Good news!

Okay it's not really 'news' because it's not recent, but I didn't tell you yet: I passed my IB exams!!

Me with the flag - in The Netherlands it is a tradition to hang out the Dutch flag with your schoolbag when you've passed your exams and as a real Dutchie I stuck to this tradition!

On the 5th of July (more than 2 weeks ago already) it was International Baccalaureate Results Day, the day that   we finally (after 1 1/2 months of waiting) got our results. I was really nervous, because I needed certain grades to get into my first choice university (in the UK it is normal for universities to give you a conditional offer based on grades, and if you don't get these grades you don't get in) and I was really scared I didn't get these grades! But in the end it turned out I was nervous for nothing. These are my grades for each subject (grades are from 1 - 7, where 4 = satisfactory, 5 = good, 6 = very good, 7 = excellent, except for TOK and EE grades which are from A - E (if I remember correctly) where A is best; Higher Level (HL) subjects are slightly harder than Standard Level (SL) subjects and A1 languages are for native speakers, B languages are for when you are still learning the language, but I think the B course aims to make students near-native by the end of the course):

Dutch A1 HL - 7
Spanish B HL - 7
English A1 HL - 6 (pheeew really thought I was going to get a 5 and I needed the 6 for uni!)
Biology SL - 7
Geography SL - 7
Mathematics SL - 6

Theory of Knowledge (kind of Philosophy-style course): A
Extended Essay in English A1 - C

Total: 42 points (45 is the maximum, 42 from the 6 subjects and 3 bonus points from TOK and EE, I got 2 bonus points)

I am really really happy with my grades, the only grade I could possibly be 'disappointed' about is the C for my Extended Essay (my supervisor always said it was really good and I did spend quite a lot of time working on it...) - but that doesn't really matter.

This means that I'll be starting the BA Hispanic Studies and Linguistics at Queen Mary University of London in September - which means that I'll be blogging from London from then on (exciting right?!).

For now I am going to enjoy the 2 months of holiday I have left, after IB I really needed a loooong holiday - not having to think about any homework/tests/etc. is such a good feeling!

Did you also take final exams this year? How did they go?

Busy

picture from weheartit.com

One more week, and then school starts again. Today I already went to school, to talk about my Extended Essay with my supervisor. I'm such a nerd right? As you all know, school means homework, and homework means little time to do fun things. This year I will be in the last year of IB, meaning I have exams in May. So, it'll be a busy year with lots of homework and studying to do. This means that I, unfortunately, won't be able to blog as much as I did these holidays. But I will try to post something at least once a week! And if I have more time, I will of course post more often.

I hope that you, my dear followers, can accept that I won't have as much time to blog when school starts again and that you'll keep reading my blog and posting comments. And I promise that you can look forward to that one post a week, because I will try to make it a good, interesting post every week! And remember: followers and comments always motivate me to go on! :)

Loes

I'm back! (with cupcakes)

Oh my gosh, I haven't posted in more than a month... I just didn't get to it because I have been very busy with school. I have one more day of testweek on Monday and then I have 2 more weeks of 'school' but no lessons. So from now on I will try to post regularly again! Maybe you can tell me what type of posts you would like to read, what subjects are you interested in?
I made these cupcakes (sorry for the bad quality of the picture) today, and I am really happy with the result. The white stars are made of fondant (is that what it's called in English as well?) and the pink stuff is icing. This was the first time I worked with ready-made icing from a tube and I think that, for a first try, it worked out quite well! These cupcakes are really easy to make so I'll post a recipe tomorrow.

Yay!

I really need to start blogging more often.... being busy with school is no excuse because posting something nice does not have to take more than 10 minutes! I will try to start posting something every week from now on. Maybe you could help me by saying what you would like to see on my blog, and what you would like me to write about?

Actually, I have been quite busy with school lately. I am in the middle of my testweek now, but I have a free day! But of course I have to study, because I still have my biology, Spanish and math tests coming up. After that I have a free weekend, so there is no reason for me not to post something nice for you in the weekend.

Last week, I had my Individual Oral Presentation (IOP) in English, which counts for 15% of my final exam grade. I was really dreading it, because presentations are not really my thing. Yesterday I got my grade: 28/30 points! I do not remember what I had exactly for each criteria, because I was so happy that I did not really pay attention to that. I actually started crying in front of my English teacher, how embarrasing is that? My English grade is really important to me, because I want to study English at university and if I want to study it in England I need a 6 or 7 (in IB 7 is the highest you can get) for English. So I am just really happy :]

You'll hear something from me again in the weekend, I promise!

Holidays

Picture from http://pemimo.tumblr.com/page/29

Finally the holidays have started, I really need them! I spent this weekend with a friend, Kim. She came to celebrate my birthday (which is in 2 weeks). Yesterday we went shopping and had a nice dinner at Vapiano and today we just played on the Wii. She also gave me some nice presents: a little figure of a sheep with a flower in its mouth, a candle that smells like vanilla and a special stone that I can hang on a necklace. I also bought some things for myself: a face mask and a long, white tanktop. I think I'll take some pictures of the presents tomorrow, so you can see them!

The rest of my holidays will be quite busy, because I need to do quite a lot of school work. I also need to do some shopping for Morocco.

To do list for school (so I can see what I have to do and you can see how busy I am haha):
- Work on World Literature Essay 1 (English)
- Think of idea for World Literature Essay 2 (English)

- Start on Individual Oral Presentation (English)
- Finish reading Atonement (English)
- Math exercises

- Read in Joe Speedboot (Dutch)
- Start studying biology

- Study for Spanish test

- Email geography essay to teacher

I think that was about it, and I also need to organise my school stuff a bit... my papers are all over the place. I am going to spend this evening relaxing in the bath with a face mask on, so I can start working hard tomorrow!

Oh and I just put the picture there because I think it's really cute, don't you? :]