Again, I am sincerely sorry for the lack of posts these past few months. I have had no time to blog these few months, as Judo's training is starting to get vigorous. I also had a flurry of tests recently and my mother had to force me to study late into the night for them. Let me round uo the last few months.
Firstly, and most importantly, Swine flu, or H1N1 Virus, has spread to some countries in SEA. Fortunately[or unfortunately], it has yet to spread to Singapore. However, the MOH has decided to overreact and raise it to an orange alert, at least for the past few days, and create a lot of trouble for Singaporeans. These include 7 day quarantine for Singaporeans returning from Mexico, daily temperature taking for schools and offices nationwide, temperature taking at major events and buildings, etc.
Secondly, Mas Selamat has been captured. In fact, he had been captured more than a month ago. The Malaysian government apparently wants Singapore's to keep quiet about it. Mas Selamat was revealed to have swam to Malaysia from Woodlands/Sembawang area, a measly 1.1km stretch of sea. However, Singaporeans are reminded not to let their guard down and continue to be vigilant against terrorism.
Lastly, a more personal case. My tests did not exactly go well. My Chinese class test got a C5, and only because I fought hard for 4 additional marks. However, for other subjects, like Math for example, were much better [36/40. A straight A1]. Other than Math, geography today was another commendable result. 23 or 24/30[additional mark pending]. English composition was 22/30. A big shame, I need just a single mark more to get an A1. However, it is the best composition I have ever written up to date.
To end off, I would like to apologise yet again, for the lack of postings, and inform you that I would be rushing BPs for the whole of this week.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
I have a dream: by Martin Luther King Jr.
http://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
This speech would be very familiar to everyone around the world. Indeed, it is the most famous speech made so far. Looking or listening to his speech, one cannot help but feel touched or even angered at the treatment of the African-Americans in the past. In fact it is similar to George Orwell's "Animal Farm".
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
Martin Luther King makes this speech because his people, the Negros, have been mistreated for many years in America despite the American dream of "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." King only wants the whites of America to accept the Blacks as brothers and sisters and together make America a better country. Today, this can be seen in America. Even Barack Obama, the current President of the United States is an African-American.
His message is simple. He wants America to be a country where "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream", where the Negros "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character". He wants freedom for the Negros everywhere around America, to share everything with the whites, with no "For whites only" signs on the streets. He wants the Negros to be able to vote for his president, to be able to sit with whites as equals. In other words, he wants to stop the slavery of the Negros.
His speech gives hope to the African-American audience and perhaps even some of the white people. he ends of with his dream that freedom will ring from every mountain in America, that they will be able to "speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
This speech would be very familiar to everyone around the world. Indeed, it is the most famous speech made so far. Looking or listening to his speech, one cannot help but feel touched or even angered at the treatment of the African-Americans in the past. In fact it is similar to George Orwell's "Animal Farm".
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
Martin Luther King makes this speech because his people, the Negros, have been mistreated for many years in America despite the American dream of "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." King only wants the whites of America to accept the Blacks as brothers and sisters and together make America a better country. Today, this can be seen in America. Even Barack Obama, the current President of the United States is an African-American.
His message is simple. He wants America to be a country where "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream", where the Negros "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character". He wants freedom for the Negros everywhere around America, to share everything with the whites, with no "For whites only" signs on the streets. He wants the Negros to be able to vote for his president, to be able to sit with whites as equals. In other words, he wants to stop the slavery of the Negros.
His speech gives hope to the African-American audience and perhaps even some of the white people. he ends of with his dream that freedom will ring from every mountain in America, that they will be able to "speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Saturday, March 28, 2009
The Lottery: relevance to today
Recently, my class has gone through the story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. I will now discuss the story's relevance to today.
Link to "The Lottery"-http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html
1) How is the story relevant to today?
Today, many people are selfish, self-centered and cruel to others, They do not care whether other people get hurt(physically or psychologically) or not, as long as they themselves don't get hurt. The villagers in the village stone Tessie Hutchinson for no apparent reason, only because she got a ticket. They killed her because they are not the ones to get killed. "Nancy and Bill. Jr. opened theirs at the same time, and both beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads." Even Tessie Hutchinson herself only showed anger and horror when she was chosen to be stoned. ""It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her."
Another reason might be that the villagers follow a particular leader, i.e Old Man Warner. They only conduct the lottery because it is an ancient tradition, even if they did not know what that tradition was! Mr. Adams states that villages have quit the lottery out of fear of being chosen. He however, was rebuffed by Old Man Warner, saying that there is no good in doing that. Mr. Adams then stopped talking about it, in other words, accepting it.
2) Do we have our own form of 'lottery' as in the story?
Yes we do. Society always finds a scapegoat to blame for its own mistakes. For example, in a very minor case, Student A steals Student B's wallet but blames innocent Student C for doing it. Student A knows its wrong but does it anyway for fear of getting reprimanded. Here the lottery comes in. Student A chooses someone to blame for his own mistakes and stays safe while Student C probably gets punished. In fact, even Mrs. Hutchinson displays this trait. ""You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!"" From blaming George Bush for the Iraq War and Hitler for WWII to choosing our small scapegoats for our petty thefts or just plain lying to get around our mistakes, "The Lottery" is present in our everyday lives.
