of medicine.  Unfortunately he didn’t know how to say, so he asked, “Have you got something like candies?” “Can candy cure your cough?” asked the assistant.  August said, “No, I mean something you put into your mouth.”  The assistant said angrily, “Your mouth! Not my mouth!”  “OK!”  Finally August learnt a new word which is “oral administration.”

Meet Our Student Bloggers!

Thinking about studying in England?  Find out more about the lives of some of our current students here in their blogs.  Each week, they'll share their thoughts and experiences as they progress through their courses.

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Our bloggers are:

Ksenia Rostislavleva from Moscow, Russia
Ksenia is 17 years old and in the first year of an A Level course.  Ksenia previously studied English Language Preparation and GCSE courses at Bellerbys Brighton. 

In her spare time, she enjoys shopping, reading, socialising with her friends and she is a member of the college United Nations Association and Debating Society.

Ksenia is hoping to attend Imperial College, London ("If I'm very lucky!") to study Biochemistry.

Wang Xuxi (Shiny) from Guangdong, China
Shiny is 21 years old and in the final year of an A Level course at Bellerbys Brighton.  He's hoping to study Civil Engineering at Imperial College, London when he leaves us this summer. 

Like Ksenia, Shiny makes the most of life at college and is a member of the Music Club, Poetry Circle, United Nations Association and Table Tennis club.

Sam Hang from Hong Kong
Sam is 18 years old and currently studying Business Foundation at Bellerbys Oxford.  He would like to study Economics at university in September and has a conditional offer of a place at Bath University. 

In his spare time, Sam enjoys reading, watching movies and telling jokes!

Jag Gupta from New Delhi, India
Jag is 16 years old and studying IGCSEs at Manor Campus, Bellerbys Cambridge.  After completing his A Levels at Bellerbys, he hopes to go to study Business at Bath University, followed by a Masters.

Jag is a sociable chap and outside of class enjoys rugby, cricket, basketball, drama, Young Enterprise and playing the drums.

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.