Link to "The Lottery"-http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html
1) How is the story relevant to today?
Today, many people are selfish, self-centered and cruel to others, They do not care whether other people get hurt(physically or psychologically) or not, as long as they themselves don't get hurt. The villagers in the village stone Tessie Hutchinson for no apparent reason, only because she got a ticket. They killed her because they are not the ones to get killed. "Nancy and Bill. Jr. opened theirs at the same time, and both beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads." Even Tessie Hutchinson herself only showed anger and horror when she was chosen to be stoned. ""It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her."
Another reason might be that the villagers follow a particular leader, i.e Old Man Warner. They only conduct the lottery because it is an ancient tradition, even if they did not know what that tradition was! Mr. Adams states that villages have quit the lottery out of fear of being chosen. He however, was rebuffed by Old Man Warner, saying that there is no good in doing that. Mr. Adams then stopped talking about it, in other words, accepting it.
2) Do we have our own form of 'lottery' as in the story?
Yes we do. Society always finds a scapegoat to blame for its own mistakes. For example, in a very minor case, Student A steals Student B's wallet but blames innocent Student C for doing it. Student A knows its wrong but does it anyway for fear of getting reprimanded. Here the lottery comes in. Student A chooses someone to blame for his own mistakes and stays safe while Student C probably gets punished. In fact, even Mrs. Hutchinson displays this trait. ""You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!"" From blaming George Bush for the Iraq War and Hitler for WWII to choosing our small scapegoats for our petty thefts or just plain lying to get around our mistakes, "The Lottery" is present in our everyday lives.
Monday, March 16, 2009
I got my results back for term 1. Although I'm not about to disclose them on my blog, I can tell you that i got an MSG of 2.5. Not so good. I did get a conduct grade of "A" though.
Truthfully, my LA, Chinese and Math pulled me down. Strangely, though not very unusual, my chinese grades are better than my LA ones. This usually happens every year. I only seem to pull up at the EOY examinations. For Math though, I've never been very good. I still can't understand how I scraped an A* for it in PSLE.
Moving on, I passed my Judo grading. It was an easy grading, with low standards though none of the HCI people did really well, at least according to the coach. Now I'm a yellow tip! Though it's nothing to celebrate about. My batch mates, myself included, are harbouring thoughts of a CCA transfer. It is tough. My foot has not had time to recover properly yet.
Experience in Sec 1 camp
It was almost a horrible experience. I sleep longer hours on one normal night than both nights at the Sarimbun Scouts camp added together. Alright, I stayed up willingly to listen to my classmate's "interesting" stories, but it was still very uncomfortable. I would like to see you squeezed up against four people on a bunk the size of a van's interior and sleeping on a threadbare sleeping bag, knowing that some of the lucky others (the other iSparks) have a bed with only two people on it.
The activities were of the normal kind, not a single high element at all. Though I still count myself lucky that my group did not have time to do the milo pond activity. I mean, sliding into it is not the best thing in the world.
Moving to the trainers, my group possibly got one of the best trainers, Jason. He was the youngest there and was rather kind and understanding. He even let some of us have extra food when he was dishing it out. Once, we got an area cleaning job at a place that was perfectly clean and he ignored it and pretended that we cleaned it, instead of getting us a new job.
Truthfully, my LA, Chinese and Math pulled me down. Strangely, though not very unusual, my chinese grades are better than my LA ones. This usually happens every year. I only seem to pull up at the EOY examinations. For Math though, I've never been very good. I still can't understand how I scraped an A* for it in PSLE.
Moving on, I passed my Judo grading. It was an easy grading, with low standards though none of the HCI people did really well, at least according to the coach. Now I'm a yellow tip! Though it's nothing to celebrate about. My batch mates, myself included, are harbouring thoughts of a CCA transfer. It is tough. My foot has not had time to recover properly yet.
Experience in Sec 1 camp
It was almost a horrible experience. I sleep longer hours on one normal night than both nights at the Sarimbun Scouts camp added together. Alright, I stayed up willingly to listen to my classmate's "interesting" stories, but it was still very uncomfortable. I would like to see you squeezed up against four people on a bunk the size of a van's interior and sleeping on a threadbare sleeping bag, knowing that some of the lucky others (the other iSparks) have a bed with only two people on it.
The activities were of the normal kind, not a single high element at all. Though I still count myself lucky that my group did not have time to do the milo pond activity. I mean, sliding into it is not the best thing in the world.
Moving to the trainers, my group possibly got one of the best trainers, Jason. He was the youngest there and was rather kind and understanding. He even let some of us have extra food when he was dishing it out. Once, we got an area cleaning job at a place that was perfectly clean and he ignored it and pretended that we cleaned it, instead of getting us a new job.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Fill up on recent events
This week was...exciting. I had a competition on Sunday. Judo. I lost under 5 seconds to an RI yellow belt Sec 2. I sprained my ankle on Wednesday so no complaints there. Furthermore, I am a white belt.
Wednesday was the first time I managed to sprain my ankle. It was a painful experience. Couldn't even walk properly back home. I hope it heals soon anyway.
Wednesday was the first time I managed to sprain my ankle. It was a painful experience. Couldn't even walk properly back home. I hope it heals soon anyway.
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